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Train of Thought
Just outside the bustling city of Santa Barbara, California, is a beautiful beach, birds were flying overhead as many families began setting up their umbrellas while their children raced towards the ocean. Waves were crashing on the shore of the sun-soaked coastline that hugged the nearby Amtrak train track. The track began to vibrate as the train approached a high rate of speed, it was moving so fast that the people outside became formless images. The other passengers were either screaming or paralyzed in fear. The engineer’s voice spilled out of the PA system, “Good afternoon, ladies, and gentlemen, we are experiencing an emergency and are working quickly to resolve it. While we are working to fix to this, please remain seated and try to stay calm.” The horrified commotion wakes up a man on the train, he was between thirty and forty years old, but if I had to guess I would have said he was closer to forty. His jet-black hair was peppered with grays, like his unkempt beard, and is as equally disheveled as his wrinkled Nine Inch Nails t-shirt. It looked like he had slept on the train for a few days, but I did not recall seeing him before this moment. He began to frantically look around as we locked eyes, his kind, piercing blue eyes began to well up as tears began to trickle down his cheeks, before they were trapped in his messy beard. The other passengers were freaking out because the train was going too fast, but this man was in a world of his own. I moved towards him carefully to sit by him, “Hi, I’m Nancy Parker, are you okay?” I said in a reassuring voice. The man says, “I don’t know,” as he reached into the pockets of his dirty, ripped blue jeans, only to find lint. “Can I help you find something?” I asked with sincere curiosity. He stared at the ground, looking at the gap between his muddy boots, and muttered, “please help me.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and asked, “Can you tell me your name?” He took a deep breath and responded, “Glen… my name is Glen.” “Nice to meet you Glen, what are you looking for?” I asked as my curiosity peaked, he said, “I can’t find my phone, wallet… everything is gone, something is wrong.” I started to speak, “The engineer said there was a prob… “, but he cut me off, “not that!” I apologized, “I’m sorry Glen.” After another deep breath, he returned an apology, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Nancy.” I reassured him, “it’s okay Glen, I can see that something is bothering you, I just want to help.” “Nancy, I can’t remember anything, I don’t know how I got here,” he said as he wiped the tears from his eyes. I felt a duty to help him, I told him, “I’m going to help you, Glen.” I began to explain to him that I was an internet sleuth and blogger from San Benito, I had been operating my blog for a decade at that point and had been trying to help solve the mysteries that occurred in and around my hometown. As a young girl I was endlessly fascinated with puzzles and mysteries, I would take notes as I read my mystery novels to see if I could solve the mystery before it was revealed. When I was twenty, a young girl went missing in my town, the local news ran the story for a few days, but then they moved on to the next tragedy. I scoured the internet, social media, and nobody was talking about it, so I started my blog. “The Search for Alice Thompson,” Alice was an adorable eight-year-old girl, she had light brown hair and hazel eyes. I went back to watch the clips about the case from the news and began piecing together what was shared publicly, I organized that information, then sought out the Thompson family. I expressed my concern for Alice and offered to help in any way that I could, and they welcomed me into their home. Doug and Mary Thompson, Alice’s loving parents, knew the police were working the case, but they were worried they were following bad leads. A few months prior another girl went missing from a nearby town, her name was Kristen Gray, she was nine, and shared similar traits with Alice. The police were not prepared to pursue the possibility that the cases were related, but I was. I told Doug and Mary that I would meet the Gray family and listen to their story, hopefully I would be able to find more information and that gets us closer to finding Alice. Glen grabbed my arm, “Nancy, I don’t remember buying a ticket or getting on this train, did you see me get on?” I placed my hand on his and stated, “Glen, I did not see you get on the train. I was up front, working on my laptop, but it was crowded, so I came back here to find a quiet place to think. I did not realize you were in the seats across from me until you woke up.” He started to share more about himself, “okay, all right. I am a private investigator from Imperial.” I interrupted him, “private investigator? Why are you here?” He said, “I have been working on a case, a group of teens went missing in…,” we both said, “Ventura.” We both came to the realization we were working on the same case and decided to work together, but Glen did not have his phone or his notepad, he concluded that someone attacked him and took his belongings. He also posited that the same person put him on the train. Was it also possible that this mysterious person sabotaged the train, was responsible for the disappearances of the teens or both? As the train continued to race around the track, I grabbed my laptop and sat back down next to Glen. As I scrolled through the many cases on my blog, Glen leaned over, “jeez kid, you’ve been busy.” I smirked and responded, “I’ve been actively working for ten plus years and have solved numerous cases.” Glen asked, “those two stories you spoke about earlier, did you solve those?” He caught me off guard and I was overcome with emotion, he placed his hand on my shoulder, pulled me in and gave me a hug, after I regained my composure I told him, “I did, I was able to find the man who took the girls and was able to return Alice to Doug and Mary. Unfortunately, I was not able to do the same for the Gray family. The man that took the girls, Henry Robertson, was a teacher at their school, for his crimes he was sentenced to life in prison, but… he…” Glen finished my sentence, “escaped.” I responded, “yes. Doug and Mary called me a few weeks ago when the news broke, and they expressed their concern for Alice’s safety. I encouraged them to keep a close eye on her and share any concerns they have with the police.” As I was talking, Glen was reading my notes on the case, he soon realized what drew my interest, he began to read aloud, “In Ventura, California, a group of five teenage girls disappeared without a trace, twin sisters Grace and Jennifer Edison, Jane Bennett, Betty Barnes and Alice Thompson.” Glen stopped reading, cleared his throat, and asked, “are you going to be, okay? I know how difficult these cases are, but you have a connection to Alice, are you going to be okay working this?” I responded, “I have to do this, I owe this to her, she is the reason I’ve been doing this for so long.” I had made my motivation clear, so I asked Glen, “why are you here? Aren’t there private investigators in Ventura?” He took a deep breath and exhaled, he then responded, “my name is Glen, Glen Bennett, I am Jane’s father. Her mom and I split when Jane was ten, I left San Benito to live with my brother Paul in Imperial, he asked me to come work with him as a detective, but I wanted to carve a new path, as a private investigator.” He continued, “I had been following the case on the news, but I did not know Jane was involved until her mother called me. I dropped everything, I began working on this case like a madman, I started to compile a list of Jane’s friends and other kids from the area. I knew I had heard the name Alice Thompson before but could not place it. Now I remember, all of the kids were in school together when Alice went missing, I traced their connection back to Henry Robertson and I did my research on him, but I do not have my notes.” I told Glen, “look, we have the information that I have compiled, and we can work this together.” We looked over the details together, from what I had learned so far Henry Robertson was a respected member of the community until he was sentenced. Other than being a teacher at the school, there were no other obvious connections between the girls and Robertson, he was a deacon at the local church when the girls were young, but none of the families attended the church. Robertson was a science and technology teacher, specializing in small engines and was a train enthusiast, but was never a teacher of any of the girls. The only time they passed his classroom was when they went to lunch, just like so many other girls in their class, so why did he isolate Alice? Did he plan to take all of them and is he back now to finish his devious plan? Glen muttered, “there has to be another connection we do not see, typically an offender like Robertson has an age preference, but my daughter and her friends are eighteen now. There has to be more for him to break his pattern, if it were just to finish the plan then why did he take all five girls? He was after Alice but risked taking four additional girls who are all eighteen. He has an additional motivation that we are not seeing yet.” I began to connect some of the dots in my head, “Glen, what if both of us being here isn’t an accident?” Glen asked, “what do you mean?” I responded, “this man has your daughter, you were attacked and left on this train with no phone, ID, or money. He is aware of you, but how aware?” Glen responded, “and you?” I exhaled, “it has to be the trial, he remembers me from the trial.” Glen asked puzzled, “but how does that explain both of us being together on a runaway train?” I frantically read my latest blog update on the case, I shuddered, “he follows my blog… he knew I would be on this train, coming after him, to stop him again. He means to eliminate us, and my blog gave him a blueprint to do just that, this is all my fault.” Glen stopped me, “you can’t say that Nancy, he is at fault for his actions, and you did nothing wrong.” I took a deep breath and thanked Glen for reassuring me. Just then the engineer’s voice comes over the PA system, loud and clear, “everybody, please listen up, we have found the problem and are working to resolve it. Our electrical systems were tampered with, and we have our best guys working on this. We do not want to alarm you, but at this current rate of speed, if we do not fix the system issue within the hour, we will not have enough time to deescalate before we reach the station. This would mean that our train would collide with the train at the station, resulting in injury and death. We have spoken with our team at the station to have the train moved and they are working to get it moved along with the passengers arriving for their scheduled departure. I know this news is difficult but please remain calm. Thank you.” I was almost defeated, “what now?” Glen sat up and said, “he isolated me, but not you.” I responded, “I’m not following.” He leaned in, “okay, so I woke up with no idea how I got here and with no means of communicating outside of the train, but you have everything. He thought he was a step ahead of us, but he never thought I would come to in time and for us to figure out as much as we have together. You are the key Nancy, if we survive this ride and get off of this train, we can save those girls.” Reinvigorated, I responded, “alright Glen, this ride ends in about an hour, one way or the other, let’s figure the rest of this out and save the kids.” Glen and I continued to pour over the information, everything was falling into place, but the only thing that kept bugging us was why, why was Henry doing this? Glen began to track his life backwards, with his mind clear and focused, he started to tie off the loose ends. He turned to me and said, “Nancy, I got it. I have known the girls all their lives.” I chuckled, “yeah, I’m aware Glen.” He responded, “yes, but I have also known their parents all of my life. We all grew up together in the same houses, other families in the neighborhood have come and gone, but our four families have always been there.” Still confused, I replied, “okay, what does that mean?” His eyes widened and he took another breath, he said, “when we were kids, around the time we were seven, eight years old, a new family moved into the neighborhood, the Arnold family. They lived there for a couple of years before they left abruptly, rumors were going around that their son, Robert, was being inappropriate with the other kids at school.” I asked, “okay, some rumors about a kid, what does that have to do with this?” Glen was shaking, then the words fell out of his mouth, “it was us.” I asked him, “what? What do you mean?” He stumbled over the words again, “it was us, we told everybody what he was doing.” I tried to calm him down, “Glen, it’s okay, just talk to me.” He continued, “Annie, Grace, and Jennifer’s mom, was in the bathroom at the local pool we swam at, while she was in there, the rest of us kept swimming. I was swimming with Betty’s mom, Joyce, and Alice’s dad.” I cut him off, “Doug.” He started again, “yes, Doug was my best friend. The four of us were inseparable, until that day, Annie went into the bathroom and after some time, she ran out screaming. She told us that a kid was watching her in the bathroom and tried to break into the stall. We asked her who it was, and she pointed at Robert Arnold, from that point forward we made it our mission to ruin his life. By the next summer, his family packed up, moved away and we never saw or heard from him again.” Puzzled, I asked, “so you think Robert Arnold is involved? He sighed, “yes, I think Henry Robertson, might be Robert Arnold. I remember he brought in a train that he built for show and tell one year, and his middle name was Henry.” Convinced, I replied, “you might be right, it makes a lot of sense, but now I’m trying to connect this theory to the Gray family.” Glen suddenly realized and gasped, “Joey.” I asked, “who is Joey?” Tears started forming in his eyes, Glen said, “I knew Joey, Kristen’s dad, his family moved away the same year as the Arnold family, I was told they moved because of his dad’s job, but that may not be the whole truth. Joey was at the pool that day and he really liked Annie, I wonder if something happened between Joey and Henry/Robert that day.” Glen starts to cry uncontrollably, I pulled him in and hugged him, once he had calmed down some, he then said, “this monster killed my friend’s daughter, tried to kill another friend’s daughter, and now has all of the girls. He must be stopped, finally.” Glen was determined and I was ready to follow him, just then the PA system rang throughout the train, and the engineer said, “brace yourselves, we are beginning the deceleration process.” Glen and I lowered ourselves in our seats and braced as we were instructed to do. The train started to slow, it continued to slow until it finally came to a halt, the train erupted in thunderous applause, but Glen and I were not done yet. I updated my blog, ‘Survive a runaway train, check’ and we made our way off of the train. Glen and I raced to my rental car, before we started our journey to Ventura, he insisted we make a pit stop and I obliged. He met a friend who lived nearby, and he supplied Glen with a bag of guns. I had never seen so many guns in one duffle bag before. Glen smiled, “it’s okay Nancy, while this kid grew up playing with trains, I was training with my brother Paul on how to handle these weapons.” He then proudly stated, “let’s go save these girls, nobody messes with my Jane.” As we were driving, I asked, “Glen, how are we going to find them?” He said, “I need your phone. I am going to try and trace my phone, he may have destroyed or disabled it, if he did then I will trace Jane’s phone.” After some time, he chuckled, “Nancy, I got it, go that way.” We followed the main road for a few more miles then turned off onto a dirt road that led to an isolated property, we cut off the lights and proceeded slowly. As soon as we were close enough, we cut off the car and Glen got ready. Once he was locked and loaded, he told me, “stay here and keep the doors locked. After I make my way inside, call the police and explain the situation. Only open the door if you see me or the girls.” I replied, “okay, please be careful.” He turned back and said, “don’t worry, I’ll be right back.” As he made his way into the house, I locked the door, kept my eyes open and called 911. Glen was inside, he could hear the muffled screams of the girls coming from upstairs, he slowly made his way up the stairs and suddenly the lights were turned on. Standing there was Henry/Robert, an evil smile grew across his face, he said, “I have been waiting for you. We were watching the news and I was surprised to see that the train did not crash as expected. To be honest, I thought I would be devastated if this plan failed, but here you are… now I can kill you in front of Jane, this will be fun.” Henry/Robert lunged at Glen, swinging wildly, but Glen ducked under that and returned a solid punch to his gut. Reeling from that blow, Glen kicked him in the face and knocked him to the ground, he then pulled out his gun and aimed it at his head. Glen asked, “what did you call this? Fun?” Glen put the gun away and began punching him in the face, in the distance police cars were racing to the location, as each blow landed the sirens grew closer, until the police officers got into the house and were able to arrest Henry/Robert and take him back to prison. Glen was able to rescue the girls, he led them out of the house to my car. I got out, I ran to Alice and gave her the biggest hug, I told her, “we have to stop meeting this way.” Glen hugged Jane, he said, “I am so glad you are okay honey. I am glad you are all okay, a helicopter will pick us up soon and take us all home.” It has been six months since the girls were rescued, all of the girls have graduated and are off at college. I retired and relocated, well, kind of, I am no longer solving cases on the internet, but I am still writing my blog. The significant difference now is that the blog chronicles my journey as a private investigator, with my friend and partner, Glen. We opened an agency in Bakersfield, and we are a talented team. With Glen being able to reunite his friends with their children, they started to stay in touch more often and Glen wanted to be close to everyone. Especially Jane, she visited every chance she could, it was not too hard though, she was studying Criminal Justice at Bakersfield College and will be joining the team at Parker & Bennett in a couple of years. Signing off, this is Nancy, stay safe.
By Devin Martz4 years ago in Fiction
The Duelist
The rays of a dying red sun flashed against the onrushing blade. The grey beards say the key to dueling lies in size, speed, reach, righteous fury, whatever the person in front of them pays them to say. Matteo knew better than any it was none of these and had an undefeated record on these sands to prove it.
By Matthew J. Fromm3 days ago in Fiction
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