Towering Pines Volume One: Room 509 is the first novel in the Towering Pines series. This young adult paranormal mystery follows the adventures of Liam Rider and Lisbeth Harrington, two teen heroes with their own special abilities. Lisbeth Harrington is unlike any fifteen year-old you’ve ever met. What is written below is a partial transcript from her interrogation after the police arrive on the scene at Admiral Farragut Military Academy on Halloween Eve.

Lisbeth: I have nothing to say.

Detective Roger Mordan: Little missy, you are running out of chances here. Someone destroyed the roof of the building. Someone beat Liam Rider and Sean Taggert to a bloody pulp and you know who that is.

Detective Elaine Benedict: Lisbeth, we aren’t your enemy. We just want to know what happened. Who did this, so we can keep them from doing it again.

Lisbeth: Not my enemy? This good cop, bad cop thing isn’t going to help. I have nothing to tell you that is of any use to you.

Detective Mordan: What is in that bag that we found at the scene? That some kind of drugs? You dealing? And that stick? Is that some kind of weapon? Was this all a drug deal gone bad, girl?

Detective Benedict: We know you had something to do with what happened. We know you were there when the explosion occurred. What we don’t know is who else was there. There had to be someone else there, Miss Harrington.

Lisbeth: I have nothing to tell you that is of any use to you. Maybe it was ghosts.

Detective Mordan: Ghosts? You little smart-ass… why don’t you tell us and let us decide if it is of use to us. We are detectives in case you didn’t know.

Detective Benedict: Tell us about your relationship to Liam Rider.

Lisbeth: He is my boyfriend, we have sex. A lot of sex. In fact, we were doing it so hard that it caused the explosion. Taggert? He was a peeping Tom. He liked that sort of thing, you know how those boys are.

Detective Mordan: Miss Harrington, you are trying my patience. Answer the question or you’ll spend the night in jail.

Lisbeth: Yea, not likely.

Detective Mordan: What’s that supposed to mean girl?

Lisbeth: What it means is you have no reason to put me in jail, Liam and I are friends. He was hurt, I called 911. That’s all there is tell jerk cops like you.

Detective Benedict: Roger, can I have a minute alone with Lisbeth?

Detective Benedict: Lisbeth, it’s just you and me now. I know about your parents leaving you when you were little. I know about your aunt sending you to military school where you’ve don’t quite well. You need to give us what you know on this. We can charge you with obstruction of justice and keep you here. Do you know what that will do to your chances of going to college? I don’t want to do that but you aren’t leaving me with much choice.

Lisbeth: You don’t know anything about me or my parents. They didn’t leave me! Go ahead put me in jail it wouldn’t matter. I was tied up and kidnapped and I escaped, I can do it again.

Detective Benedict: Kidnapped? By who? The guy who did this?

Lisbeth: Yes… I mean no… Look, you seem nice but what do you want me to tell you? That Liam and I are lovers? We aren’t we are just good friends. The bag? It’s candy; if you taste it you’ll see that it’s just flavored sugar. Or did you think I was some kind of witch and that was my magic powder or something like that? And the next thing you’ll believe is that Liam is some kind of special spirit that can see dead people.

Detective Benedict: Candy you say?

Lisbeth: Yes, candy. And the stick as big Roger put it? It’s my magic wand if that is what makes you happy. Seriously, I arrived late to the party. I found Ruder and Taggert hurt so I called for help. So if I can have my wand back I’ll find my black cat and fly my way home on my broom if that’s okay with you.

Detective Benedict: That’s your story?

Lisbeth: That’s my story.
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Read more about Lisbeth, Liam and the Towering Pines series at Bruce A. Sarte’s website, www.bruceasarte.com. Bruce will be appearing at the Upper Perkiomen Library in Red Hill on August 14th and the East Greenville Community Day on September 11th.