Okay, let's try this again. We found Riley and it turns out he'd been kidnapped after all, which I was right about the whole time. I knew he didn't run away. H never mind. Okay, On a Monday night, mister Beatty took Riley to his secret cabin in the woods and locked him up there, and by Sunday mister Beady let him go. He still hasn't really told me about that.
Neither of them have. Why Beatty let Riley go? I guess he just felt bad, even though he knew it would make How furious because it wasn't mister Beatty's idea at all to kidnap Riley. How made him do it after he found out that Riley figured out the new mining project was going to poison the town. Hal must have some kind of power over Betty, blackmail or something. But neither of them are saying a word. So now there's no new mine at all because Minotaur Mining got
all freaked out by me stopping the demolition. Thanks for your pocket knife, by the way, I'm taking very good care of it, which means a lot of people have lost their jobs, when not even How has lost his job mister Beatty refuses to throw him under the bus, so he's the one being charged with kidnapping, and then no one is being charged with attempted murder because whatever goons trapped Riley in that mine are in the wind, and we have no proof that how hired them or
paid Betty to get out of the way, which is a my word about what Hal told me, and Riley's word about what Hal was hiding about the new mine, which isn't enough to dethrone him. I guess it's such a mess, and Joe has told me to stay out of it, that Sheriff Combs has everything under control, and that he's looking for the environmental impact report that proves the mine is dangerous, and that How new that he's trying to find hard evidence of what happened to Riley.
But unless there's a paper trail, I think there might be a paper trail. I think. I think if I was able to sneak into the Mayor's office in City Hall, I could find some proof. I mean, we found the papers stolen from Ransom, so maybe I'll get lucky again. But oh my gosh, Riley didn't steal those papers. At least I don't think he did. I didn't ask him right out because well, I didn't know how to have
that conversation. Oh hey, Riley, I found those documents you stole from Ransom, And I know you know he's your dad, but I'm not sure he knows. I don't think so. I might be the least subtle person on the planet, but even I know that wouldn't have been very tactful. So I just kind of PopEd at his time hiding in the Inn and what he may have hidden away there. And he truly didn't seem to have a clue of what I could be talking about. I don't think it was him. So then who was it who stole those files?
And what do I do with this information? Do I tell Riley? Do I tell Ransom? If the papers were at the Inn, that must mean that miss Honeywell is involved somehow, but I just don't know how. Oh, even all laid out on paper, there's so many holes. Shit.
Every time I really thought this was going to be the one, I mean, not like it has to be perfect or anything, but I know you get annoyed when I start to ramble too much, because you get this kind of weird look on your face where you don't blink in your mouth goes a little crooked, like you're daydreaming or something. Not that I'm looking at your mouth. I'm just observant human behavior. That's my specialty, right well, whatever, I don't want to give you a whole rambling rant
when you wake up. I want to be able to explain everything that happened that day and since so that you can help me sort it all out. Maybe I'll just let you read my notebook, let you see every attempt to try to summarize it all. Oh but gosh, what if you have memory problems? What if I actually need to rewrite the whole debrief to include the week leading up to the demolition or the month. Should I start at the beginning of the school year, just to be safe. It's been two weeks, and I really need
you to wake up. Ross. I know I should be grateful the fact that you're still I mean, it could have been so much worse, but you weren't even supposed to be there, not in the mine. And I can't keep sitting here every night writing and rambling. Do you
know how much talking I've done in here? Even the doctors who told me that it's good to talk to Komba patients are giving me looks, but I just can't stop, because I usually only stop when you say something snarky or clever or really surprisingly kind in that way you have. But right now you're just not saying anything, and you always have something to say, So please please wake up. Not that I really am going to stop. When I said I can't keep sitting here, I obviously didn't mean
that literally. Not that I'm always here. I'm not some creepy stalker. It's just there's still so many loose ends Ross, and I've gotten so used to having you to bounce things off of sitting in your tree house looking at a bunch of guards and string. Isn't all that helpful when you haven't organized. It turns out you don't just organize things the way I would, you do it better, And that is something I'm not going to include in my report. You're going to have to earn that information
by waking up and then staying awake. If you're awake right now, what would you say? I got all these broken bits and no way to connect them. No solution explains everything. Miles, You've got to start looking at the tiny pieces right right, The stolen files might not have anything to do with the fact that Riley is Ransom Sun. There were a lot of papers there, so there could have been a million motives for taking them. Either way,
I should ask Miss Honeywell. And if the birth certificate wasn't the motive at all, there's nothing to say that whoever stole them even noticed it, which means I might be the only person besides Riley's parents and his birth mother who actually knows the truth about him. Unless Riley does already know somehow. He didn't steal the files. I'm pretty sure about that, but when we were talking, he's hiding something. I just don't know what, maybe what he
fought with his parents about. You wouldn't know what to do, ross do I meddle in the whole Ransom Riley business by telling one of them. I still owe Ransom the truth about the fact that I found his missing files. But should I talk to Miss Honeywell try to find out who stole them first? Or is all of that just a distraction from the thing I'm scared to do but no I should do, which is go digging for evidence that hal is doing dirty business. In the Mayor's office. What do I do?
What you just heard is the beginning of Maxine Miles and the Loose Ends, which is not an episode or series or new season of Maxine Miles, but an interactive web based game. In Maxine Miles and the Loose Ends, you are Max living in the world post the season one finale that you, as the audience chose, one in which your trustee sleuthing partner Ross is still injured from the mind collapse, and while some mysteries are solved, there
are still quite a lot of loose ends. There are different pathways that you can investigate and different endings that you can get. This game is a mix of tech and choices and audio scenes, and you can play it right now at Maximmiles dot com for the full experience. I would recommend playing on your laptop or whatever desktop computer you have. I hope you enjoy sleuthing in the town of Hastings as much as Max does, and thank you so much for listening to the show and following
along on this journey. Maxim Miles and the Loose Ends marks the conclusion of our story. You can go to a tipical artist dot com for more audio fiction and you can play the game as many times as you want. Just go to maximiles dot com and as always, keep curious