Taken! Box Set - Books 1-6 Read online

  Stiles said, “Never mind him, he’s nobody,” as his eyes fell upon Betcher.

  “Mr. Betcher, do you own a weapon?”

  “Yeah... yes, yes, a .22, why?”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s in the bedroom, in the nightstand drawer.”

  Stiles nodded to the deputies and they headed for the bedroom.

  While the men searched, Chief Martin walked forward to stand before Betcher and glare down at him. Betcher met his gaze for only a second before breaking eye contact. He then gestured toward Kayla.

  “I can be with her you know, I mean she’s eighteen.”

  The deputies returned and shook their heads.

  “Where’s the gun Betcher?” Stiles said.

  “I, I don’t know. That’s where I keep it; I guess it was stolen.”

  Stiles now looked at Kayla Bell. “We found Rouse.”

  Kayla cocked her head. “In the woods?”

  “No, we found him lying dead at your father’s fishing cottage; he’s been dead for two days.”

  Kayla shook her head. “No! Greg killed mom and dad and, and Morgan. I saw him.”

  “We also found the murder weapon, the .22; it was hidden under the floorboards in your bedroom closet, along with the dil—object you used to rape your victims with. Kayla Bell, you are under arrest for the murders of Jonathon, Carla and Morgan Bell, and believe me missy, we’ll nail you for the other murders too. Chief Martin, will you please read this... Miss Bell, her rights.”

  As they were leading her out the door, she asked a question.

  “Who found Greg?”

  “No one really, but we were tracking his phone and earlier we got a trace; the service is spotty at best out there, but we got lucky and triangulated the signal. If you had thought to turn the phone off, you might have gotten away with it.”

  Kayla said. “But I took the batter—” And then she turned and stared at him. “It was you. You can’t hide from me. I know what you are. You’re like me, aren’t you?”

  A slight smile appeared, as he took his wife’s hand. “No, no I’m not like you at all.”

  “Liar!” Kayla said as she lunged toward him. She made no progress though, as the deputies grabbed her and whisked her out the door.

  Thomas Betcher looked ill. “Kayla? All those people? With my gun?”

  Chief Martin nodded and Betcher covered his mouth and sprinted for the bathroom.

  ***

  The following morning, they were back in the Mayor’s office, along with the Mayor, Agent Stiles and Chief Martin. Agent Stiles was filling them in on Kayla’s past.

  “As you and the Chief know, Mayor, the Bells moved here from Boulder about eight months ago; what you didn’t know is that it was their fifth move in as many years. Kayla’s juvie record makes for interesting reading, so much so, that I’m convinced these murders aren’t her first.”

  Mayor Hornsby said. “How did Kayla get ahold of Greg’s DNA?”

  The Chief answered. “Bob, remember being seventeen? If a beautiful girl had asked you to meet her alone, how hard would it have been for her to get a sample of your, eh, DNA?”

  Hornsby nods. “It wouldn’t have been difficult at all. That poor boy, he probably believed that he had finally found a friend, a girlfriend at that, and then, she killed him.”

  “Him and thirteen others,” Stiles said. “The three teens that were killed, the girls, they used to be friends of Kayla’s, but a search of Kayla’s computer showed that the girls were putting her down on one of those social networking sites; it’s probably why she tortured them so, but her real target was daddy’s money. With the rest of her immediate family dead, she would have gotten most of Bell’s assets, assets in the millions.”

  “There’s still one thing I don’t understand. Why didn’t she get rid of Greg’s body when she killed him? If she had done that, we would have assumed that Greg slipped away.” Hornsby said.

  “She didn’t think that part through too well.” Stiles said. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to dispose of a body. If she had just dropped him in the lake, he would have floated to the surface. She was planning to correct that though, in the trunk of her car we found a new power saw, a pick axe, shovel, and some rolls of thick plastic sheeting. Our guess is that she was going to cut up the body and bury it.”

  “As evil as she is, I don’t believe that she planned to kill her little sister.” Jessica White said. “I think she only did it out of necessity, when her sister appeared unexpectedly.”

  Stiles stood up. “You may be right. By the way doctor, why were you so insistent that Chief Martin’s men search the house for that gun? At the time we had no reason to suspect Kayla Bell; we hadn’t even traced Rouse’s cell phone yet.”

  Jessica White smiled at her husband.

  “I had a hunch.”

  Agent Stiles scratched his arm vigorously. “I wish you had gotten that hunch earlier; I think I picked up a poison ivy rash while searching those woods.” He then nodded curtly at everyone and left.

  Chief Martin also headed for the door, but at the threshold, he turned.

  “Dr. White, why don’t you and your hubby stick around for a while? There are plenty of things to do here. In fact, a bunch of fellas and I are going hunting tomorrow.” He then walked back over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “How about you, buddy, do you hunt?”

  He smiled. “Yes, every chance I get.”

  TAKEN! 3 - REGRET

  Tuesday, August 29, 4:49 P.M. Brooklyn, NY

  Sandra Jenkins watched in disbelief as Roy Osgood walked out of the 61st precinct with his lawyer and headed for a taxi, and freedom.

  Sandra’s little girl, six-year-old Chrissie Jenkins, was snatched in a park five hours ago, while her babysitter watched Roy Osgood do magic tricks.

  A suspicious cop thought that Osgood’s performance might have been a staged diversion, which allowed an accomplice to grab the little girl.

  A look at Osgood’s record showed that he had been arrested twice for sexual assault on a minor, but that both times the charges were dropped.

  After Osgood was taken to the police station, he called his lawyer and kept his mouth shut. Now he was being released and the police were no closer to finding Chrissie.

  Sandra grabbed Det. Robert Pierno’s arm and pointed at Osgood. They were standing by the door at the top of the precinct steps.

  “How can you just let him walk away? He knows what happened to my little girl.”

  “Listen, Miss Jenkins, we—”

  “It’s Mrs. Jenkins. I’m a widow, my husband died eight months ago.”

  “I’m sorry, but Mrs. Jenkins we have nothing to hold Mr. Osgood on. It looks like it was just a coincidence that he was there; besides, Osgood is fat and bald, the two witnesses that saw your daughter leaving the park said that she was in the presence of a slim man with a full head of hair. That’s the man were concentrating on now. We have the witnesses searching through mug books and working with an artist. Hopefully, we’ll be able to identify him soon.”

  “Hopefully?”

  Det. Pierno sighed. “Mrs. Jenkins, I can only imagine the hell you must be going through right now, but please ma’am, understand that we have only begun to search for Chrissie. No one here is going home tonight and we won’t rest until we find her. Now please, come back inside and have a seat. The reporters still believe that you’re at the Brooklyn North precinct, but if they spot you out here they’ll mob you.”

  “In a minute; I just want to get a little air.”

  “Are you sure there’s no one you want us to call? You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

  “I just moved here for a job. I only really know one other person who lives here, but... I don’t want her to know about this; it would only worry her.”

  “All right, ma’am, I’ll see you inside.”

  The detective went back in, while Sandra watched Osgood thank his lawyer with a handshake. Afterward, the lawyer walk
ed off, while Osgood climbed into a cab. As the cab pulled away from the curb, Osgood locked eyes with Sandra Jenkins and an evil little smile crossed his face.

  “You bastard,” Sandra whispered, and then she bolted down the stairs.

  Two boys were passing by; one carried baseball mitts while the other one carried a wooden bat. Sandra reached into her pocketbook and brought out money.

  “Hey kid, I’ll give you fifty for that bat.”

  “For real?” The kid said.

  Sandra thrust the money at him, as she watched Osgood’s taxi creep away in the heavy rush hour traffic.

  “For real, so, do we have a deal?”

  “Yeah,” The kid said, and after taking the money, he handed her the bat.

  “Thanks,” Sandra said, and then she hailed a passing cab.

  ***

  6:03 P.M. Brooklyn, NY

  Sandra Jenkins stared down at the body of Roy Osgood and felt nothing.

  She hadn’t come here to kill the man, but dead he was. Osgood knew something about Chrissie’s abduction and that meant that he might be able to lead her to her daughter, and so she questioned him, with the baseball bat.

  And the son of a bitch talked too, talked until he babbled like a dying man in a confessional.

  Now she had the name of the man who took Chrissie. It was Martin Smith. Osgood didn’t know where Smith went after leaving the park, but he gave her the name of someone who might know, another thread to pull that could unravel a trail that led straight to her Chrissie.

  She gave the body a kick in disgust. Now the police would be after her instead of Martin Smith.

  Well, let them, she thought, let the damn cops follow me as I do their job for them and find my little girl, and God help anyone who gets in my way.

  As she headed toward the door, she spotted the gun lying on the floor. Osgood had pulled it on her in self-defense, but she had hit him with the bat before he could use it.

  Sandra leaned over and picked up the weapon, feeling the comfortable heft and the promise of its pearl-handled power. After tossing the bloody bat aside, she walked out of the apartment with the gun and a new name burning in her mind.

  Michael Escart, 598 Avenue H in Brooklyn,

  ***

  7:18 P.M.

  Dr. Jessica White stared across the dinner table at her husband and watched him as he finished eating. As always, every movement he made was precise. It was like this in everything he did, no wasted motion.

  They had returned home from a business trip only a short time ago, and after showering and changing into casual clothes, they heated the meal that their housekeeper had left for them.

  As he finished swallowing his last bite, he stared back at her.

  “You have something on your mind, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure how to approach it.”

  He reached across and took her hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You,”

  “Me? What have I done that’s upset you?”

  “Karen Ryan,”

  “What about Karen Ryan?”

  “I know that we agreed she needed ‘special handling’, it’s just that I’m worried about the way you went about it.”

  “You mean the cabin?”

  “Yes, the cabin,”

  Karen Ryan murdered twenty-three women over four years and had eluded the police completely. The doctor and her husband were called in as consultants, and in less than a week, they not only identified Karen Ryan as the murderer, but also delivered her ready and willing to admit to her crimes. The method to accomplish this involved the doctor’s husband using some of his... special abilities, in a secluded cabin, where no one could hear Karen Ryan’s screams.

  He released her hand.

  “I had to make her fear me more than she feared being incarcerated, and I did that, no more, no less,”

  “Did you want to do more?”

  “You’re asking me if I was tempted to kill her?”

  “Yes, she was helpless, chained to a bed, naked... did it arouse you? I don’t mean sexually, I mean violently, did you ever feel like you were out of control?”

  He leaned back and studied her.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  She began to cry.

  “I don’t want to lose you. I know there’s a part of you that can’t love, the part of you that needs to dominate others, to inflict violence, and I know that you’re most alive when you can let that part loose, but... I’m so afraid that someday it will take you over, turn you into someone else and, and that I’ll lose you.”

  He rose from his chair and walked over to her.

  “Jessica, you’ve known what I am, what I’m capable of since the moment we met, but baby, you’re wrong when you say that there’s a part of me that can’t love. I love you, all of me loves you. It’s what makes me different. Without that love, without you, I’d be no better than the people we hunt.”

  She sprang up from her seat and into his arms.

  “Oh God, I love you so much—”

  He kissed her, smothering her next words with his lips. A moment later, he picked her up and carried her to their bedroom.

  ***

  Wednesday, August 30, 8:02 a.m.

  Sandra Jenkins was now a wanted woman, and national news.

  After leaving Osgood’s apartment, she had gone on to the home of Michael Escart and confronted the man as he parked in his garage. With the help of her newly acquired gun, she left three minutes later with two new names, while Escart, a known child molester, lay dead against the wall of his garage.

  Jessica hung up the kitchen phone, after speaking with an acquaintance in the New York Police Department.

  “They’re searching her home and talking to her friends and family, but they’re all back in Oklahoma where she grew up.”

  He shook his head. “They won’t find her that way; she’s not running from the police, she’s hunting down the man who took her daughter.”

  “I have nothing but sympathy for her, but she’s out of control, and now the police are after her.”

  “We have to find her. Maybe we should bring Carly in on this one.” He said, and then noticed his wife studying him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Why are you staring at me now?”

  “I’m surprise that you have much interest in this case. I mean, it’s not like Sandra Jenkins is a hardcore criminal.”

  “We need to find her before she gets hurt. She’s been lucky, but luck only takes you so far. If she ever does find Smith, it might be him who kills her.”

  Jessica leaned back in her seat. “You want to help her, don’t you?”

  “I’m not going to start killing pedophiles, but if there’s even a chance that her daughter is still alive, then yes, I want to help get her back.”

  “Why?”

  He looked down at the table for a moment before answering.

  “I’m amazed at what she’s doing for her daughter. No one, no one ever cared that much about me as I was growing up, if they had, then maybe I wouldn’t be what I am.”

  She stretched across the table and kissed him on the lips.

  “I love you as you are; I always have.”

  He smiled. “I know; it’s why I believe in miracles.”

  ***

  Carly Zhang was a twenty-year-old college student who managed to escape a serial killer by sheer happenstance. Her dorm mates weren’t so lucky. As the only eyewitness to the slayings, Carly became the killer’s next target.

  When Jessica White was asked to develop a profile of the killer, she and her husband tracked the murderer down and saved Carly’s life in the process.

  The two women became friends and because of Carly’s skill as a researcher and computer hacker, Dr. White also realized that Carly could be a useful addition to their team.

  Jessica handed her husband his phone.

  “You call her.”

  He hesitated. “I think I make her uncomfortable.”

 
; “That’s why I want you to call; the more she interacts with you, the more comfortable she’ll be around you, besides, you know better than I do what she should be looking for. By the way, I’ll be in the office when you’re done.”

  He kissed her. “I’ll make it a quick call.”

  As his wife left the kitchen, he dialed, and a few moments later, Carly answered.

  “Hello sir.”

  “Hello Carly, you know, you don’t have to call me sir.”

  “I prefer to, if that’s all right with you sir.”

  “It is.”

  “How may I help you sir?”

  He explained to her what they needed concerning Sandra Jenkins and when he was finished, she asked him a question.

  “Is this a rush job, sir?”

  “It’s always a rush job, Carly; it’s the nature of the business. When you have something, give Jessica a call.”

  “Yes sir... and sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “About the nature of the business...”

  “Yes Carly?”

  “Karl Hyatt, the man who killed my roommates?”

  “I remember him.”

  “Well sir, you saved me from him, and I’m grateful, really I am, but sir... what did you do with him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well... I remember you knocking him unconscious and then handcuffing him, but sir; he was never arrested. The police think he’s still out there somewhere.”

  “What do you think happened to him?”

  The next time she spoke, it was barely a whisper.

  “Did you kill him?”

  For just a second he wondered if perhaps the phone was tapped and if the police were listening, but then he smiled at the thought.

  She wouldn’t dare.

  “No Carly, I didn’t kill him. I gave him away.”

  “You gave—to who?”

  “To Mr. Johnson, Mr. Rosario and Mr. Stern,”

  It took her a moment, but then she got it.

  “My roommates’ fathers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God,”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes Carly?”

  “I like you sir.”

  “I like you too Carly, goodbye,”

  ***

  Wednesday, August 30, 5:17 P.M.