The TAKEN! Series - Books 1-4 (Taken! Box Set)

by Remington Kane

  “It’ll be my pleasure, your Honor.”

  As Fred removed the manacles, the judge sent the other deputies a warning.

  “If a miracle happens and this dude beats Dooley, no reprisals, you understand. Anyone that can beat Dooley would be worth a fortune to us.”

  The deputies all nodded while snickering.

  Fred chuckled the loudest.

  “The dude ain’t got a prayer, Judge, hell, I’ve seen Dooley take on three guys at the same time and beat them all.”

  “You got a point. Dooley, take it easy on the dude, huh? We need him alive.”

  “Right,” Dooley said, as he walked over and stared at his opponent.

  Joe looked on in trepidation, but then, he saw something in the stranger’s eyes, something as old as the devil and just as wicked, and he knew that the man named Dooley was about to pay for all the suffering, angst, and frustration, which had been levied upon the man standing beside him.

  The giant pulled back his right arm in preparation to deliver a blow and the stranger hit him on the chin with an uppercut that was so powerful that it lifted the massive man off his feet, only to land him upon his back, atop what in a normal courtroom would be the defense table. Dooley twitched wildly for a second and then fell still.

  As the deputies stared on in disbelief at what they had just witnessed, the stranger took advantage of their shock and sprinted for the hallway door that was to the right of the judge’s bench. As he reached for the doorknob, the judge brought up a 12-gauge shotgun and fired twice. The projectiles struck the stranger in the back and dropped him to the floor, where he let out a moan of agony.

  Betty pressed two fingers to Dooley’s neck, moments later, she yelled over to the judge.

  “He’s dead, holy shit, Dooley’s dead!”

  And then she and the other deputies advanced on the stranger with blood in their eyes.

  “Stay back!” the judge bellowed as he walked over and held the shotgun on the stranger.

  The stranger reached back and picked up something from the floor, he then stared at it in confusion.

  “It’s a bean bag round, non-lethal,” the judge explained. “You should thank me; I could have just as easily let one of my deputies kill you.”

  The stranger stared back at him.

  “I’ll show my appreciation someday.”

  “And just how do you plan to do that?”

  “When I kill you, I’ll make it quick.”

  The judge shook his head.

  “You’ve got balls the size of cat heads, I’ll give you that.”

  As Fred and Barney dragged Dooley’s body from the courtroom, the other deputies put the cuffs back on the stranger, afterwards, they began herding everyone out of the courtroom.

  The pharmacist yelled to the judge.

  “No, please your honor, I don’t want to go back to that filthy jail cell.”

  The judge smiled pleasantly at him.

  “No worries, son, you’ll never lay eyes on it again.”

  “Where...where are you taking us?”

  The judge’s smile widened.

  “You’re all going to prison—for life.”

  And as the man began crying, the judge’s smile turned to laughter.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jessica awakened from a restless sleep, as the noise from the hallway roused her.

  It was Rob Stevens, and he sounded drunk as he stumbled about while singing an old love song.

  Jessica stepped from the bed and grabbed her robe, to then walk to Rob’s doorway and look within.

  He was seated on the edge of the bed, in his right hand was a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, and he was clad only in a pair of boxers.

  As the dog came over to stand beside Jessica, Stevens took note of their presence and raised the bottle up in greeting. His face was slick with tears and his eyes dulled with sorrow.

  “Hi, I’m sorry if I woke you. I was singing a song to Juliet, her favorite song.”

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  Rob looked at the bottle.

  “Not enough, there’s still some in there.”

  Jessica walked into the room and sat beside him, then she reached over, took the bottle, and set it upon the nightstand.

  “Liquor is not the answer, Rob.”

  “It helps; it helps me to forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  “What Juliet must have gone through as she drowned, the terror that must have gripped her. I can’t stop thinking about her, good or bad, and God help me, I want to. I want to lose myself, for just a little while I want to forget.”

  Jessica took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “I know what you’re saying. All I do is think about my husband. Inside my head is a constant drumbeat of questions that have no answers; it’s maddening.”

  Stevens nodded.

  “It is maddening, and I just want the pain to stop, if only for one night, if for one night I could feel good again.”

  Jessica released his hand and caressed his cheek in sympathy.

  An instant later, she found Rob’s lips pressed against hers as he took her in his arms.

  She jerked her head back.

  “No Rob, I can’t be that for you. I understand the loneliness, the pain, but I haven’t given up hope and I doubt I ever will.”

  Stevens buried his face against her neck and Jessica could feel him tremble with need.

  “Just one night,” he whispered. “One night where we can forget our loss and feel whole again,”

  Jessica slid out of his embrace as she stood.

  “I have to go.”

  He called her name as she reached the doorway, and she looked back in at him. Stevens snatched the bottle off the table and gripped it with both hands as if it were a life preserver.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about; now try to get some sleep.”

  Jessica closed his door behind her and walked back to her bedroom with the dog following along. After a moment of debating the need for it, she locked her bedroom door.

  She returned to bed as the doubts and questions about her missing husband raced through her mind and soon she was weeping. After grabbing his pillow, she hugged it to herself in a desperate embrace as she whispered a plea into the night.

  “Come back to me, wherever you are, whatever has happened to you, come back to me,”

  With tears in her eyes, she drifted away to a fitful rest.

  ***

  The following morning, Sarah Callaway marched into Chief Dent’s office and stood over him. She was carrying the file that the private investigator had given her.

  “What are you doing about clearing my brother’s name?”

  “Good morning, Sarah, and how are you?”

  “I don’t have time for pleasantries, Chief. I want to know if you still think that Dave is guilty.”

  “No, we’ve moved on to another suspect.”

  “Rob Stevens?”

  “No comment,”

  “No comment, hmm? Well, I have something you can comment on, take a look at this picture.”

  Dent studied the photo that Sarah removed from her file folder.

  As he fell back in his seat in shock, Sarah grinned.

  “You didn’t know about that, did you?”

  “No, but it makes perfect sense, in an insane sort of way, and it’s the missing piece we’ve been looking for.”

  ***

  Later that morning, Jessica came downstairs to find Rob Stevens gone and a note on the kitchen table. Sitting atop the note was the whiskey bottle. She picked up the note and read it.

  I could try and blame this bottle for my actions last night, but we both know that the fault was all mine. Please forgive me?

  Rob

  Jessica smiled as she grabbed a pen and wrote one word onto the note.

  Forgiven!

  She told the dog goodbye, grabbed her purse, and walked to her car.


  She drove to the police station. At the desk, she asked to speak to Chief Dent and as she waited, she noticed that the officers, clerks, and even the radio dispatcher, sent looks her way.

  Soon, she was being escorted back to the chief’s office by Traci Vargas.

  “We were just about to call you,” Traci said.

  “Why, has something happened?”

  “Yes, but I’ll let Jack explain.”

  Jessica gripped Traci’s arm and stopped her, as she searched her face.

  “Is it bad?”

  Traci smiled.

  “Oh no, honey, it’s nothing but good news, now let’s go see Jack.”

  The chief greeted her with a smile and pointed at two items sitting atop his desk.

  “Does anything there look familiar?”

  As her eyes fell upon the items, she made a cooing sound and snatched them up.

  “His wallet, his knife, where did you get these?”

  “They were discovered in the pockets of his tuxedo pants, the pants were discovered lying atop a cliff on the banks of a river in Hamilton.”

  “What? Only his pants?”

  “There was a backpack lying beside them. We searched the area yesterday and found several wrappers from those chemical heat packs that hikers use. Our best guess now is that he somehow made it up to the riverbank and was tended to by a hiker. After that, we have no idea what might have happened to him.”

  Jessica made a prayer gesture with her hands as she closed her eyes and whispered a question.

  “Are you telling me that you now believe he’s alive?”

  Jack walked over to her and clasped her hands in his.

  “After looking at the scene, evaluating the evidence, yes, yes honey, I think your husband somehow survived, at least long enough to make it out of the water.”

  Jessica’s scream of delight had the entire station house laughing with pleasure and Traci gave her a teary hug.

  “What’s next?” Jessica said. “How do we find him?”

  Jack motioned for her to take a seat while settling in behind his desk.

  “We sent the backpack to the state lab and they found a print on the mirror inside the shaving kit. We’re waiting to hear back from them now. If we can track down the owner of that backpack, maybe he’ll know where your husband is.”

  Jessica wiped at tears.

  “Oh God, I’m so happy I’m crying, and I can’t wait to tell Rob, maybe this will cheer him up.”

  “I think the last thing that Rob Stevens wants is for your husband to be found alive. I think he’s behind everything, and I think he did all of it so that he could get next to you.”

  “Jack, that’s insane. The man is sick with grief over Juliet.”

  “The man is a good actor. In fact, he even starred in a few drama club plays while still in college.”

  “I didn’t know that about him.”

  “Did you know that he was married before? He met his wife while they were both still in college.”

  “I knew that he was married before, Juliet mentioned it once.”

  “How have things been between you two? He’s been supportive, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes he has, which is why I can’t believe that you suspect him.”

  “The tragedy has brought you two together, not just to the point where you’re living under the same roof, but also emotionally, soon, he’ll begin pushing against the boundaries of your friendship, his touches will linger, become more intimate, and eventually he’ll ask for more from you, which of course, would only be to ease the pain, your mutual pain. Has anything I’ve just said rang a bell?”

  Jessica stared back at him.

  “It can’t be Rob. Why in God’s name would he do this?”

  “You’re the psychiatrist, tell me, what would make a man kill to possess a woman he barely knows?”

  “Well, it would most likely be a case of transference. The person who sent those notes to me, who attempted to kill my husband, he would have been clearing a path to me, but in reality, it would have little to do with me. I would simply represent something from their past, something possibly lost amidst tragedy, and they would see me as a way to regain the feelings that they once enjoyed.”

  “Stevens first wife died in a fire, did you know that?”

  “No, are you certain?”

  “Yes, her name was Marie. She died when her dorm house caught fire; the college was near Steven’s home town, about a hundred miles from here.”

  Jessica inhaled sharply.

  “Oh my God, that only makes Juliet’s death more tragic.”

  “Juliet was a sacrificial lamb, a means to an end, and so was Dave Callaway, the pilot of that chopper, and your husband. They all had to go in order for him to land where he is now, at your side, living under the same roof, and trusted.”

  “What makes you so certain? So damn certain,”

  Jack reached into his desk drawer and took out a copy of the photo that Sarah had given him, and then he handed it across the desk to Jessica. The picture showed a beautiful young woman walking along a corridor with a stack of textbooks in her arms. The woman was waving and smiling at whoever took the photo.

  Jessica wrinkled her brow in confusion.

  “Where did you get this? It looks like a picture of me when I was in college.”

  “That’s not you. It’s an old yearbook photo of Rob Stevens’ deceased wife, Marie.”

  “What? But she looks exactly...exactly... oh dear God,”

  The chief nodded.

  “Exactly,”

  CHAPTER 13

  Weeks ago, and several hundred miles to the south

  Judge William Robert Maynard stared out his office window at what was left of the town that bore his family’s name.

  Maynardville had been a thriving community for over a hundred years, right up until the time the new foreign investors closed the textile mill and moved their operations south, into Mexico.

  The loss of the mill was a death sentence for the town, as nearly everyone worked either at the mill or in the town itself.

  Those that didn’t work at the mill made their income by servicing those who did, in the form of bakers, barbers, and various other small town shopkeepers.

  Maynardville had always fought hard against the encroachment of the big retail stores, and also the seemingly ubiquitous strip malls that lined the highways, all in an effort to keep the town from changing, but change wouldn’t be denied and made its dramatic appearance with the closing of the mill.

  With no paychecks coming in and no way to pay the mortgage, property taxes, and upkeep, most residents, some with histories going back generations, simply abandoned their homes and scattered across the country.

  Within a year, there were so few citizens left, that the schools closed and transferred the teachers to other districts. The town hospital, a one-story building that was more like a clinic, had been predominately funded by the mill, and when the mill closed, the clinic also closed its doors, along with the library and the tiny Maynardville post office.

  The only sector of the town left unaffected was the police department, who wrote over ninety percent of their tickets to out-of-state speeders who used the mill road as a shortcut between the local highway and the airport, which was ten miles away.

  The cops all stayed behind, along with Maynard, who swore he’d die before he left his town. The deputies were all single, but the mayor and the sheriff both had families, and a ghost town was no place to raise them.

  With their departure, Maynard appointed himself to their jobs and became the undisputed ruler of a kingdom whose citizens numbered less than a dozen.

  With no town services to pay for, the revenue from the speeding tickets was more than enough to finance the needs and even the wants of Maynard and his deputies, but with no one to answer to, and isolation their only ally, corruption followed as surely as night follows day.

  The first incident occurred when Deputy Amos, the man Joe Cowley thought of
as Fred, dragged in a drunken speeder to face the judge.

  Maynard levied a hefty fine on the man in lieu of points on his license, and instead of expressing gratitude, the man sent a wad of spittle onto the Judge’s face.

  Maynard, who was himself drunk at the time, leapt from behind the bench and beat the man so severely that he died overnight in his cell.

  Covering up that death led the remaining citizens of Maynardville down a slippery slope, to the level of debauchery, and within a year, more than one attractive young woman stopped for speeding by the Maynardville P.D. was never seen again, and their bodies, raped and ravaged, were left in shallow graves throughout the Maynardville woods.

  When change once again raised its head, it took shape as a crisis in the town’s infrastructure, as the sewage, power, and communication systems collapsed from neglect.

  Maynard and his people were using generators and portable toilets on a daily basis by the time the Grayson Corporation came to call.

  Grayson was looking for a place to build a prison. The Grayson Corporation saw the huge profit to be made from owning a private prison and thought that Maynardville would be the perfect spot for one.

  The representative from the Grayson Corporation was Taylor Grayson, the founder’s son. After only one meeting with Judge Maynard, Grayson knew that he had found a corrupt soul and a useful fool, and a deal was struck to build the prison.

  They built the prison in the valley on the banks of the Maynard River and soon busloads of prisoners were shipped in, the vast majority of them were illegal immigrants who had been scoped up in border raids.

  The Grayson Corporation received nearly two-hundred dollars a day, per prisoner, money meant to go towards food, medical care, clothing, and upkeep.

  In reality, most of the money was siphoned off and placed in offshore accounts, or used to fund Taylor Grayson’s real interest, his illegal drug trade.

  When federal regulators made a surprise visit to the prison, they were appalled by the lack of documentation concerning the inmates and levied a damaging fine on the Grayson Corporation. Taylor Grayson was not a man to take a setback in stride and soon came upon a plan to regain the money that the federal fine had cost him.

  A month later, through his contacts in the drug trade, he had a network in place to broadcast on the Internet to countries in South America, and that’s when the fights began.