The TAKEN! Series - Books 5-8 (Taken! Box Set Book 2)

by Remington Kane

***

  The threatened rain finally arrived and cooled the night along with a gusting wind.

  He was sitting beneath the overhang on the motel’s porch, as Szabo treated the burn on his arm.

  “Why aren’t the police swarming this place? That fire I started burnt itself out with help from the rain, but someone must have seen the smoke.”

  “You can thank Jinx for that. The proper people have been paid to look the other way, and by noon, it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

  “Are you one of those people that look the other way?”

  Szabo grinned.

  “I’m not on the take if that’s what you’re asking, but Jinx is like a brother, and as you well know, sometimes you have to do things for family that you normally wouldn’t do.”

  “Speaking of family, I have to go and get Reina.”

  Szabo pointed towards the road.

  “We brought her to you.”

  He thanked De La Rosa once again for his timely arrival, then, he and Szabo headed up the road in one of the cars. When they reached the top of the driveway, he saw Reina inside an unmarked police car with a chubby man behind the wheel.

  The man walked over and spoke to Szabo.

  “Any problems, Miller?” Szabo said.

  “No, but I just received a call. It seems there were two men killed at Donato’s club tonight. My sergeant wants me to go and investigate it.”

  “You should take care of that then.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I will.”

  When he exited the car, Reina ran over to him.

  “Is Jimmy with you?”

  “No, but he’s safe, and I’ll take you to him later,”

  “And Donato?”

  “You’ll never have to fear him again.”

  Reina hugged him.

  “Thank you, oh God bless you.”

  “You’re welcome, but before we leave, there’s something I have to do.”

  He walked a few feet away, under the shelter of a tree, and took out his phone.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “Hello!”

  “It’s me. It’s done.”

  “Oh thank God, oh thank God, are you injured?”

  “I burned my arm, other than that I’m fine.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Yes, but thanks to Szabo and another man I’m here to talk about it.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I... I said I would be on a plane. I didn’t say I would be on that plane.”

  “Semantics? Really?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I lied to you.”

  “We’ll talk when you get home.”

  “Yes, did you have any trouble there?”

  “Four men, all dead now thanks to the police,”

  “Is Jimmy there?”

  “Yes, he’s walking over now.”

  “Jessica.”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  He waved Reina over.

  “We’ll be home later, and put Jimmy on.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  He handed Reina the phone.

  “Hello?”

  A moment later, and she was crying tears of joy.

  CHAPTER 20

  “If we don’t have trust, we don’t have anything,” Jessica said.

  They were in their bedroom, and had both recently awakened.

  He and Reina had arrived home the day before and she and Jimmy were like teenagers experiencing their first taste of love, as they could at last be together without fear of reprisal.

  Jessica’s sister and father were also staying over, as neither of them had seen Jimmy in years.

  “I know I lied, but I only did it to protect you. If you had known earlier what I planned to do, you might have rushed to Texas to be with me.”

  “I can handle myself, and we’ve faced danger together before.”

  He laid a hand on her stomach.

  “Yes, but things have changed.”

  “Is this about the baby?”

  “Yes, risking ourselves is one thing, but now we have someone else to think about.”

  Jessica was silent as she thought over his words.

  “Things will be even more different once the baby is born, but I don’t ever want you to lie to me again. I need to be able to trust you more than most wives.”

  “Because of what I am, because of my... unnatural desires, this sickness within me,”

  “You’re not sick, you just have issues, which you deal with and have dealt with for many years.”

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I know that, but it hurt me anyway.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jessica wrapped her arms around him.

  “It’s very hard to be mad at you when I’m so damn happy that you came home in one piece.”

  “I owe Szabo a lot. He went out of his way to help me.”

  Jessica grinned.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “I was thinking of Jimmy. I’ve never seen him so happy, and Reina seems very sweet.”

  “What are his plans, do you know?”

  “We haven’t discussed it.”

  “Still, I guess the two of them will probably need to stay here for a while, hmm?”

  “Actually no, Daddy has insisted that they come to live with him.”

  Jessica sat up in bed and reached for her robe.

  “Everyone will be getting up soon; I should go make breakfast.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back into bed.

  “Breakfast can wait; I’m not done with you yet.”

  She giggled.

  “Are you about to indulge your unnatural desires, sir?”

  “I can’t help myself. I feel this urge whenever I’m near you.”

  He gazed at her then, as the smile left his face.

  “I hope that someday you can forgive me.”

  As she lay beneath him, she reached up, cupped his face in her hands, and stared into his eyes.

  “We are forever.”

  “Forever,” he echoed.

  Afterwards, the two of them immersed themselves in the here and now.

  TAKEN! – MASQUERADE

  By

  REMINGTON KANE

  CHAPTER 1

  The town of Turtle Creek, Indiana, 12:17 a.m.

  Claire Rothman awoke with a start as a rough hand clamped down over her mouth.

  An instant later, the beam of a flashlight shined directly into her eyes and blinded her, as a voice spoke. The voice was raspy and Claire thought that it sounded as if its owner was at least her age, sixty.

  “All we want is money. If you don’t give us any trouble we won’t hurt you, understand?”

  Claire nodded beneath the hand and then felt it slip away.

  “There’s a light on in the barn, who’s in there?”

  “My, my husband, he likes to work late.”

  “Work? What kind of work?”

  “He’s a sculptor.”

  The man made a derisive sound.

  “Sculptor, hell, that ain’t work. Is he alone in there?”

  “Yes.”

  The man took her by the arm.

  “Let’s go!”

  Claire felt herself being yanked out of bed and became more afraid. The nightgown she wore was made from thin material and it was all she had on. As she stood, she saw that her captor wore a ski mask and was soaked from the rainstorm tapping against the windows; she also saw that his eyes were roaming over her body.

  “You know, you ain’t bad looking for a woman your age, but don’t worry, we’re not here for that. Like I said, all we want is money.”

  As they entered the hallway, Claire saw that her mother was with two men. The two seemed much younger and were larger than the one who gripped her arm, and by the eye and mouth holes in their ski masks, she could tell that one was black and the other whit
e.

  “Did she tell you who’s out in the barn?” the black man said.

  “Said it’s just her husband, what the old lady say?”

  “She said the same, so I guess they ain’t lying. Grandma here says that the dude is about as old as your ass, so I guess he won’t be no trouble.”

  “Very funny, we ready to go?”

  The white man held up a pillowcase.

  “I got the old lady’s shit right here; mostly jewelry, but she had a thousand in an envelope.”

  “All I got was jewelry,” the older man said, as he held up another pillowcase. Claire grew sicker inside as she realized that the man must have been going through her things while she slept.

  “Let’s go see what’s in the barn.”

  ***

  Robert Rothman spun around in shock at the sound of the barn’s side door being kicked open. Although his hidden silent alarms had warned him that someone was coming, by flickering the lights, and yet, he hardly expected that someone to force their way inside, and worse yet, he hadn’t had a chance to close and cover the trap door.

  As the three men approached him with his wife and mother-in-law, he took their measure. Two were young, muscular. The white one carried a double-barreled shotgun and the black man a .45. The mature man had a weapon but kept it holstered under his arm. Rothman got the impression that none of the men considered him a threat. They were wrong.

  After scrutinizing the men, he took a close look at his wife, who was wet and shivering from the cold rain, or possibly from fear.

  “Have they harmed you, Claire?”

  “No, Robert, they just—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” the older thug said, as he gave Claire’s arm a twist, and caused her to cry out in pain. Rothman saw this and made himself a promise to kill all three men.

  Although he had just come out from his lair, he had been working earlier and still had on the clothes he wore whenever he chiseled, a pair of black cargo pants and a flannel shirt. In a long pocket on the right leg of the pants was a stainless steel chisel, the pocket was so long that the top of the ten-inch chisel was barely visible. He also had a knife in an ankle holster, a knife he had carried and used since he was a boy.

  As the two young men flexed their muscles and flashed their weapons, their leader began making demands.

  “We want money and we know you got more hidden around here than what we found in the old lady’s room. Give us all your money, all your valuables, and no one gets hurt.”

  Then he spotted the open trap door. He gestured to the young white man.

  “Check out what’s down there.”

  The man did as he was told and walked over to shine a flashlight into the hole. He then climbed down and was gone for a few seconds before he climbed back up and returned to the group.

  “There’s a safe down there, a big one, and there’s a tunnel too, but I didn’t go down it.”

  Claire spoke to her husband,

  “Robert, what were you doing down there? My grandfather sealed that up years ago.”

  Rothman didn’t answer, and he found it hard to meet her eyes.

  He was edging closer to the man with the holstered gun when his mother-in-law grabbed the cell phone off the black man’s belt and ran for the open side door. It was stupid. The woman was as healthy as ever, even at seventy-eight, but she was far from quick.

  The black man cursed and then aimed at the old woman. The first shot hit Susan Wylie on her left side while the second shot went through her spine. She hit the floor of the barn with a thump and died still gripping the phone.

  As Claire cried out in grief and shock at her mother’s sudden death, Rothman slid the chisel from his pocket.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sheriff Dan Stevens stood inside the renovated barn on the Rothman property and tried to steady his breathing. The last time he had seen this many dead bodies he was in a war zone.

  The call came in just before one a.m., but Stevens had arrived late to the scene because he had been out of town visiting his widowed mother in Florida. He received the call as he was retrieving his baggage at the airport, after taking a redeye flight home. It was now after three in the morning and the Sheriff was desperate for a cup of coffee.

  Stevens was forty, married, with three teenaged daughters. He kept himself in shape by running four or five days a week and staying away from sweets. Although his hair had turned prematurely white, it was still all there, and he’d gladly trade a full head of white hair for a bald head any day.

  As Sheriff, and previously, an officer on the Turtle Creek Police Force, he had never seen anything more serious than the occasional traffic fatality or domestic dispute call, in a town whose population numbered slightly less than five-thousand.

  The farm was a farm in name only, as no crops had been grown on the fifty or so acres of land in decades, not since Claire Wylie had married Robert Rothman.

  Stevens took his gaze off the bodies and looked about the barn. Huge chunks of granite were scattered about, the tallest of which, Stevens guessed stood a good twenty feet high. In the middle of the barn sat Rothman’s latest work, a sculpture of an angel.

  The angel seemed ready to take flight as only one foot remained on the ground and its granite wings were spread wide.

  Stevens shook his head in wonder at the beauty of the sculpture. How Rothman had been able to make stone resemble such delicate looking wings was beyond him, and the beatific expression that lit the angel’s face was a true work of genius.

  How could a monster create such beauty? Stevens thought.

  “Dan!”

  Stevens turned at the sound of his name and saw the medical examiner, Dr. Phil Colson.

  “I’m ready when you are,” Colson said, and Stevens soon joined the doctor near the first of the bodies.

  “I’ll have a better understanding of everything once the scene is fully processed, but for now I’ll walk you through this nightmare as best I can.”

  “I understand, Doc,” Stevens said, and silently thanked God that Colson had worked for years in the city. If Doc Carter were still the ME, he would have been hopelessly overwhelmed by this level of carnage. It also helped that, like himself, Colson had done time in a combat zone.

  “Okay, here we go,” Colson said. “Victim number one was a member of the home invasion team, black male, mid-twenties, cause of death, severe cranial damage.”

  Stevens looked down and winced at the chisel embedded into the side of the man’s skull. It had been driven in with such force that its tip was jutting out the other side beneath the man’s chin.

  “Victim number two was also a member of the home invasion team, male, late teens, early twenties, Caucasian, with tattoos on both arms. Death occurred from a deep laceration to his throat.”

  Stevens looked down at the dead man lying in a puddle of his own blood, and saw a pair of dull brown eyes staring back at him. The man had been large in life, at least six-foot-three and probably weighed two-fifty or more. His murderer, Robert Rothman, was a sixty-one-year-old sculptor who weighed a buck fifty and was five-eight. Stevens would bet that the brute on the floor never saw it coming.

  Doc Colson continued,

  “Victim number three is also a male Caucasian and possibly the leader of the home invasion team. He obviously died from a shot to the head.”

  “What’s left of it,” Stevens said.

  “Yeah, a double barreled shotgun blast doesn’t leave much behind, but judging by the gray at his temples, I’d guess he’s much older than our other DB’s.”

  Colson walked twenty feet, to stop near a side door hanging from one hinge, where an old woman laid face down on the concrete floor, a cell phone clutched in her outstretched hand.

  “Susan Wylie, mother of our only survivor, Claire Rothman. Mrs. Wylie was shot twice from behind with a high caliber weapon, possibly that .45 your men recovered.”

  “Did you ever meet her?” Stevens asked.

  “No, you?”

 
“No, but then, the Rothmans kept to themselves.”

  “Yeah, now let’s go down into the crypt. That’s where the rest of the bodies are.”

  “The crypt?”

  “One of your men called it that, and I guess it stuck. You’ll agree once you see it. I’ve seen some evil shit in my time, Dan, but Rothman gives new meaning to the word, sociopath.”

  “Alright then, let’s go see this crypt.”

  Colson led the way. They walked back past the body of the black man and over to where a hole had been dug into the floor and a heavy wooden door placed over it. The door sat folded back on its hinges, and the M.E. shined a light on a set of narrow stairs that were so steep that the word ladder might be a more appropriate term to describe them.

  Down inside, someone had set up a battery-powered lantern and, in its glow, Stevens could tell that the walls were made from packed dirt and that there were wooden shelves against them. He looked back at Colson.

  “It looks like an old root cellar.”

  “It is, and it’s as old as the barn.”

  “Christ, is that where Rothman kept the women?”

  “No, but it’s one of the ways to get there, follow me, but be careful where you step. Some of the shotgun victim’s brain matter landed down here.”

  Stevens turned on his flashlight and followed Colson down into the cellar. Once he reached the bottom, he looked around and saw an old metal safe. The steel box stood three feet high and two feet wide, it was so old that much of its black finish had peeled off.

  Stevens tried the handle and the safe opened with a squeak to reveal its emptiness.

  “I bet this is why they came here. They must have thought that this safe was full of valuables.”

  “Maybe, but once they got down here they saw this,”

  Colson gripped the end of one of the racks of wooden shelves, when he swung it around, it revealed the opening to a narrow tunnel in a corner of the right wall. The dank shaft was braced by thick pieces of wood and reminded Stevens of a mineshaft.

  Stevens walked over and took hold of the rack of wooden shelves, when he swung it back around, it covered the opening to the tunnel seamlessly.

  “Jesus, how long has this all been here?”

  Colson swung the shelves aside again as he answered.