Jessica smiled and passed over her phone, which had dozens of photos of the twins.
Elena looked through the pictures.
“They’re gorgeous, and he really does have his father’s eyes, doesn’t he?”
Jessica grinned. “Everyone says that,”
They talked about the free courses that Elena’s organization taught, and Jessica learned that they ranged from self-defense classes to things as mundane as balancing a checking account and setting a budget. Later in the conversation, Elena mentioned the new home she had acquired as a satellite base for PREY, and it was then that they realized they both knew Tyler Davidson.
“Yes, he’s a very kind man,” Elena said. “And he donated the home I was speaking of earlier.”
“Although it’s in a different town, that home is close to our house,” Jessica said.
“Yes, which is one of the reasons I chose it as a base. I was hoping that you might like to run it.”
“What would that entail?” Jessica said.
“Essentially, you would act as support for my operatives when they use the home, which shouldn’t be too often.”
“Would that include field work?”
“No, but I would contact you from time to time for advice or a psychological profile of a suspect.”
“If there’s no danger involved, then yes, I’ll do it, but my husband and I are no longer actively pursuing criminals.”
Elena stared at her for a long moment, then, reached across the table to clasp her hand.
“It frightened you to death, didn’t it, coming so close to losing him as you did?”
Jessica opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it, as tears began rolling down her cheeks. After drying her eyes with a tissue from her purse, she spoke to Elena.
“I love him so much, have seen him defeat incredible odds time and again, and then he’s nearly ended by a foolish teenaged girl. That was when I realized how fast and loose we were being with our lives, and I’ve asked him to stop living dangerously.”
“And he agreed?”
“He did, and it will take months for him to heal in any event.”
“Have you considered, Jessica, that he might not be able to stop, and that facing danger, facing other men in combat, is just a part of who and what he is?”
“No, he can change. He already controls urges far stronger than the urge for conflict, and if he’s strong enough to overcome those than he can learn a new way to live.”
“There’s something else you should consider,” Elena said, and by the look in Jessica’s eyes, she knew that the thought would not be one she hadn’t already considered.
“I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that the hunting of criminals acts as a substitute for the hunting of victims for him, but trust me when I tell you that no matter what happens, my husband would never harm an innocent.”
“I hope you’re right, dear, but the problem with compulsions, is that they strip you of the power of choice.”
Jessica said nothing in return, because despite her convictions, she knew that Elena’s words rang true.
PART TWO
Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.
— Douglas MacArthur
CHAPTER 16
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Jace scrunched up his face as he looked at Maggie.
“They’re at it again?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It happens nearly every day lately.”
The it Maggie spoke of, were arguments, and even from where she sat with Jace in the living room, she could hear the raised voices of Jessica and her brother coming from the kitchen.
“What are they arguing about this time?”
“She wants to go on The Jerry Schneider Show to talk about their search for Michael, but he’s dead set against it.”
“Hell, I don’t blame him; that show is nothing but a circus, and Schneider’s a joke.”
“He’s not so bad. I mean I know he does the, ‘My baby’s daddy was an alien,’ type shows, but Jerry Schneider also covered that story about the missing college student last month, and when that woman stalking him kept breaking into his house, he did a series about schizophrenia, something the woman suffered from. Anyway, Jessica says that ten times as many people watch Schneider’s show than watch those other shows she was on, so, it could help find Michael.”
A rhythmic stamping of high heels echoed in the hall and Jessica appeared in the doorway, her face flushed, her eyes filled with anger.
When she saw the way that Jace and Maggie were looking at her, she sighed.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that, it’s just that he’s... he’s having trouble adjusting to being homebound so much and it makes him cranky.”
“It’s cool,” Jace said. “You guys are amateurs compared to my parents, those two throw punches.”
Jessica sighed again; she then took a good look at Jace and Maggie and smiled. The young couple looked very nice all dressed up. It was Carly’s wedding day.
“I guess we should head to the church.”
She looked back at the kitchen and called her husband’s name. He answered that he was coming, and a few moments later, he joined them. He was dressed in a suit, doing well overall physically, but was ten pounds heavier than his normal weight due to a lack of activity.
The cast had been removed, the second cast, after a second foot operation, and he still walked with a limp as he struggled to recover from the devastating injury suffered by his left foot.
He looked at everyone.
“Are we ready?”
Jessica nodded.
“Amanda took the babies to visit Daddy, and as soon as we let the dog in we can go.”
“Then let’s go,” he said, and limped towards the door.
***
Carly was a lovely June bride and Jessica shed tears of joy to see her young friend so happy.
Jace paled when Maggie caught the bride’s bouquet, but when Jessica assured him it was a tradition and not a prophecy, he brightened.
At the reception, Jessica tried to coax her husband out onto the dance floor, but he begged off because of his foot, and told her to feel free to dance without him.
She took his advice and while she was dancing with Carly’s new husband, Michael, Carly walked over and sat beside him.
“Hello again, sir,”
He smiled at her.
“You made for a very beautiful bride, Carly, but what’s this I hear about you and Michael moving away?”
“We’re moving to California, the San Jose area, and Michael plans to start his own company there, and we have you to thank for being able to do so.”
“If you’re thanking me again for making Michael a partner in the 3-D project, then don’t, Michael earned that partnership, without his contribution the project would still be in development.”
“Maybe, but you did something that you didn’t have to do and I want you to know that it has changed our lives for the better,”
Carly stood, bent over, and kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re a good man, sir. I suspect that you sometimes doubt that, but you shouldn’t. You’re a good man and I love you as a friend.”
He took her hand.
“That means more to me than you know, and I love you too, Carly.”
Jessica returned to the table with Michael beside her. She was out of breath, but smiling.
“That was fun, but I’m still carrying too much weight from the pregnancy, and it’s worn me out.”
He pointed out at the dance floor, where Jace and Maggie were swirling about, as those gathered nearby cheered them on.
“Those two are stealing the show.”
“They look good together,” Carly said, “Is it a serious relationship?”
“It appears to be,” Jessica said. “And I’ve never seen either of them happier.”
***
Summervale, North Carolina
He’s not happy anymore, Alic
e thought, as she stared at her boyfriend, Rob Bolan.
They were alone, sitting in her aunt’s living room, and watching TV, but Alice kept giving Rob sideway glances.
Something had changed recently. Rob had grown bored with her maybe, or worse, he’d met someone else, and was just trying to find the right time to break things off.
She’d briefly considered the possibility that Rob had somehow learned who she really was, but discarded that idea right away. If the deputy knew her history, the things she had done, well, she was certain that he would hustle her into a jail cell and be on the phone to federal authorities.
Rob had feelings for her, but she doubted they were deep enough to overlook her past. In the end, it didn’t matter what had gone wrong between them, whether it be another woman or disenchantment, in any event, her heart was breaking, because she had come to love Rob Bolan deeply, but sensed their time together was over.
Alice took a deep breath, switched off the TV, and turned to Rob.
“What’s wrong?”
He looked at her as if he were awakening from a dream.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been distant lately. This is the first time I’ve seen you in days and you don’t call me anymore, and I miss those calls, miss hearing your voice as I go about my day.”
“I’ve just been busy, that’s all.”
Alice wiped away a tear.
“You’ve met someone else, haven’t you?”
“What? No! Alice, baby I swear I would never cheat on you, I... I love you.”
“You love me?”
Rob reached over and gathered her into his arms and Alice melted against him. After raising her head and kissing him on the mouth, she spoke.
“I love you too, I love you so much.”
Rob brushed back her hair and gazed into her eyes.
“I’ve wanted to say those words for a while, and I guess I was acting weird because I was trying to get up the courage. I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way.”
Alice smiled; then, she turned over and rested her head in Rob’s lap.
“I feel so relieved; I thought that maybe you had grown tired of me.”
Rob gazed down at her with a serious expression on his face.
“I love you, Alice, and I’ll protect you too, you know?”
“Protect me?”
“I just mean that I’ll never hurt you, and that I love you to death.”
A flicker of concern flashed across Alice’s mind, but when Rob stood, holding her in his arms, and headed for her bedroom, all concerns vanished, to be replaced by joy.
***
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Numerical was not happy, despite having just ended the life of victim Number 50, a landmark kill.
He looked down at the red-headed woman he had just murdered and marveled at how beautiful she still appeared.
He wished he could have taken more time with her, but his last two kills had both been rushed, hasty affairs, as in a corner of his mind he worried that Cassandra or someone like her was stalking him.
He was living in fear. He, a man who brought nightmares to women and had killed dozens of them for sport and pleasure, was now afraid that one of them would end his life.
The thought of it was intolerable, and the reality of it unavoidable.
Another of Prophet’s apostles, Matthew, was found dead in his home after the police received an anonymous tip. When the police discovered the body parts in Matthew’s freezer, they began digging around his home and discovered the bodies of several more victims.
Numerical strongly suspected that Matthew had been killed by Cassandra or one of her kind, and if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another video showing the girl with the long dark hair shooting a man to death in cold blood.
The man was a schoolteacher and part-time minister, and for days, it was believed that the girl had killed an innocent man, that is, until the man’s victims came forward, and began recounting tales of the horrific sexual abuse they suffered at the schoolteacher’s hands.
All of them were boys under the age of ten, and after the man’s DNA matched that previously found on the body of a four-year-old, the popular opinion on the Internet was that if the girl was ever captured, she should be given a medal.
Numerical tore his gaze away from Number 50 and dressed hurriedly. Gone were the days when he would take a leisurely shower after a kill. He was now more a workman than an artist, get in, get out, and chalk up another number.
When he talked with the apostles, he learned that they had also grown wary, and one of them, Simon, had become certain that he was being followed, and the paranoia had caused him to assault a young woman who worked in his building. She wasn’t following him, she just happened to work on his floor.
In the aftermath, Simon not only lost his job, but had to go to court to answer for the assault charge, also, as if to add salt to the wound, the young woman he struck was suing him.
The world had turned upside down and now the sheep were attacking the wolves. Things had to be set right, and Numerical was determined to do so.
***
Numerical returned home from Louisiana and plopped onto the couch. He had relocated to one of his other homes, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, because he assumed that it was Cassandra’s home base.
He had lost her trail months ago, but as he turned his phone on and checked his voicemail, a ray of hope brightened his day.
“Yeah, ah, Mr. Jones, this is Gary, you know, the guy at the tea shop in Fort Worth, the one called ‘Fits to a Tea’, well anyway, Ms. Smith ordered that special blend of Earl Grey tea again, and she said she’ll be in tomorrow to pick it up. Um, since I’m letting you know I guess I’ll be getting another check in the mail, right? Okay, um, bye.”
The bitch finally slipped up.
Numerical had followed Cassandra to the tea shop in the mall months ago and had been praying that she’d go back there someday. Now it looked like that day had finally come.
This time he would follow her until she led him to her lair, and with the help of the apostles, he would wiped the uppity sheep off the face of the earth.
He rose from the sofa and headed towards the shower, while whistling a happy tune.
CHAPTER 17
They arrived home that night from Carly’s wedding reception to find that Amanda had also returned and put the twins to bed.
Maggie and Jace were still out, as school had ended the week before and Maggie didn’t start her summer job for another two days.
After checking on the babies, Jessica joined her husband out on the patio where he was having a drink.
“Didn’t you drink enough at the wedding?”
“Obviously not,”
“Is that whiskey?”
“Yes, why?”
“I thought you said that you were going to stop drinking liquor; you know that you shouldn’t be drinking at all with the painkillers you’re taking.”
“I stopped taking the pills a few days ago.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t like the way they made me feel.”
“Is that why you didn’t dance at all, because of the pain?”
“I didn’t dance because I wasn’t in the mood.”
Jessica hesitated, but then asked the question that had been eating away at her for months.
“All this inactivity, has it affected you, aggravated your... proclivities, for want of a better word.”
“My proclivities? What are you asking me, Jessica? Are you wondering if I’m going to start attacking women out of sheer boredom?”
She moved her chair closer and took hold of his hand.
“What is this? Why are we always arguing so much? That’s not us. I think we’ve had more arguments in the last few months than in all the years before.”
He gazed at her, his face softening even as he gave her hand a squeeze.
“I feel gutted,” he said. “I can’t go running because of the pain i
n my foot and I’m still weakened by the trauma of the shooting. I feel... I feel... normal, and it is not a feeling I enjoy.”
“I can sympathize somewhat, I mean, look at me, not only have I not lost the weight I gained during pregnancy but I’ve added several pounds besides. I think we both need a purpose, nothing dangerous or risky, but a purpose all the same.”
“You’ve been helping out Elena, that’s something, right?”
“That barely takes any of my time, and between Amanda and Maggie I’ve plenty of help with the babies, no, I mean something else, something for the two of us. There must be something we can do that we’ll enjoy and that isn’t dangerous.”
“Maybe not, maybe it’s the danger and the risk that gives life its zest.”
“That life nearly killed you.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“This life of boredom and normalcy will kill me just as surely, it’ll just take longer to do it.”
***
The following morning in Washington DC, Special Agent Robyn Dyer received a visit from Thomas Lawson.
Lawson tapped on Robyn’s open door, and she told him to enter.
She had been speaking with Russ Smith, and she turned to him now and asked a question.
“Can we finish this briefing on the plane?”
Smith answered her with a barely contained smile.
“Not a problem, and I’ll see you at the airport.”
After shaking Lawson’s hand, Smith left and shut the door behind him. It had barely closed before Robyn and Lawson embraced.
When their lips parted, Robyn sighed.
“As you may have gathered, I have to miss our lunch date later. I have to fly to Baton Rouge. Numerical has claimed his fiftieth victim.”
“Agent Cashman told me about it as I entered the building. He was with Todd and Summer Gray.”
Robyn rolled her eyes.
“Thankfully the Grays won’t be coming along; I understand that they’re flying to Chicago to appear on TV again. The media loves her, and she’s going around touting herself as an expert on Numerical.”
“At least she’ll be out of your hair.”
“I’d prefer it if she were out of my life. She’s a fraud, an absolute fraud, and after having worked with Jessica White, I know that a profiler can help an investigation. It’s been months since her husband was shot, is there any chance that they would consider joining the task force?”
The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4) Page 21
