The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4)

by Remington Kane

  She didn’t want to see that innocent boy she once knew look at her with lust in his eyes, or wonder how much she was worth and whether he could grab hold of some of her assumed wealth. She wanted him to remain as he was in her mind, to remain her one and only friend.

  It was her father and Dr. White that claimed what they shared was dirty and unnatural, and Summer had been forced to stay away from her friend.

  Looking back, Summer could admit that Dr. White, although cruel, had likely done what he thought was best, but not her father.

  Her father had recently returned to them at that time after having served a jail term and the man had changed. Summer knew now that her father had been projecting his own perverted thoughts onto her friend when he accused the boy of molesting her.

  Summer’s father, Jack Kressley, was the child molester, and he had abused his own daughter from the time she was ten until she left home at seventeen.

  Summer pushed the bitter memories from her mind and came back to the present.

  Jessica White was now aware that Todd was having thoughts of suicide, and if it came down to it, she would have to testify that Summer had shown concern for Todd.

  Now it was time to determine the shortest path between Todd’s home and the motel where she was staying.

  In order for her plan to work, Summer needed to be away from the motel for no more than an hour and had to make certain that no traffic cameras caught her on video.

  As she drove along an unfamiliar street she pulled into a wide driveway that she had thought might be the entrance to a narrow country lane. As she placed her car in reverse to back out onto the street, Summer caught sight of a plaque beside the front door of the house.

  THE MARY LANGDON HOME FOR BATTERED WOMEN

  Summer shivered involuntarily as a myriad of images passed through her mind, images of other homes for battered women. They were places she had lived in with her mother, that is, until her mother inevitably went back to her father.

  Summer drove away from the home, vowing that she would never allow Todd to destroy everything she had worked for. Unlike her mother, Summer planned to fight back.

  Todd had to go, had to die, it was as simple as that.

  However, simple didn’t mean easy, and Summer had given much thought as to how to kill Todd.

  She knew that there was a gun in the house. Todd had always kept one in his nightstand.

  She would use that gun to kill Todd and make it look like a suicide, but she first had to get to and from the home without being seen, and that’s why she was out driving around.

  Once she had mapped out a route with no traffic cameras or any other way to record her movements, she would use that route to travel to and from the home.

  The car she drove was an old Honda Accord that she had bought as soon as she came to town. She had made a point of telling the salesman that she was considering moving back to the area and that she would need a car to get around.

  The salesman had agreed that one needed a car in the area, since there was so little public transportation available, and Summer left the dealership with phase one of her plan completed.

  When Summer reached the area near the college, she drove into the parking lot of a supermarket and raised the hood on the car.

  She reached into her purse and took out a distributor cap, to make certain that it matched, it did. It was a duplicate of the cap on the Honda, only it was cracked down its middle.

  Summer knew little about cars, but thanks to an old boyfriend, she had enough expertise to do simple repairs on older models.

  When it came time to kill Todd, Summer planned to exchange the car’s distributor cap for the cracked one, and then call a service station that was three miles from Todd’s home. She and Todd had a car repaired there once before, and Summer remembered that Todd had complained about the service.

  “The old fat guy works too slow and he kept the car parked outside overnight,” Todd had said.

  Summer wanted the car parked outside, because she planned to exchange the caps once more and use the car.

  She was staying at a motel that was close to the service station and she planned to cut through a cemetery and get there in a matter of minutes. Once there, she would switch the distributor caps and drive the car to Todd’s home.

  She had lived in the home and knew that the lock on the bathroom window was broken. That was how she planned to get in while Todd slept. Once she had the gun he kept in the house, all that would remain would be to kill him and make it appear that he had committed suicide.

  Once Todd was discovered dead, the police would check and see that she had no transportation that night, because her car was being serviced.

  Summer would also have an alibi of sorts, because her ghostwriter, Robert Weaver, would be joining her in town soon.

  The mileage on Weaver’s rental would be on record at the car rental office, and if the police ever checked, all of Weaver’s movements while in town would match the mileage expended on his odometer, and exclude the vehicle from having been used to travel to Todd’s home.

  In all likelihood, Weaver would only be using the vehicle to drive to and from the airport anyway.

  Summer would make love to Weaver after spiking his wine with a sedative and he would sleep through the night. When he awakened in the morning, he would find Summer lying next to him in bed, and assume that she had never left his side.

  Summer didn’t know if her plan was perfect, but it was good enough to get the job done, and even if accused of Todd’s murder, it would be tough to prove.

  Summer sighed, she didn’t want to kill Todd, or anyone else for that matter, but she felt she had to get rid of Todd in order to protect herself.

  She was so close to getting everything she had worked for, fame, money, and perhaps even power.

  Todd had to die. It was as simple as that.

  CHAPTER 3

  Summer’s ghostwriter, Robert Weaver was in Chicago to interview Summer’s aunt, Janice Miller. The sixty-two-year-old woman was in a Chicago hospice and dying from cancer.

  Weaver hadn’t told Summer that he was coming to see her aunt, who appeared to be her only living relative, and believed that she would be upset if she knew about it.

  Robert Weaver was actually in his hometown. He had been a reporter for the Chicago Tribune after college, until the paper let him go.

  As he sat waiting to be escorted to Janice Miller’s room, Weaver smiled while recalling his last hours with Summer. She had taken him to bed in what he knew was an attempt to control him, and he had let her, gladly.

  But a few pleasurable hours spent in bed didn’t fog his mind so much that he forgot how to do his job. He was being paid well to ghostwrite a book about Summer Gray’s role in the capture of the serial killer named Numerical, but the book was also about Summer’s life.

  Summer had balked at giving him any real glimpse into her past, and if she wasn’t going to help, then Weaver figured he would find out what he needed without her assistance, and that’s just what he was in Chicago to do.

  Summer especially avoided all talk about her childhood, and that just led Weaver to believe that there was something there worth knowing. He hoped that Summer’s Aunt Janice could fill in the blanks. She was the sister of Summer’s late mother.

  Weaver looked up when a nurse called to him, and then he was informed that Miss Miller would see him.

  He followed the nurse to the woman’s room, which was down a short hallway that only had two rooms branching off it. The nurse warned Weaver not to upset Janice Miller and to limit his time with her to only half an hour.

  “Is she lucid?” Weaver asked, as he wondered if the woman’s mind might be dulled by heavy medication. The nurse smiled and said that he was in luck, and that Miss Miller was having a good day.

  As Weaver followed the nurse and observed the other residents of the hospice, he doubted that anyone who was a patient in residence had ever had a good day while there, still, he needed answers
to the questions he had concerning Summer’s past, and Summer’s aunt was someone who had those answers.

  ***

  Janice Miller was a frail, thin woman with plain features who had been shrunken and wasted away by the disease that was killing her, but Weaver took note that she shared Summer’s huge green eyes.

  The cancer made Janice Miller look closer to eighty than sixty, and her hairless scalp was covered by a black bandana. She was sitting up in bed and bordered by pillows, and her eyes followed Weaver as he entered the room.

  After Weaver explained the purpose for his visit, Janice Miller shook her head in wonder.

  “That girl, she’s certainly done better than I ever would have thought she would.”

  “Why do you say that, ma’am?” Weaver asked.

  Janice made a face.

  “Let’s just say that she didn’t have the best childhood and leave it at that.”

  Weaver nodded and remained silent. It had long been his experience that anyone who used the words, “Let’s leave it at that,” actually wanted to say more, and usually much more.

  There was a time when he would have cajoled an interviewee until they opened up, but he had gotten to the point where he simply waited for them to talk.

  Janice Miller was not an exception to the rule.

  She raised a frail hand into the air and pointed at Weaver.

  “The thing is, you see, my brother-in-law, Jack Kressley, he hated to work, and so he was always looking for a way to grab an easy buck. Is it any wonder he became a con artist?”

  “He was a criminal?”

  “Yes, and he dragged my sister into his con games. He was caught twice and went to jail both times. When he was locked up the second time, my sister and little Summer came to live with me. I was living in California back then.”

  “How long was he in prison?”

  “Oh, only about nine months, and it was the county jail. It’s too bad that they didn’t keep that fool locked up; he was nothing but grief, and he killed my sister.”

  “You blame your brother-in-law for the car accident?”

  “What car accident? My sister and her husband were found shot to death in a trailer park.”

  Weaver gasped.

  “Summer told me that they died in a car accident.”

  “She lied, and I don’t blame her, but you having been a reporter and all, you would uncover the truth anyway, so I might as well tell you. Jack was running a con on the wrong people and they killed him and my sister.”

  Weaver looked stunned, and it was for more than one reason.

  “Miss Miller, how did you know that I used to be a reporter?”

  Janice smiled.

  “I used to read your column all the time when you worked for the Tribune, and I was pissed when you left.”

  “They let me go, budget cuts, and that’s when I started ghostwriting full-time.”

  “I thought that maybe it was that story you did on the mob and that you left because you had been threatened.”

  Weaver smiled.

  “That investigation was the best work I ever did as a reporter, and it led to an arrest and conviction, but, getting back to Summer, how old was she when she lived with you?”

  “Seven or eight, and she was a happy little thing until her father showed up.”

  “You said he was a con artist, was he violent as well?”

  “I don’t think he ever hurt Summer, at least I pray not, but I know he would hit my sister. I told him that they could still stay with me after he was released from jail, for Summer’s sake, but I insisted that Jack get a job. When the carnival came to town he hired on as a carny, and when the carnival left, Jack went with them and so did my sister and Summer. It was probably best though, after that trouble with the boy.”

  Weaver waited a moment as he hoped that Janice would elaborate, but she just stared off into space.

  “What was that about the trouble with a boy, Miss Miller? You don’t mean Summer, do you?”

  Janice made a face that was half grimace and half frown.

  “Little Summer made friends with a boy from the farm I lived near. The kid was a teenager, but he was a sweet and simple boy. Summer took to him as if he were the greatest thing in the world and the two of them spent a lot of time together while tending to the animals. When Jack got out of jail, he accused the boy of molesting Summer.”

  “Was there any truth to it?”

  “No! That boy would never hurt a fly. Jack just had a dirty mind, but he worked up the other men who had children, and they went after the boy like a mob.”

  “What happened? Did they harm the kid?”

  Janice shook her head.

  “They came close, let me tell you, and by close I mean they were looking for a piece of rope to string that boy up with, but then the police chief appeared, and between him and the doctor they calmed things down.”

  “A doctor? So the boy was injured?”

  “Oh, no, he wasn’t that sort of doctor. He was a psychiatrist, a famous one, and now his daughter is famous too. She’s the one that wrote that book about serial killers.”

  “Do you mean Dr. Jessica White?”

  “Yes, that’s her, and the doctor back then was her daddy. The reason he was there was because of another problem that had people shaken up. Some sick bastard was raping and killing women. They called Dr. White in to give one of those profiles the shrinks do, and I’ll tell you something, later on, the police chief said that they caught the killer thanks to Dr. White.”

  “I’m not surprised. He has the same reputation as his daughter, but tell me, what did the doctor do that calmed the crowd?”

  “He talked to the boy and then came to my place and spoke to Summer. He could tell that nothing bad was going on, but he did suggest that they be kept apart. He only said that to keep the boy safe, but Summer screamed and cried when she heard him say that she couldn’t see... now isn’t that something? I can’t remember that boy’s name, and it was a simple name too, but anyway, it broke Summer’s heart when she couldn’t see her friend anymore.”

  Janice smiled suddenly, and looked as if she were lost in thought.

  “Have you remembered something else?” Weaver asked.

  “I sure did, the boy, Lordy, why can’t I remember his name? Well anyway, he was always real handy with tools and such, and he carved this little figurine for Summer. The thing is, it looked just like her. I mean it was made of wood, but he painted it so that it was like a little statue of her. I bet she still has that; I can’t imagine her throwing it out.”

  Before Weaver left, he gave Janice his card and asked her if there was anything she would like him to tell Summer.

  Janice looked around the small room, a room where she would likely die once her disease progressed.

  “Tell Summer that I said to do whatever makes her happy. Life is too damn short.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Jessica and her husband walked her father and Amanda out to Dr. White’s car.

  The older couple prepared to head to the doctor’s home, where Jessica’s brother and his fiancée were watching the kids for a few days.

  While that was happening, Jessica and her husband would travel to see the three men who were likely candidates to be the long missing brother of the doctor’s husband.

  Candidate #1 was a man named Michael Hobbs. Hobbs was good looking, but wore a smug expression in the photo he’d sent. Of the three men, his were the only eyes that could be called intense. He also bore a slight resemblance to Jeffrey Mitchell.

  Hobbs was currently being held as a person of interest in a serial killer case in New York City. Jessica and her husband would be traveling there first to determine not only the possibility that Hobbs might be family, but would also be consulting with the NYPD concerning the case.

  Under occupation, Hobbs had declared he was an entrepreneur, but he actually worked at a junkyard in Brooklyn. Hobbs was married, and he had been arrested for breaking and entering a decade earli
er.

  Candidate #2 was Michael Wheeler. Wheeler was very good looking, and his face gave off a feeling of quiet confidence from his photo, while his eyes sparkled with intelligence.

  Wheeler was an investment banker, divorced, with one child, a girl.

  He had no criminal record, but seemed to be a workaholic, and had rescheduled a get-together with Jessica’s husband once already because of a business commitment.

  Unlike Wheeler, Candidate #3’s eyes did not sparkle with intelligence, and, to be blunt, while his photo did show a face that was kind, it also gave one the impression that they were looking at a man who was not very bright. His smile was the smile of a child.

  His name was Michael Storm, and when asked his occupation, he just answered that he, “Liked to make and fix things,”

  Michael Storm had never been married, had no children, and had never been arrested.

  ***

  Dr. White gave his daughter a kiss and shook his son-in-law’s hand as he and Amanda prepared to leave. He then kept a grip on his son-in-law’s hand as he spoke to him.

  “I hope for your sake and your mother’s that you find your missing brother, and you take care of my daughter as you travel.”

  “I will, sir, as always.”

  As the handshake ended, Amanda gave him a hug.

  “I can’t believe that the next time we meet you may have found Michael.”

  “Are you sure that you don’t want to come with us?”

  “Yes, I don’t want to get to know them until I know which one is my son. I don’t want to grow fond of one of them and then find out he’s not mine.”

  Jessica took her hand.

  “You’re hoping that it’s Michael Wheeler, aren’t you?”

  “I was, until we received those pictures.”

  “Amanda,” he said. “Does one of them look familiar?”

  “Not familiar, but I felt something stir in me when I looked at one of their faces, and I won’t tell you which one because I don’t want to prejudice your opinion. Besides, all three of them seem likely. Michael Hobbs resembles Jeffrey slightly, while Michael Storm reminds me of a cousin I had, and as for Michael Wheeler, he did send us that old blanket that my mother had made. If he’s not my Michael, I don’t know how he could have come by that blanket.”