Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection

by J. S. Donovan

  Kovac stood behind him, too anxious to sit. Her hair was pulled back into a tight, authoritarian ponytail. She wore a natural scowl on her box-shaped face. Her lips scrunched together when she wasn’t thinking, and her sharp eyes cut deep into the soul.

  Joe sat on the opposite side of Arden. Fat, puffy bruising swelled his left eye shut and made his right eye squint. The tips of his beard were dipped in grey. Gauntness and a rough complexion defined his cheeks. His upper lip had a nasty split. There was a sort of harrowing horror that hung on his damaged face.

  Kovac kept her arms crossed and looked down at him. “What did he exactly say?”

  Joe glanced up at her with his one good eye. “At the end of spring, there was going to be a party, much like the one at the orchard…” He paused. “These guys are furious at what we’ve done and want to offer sacrifices to curse us and gain some sort of occult powers.”

  Dawkins stared at him blankly. “Wait? What?”

  Joe nodded soberly. “You think this is just a few men with strange fetishes? No, this is about power and control.”

  Dawkins chuckled. “I’m sorry, Joe, but I think those drugs fried your mind. What are they going to do? Summon demons against us?”

  “I never said their powers were real, but they seem to think so,” Joe replied. “I saw Jose do some of their magic in his basement. He dragged in a woman and cut out her heart while she was still alive. He wrung it out like a wet rag and drank the blood. He did it less than five feet from me.”

  Kovac’s lips made a tight line across her mouth. “We didn’t see any blood when we got you out of the basement.”

  Joe glared at her. “He cleaned it up. This stuff is very real, Detective. These people are evil.”

  Dawkins sighed. “I know you believe what you saw, but this is the 21st century. People stopped doing that stuff.”

  “You’re wrong!” Joe roared.

  His outburst shut up the table.

  Joe ran his hand up his buzzed scalp. “They kept me alive because they wanted to brag about what they were doing. They said any day could be my day, and then they’d go to my daughter’s house and take her child as well.”

  “Do you know how insane this sounds?” Dawkins asked.

  “Yeah. That’s why they keep getting away with it,” Joe argued. He turned to Arden. “You saw the strange tunnels under the Jamesville plantation house. You saw the symbols painted on the wall. You also saw their ritual chamber in the orchard. I never saw any of that. Only you did. But when they had me, they made me watch what they did in those places.”

  Everyone turned to Arden.

  She had been quiet the whole time.

  She looked up from her hands that rested lazily on the table. “Joe’s right. It’s much worse than any of us realize.”

  “Not you too,” Dawkins said, annoyed.

  Arden replied, “I saw what they were going to do to Scarlet Gales. It was some sort of Luciferian or Neo-Babylonian ritual. I don’t know, but these guys are serious enough that they were going to offer up the lead star of their show to appease whatever god they believe in.”

  “What do you mean offer up?” Dawkins asked.

  “They had Scarlet stored in a wood box. Their high priest or whatever let her out and was going to do something with her in front of these people. Maybe kill her? I don’t know. I pulled out my pistol and got the girl out. I didn’t last long before Garold Grey ran me off the road,” Arden explained, replaying the horrific night like it was yesterday.

  Dawkins silently processed the information.

  “There’s a reason why they have tried so hard to kill us,” Arden said. “The public will have a hard time grappling with these people’s perversions. They aren’t going to comprehend the full extent of the wickedness that these people indulge in. Videos won’t help either. We need witnesses who can vouch for this story.”

  Dawkins turned to Kovac. “You’ve been quiet. What do you have to say about all this?”

  Kovac shrugged. “Maybe Joe is right. Maybe not. Either way, these claims need to be investigated and the people behind it stopped.”

  Dawkins got up and paced.

  Arden and Joe looked each other in the eyes. Both of them were changed by their time in captivity, but that drew them closer together.

  Dawkins turned to Joe. “You said the end of spring, but when exactly is this party?”

  Joe said. “Four days. Jose didn’t say the address, but he described it was on a special farm. He said he was going to bring me there.”

  “How will we know which farm?” Dawkins asked.

  “We found the orchard through the screenplay’s subtext,” Arden said. “Maybe there are more hidden directions inside -- We could search more of the Broken Roses’ screenplays.”

  “How do we get them? They’re in-house,” Joe said.

  He made a good point. Arden used to be able to just flash her P.I. ID and make a good argument to get the job done. Everything she did now was completely sketchy.

  Kovac said, “Find them or not, Dawkins and I can’t stay around here for too much longer. There are probably already questions being raised.”

  “Scarlet’s parents might have the screenplays,” Arden said.

  “If they don’t contain the clues, we’ll waste our four days reading through nonsense,” Joe said grimly.

  Arden had to make sure this was the best way to get the information. Time was a limited resource. “Are you sure he said four days?”

  “Yeah,” Joe replied.

  “Do you think he’ll be at the party?” Arden asked.

  “It’s hard to tell. He’s probably just muscle,” Joe replied.

  “We could follow Jose that night,” Arden said. “It would save us from trying to find the code in the screenplays.”

  Kovac spoke up. “Better yet, we check the list of names Rivera mentioned against the property database. Once we get the addresses, we can scout them out online. If it proves promising, we drive over.”

  It seemed like a simple solution.

  They agreed to give it a try.

  Having been a P.I, Arden didn’t have access to such databases. After a little while, Kovac had a healthy list of addresses they could look up on Google Maps. They put the web browser into satellite mode. Two thirds down the list, they found a property with an old mansion that was designed like a T, with a little shack looking like a dot on top of the T.

  Arden pointed at the screen. “That’s the one.”

  The detectives turned to her, questions on their lips.

  “The symbol. Garold had it on a bust in his office. It was also on the necklace that the VIP members used to get into the sacrificial chamber at the orchard,” Arden explained. “By the looks of this house, it’s from the Civil War era. Whatever cult they have must’ve started up around that time.”

  The owner of the property was Mitchell Carland. He was a surgeon.

  Rivera didn’t reveal much about his fetishes, but he was one of the men he listed.

  “We’ll go there tomorrow morning,” Kovac decided. “We’ll leave you with the car and take a cab back to Macon. It would be good for us to head back.”

  “Why not call your father and tell him that you’re working a big case?” Arden asked.

  “This is out of our jurisdiction.”

  “You don’t have to tell him where you are,” Arden said.

  Kovac got defensive. “Just for your information, I never wanted to be a part of this. The longer I stay away, the higher probability I get charged for assisting a felon.”

  Dawkins interrupted. “Lighten up, Kovac. We need you here. Do what she said.”

  Setting her jaw, Kovac pulled out her cellphone and went to the other room.

  Dawkins looked to Joe. “You better be right about all this. If this backfires, you’re screwing over all of us.”

  They went to bed early that night.

  The next morning, the detectives went to scout out the property while Joe and Arden remained
incognito in their new home.

  They watched TV. Every news outlet had eyes on Police Chief Rivera. Only a small part of the interrogation tape was being showed. Various talk shows debated whether or not the footage was fabricated. In light of the other videos Arden and Joe had released, it tended to shift the public’s opinion to favor Arden and Joe’s side.

  In the late morning, Kovac and Dawkins returned with pictures. Landscapers worked hard to keep the lawn perfectly manicured. The mansion was tucked at the end of a long driveway. A black fence surrounded the land. The property was gorgeous. Expertly-trimmed bushes outlined the yard. There was even a garden of shaped trees. Some looked like lions and others like deer. There was a small peach grove next to the conservatory. The mansion was three stories tall with a massive balcony held up by regal pillars. The mansion was part cobblestone. Vines crawled up its walls.

  “It's pretty,” Arden said.

  “Yeah,” Joe replied soberly.

  “See any ways in?” Arden asked.

  Dawkins shrugged. “There’s the front gate. That’s about it.”

  “We could try to climb it.” Arden suggested, albeit with doubt in her voice.

  Dawkins pointed at the various lamps dotting the fence. “The area is too open and well lit. There would be nowhere to park the car and set up a ladder without being seen. I bet they have security cameras too.”

  They brainstormed for a moment. Arden had an idea. “I can be the bait. I’ll show up. Get their attention. They take me in. You use that as a chance to get in.”

  The others collectively shot down the idea, saying it was too risky.

  Joe looked at the thin metal gate. “We could just drive right through the fence.”

  Dawkins said, “Even worse.”

  Kovac added. “And not in my car.”

  “Hear me out,” Joe said. “We go in there and raid them. We take the people hostage and strong-arm them until they show us the captives. We’ll livestream it. The police and media show up for negotiations. The whole world sees.”

  “And what happens to us?” Kovac asked. “Especially if the cops are compromised.”

  Joe was silent for a moment and then said. “This isn’t about us.”

  “What would your daughter think?” Dawkins asked.

  Joe frowned and kept quiet.

  Dawkins reveled in the small victory. “See, suicide missions are no-go. Unlike some people, I enjoy my life and freedom.”

  Kovac said, “We could call in a SWAT team about a bomb threat and have them take care of the party. Perhaps they’ll find the captives.”

  “What if the SWAT team is corrupt too?” Joe asked. “If someone in the department tips them off, they’ll have time to hide the girls.”

  Dawkins added. “That's assuming the captives are being held there. This could be the wrong location.”

  “There is always going to be doubts,” Arden said. “But we got to keep moving. Other suggestions?”

  The table was silent.

  Joe gave everyone around the table a serious look. “Jose could take us.”

  “How would we do that?” Dawkins asked.

  “Hold him at gunpoint and tell him to drive. That can get us through the front gate without issue,” Arden replied, getting on track with Joe.

  “That didn’t work so well last time,” Dawkins replied.

  Arden’s painful scabs reminded her. She glared at Dawkins.

  “Just saying...” he mumbled.

  Joe nodded to himself, completely ignoring Dawkins’s quips. “Jose planned on taking me anyway. To enjoy the show, he said. We go along with that plan, only this time we can be the ones calling the shots.”

  Arden thought aloud. “Jose could take credit for finding me too. That will get us both inside.”

  “So he’ll have you both prisoner.” Dawkins shook his head in disapproval. “There is no way anything could go wrong with that plan.”

  Kovac gave him a sidelong glance before turning to Arden. “Where would Dawkins and I be in all this?”

  Arden thought on it. “We can put you in the back of the car with us. The last party was a masquerade of sorts. Maybe you can be more of Jose’s esteemed guests.”

  Kovac seemed uncertain. “You think that’ll work?”

  “I can’t be certain,” Arden said, “but that might be the best way to get us all inside.”

  “Why not let us all wear masks?” Dawkins asked.

  “We need it to be believable.” Arden replied. “You two just need to film the ritual and livestream it. Get ahold of everyone in Macon’s police department that you trust. When the authorities show up, there will be enough chaos that you two can escape in the crowd.”

  Dawkins shook his head. “That’s a huge risk.”

  “Then don’t go,” Arden said pointedly.

  Dawkins opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped himself.

  Arden’s pulse quickened. “There’s no way this trip is anything other than a one-way ticket. We need to own up to that fact or give up.”

  No one protested.

  The plan was settled.

  They’d have to wait until the night before to get Jose. Otherwise, his fellow gangbangers might catch on. Kovac and Dawkins decided to stake out Jose’s house while Joe and Arden recovered. She took her medication and kept her bandages fresh. Joe slept and his puffy face deflated slightly. He could now see out of his left eye, but had a harsh squint with his right.

  Dawkins and Kovac sent Arden updates via text about their time watching Jose. They described his violent outbursts, forceful treatment of his allies, and his constant need to be surrounded. But when his lover left his bed in the middle of the night, Dawkins and Kovac snuck inside. Dawkins quickly pinned him to the bed while Kovac shoved a pillow over his face. It was enough to get him to pass out, but she made sure he wasn’t dead. They loaded them into the trunk of Jose’s van and drove. Kovac followed in Dawkins’s car.

  They brought him back to Arden and Joe and they cuffed him to a chair, then put a gag in his mouth and a black pillowcase over his head. Arden and Joe took turns watching him while Dawkins and Kovac rested for the last few hours of the night. The next morning, they bought cheap men’s suits and masks.

  Dressed up like the cultists, Dawkins and Kovac pitched a wonderful lie. They told Jose they’d been watching him since he took Joe and they knew about Joe’s escape. Now, they were punishing Jose for his failures. Dawkins added to the story by saying that they’d taken some of his gang members and his lover as well. Joe and Arden waited in another room and screamed, pretending to be his tortured friends.

  Convinced and terrified, Jose believed them.

  Dawkins and Kovac let him be for a few hours. When it was late that night, they returned, claiming to have found Joe and Arden on their way to the police and were now holding them captive. Dawkins offered Jose a chance to redeem himself if he escorted Arden and Joe to the party, but he had to bring them, too. No questions asked. Suspicious but properly intimidated, Jose agreed. They were able to probe him for information about the party, including what time it started. Arden wanted to get there later, just so they’d have the most amount of people.

  Once they had what they needed, they re-gagged Jose and left him in the dark until it was time to leave.

  None of Arden’s team knew if their scheme would work, but they were locked into the plan.

  On the day of the sendoff, Arden invited Joe, Dawkins, and Kovac in for prayer. Even though not all of them believed, no one refused it this late in the game. Arden prayed for protection. She prayed that the spiritual forces of darkness would subside. She prayed that God’s will be accomplished and all evil would be exposed.

  Joe squeezed her hand the whole time. When the detectives left the room to get dressed, Joe stayed.

  He slouched over on the dining room chair and looked down at his rugged hands.

  Arden rested her hand gently on his shoulder.

  They sat there, remembering all the time th
ey had spent together. It calmed Arden’s mind. Despite it all, they had a good friendship. Arden wouldn’t trade away anything that happened in the last three years.

  As the time of departure neared, Arden left Joe alone and took a shower. She let the hot water wash over her as she thought about all the ways their plan could fail. She got out, wrapped herself in a towel, and looked in the mirror. She noticed deeper lines around her jowls and creasing her forehead. The torture had aged her. The scabs on her back throbbed. Her head ached. This might be the last time she’d see her face.

  She dressed in a sports bra, generic t-shirt, and sweats. She wouldn’t be able to store any weapons, nor did she take a pain pill. She needed to act like a victim. She put on mascara and forced herself to cry. After she got black tears running down her face, she snuck outside and rubbed dirt on her face. The raw skin around her wrists and bruises on her neck helped with the disguise. She tore the bandages off her back but left the stitches. Some of the scabs split and leaked crimson through her white shirt. Joe donned the dirty clothes he was found in. The sharp stench of sweat and urine had sunken into the fibers.

  Meanwhile, Kovac and Detective cut inconspicuous holes in their suit blazers’ pockets to allow their cell phone cameras to see out. They wore featureless white masks that covered their whole heads. Kovac’s gender was lost behind her outfit. She even wore black leather gloves to keep anyone from seeing her hands.

  At 9:42 pm, Arden and Joe climbed into the back of Jose’s van.

  Loose binds constricted their wrists and rags were taped into their mouths. Kovac sat back with them, acting like a sort of gatekeeper. Dawkins put Jose in the driver seat. Dawkins sat in the front seat. He kept his pistol aimed lowly on his lap while Jose drove. Jose was covered in tattoos and carried a sort of chaotic madness with him. He looked like a man without fear, but Kovac and Dawkins had instilled some into him that made him buy the lie. He knew what the cult was all about. He knew his death would be slow if he didn’t obey.

  They passed through the heart of Atlanta, watching the skyscrapers blur by. Every time they stopped at a red light, Arden accumulated more sweat. There was a part of her that wanted to say she wasn’t scared, but the past trauma played in her mind. You survived that. You’ll survive this. Her thoughts didn’t seem to convince her of much. She believed that God would help her, but she was once again going into the valley of death. Trying to get out of her head, she glanced outside the tinted window. Pedestrians walked down the sidewalk, lost in their phones and completely unaware of the ever-present darkness all around them. They didn’t know that Arden was a wanted murderer. They didn’t know that she was going to stop a cult that had been selling and sacrificing humans for God knows how long. The pedestrians walked on, content in their ignorance, but so blind.