Taken! Alphabet Series - 26 Original Taken! Tales (Donald Wells' Taken! Series Book 14) (3 page)

***

A
fter showering and dressing, he gathered his winnings and slipped out a side exit, where he found Jessica in the parking lot standing by her car. She ran to him, kissed him, and then moaned with concern as she spied his injuries.

“Are you okay, baby?”

He brushed back her hair as he stared into her eyes.

“I’m perfect, I have you.”

With his arm wrapped around her, he headed for her car, but the sound of quickly approaching footsteps made him release her, and he spun to face whoever was rushing towards them.

It was George, and the smile lighting his face told him that he had heeded his advice after all.

George took him in a bear hug.

“My hero! Thanks to you, my family can keep the farm.”

George then spotted Jessica and looked her over. “Wow, who’s she?”

He made the introductions and George shook his head in wonder.

“Not only are you the world’s greatest fighter, but your girlfriend’s a super model.”

Jessica laughed.

“Thanks for the compliment, George, but tell me, how do you two know each other?”

“Oh, well we’ve seen each other around at school, but we only got to know each other on the bus ride out here.”

“Why not hop in the back and we’ll drop you off in Boston.”

“Really? You don’t mind me tagging along?”

Jessica grinned. “Of course not,”

“Damn, buddy, not only is your girlfriend a looker but she’s nice too, you’re a lucky man.”

He smiled at Jessica.

“You have no idea, George.”

On the ride back, George made a confession.

“I bet on Murphy, right up until that last bout.”

“What made you change your mind in the last round?”

“You, you looked so damn confident that I began to believe in you. I placed every penny that I’d won betting on Murphy and put it on him to lose. The bookie thought I was crazy, but now I’ve got more than enough to pay the taxes.”

“I’m glad everything worked out.”

“Say, why don’t we catch that double-header at Fenway this weekend? It’s my treat, and I’ll bring my girl along and we can double date.”

He opened his mouth to decline the offer, but before he could speak, Jessica answered.

“That sounds like fun, George, thanks,”

“Great,” George said, and then he began telling them stories about his boyhood growing up on the farm, and the three of them talked and laughed all the way home.

(The events in
TAKEN!
E take place nearly two years after the events in TAKEN! 24A -
THE THIRTY-NINE
)

––––––––

H
e had just stepped aboard the elevator on the thirty-ninth floor when the man came running down the hall shouting for him to hold the doors open.

He stuck an arm out and the motion sensors sent the doors clunking back into their slots.

The man shot him a wink as he walked on, and he returned to his spot in the corner and crossed his hands in front of him.

“Thanks for holding the doors, buddy; these damn things take forever to come back if you miss one.”

“No problem,” he said, as he studied the man.

The man was in his mid-thirties, slim and tall, with dark hair and eyes. He was standing in the corner near the call buttons, and he watched the numbers descend on the overhead display panel with great interest.

On the thirty-eighth floor, the elevator came to a stop and chimed its arrival. When the doors opened, there were two men in suits, holding briefcases, waiting to get on. As the men were about to step inside the car, a voice cried out.

“Police! Step away from the elevator!”

He looked past the two men and saw a cop running down the hall, much as the man beside him had done moments earlier. The men in the suits backed away from the elevator and gawked at the galloping police officer with the gun in his hand. When the cop was twenty feet away, the doors began closing and so great was the cop’s desire to enter the elevator that he could feel it shudder as the man slammed against the now tightly shut doors.

As the elevator again traveled downward, he looked at his companion and saw that he too now carried a weapon.

He was in Boston.

He had been in the law offices of Levy, Aaron, Roman & Childs. The criminal attorney, Jeff Roman, was also a fight promoter, and the man who had given him his start in the sport of Premium Fighting, a sport in which he was now the undisputed champion.

He had begun fighting professionally more than a year ago and rose up the ranks of the fledgling sport in a meteoric manner that left no doubt that he would one day be the one to beat. A week ago, in an anticlimactic match, he defended his title for the third time by beating his opponent in less than four minutes.

He had become the best there was in a tough sport and now he was walking away from it to pursue another, more traditional, route to success.

He was starting his own company, and today he met with an intellectual property attorney as a first move at gaining a patent for an invention.

After looking over the software he developed, the patent attorney assured him that he should have little problem gaining financial backing, and that given the usefulness and uniqueness of his design, that he could also sell it outright if he wished and expect six figures.

All this, and he was still a week shy of his twentieth birthday.

The man pointed the gun at him.

“Be cool, kid, all I want to do is get the hell out of this building.”

“What have you done?”

“Nothing, I’m an innocent man.”

“That cop didn’t seem to think so.”

The elevator continued down without stopping, an almost unheard of occurrence in a building as busy as this one, and he assumed that the authorities were now in control of the machine.

As they approached the bottom, the elevator began to slow and the man hunkered down near the floor while screaming at him to get into the opposite corner.

He complied, not out of obedience, but out of common sense. If the doors opened upon a cadre of agitated police officers, the last place he wanted to be was in the line of fire.

PING!
went the elevator as the doors opened up on a lobby that earlier was bustling with activity, but that now looked deserted, as the polished marble floors reflected the strobe of the red and blue lights of the police cars parked out front.

The man with the gun began breathing faster as he mashed the buttons on the elevator to no use, and the doors stayed firmly open.

A deep voice echoed across the lobby, magnified by a bullhorn.

“Williams! This is the police! Let your hostage go and then come out with your hands in the air!”

“Damn it!” Williams said. He was standing as far into the corner of the elevator as he could get, and held his gun arm up and ready.

“How do I know you won’t shoot me once I let the kid go?”

“Nobody has to get hurt here, but if you don’t let the hostage go, then we’ll be forced to come in after you. Face the facts, Williams, you’re trapped.”

Williams shook his head.

“No, me and the kid come out together. That way I know you won’t shoot me.”

“No one wants to shoot you; we just want the hostage released.”

“He’s lying,” he said.

Williams looked over at him with fevered eyes.

“What?” 

“I said he’s lying.”

“What do you mean he’s lying?”

He smiled as he shifted to the balls of his feet.

“I’m not a hostage.”

Nine seconds later, he exited the elevator while dragging Williams behind him, as a group of cops gawked on in open-mouthed wonder.

(The events in
TAKEN!
F took place in 2004)

––––––––

M
assachusetts

––––––––

D
avid Robert Haines AKA
The Roadside Slasher
followed the blonde into the bar and took a seat in the back, but not so far back that he couldn’t see the dance floor from where he sat.

The place wasn’t packed, the area was too rural for crowds, but the bar was busy and out on the floor several couples danced away to the music pouring out of the speakers.

Haines keyed in on his prey while she grinded away to a Latin beat on the dance floor.

She’s perfect!

The woman may have been one of the college kids that frequented the bar, or, more likely, a recent graduate. Her long blond hair was luminous beneath the overhead lights and her lithe body spoke of youth and fitness. The woman’s breasts were full and firm, while her legs were long and tanned. Blue eyes sparkled with life and happiness from a beautiful face that radiated joy.

Haines smiled as he studied her. She truly was perfect, just the type he loved to kill.

Her shoes had decided her fate.

While the high heels were stylish and a vibrant red, it was neither their style nor color that drew Haines to them, no, it was the fact that they perfectly matched the woman’s dress, nail color, and even the ribbon in her hair.

Haines stared at the woman’s feet, lusting after her shoes the way the men around her lusted after her body.

He walked back out to the parking lot, and although it was early October, the night was warm and humid.

He took the coat hanger from the front seat of the car he’d stolen off a used car lot, and used it to jimmy open the driver’s side door on the vehicle that the woman had arrived in. Once he had it open, he pulled on the hood release, relocked the door and closed it.

A moment later and he was working on the linkage to the gas pedal, insuring that the girl’s ride home that night would end prematurely.

The bar was the only place open for miles around, as the surrounding area was mostly farmland. With the alteration he was making on her car’s fuel delivery system, the girl would be lucky to make it two miles before the vehicle stalled, and given the sparseness of the area’s population, there would be no one around to offer help.

But he would be there, oh yes he would,

The sound of a car door opening and closing came from nearby and Haines jerked his head up so fast that he smacked it on the underside of the open hood.

As he rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head, he searched the parking lot and saw no one nearby. The only people in sight were the couple kissing by the bar’s entrance. He then gazed into each car but saw nothing, and with a shrug, he went back to work. When he was done, he let the hood drop shut and then sat in his stolen vehicle, waiting.

***

T
he girl left the bar just after midnight.

Haines had spent the time smoking pot and reliving his earlier kills. He had killed nine women over a two-year period and all of them had been young. Haines was aptly named,
The Roadside Slasher
, because his victims had been slashed to death on various rural roadways throughout the state.

Haines thought the back roads the perfect killing ground.

While others brought their victims into their homes where forensic evidence would be left behind, Haines killed out in the open. Once his victim’s car was disabled, he’d pounce on them and drag them off into the nearby woods

After having his fun, he’d clean himself thoroughly from the kill kit he always brought with him, before discarding his stolen vehicle and setting it aflame.

There had been four male victims to go along with the women he’d killed, but Haines never counted them. They had all been dispatched as quickly as possible so that Haines could concentrate on the women.

It was the women he loved to kill, the look of terror in their eyes, their screams, the pleading, and the blood, the warm, sensuous blood,

His kill kit, which was actually a duffel bag, also contained several pairs of women’s shoes. He always took the shoes of his victims, while leaving others behind to take their place. Along with the shoes, he would also cut off a piece of whatever clothing the shoes matched. Tonight’s kill wore shoes that matched not only her dress, but also the ribbon in her hair.

Haines smiled. He would take the ribbon as well, but only after he used it to choke the bitch into submission, and what a pleasure that would be, to make her beg, to see the fear in her eyes, to own her, to take her.

He roused himself from his reverie and watched as the woman spurned a young man’s advances.

When she walked over to her car alone, he smiled. This one would be easy without a man to kill, and would give him that much more time to play his bloody games.

He followed the woman out of the parking lot, knowing that he would soon have her alone, to do with as he pleased.

***

T
he woman’s car died in the perfect spot, although sooner than he would have guessed.

They were on a dirt road with only the full moon overhead to view what was about to take place.

He slipped out of the car while brandishing his knife and, to his surprise, the girl stepped out of her vehicle and smiled at him.

He checked her hands, certain that she must be holding a firearm to be so bold, but no, her hands were empty. The smile unnerved him. He was six-foot-four and well over two-hundred pounds, an imposing figure even without the knife, especially to a woman alone on a midnight road, and yet, this one was smiling at him.

“They call me The Roadside Slasher,” Haines said, hoping to evoke a look of terror upon her face.

The woman’s smile widened as she gestured at herself.

“It’s the color coordination that attracts you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“All of your victims wore clothes that were color coordinated, particularly the shoes, which is why you take them as souvenirs.”

Haines cocked his head.

“Are you a cop?”

“No, I’m a psychiatrist. My name is Dr. Jessica White.”

Haines began to laugh.

“Oh, let me guess, you think that you can psychoanalyze your way out of this, no?”

“No, I can see that you’re beyond help and that you won’t stop killing until someone stops you, and that’s why we’re here.”

“What
we
? I watched you come and go from the bar all alone, you’re all alone and now you’re going to die.”