“We can make our own family.”
“Yes.”
“You still want that don’t you?”
He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it.
“More than you know,”
***
The town of Bel Rey had one motel that, given the image on a digital street map, looked seedy at best, and so they had made reservations at a chain hotel the next town over. As they finished checking in, they were surprised by the appearance of a familiar face.
FBI Agent Theresa Ramos, accompanying Ramos was another agent; his name was Ethan Burke,
Burke was six feet tall, late-thirties, and fit, he wore his short brown hair in a pageboy cut and on his chin was a goatee.
After greetings and introductions, Jessica asked a question.
“So, Theresa, what brings you here?”
“I’m probably here for the same reason you are, looking for anyone named Gant.”
“But why would you be looking for them?”
“The disappearance of Blue Steele, the father, not the daughter, officially it’s an open case, and agent Burke here was one of the investigators handling it at the time, when I told him about this lead, flimsy as it is, he jumped at the chance to investigate it.”
“And you came all this way just to help him?”
Burke slid an arm around Ramos’ waist.
“We’re more than just fellow agents.”
“I see,” Jessica said. “Well, if we find out anything that can help you, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
“You do that,” Burke said. “And it’s been nice meeting you two.”
And with those words, he and Ramos left the lobby.
Jessica looked up at her husband.
“What was that about? I can’t believe that her being here is just a coincidence. I wonder if we’re being investigated.”
He shook his head.
“It’s not an investigation, this feels personal; I think it’s why they’re being so blatant about their interest in us.”
“I’ll have Carly look into Agent Burke’s background, I didn’t like the way he was eyeing you.”
“Yes, do that, but let’s get settled in here, and then after we have lunch, I want to drive into Bel Rey and look around.”
***
Outside the hotel, Ramos sat talking to Burke in her rented car.
“So, what did you think of him?”
“He’s got the eyes of a killer, I’ll give you that, but do you really think he’s capable of what we suspect? Most of what we have on them comes from just one source.”
“Of him, I have no doubts, but I do have trouble believing that Jessica could be a part of it, then again, those two are inseparable. How do you want to play this, Ethan?”
“We wait and watch and see what happens. If it feels right, we approach them.”
“All right, and if they refuse our offer, then what?”
Burke let loose a long, slow breath,
“Then, then we may have some hard choices to make.”
CHAPTER 19
The tiny coastal town of Bel Rey, California was doomed to never becoming a tourist town for two reasons. One was rocks, while many beaches along the California coastline had rocky shores, the stretch of beach in Bel Rey was by far the rockiest. Huge boulders spotted the shore and radiated outward for nearly a hundred feet into the water, making swimming not only unfeasible, but also dangerous. Add to this the fact that the beach was barely more than a narrow strip of sand backed up to a wall of rock that blocked the sun for most of the day, and the Bel Rey tourist dollars came mostly from the odd fisherman willing to take a chance among the water’s shifting currents.
The town’s population was listed at a dismal 484, which seemed optimistic once one drove about the area. The town of Bel Rey seemed to be no more than a bedroom community for the nearest city, and after talking with town officials and long-time residents, they could still find no one who remembered anyone by the name of Gant living in the vicinity.
It wasn’t until they were talking to the operator of the docks that they got any indication that something in Bel Rey might not be what it seemed. There actually were no “docks” per se, but rather a single long, elevated wooden platform that jutted far out into the water, in order to avoid the rocks. At the end of the dock, near the base of its ladder, was a speedboat, and as the manager of the dock talked to them, he stared out at it often.
“You’re sure you’ve never met anyone named Gant living here?” Jessica asked the man.
“Yeah, I’m sure,”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Just my whole life, now, is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, but thank you for your time,”
“All right then, now let me get back to work.”
As they walked away, Jessica whispered to her husband.
“He certainly seemed nervous,”
“Yes, but I don’t think it was because of us, he seemed worried by whoever was in that speedboat.”
“So where do you want to go next?”
“Let’s go back to the hotel. I think this trip is a dead end.”
***
As they left, the owner of the speedboat talked to the dockworker. He was a tough looking man wearing a ski parka.
“What did those two want, boy?”
“Nothing, Daddy, they were just looking for someone named Gant.”
“Let me know if they come back.”
“Why?”
“If they come back, that means that they know something, and if they know something, they’re dead.”
“I’ll keep an eye out, Daddy.”
“You do that.”
***
After having a surprisingly good dinner at a local steakhouse, they went back to their hotel and had drinks in the bar. They both wondered if Ramos and Burke would make an appearance, but no, the two FBI Agents seemed to have lost their trail.
Jessica’s phone rang.
“It’s Carly,” she said.
“Hello, Doctor, I have that information you asked for, I’m sending it to both of your phones... now.”
“Thanks, Carly, and we’re still on for dinner next week, right?”
“Yes, I mean that is... if it’s all right with your husband?”
“He’s looking forward to it,” Jessica said with a smile on her lips.
“Good, then I’ll see you next week, Doctor, goodbye.”
Jessica ended the call and found her husband staring at her.
“You’ve invited her to the house for dinner?”
“Yes, her and this new boyfriend of hers. You might like him; he’s into robotics and graduated from MIT.”
“They sound like quite a pair.”
They were in a corner booth of the bar, and after ordering another round of drinks, they studied the information that Carly had gathered concerning Burke and Ramos. Four paragraphs down, they came to a sentence that made them both jerk their heads up from their phones.
“Burke was in charge of the task force formed to capture Sandra Jenkins?” Jessica said. “What if they caught her and she’s given him our names?”
“I don’t think they’ve captured her, that would be big news, and Sandra Jenkins never knew our full names anyway.”
“It’s a big coincidence though, no?”
“Burke hasn’t just been looking for Sandra Jenkins; he’s also been put in charge of something called the Vigilante Task Force. They track crimes perpetrated against criminals or a class of criminals and look for evidence linking them. So far, they’ve arrested and convicted three individuals for vigilantism. Ramos also worked on the task force at one time.”
“Maybe that’s why they’re interested in us?”
“I don’t doubt it, but I do wonder what their game is. If they had evidence, they would simply arrest us, not shadow us around in a vague attempt at intimidation.”
“So what do you think they’re up to?”<
br />
His face darkened as he pushed his wine glass away.
“I don’t know what they’re up to, but whatever it is, I’m not going to like it.”
***
They left the bar and went up to their room.
Once in bed, they made love, and soon after, Jessica fell asleep. However, sleep eluded her husband and after hours of looking at the ceiling, he rose and began dressing.
Jessica woke just as he was writing her a note.
“Why are you dressed?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I’m going out for a run.”
“Oh... okay,” she said, and then she faded back to sleep.
When he got to the lobby, he found it deserted, save for the night clerk at the desk. He sent the man a nod and walked out into the parking lot, where he stretched for a while before heading south along the coast road at a jog.
It was a cool night and a sharp breeze was blowing, but as his body adjusted to the run, he quickly warmed and felt the chill leave his hands.
He sped up a bit and soon he was on the outskirts of Bel Rey. He decided to run the length of the tiny town before turning and heading back to the hotel, but as he was passing the gravel road that led to the dock, a light flashed from out in the ocean, and he stopped his running to take a closer look, and walk down the path.
Nothing,
Perhaps it had just been the lights of a passing ship; still, it seemed too close to the jagged coastline for a ship to wander.
He was about to turn away when he saw the light again, and this time he could make out the silhouette of a boat at the base of its glow. He capped his eyes with his hands to block out the moonlight and stared at the spot where he’d seen the light. As his eyes adjusted, he could just make out a cylindrical shape sitting up out of the water, with what looked like a boat at its side. As he kept watch, he saw the suitcase-sized packages fall from the top of the object in a rhythmic pattern to assumedly land in the boat.
It was three a.m. and out at sea there were people transferring packages from one vessel to another, and as improbable as it seemed, one of the vessels appeared to be a submarine.
Drug smugglers, He thought. Rich drug smugglers at that, given the fact that they can afford their own submarine.
“Daddy thought you might come back snooping around,”
The voice came from behind him and he spun to face its owner; it was the same man that he and Jessica had talked with earlier. The man looked like a trucker, a trucker with a rifle in his hands. He was less than five feet away and had the rifle pointed at his chest.
“Hands up, mister,”
After looking the man over, he gestured at the rifle.
“Put that thing down now, or I’ll make sure that your charges include attempted murder.”
“Huh?”
“I said put the gun down,” he then looked past the man’s left shoulder. “Agent Alvarez! Give me a hand with this yokel.”
The man flicked his head to the left for just an instant, but it was enough.
He hit the ground and rolled beneath the rifle’s barrel, to bowl the man over at the ankles.
The gun clattered to the ground as the man fell atop him.
The guy was a brute and fought like one, and yet, he was devoid of skill, and so it took only five seconds for him to get the man in a headlock and four seconds after that, he heard the fatal snap of his neck.
As the body fell from his grasp, he reached out and grabbed the rifle, and discovered that it was an ancient Winchester. The rifle, a .22 with a pump action slide had to be a hundred years old. He checked it and found that it held only one shell. As he was about to check the body for more ammunition, he heard the voice.
“Joey, quit makin’ all that noise and keep watch. Joey?”
The voice came from farther down the path, and the only thing that saved him from being spotted was a cloud passing in front of the moon. He bent down into a crouch and hurried behind the nearest tree, where he lay flat, with the rifle at the ready.
A shape appeared, but then grew more distinct as the cloud moved away. The new man was maybe a few years older than the man he had killed and looked enough like him to be a brother. He was carrying a gun, and from the size of it, he thought it might be a Desert Eagle. It wasn’t until the man nearly stepped on the body that he noticed it.
“Joey? Oh hell, Joey, what happened to you? Joey?”
Trying to sneak up on the man was risky, as his right side faced him. He thought of taking a shot, but knew that it would only bring any others around running to the scene. In the end, he decided to let the man go, and hoped that he would run off to get help.
KA POW!
The man fired his gun off to warn the others in his group that there was trouble. In most cases, this would have been a wiser action than running off to get help; in this case, however, it was fatal.
KA PUUW!
The old rifle proved to have quite a kick and the projectile it spit out took the top of the man’s head off.
He scrambled over while keeping low and picked the gun up from where it had fallen. He had been right; it was a .50 Desert Eagle, black, with a six-inch barrel. He dropped the now useless rifle and kept the gun in his hand.
He ran up the graveled road at a jog while keeping eyes and ears wide open. He was just about to step out onto the highway, when he saw the two men come out of the bushes on the other side of the road. He turned, thinking to head back towards the dock and then lose them in the trees, but the sound of trampling feet came from the graveled path, and from the sound, it was at least three people.
He brought to mind the map of the area that he had perused prior to the trip. To his right lay a narrow stretch of forest that dead-ended amid the rocky coast, to his left, more forest, but that ever-widening swath of trees ended in a rock wall, with the ocean on one side and a valley on the other, but beyond that lay another town, and safety.
He took off at a sprint to his left, convinced that the only thing that would save him would be to outrun his pursuers. Thankfully, the moon was cooperating and he could see well enough to navigate through the fir trees.
He knew how it would go down behind him. First, the two groups would meet and the men from the bushes would learn of their colleagues’ deaths. Next, someone would curse in anger and swear to see him dead, then, they would go in search of their leader, or if he were among them, take time to listen to what he had to say.
That was good. All that natural human behavior bought him much needed time, time to put distance between them, and time to send out a warning. He hunkered behind a thick tree and brought out his phone.
She answered after the fourth ring, in a sleepy voice.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, now listen, there’s trouble in Bel Rey.”
“What?”
“I know you’ve just woken up, but I need you wide awake now, baby.”
“I’m awake. I’m good. Tell me, what’s wrong?”
He told her what had happened, by the time he was done, she was bright-eyed.
“I’ll come get you.”
“No, it’s too dangerous. I’ll make my way back to you; besides, I’m on the run here.”
“Ramos! She and Burke are staying in the hotel. I’ll find them and tell them what’s happened.”
“Do that. Now I’ve got to go. Be careful.”
“How many men are after you?”
“At least five,”
“Oh God,”
“I made you a promise earlier, remember?”
“That you would never leave me,”
“And I intend to keep it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too... goodbye.”
He put the phone away and began running.
CHAPTER 20
Nearly an hour later, as he neared the end of the woods and could see open space in the distance, he began to wonder if his pursuers had given up on him, or if he had somehow lost them completely.
That�
�s when he saw the headlights behind him.
A vehicle, possibly a jeep, was crisscrossing between the trees, bouncing over fallen logs and branches and coming after him with a zeal that bordered on suicidal. One miscue by the driver would either ram the vehicle into a tree or off into a ditch.
This told him something. Whoever was driving that jeep wanted him more than anything.
He didn’t know if he’d been spotted and figured it didn’t really matter since the madman in the jeep wouldn’t stop until he ran out of room to drive, and attempting to hide among the trees would be foolishness, as the man’s friends could then take their time weeding him out.
He cleared the trees and felt naked beneath the unfiltered moonlit, as the sound of the engine grew closer. To his right was a sandy slope of rock that led down to the water’s edge, while to his left lay a long field of mud and sand.
He kept running straight ahead, climbing higher along the edge of the cliff, as the field on his left morphed into a rocky plain and sloped downward at a precipitant angle. He needed to move to the end of the cliff, where the trees began again, and past that, the town.
He made it to the crest just as the shot sounded. The bullet chipped off a piece of the rock wall well below his position and he knew that he was beyond his pursuer’s range, at least for the time being.
A man stood beside the now parked jeep. His silhouette, amidst the gloom of night was tall and broad. He was wearing a parka with a hood and the shape of a rifle was in his right hand. The man, once manic to catch up to him, now stood in a serene manner, as if he were waiting for something to happen.
A sound came to his ears then, as if something were scraping over the rocky path he had just run upon. He squinted, trying to pierce the fresh gloom as a cloud passed over and blocked the moonlight, and if the dog hadn’t growled before leaping, it surely would have ripped his throat out.
He managed to raise a protective arm just in time and the pit bull sank its teeth deep into the muscles of his forearm, causing him to drop the gun and cry out in pain.
Even as he brought his other hand up to fend off the dog, he realized that he was off balance and falling backwards into the rocky field below.
The TAKEN! Series - Books 1-4 (Taken! Box Set) Page 19