Taken! 13-18 (Donald Wells' Taken! Series)

by Donald Wells

“There’s no need to fight, we were just leaving.”

  He looked at Maggie.

  “Jessica’s right, but we’ll be back tomorrow, honey.”

  Maggie stood on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Goodbye... Brother,”

  ***

  They decided against taking the drive home and stayed at a nearby hotel, and as they ate in the hotel’s restaurant, they discussed their day.

  Jessica sat her fork down and took his hand.

  “I want to apologize to you.”

  “For what?”

  “There were a few times over the years when I nagged you about reconnecting with your mother, but after meeting her I see that staying away was the right thing to do. That woman is toxic, and she seems to delight in tearing you down.”

  “I don’t regret not seeing her, but I wish that I had known about Maggie. I have a sister; that was worth discovering that Jeffrey Mitchell was my brother.”

  “Maggie seems like a sweetie, no matter how this turns out, I think we should stay in contact with her.”

  “Absolutely,”

  “Your mother may object to that.”

  “Yes, but I think I know a way around that.”

  “Let me guess, more money?”

  “It seems to be all she wants from me,” he said, and Jessica could hear the pain in his voice.

  ***

  The next day, they went to the bank and withdrew money; however, they didn’t return to the house until late the following afternoon. They wanted to make certain to see Maggie again and she was no doubt in school all day.

  When they arrived, he parked in front of the house, and before he had even shut off the engine, Maggie flew out the door to greet them.

  “You came back!”

  “We said we would,” Jessica said.

  Maggie shrugged.

  “People say a lot of things.”

  His mother called from the doorway.

  “Maggie, you go away to your friend Katie’s house for a while. I need to talk to these two.”

  “Alright, Mom, but I want to see them before they leave, okay?”

  “Don’t get used to these two; you’ll probably never see them again.”

  “But Mom, he’s my brother,”

  “It’s best to leave some people alone, baby; now you two come on in and let’s settle things.”

  ***

  They sat in the living room. On the coffee table was another bottle of Scotch and a glass with ice in it.

  His mother stared at him.

  “You got the money?”

  Jessica opened her purse and took out a thick envelope; she then opened the flap and showed his mother the money inside.

  “Hand it here.”

  “First the information, and then you get the money.”

  His mother grabbed the bottle and poured.

  “Tell me what you want to know?”

  He opened his mouth to ask a question, but Jessica beat him to it.

  “First thing, who is his mother; it’s certainly not you.”

  He turned his head and stared at Jessica.

  “What? She’s not my mother?”

  “Your wife is right, but tell me something, girly, how’d you figure that out?”

  “Because of Maggie, she’s obviously well cared for, loved even, but that’s because she’s yours.”

  “If you’re not my mother, then who is she?”

  “Your mother was a woman named Amanda Powers. We grew up together, that is, until my daddy moved us out of Texas when I was twelve.”

  “Powers, Amanda Powers from Texas, where is she now?”

  “Hell if I know, boy, she showed up here with you and that brother of yours when you were just little things. She was on the run from your father.”

  “What’s my father’s name?”

  His mother shook her head.

  “Uh-uh, for that, I want at least half of that money now.”

  Jessica tossed the envelope at her.

  “Here, now you tell my husband what he wants to know or I’ll make you eat that money.”

  His mother appeared shocked, but then she laughed.

  “You two belong together, that’s for sure. Gant, your daddy’s name is Billy Gant, and he’s the devil incarnate, that is, if he’s still alive, but last I heard, he was dead.”

  “Why would my mother leave me with you? Why wouldn’t she have left Jeffrey here too?”

  “She paid me to take you in, said she’d make sure I got a check every month, and damn if I didn’t, for a while anyway.”

  “When did the checks stop coming?” Jessica said.

  “Oh, I guess it was right around his twelfth birthday. When they stopped, I figured that Billy finally caught up with her.”

  “If all you wanted was money, then why didn’t you take in Jeffrey too?”

  “I tried, she said no, that she needed to separate you, that way, it would be harder for Billy to track you down.”

  “Billy Gant, why do you call him the Devil?”

  “Because he was a Gant and they’re all devils. The Gants have been horse thieves, murderers, and rapists, as far back as you can count. The Devil’s in you, boy, but then, you already know that, don’t you?”

  He hung his head and stared at the floor.

  “I’m not a bad man, Mom. I... feel things, have thoughts sometimes, but I’ll never be like my father.”

  “You can’t fight nature, boy, you are what you are.”

  Jessica reached into her purse and took out a notebook and a pen.

  “I want you to write down everything you know about Amanda Powers and Billy Gant, everything, but first, tell me, how much of this does Maggie know?”

  A look of fear crossed his mother’s face.

  “She don’t know nothing about any of this. As far as she knows, he’s her half-brother, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t tell her about this would you, about me being paid to take him in?”

  “No, we won’t tell her, no more than we would tell her that you’re extorting money out of us right now.”

  “I’m not... just don’t tell my girl nothing, okay?”

  “We want to keep seeing her?”

  “Why?”

  “She’s my sister,” he said.

  “You two ain’t related.”

  “She doesn’t know that, and related or not, we have, had, the same mother,”

  “I don’t want you seeing her.”

  “It won’t be often," he said. "We’ll mostly keep in touch by phone, but we want to make sure that she’s alright, living with an alcoholic parent isn’t the easiest thing in the world.”

  “I ain’t no alcoholic.”

  “Sure,”

  “If I don’t let you see her then you’ll tell her about how I took money, won’t you?”

  “She doesn’t ever need to know about that.”

  She stared at both of them, as her grip on the envelope grew tighter.

  “Stay in touch, but whenever you visit I want to be around.”

  “Fine, now write down what you know.”

  ***

  As they stood to leave, he handed his mother a business card.

  “What’s this?”

  “That’s the phone number of a general contractor. His name is Ray and he’s going to come by on Saturday and take a look at what needs to be done to restore this place, but I can tell by the stains on the ceiling that your roof leaks.”

  “A new roof? I can’t afford that, not even with the money you gave me.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re paying for it. I don’t want Maggie living in a dump.”

  His mother looked back and forth at them.

  “Are you serious? You’ll pay to have this place fixed?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Thank you, for Maggie, thank you,”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Outside, a horn began blowing incessantly.

  His mother made a pained expression.

&nbs
p; “I bet it’s that asshole, Tony. You parked in his spot again.”

  “It’s not his spot.”

  “Tell him that.”

  He grinned. “I think I will.”

  When they went outside, they found Tony Hicks pacing in front of their car. When Hicks spotted him, he pointed and called him by a very unflattering name.

  He walked up to Hicks.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem? No buddy, you’re the one with the problem. I warned you not to park in my damn space.”

  “It’s not your space. It belongs to my mother and sister.”

  “The fuck you say, I’ve been parking here for six years.”

  “That’s over. From now on, you park somewhere else, anywhere else but here.”

  “Park somewhere—” Hicks turned around and smiled at his men. “Do you believe this guy?” A moment later, Hicks swiveled back around and threw a punch at his head.

  He avoided the blow easily and landed a right uppercut on Hick’s jaw. The blow sent Hicks backwards and he banged off the side of their car and slid to the sidewalk. One of Hick’s men came charging at him and he smashed him in the face with a roundhouse kick. The man went down in a spray of blood to lay on the ground, moaning.

  When he looked over at the other two men, they backed up with their hands in the air while shaking their heads.

  Hicks made it to his feet and put his hands up. He sent a straight jab into the man’s face and he slid back down to the sidewalk.

  He bent down and spoke to him.

  “Never park in front of this house again, or I’ll be back, understand?”

  Hicks spoke through a puffy, bloody lip.

  “Fuck you,”

  He reached out and placed a hand on the back of the man’s neck and, an instant later, Hicks went rigid with pain as he cried out. When Hicks raised an arm to push him away, he gripped a nerve cluster in his wrist and Hicks screamed louder. He kept applying pressure until Jessica placed a hand on his shoulder.

  He then released Hicks and asked him a question.

  “Where are you going to park?”

  Hicks answered with labored breath. “Anywhere, but, here,”

  “Or I’ll be back.”

  “No, no need, anywhere but here, you’re right, it’s your spot.”

  “Get out of here.”

  With an effort, Hicks made it to his feet and stumbled over to the man that had been kicked in the face.

  “What’s going on?”

  He turned to find Maggie walking towards him.

  “It’s okay, honey, just a little problem with the neighbors.”

  Maggie looked over at Hicks and smiled.

  “You kicked his ass, didn’t you?”

  “Maggie! Don’t use that word.”

  Maggie glanced over at her mother.

  “Yes ma’am,”

  Jessica kissed her on the cheek.

  “We have to go now, honey, but we’ll call you soon and you call us whenever you want.”

  “Okay.”

  Maggie hugged first Jessica and then her brother.

  As he opened his door to climb in the car, he looked up at his mother, who was standing on the porch with Maggie.

  “Goodbye Mom,”

  “Goodbye boy, and you be good now, you hear?”

  He nodded.

  “I hear.”

  Then, he got in the car and drove away.

  TAKEN! 16 – PURE EVIL

  Samantha Ryan was six-years-old, and like most six-year-olds, she liked games. However, the games she liked to play were people, people to her were games, things to play with, manipulate, and ultimately discard.

  She’s played her current game for weeks, ever since she realized that he was watching her.

  His name was Mr. Severs, he was the local handyman, and her parents called him whenever anything broke around the house. Things were breaking quite often. Samantha made sure of that.

  Severs wasn’t very bright, but he knew how to fix most things found in a home and had been doing so since he was a boy working alongside his father.

  This time, it was the bathroom light that needed fixing.

  Yesterday, Samantha carried the stepstool over to the electrical panel in the garage and flipped the switch marked Bathroom. Afterwards, she went upstairs, climbed atop the bathroom vanity, and used her mother’s scissors to cut a red wire on the light fixture.

  She learned how to do these things by watching home repair videos on the computer. Like many modern children, she’s learned most of what she knows from the TV and the computer.

  Her father could have easily solved the problem if he were handy, but he was not handy in the least and far too busy for such things, and so they called Jerry, Mr. Severs, to have him fix-it.

  Her mother opened the door and Mr. Severs agreed that, “Yes ma’am, you folks have been keepin’ me busy lately,” and then her mother led him to the upstairs bathroom.

  As they walked along, Samantha followed behind, and Severs turned and looked back at her often. She answered his glances with a sweet smile.

  When they reached the bathroom, she told her mother that she was going to go to her room and play with her dolls.

  When she heard her mother go back down the stairs and into the kitchen, she came out of her room and walked over to Severs.

  “Did you bring it?” she asked, and her voice was as sweet as her cherub-cheeked face.

  Severs nodded, opened his toolbox, and removed an unloaded .22 gun.

  “I can’t let you have this,” he said.

  She pouted.

  “But we had a deal. You give me that and I’ll let you see.”

  Severs licked his lips nervously.

  “You’ll let me see everything?”

  She nodded, before lifting the side of her dress up to her hip, to reveal the fact that she was not wearing anything beneath it.

  Severs started to sweat and reached out to touch her.

  “If you touch me I’ll scream. Give me the gun and then I’ll show you the rest.”

  Severs thrust the gun in her hand and she smiled at the acquisition of new power.

  “Let me see,” Severs said hoarsely, “Let me see you naked.”

  Little Samantha shrugged and began unbuttoning her dress, before stepping out of it and standing before Mr. Severs in just her socks and shoes.

  She let out a giggle as she took in the look on Severs’ face and then watched in fascination as he thrust his hand inside his pants.

  “What are you doing?”

  Severs didn’t answer, he seemed to be busy rubbing himself.

  “You like what you see, don’t you?” Samantha said.

  A few months ago, while playing in the yard, she caught the meter reader spying on her mother through the bathroom window, watching her shower. He had the same glazed look on his face then as Mr. Severs did now; the man had also been rubbing himself the same way. Samantha filed all this away to be used in future games.

  She turned, bent over to pick up her dress, and Severs groaned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He said, "Nothing," but it came out as a croaking sound, and he trembled a bit.

  Samantha shrugged again, buttoned up her dress and went to her room to hide the gun alongside a box of bullets that she had stumbled across and stolen from a neighbor’s closet. When she came out of her room, she saw Severs leaving the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to turn the power off before I can fix the light.”

  “Daddy did that this morning.”

  “Really?” Severs said, then he took a volt reader out of his toolbox and tested the wire. “You’re right, it’s off. Hey, what did you do with the gun?”

  “I hid it so Mommy wouldn’t see it.”

  “Oh, alright, but I need that back before I leave, okay?”

  “I know.”

  “Um, listen, about our little deal, you don’t tell anybody about that or
we’ll both be in big trouble, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Can we do it again? I could bring you something else, maybe fireworks, do you like fireworks?”

  “Next time I’ll let you see for free.”

  “Really?”

  Samantha smiled sweetly as she nodded her head.

  “You’re a very beautiful girl, Samantha, do you know that?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, and then she went downstairs and into the kitchen.

  Her mother greeted her with a smile.

  “How are you doing, baby?”

  “I’m good, Mommy. Can I go outside and play?”

  “Sure baby, but stay in the yard, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Samantha went out the back door, but then walked around to the front of the house and entered the door that led to the attached garage. She carried the stepstool over to the circuit board and flipped on the switch marked, Bathroom.

  The panel let out a blue spark the very moment that Mr. Severs’ scream reached her.

  She let out a giggle as she closed the panel door and after returning the stepstool to its rightful place, she walked back to the yard and climbed on top of the sliding board.

  Two minutes passed before her mother appeared in the doorway, she was pale and looked as if she’d been crying.

  “Samantha.”

  “Yes Mommy?”

  “You stay out here and play until Mommy comes to get you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t come in the house for a while, baby,”

  “I won’t.”

  Her mother sent her a weak smile. “That’s a good girl.”

  The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, followed by a police car.

  Samantha watched from behind a hedge as they loaded Mr. Severs' body onto the ambulance, but lost interest before it had even driven away.

  She wandered back into the yard and sat upon a bench, happily swinging her little legs to and fro as she thought about the gun, and all the new games that she could play with it.

  Because, as everyone knows, all the best games are played with guns,

  ***

  They were in South Carolina.

  Five people had been killed and the ballistics proved that the same .22 gun had fired all the shots.

  Jessica was consulting on the case at the request of an old college friend. Her name was Dr. Juliet Hamden and she was herself a consultant brought in by the FBI.

  They were sitting inside a conference room at a suburban police station. The murders had all taken place in or around a small section of the normally sedate town and the community was on edge at the sudden outpouring of violence and death.