Kathleen Creighton
Kincaids Dangerous Game
The sixth book in the Taken series, 2009
Dear Reader,
If youve read my books before, you may have noticed a certain continuing theme. The romance is always first, of course, and then the suspensebut at the bottom of it all, what my books are really about is family. It isnt hard to figure out why. My own family is so precious to me and has played such an important part in shaping who I am.
When it comes to family, as Kincaid might say, we dont get to choose the hand were dealt. But for better or worse, our families make us who we are.
And so we come to the last chapter in the series THE TAKEN. Need I tell you this is the book in which Corys shattered family is finally reunited? I hope youve enjoyed this series as much as Ive enjoyed writing it and sharing my deep and abiding love of family with you.
With warmest wishes,
Kathleen Creighton
For my family,
near and far;
I love you,
eccentricities, skeletons and all.
Prologue
In a house on the shores of a small lake, somewhere in South Carolina
Poundingthats always the first thing. Someone-my father-is banging on the door. Bangingpoundingwith his fists, feet, I dont know. Trying to break it down.
And where are you?
Im in a bedroom, I think. I dont remember which one. I have the little ones with me. Its my job to look after them when my father is having one of hisspells. I have to keep them out of his way. Keep them safe. Ive taken them into the bedroom and Ive locked the door. ExceptI dont trust the lock, so Ive wedged a chair under the handle, like my mom showed me. Only now Im afraidterrified even that wont be enough. I can hear the wood splinteringbreaking. I know it will only take a few more blows and hell be through. My mother is screamingcrying. I hold on to the little ones. I have my arms around them, and theyre all trembling. The twins, the little girls, are sobbing and crying, Mama, Mama but the boys just cry quietly.
I hear sirensmore sirens, getting louder and louder until it seems theyre coming right into the room, and theres lots of people shouting. Then all of a sudden the pounding stops. Theres a moment-several minutes-when all I hear is the little ones whimperingand then, theres a loud bang, so loud we all jump. We hold each other tighter, and theres another bang, and then theres just confusion-voices shoutingfootsteps runningglass breakingthe little ones cryingand I think I might be crying, too.
Cory discovered he was crying, but he also knew it was all right. He was all right. Sam, his wife, was holding him tightly, cradling his head against her breasts, and her hands were gentle as they wiped the tears from his face.
Im going to find them, Sam. My brothers and sisters. I have to find them.
Samantha felt warm moisture seep between her lashes. Of course you do. She lifted her head and took her husbands face between her hands and smiled fiercely at him through her tears. Well find them together, Pearse, she whispered. Well find them. I promise you we will.
In a diner in a small town in the Texas Hill Country
I never thought it would happen, Cory said to Holt Kincaid over steak and eggs at the diner. Not to Tony. Hes always beenwell, lets just say, hes somewhat of a ladys man. I didnt think hed ever find
The one? Holt lifted one eyebrow. Whos to say theres a one for everybody? Maybe some people just dont have one to find.
Like you, for instance? Corys eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he picked up his coffee cup. Whats your story, Holt? I sense there is one-probably a helluva one, too.
Holt smiled sardonically but didnt reply.
After a moment Cory said, So. What about my other sister? You said her names Brenna, right? Where is she and when can I meet her?
Holt let out a breath and pushed his plate away. It was the moment hed been dreading. Thats gonna be a problem.
Why? What problem? You said the twins were adopted together, grew up in the same family. Surely theyve stayed in touch. Brooke must know-
I wish that were true. Holt picked up his coffee and blew on it, stalling for time. But there was no way around it. It looked like he was going to have to be the one to break the news that would devastate the man sitting across from him. Never mind that hed found three of his lost siblings-two brothers and now one of his sisters. The task wouldnt be complete until hed found the last one as well.
Mr. Pearson, Im sorry to have to tell you, but Brenna ran away from home when she was just fourteen. Brooke hasnt seen or heard from her since. He spread his hands in utter defeat. I have absolutely no clue where she is. Or even where to start looking.
Chapter 1
Holt Kincaid was no stranger to insomnia. Hed been afflicted with bouts of it since childhood, and had learned long ago not to fight it. Consequently, hed grown accustomed to whiling away the long late-night or early-morning hours catching up on paperwork, going over notes from whatever case he was working on, knowing that what he didnt pursue would come to him on its own, eventually.
Not this time.
The only case he was working at the moment-the only one that mattered, anyway-was at a dead standstill. The paperwork had been done. Hed been over his notes a hundred times. There was nothing more to be gleaned from them.
Over the course of his career as a private investigator specializing in missing persons cases-the cold ones in particular-hed had to admit defeat only once. That one failure was the case responsible for a lot of the insomnia hed suffered for most of his life, and the idea that he might have to add this one to the roster of his regrets weighed heavily on his mind. Sleep wouldnt come to him this night, no matter how coyly he played her flirting game.
Laurel Canyon was quiet now. Thered been sirens earlier, prompting him, as a longtime resident, to pause and sniff the air for the smell of smoke. But the cause this time-a traffic-stopping fender bender on the boulevard-had been cleared up hours ago. An onshore breeze rustled the leaves of the giant eucalyptus trees that soared above his deck, but in a friendly way, last weeks Santa Anas being only a bad memory now. Late-October rains had laid the threat of brush fires low for the time being.
Holt had come to be a resident of the notorious Santa Monica Mountain community by happenstance rather than choice, but over the years it had grown on him. Hed found it suited him, with its shady past, the steep and narrow winding dead-end streets and pervasive aura of mystery. The huge old eucalyptus trees and rickety stairways and ivy-covered walls guarded its secrets well. As he guarded his own.
Hed also come to embrace the canyons laid-back, live-and-let-live attitude, a holdover from the sixties when it had been the center of L.A.s rock music scene. Now as then, in Laurel Canyon the expression goin with the flow wasnt just a hippie slogan, but a way of life.
It had become his way of life: Go with the flowdont get emotionally involvedgo about your business and dont waste energy railing against things beyond your control.
Yeah. That was my mistake with this case. I got too close. Made it personal.
As with the first and still his greatest failure, hed let himself get too fogged in by emotions to see where the answers lay hidden.
Face it, Kincaid. Maybe there just arent any answers. Not in this life, anyway.
Unbidden, as if a stubborn imp in his subconsciousness had again touched Replay, the case and the events of the past year unfolded slowly in his mind, playing out against the murmur of breezes through eucalyptus trees and the intermittent shush of a passing car.
Hed taken on Cory Pearsons case for two good reasons: First, because it presented a new kind of challenge. Typically, hed be searching for a birth parent, a child given up for adoption, an abducted child long ago given up for dead by everyone except loved ones still praying for answers. But this was a man searching for four younger brothers and sisters. The children had been taken from him when they were very young by a well-meaning social services agency after their Vietnam vet father had shot his wife and then himself during a violent episode of PTSD. The four younger ones had been adopted by two different families while the oldest brother fought his way through a dismal series of foster homes and juvenile detention facilities, only to be denied access to his siblings whereabouts when he finally reached adulthood.
A sad story, for sure, but one to which Holt had felt confident he could give a happy ending. These kids had vanished into the system. Systems kept records. And Holt was very good at getting old systems and old records to give up their secrets. That was his second reason for taking on the case of Cory Pearsons lost siblings: Hed expected success.
Holt didnt take on hopeless cases. He already had one of those, and it was more than enough.
Things had gone about as expected, at first. After months of tedious detective work, hed finally gotten a line on the oldest boy, now working as a homicide detective in Portland, Oregon. The timing hadnt been great. Cory had dropped into his brothers life in the middle of a case involving a serial killer and had very nearly been mistaken for the killer himself. Thanks to a drop-dead gorgeous blond psychic whod been helping out with the investigation, everything had turned out fine in the end, and the psychic-or empath, as she preferred to call herself-had recently become Cory Pearsons sister-in-law.
Corys reunion with one brother was followed immediately, and without any further help from Holt, by the second. Finding his younger brother paralyzed as a result of a climbing accident, Coryd been determined to bring him back to the life and the woman hed loved and left. After epic battles with a wild river and a deranged killer, he and his wife, Sam, had been successful.
Two down, Holt had thought then. Two to go.
It hadnt been a piece of cake, but eventually hed tracked down one of the twin girls. And again, his timing had been lousy-or, he supposed, depending on how you looked at it, fortuitous. Hed arrived in the womans Texas Hill Country town to check her out only to find his clients baby sister had just been arraigned on charges of murdering her ex-husband-with the aid of a pet cougar, no less. Since both Cory and Sam had been on assignment and unreachable, Holt had called on Corys best friend, a well-known part-Native American photojournalist named Tony Whitehall.