The Taker

By Robin Acton

Pittsburgh crime reporter Rita Locke risks her career and her life after the pre-teen daughter of her former police detective boyfriend is abducted. She joins forces with the girl’s father to stop the kidnapper, but will they find him before he takes his next victim?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robin Acton
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005783785

Robin Acton

As an award winning journalist, Robin Acton covered crime and criminals for decades. The Taker is her debut novel.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Lindy had ridden only four blocks from home when she saw the black van parked at the curb, windshield wipers running, a plume of smoke rising from its tailpipe. She slowed as she pedaled past it, her long chestnut hair and pink t-shirt dripping from the sudden rain that pounded the tree-lined streets of her neighborhood. As she passed the passenger side door, the window slid halfway down, and a man smiled out at her.

Hey honey, do you want a ride? You’re getting soaked. Boy, this storm came out of nowhere, didn’t it? I could put your bike in the back, the man called, leaning over the space between the bucket seats. I’m on my way downtown to pick up my little sister.

She hesitated for a moment. She knew this was wrong. No talking to strangers, never accept a ride from anyone. Her mother drilled it, time and again. Still, she reached back to feel the soggy, purple-flowered quilting on her new backpack and reconsidered his offer because it was nine more blocks to the library, her mom was at work, and the used book sale ended in a few hours. She was drenched.

What could it hurt, just this once?

Mom will never know.

Thanks, she said. Water trickled from her bangs onto her forehead as she nodded.

He jumped out and loaded her bicycle into the back as she climbed up into the passenger seat, a crackled gray imitation leather littered with crumbs. She sniffed the stale air inside the vehicle and smelled motor oil and traces of old food, and then turned in her seat to look back into the van at her bike. Wrenches, jumper cables, a bent hubcap, and some rusty hand tools rattled around in a dirty cardboard box on the floor next to it as he shifted the van into drive and moved away from the curb. Maybe this wasn’t a great idea after all. She hoped the paint wouldn’t get scratched.

He was plain, with thinning brown hair that reached his collar. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed his dirty fingernails and grease-stained jeans, but he was friendly, and smiling, when he started to talk with exaggerated politeness. I’m Mike. And your name, pretty lady? Just who do I have the pleasure of driving to wherever it is you’re going on this lovely wet day?

She relaxed and forgot all about her bike. Giggling, she played along with his joke. He didn’t look that old, maybe twenty-five or thirty, and he seemed cool. I’m Lindy. I’m going to the library to meet my best friend, Rea, for the Dollar Days sale.

He shifted to normal conversation. Oh, you’re a reader. That’s good. How old are you?

I’m twelve. I’m in sixth grade this year.

Okay, I figured you look like you’re just about my sister’s age. Bree’s thirteen, a year ahead of you. She’s been in Ohio with our grandma for a couple of years, but she just moved back to Pennsylvania to stay with me and go to school here. He stared ahead. Our parents died in an accident, so she’s been pretty sad.

She hesitated, unsure as to what to say because she didn’t know anyone with dead parents. Divorced, yes, like hers were, but not dead and buried, so just the thought of being without her mother made her feel sad for the girl she’d never met.

Geez, I’m sorry. We’re friends with some of the older kids so we could ask them to show her around. We’ll all eat lunch with her, too, so she won’t be alone.

She chattered about her friends and boasted that her mom working overtime that Saturday meant she could do whatever she wanted until at least four o’clock. On top of that, she had ten dollars to spend on books.

He nodded, still smiling. The van rolled toward a traffic light that turned from green to yellow to red.

###

A minute later, he stepped on the gas to get them moving again. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she continued talking.

Rea should already be there. The other kids tease us and call us bookworms sometimes, but we don’t care. What does Bree like to do? Does she like to read? Reading books, especially mysteries, and playing with my beagle, Petey, are my favorite things.

She reminded him so much of what he’d lost. As she rattled on, the tingling feeling in his stomach convinced him that her soft, blushing cheeks and pale blue eyes had just become his favorite things.

He decided to keep her.

Over the next two blocks, he gradually increased the van’s speed, so she grasped the door handle. When they were only a few hundred feet from the library parking lot, he swerved away from it and pressed the gas pedal as far down as it would go. The engine roared, and she slammed against the door with the sudden movement, her seatbelt forgotten in her haste to escape the rain. She fell onto the floor between the bucket seats as the van veered left and he sped away in the opposite direction from the library.

The wet straps of her backpack tangled her arms as she tried to get up, but he grabbed a thick fistful of her long hair and held her head down. Struggling, she screamed for him to stop. Owwwww! Hey, that hurt! What are you doing? Let me up!

His heart pounded with excitement as he drove faster and faster, mile after mile. He loved being a daddy, and it had been so long since he had a little girl to call his own.

###

After what seemed to her an eternity, the man stopped the van and yanked Lindy up into a sitting position, high enough so she could see they’d parked on a muddy, unpaved road flanked by tall trees. Frantic, she looked around for familiar landmarks or houses but recognized nothing that could tell her where they were. Because she’d been trapped on the floor, she had no clue as to which direction they’d traveled.

Still smiling, he clutched a fistful of hair tangled around his fingers. He held up his free hand to show her a knife with a shiny, jagged blade that made her gasp. She froze.

Please, do what I say, pretty, just do what I say.

He pulled her from between the seats onto his lap and threw the soggy backpack into the back of the van, where it landed with a rattle in the center of an old tire filled with smashed beer cans and crumpled fast food bags.

Wide-eyed, she begged him to take her home, unable to look away from the silver blade that he held only a few inches from her face. Please, don’t cut me. Just let me get my stuff and go. I won’t tell anybody. I promise.

Be quiet and listen to me. We’re just going to go for a little walk now that the rain stopped. We’re all alone out here, so do what I tell you and you won’t get hurt, okay? No screaming, no running, because no one will hear you and you won’t get far. That’s my pretty little girl.

He nuzzled her cheek, his stringy hair grazing her face. His breath reeked of garlic and bad teeth, a smell so sour she gagged and turned away. His eyes narrowed and he let out a sigh as he opened the driver’s side door, but his grip on her never loosened as he pulled her over his seat and out of the van.

Her knees shook when he dragged her onto a rugged path that took them into tall oaks and pine trees glistening with raindrops. She tried to wriggle away but he held onto her arm as they stumbled along a slippery carpet of wet leaves and gnarled roots on a path blanketed with spongy moss and toadstools. Low branches from dense bushes snapped and stung her face while tangled brambles and weeds scratched her legs and arms and snagged her shirt. As they went deeper into the woods, the area around them grew dark, the emerging sun camouflaged by lingering rain clouds, tall trees, and thick vegetation.

Breathing heavily, he stopped and tucked the knife into his pocket. They reached a clearing where a small green pop-up tent sat next to a ring of stones circling ashes littered with charred branches and blackened beer cans. A red cooler sat next to the tent opening, but other than that, all she could see was forest in every direction around the crude campsite.

What do you think? Don’t you love my cozy little camp? This is where we’re going to stay for a while. Home sweet home!

It’s not my home. I want my mom. I’m not staying here! She panicked and tried to wriggle free to run, but his grip held her tight.

"Oh, but honey, you are staying, don’t you understand? You’re my pretty little girl now."

I’m not your girl!

She pummeled him with small fists as she struggled to free herself. In her mind, she heard her father’s voice telling her to fight. When he moved in closer, she scratched his face, her fingernails drawing blood in three sharp lines down his cheek.

###

Shocked, he yelped at the pain and raised his fist in reflex, slamming her in the jaw. She fell into a heap, unconscious in the mud at his feet. He gasped and dropped to his knees. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. Oh, pretty, look what you made me do now! Didn’t Daddy tell you not to do anything stupid?

He knelt over her, shaking his head. He cupped her cheek in his hand, gently rubbing it with his thumb. It was already turning red.

Aww, now look at that. Your face is going to be bruised, and bruises don’t go with pretty dresses like the one I’m going to get for you. I always buy my girls pretty dresses.

CHAPTER TWO

Hey, Red, check this out for me, would you? Could be nothing but a runaway, but you never know when a kid goes missing.

At first, Rita Locke didn’t even glance at the state police press release her editor held out to her from two desks away. Maybe, if she appeared intent on her work, he’d give up and move on to another reporter. He stood and leaned over her desk where she hunched over her laptop, chewing potato chips she’d been pulling two at a time from a wrinkled bag buried in the mess of notebooks, yellowing newspapers, and chewed pens. He set the paper on the keyboard in front of her. Unable to avoid it, she looked down and scanned a few words.

Crap, Tom, a missing kid? Please, give me a break and give it to someone else. I’ve got too much to do already, or did you forget that my series on crime in group homes starts next week? This is probably just some spoiled brat who didn’t come home for dinner on time. You know and I know that by the time the paper comes out tomorrow, the kid will be home.

Seriously, Red, I have no one else. He gave her his most charming grin and joked, It’s not like I’m asking you to do something so trivial as a weather story.

Her shoulder-length red curls bounced as she swiveled around in her chair to look across the maze of cubicles in the newsroom for someone else to bail her out. He was right—the place was nearly empty this Saturday night, and her only options were two obituary takers, a sports reporter, and the new kid, young and straight out of college, who had yet to figure out the computer system or find his way to the men’s room. The kid crouched even lower into his chair when he noticed her looking in his direction.

Great. As if I don’t have anything better to do.

She loathed weekend shifts, but each reporter on staff had to work one Saturday or Sunday night every three months under a rule implemented by their new executive editor, a lanky, transplanted Texan who paired tooled leather cowboy boots and a bolo tie with designer suits. She knew he had no clue as to how things had always been done in Pittsburgh. Irritated, Rita snatched up the paper.

She spun around in her chair and gulped a mouthful of warm Diet Coke while she skimmed paragraphs in the press release. Her irritation vanished when she focused on the missing child’s name, and she inhaled deeply, suddenly unable to fill her lungs with adequate air. Color drained from her face and a chill ran from the base of her neck to the bottom of her spine when she read it for the second time, just to be sure.

Lindy Renee Parks. Frank’s daughter?

Rita hesitated for a moment, unsure as to what she should tell her editor. Clearly, not everything. No one, not even her mother or her best friend Kathy, knew everything. Panicked, she considered whether she should reveal just enough to convince Tom to pass the story along to someone else or whether she should remain cool, say nothing, and keep it for herself. The little voice in her head screamed caution, but she ignored it as usual. Keep it.

After all, this was Frank’s daughter.

Okay Tom, I’ve got this. Let me see what I can do.

Now, isn’t that more like the Red we all know and love? Taking one for the team, once again. Just give me a couple of inches.

As he went back to his keyboard, she cleared her laptop screen, picked up the phone, and punched in numbers while her thoughts drifted to Frank Parks. She’d met the handsome, divorced police sergeant seven years earlier when she covered a criminal court trial in one of his cases, and immediately she loved his cool blue eyes and the bulging muscles that threatened to split the sleeves of his suit jacket. She’d listened, mesmerized by his passion for justice during his day-long testimony on the witness stand. He’d apparently felt some attraction to her, too, because in the weeks that followed, he always found a reason to drop by the courtroom whenever she sat in on a trial whether he’d investigated the crime or not. They went out for several months, but their feelings for each other ended in heartbreak—hers. Worries and arguments over impropriety, or the appearance of it, ruined the relationship in its early days because they both knew that his shift commander and her editors would have been furious over a cop and a crime reporter sleeping together. If nothing else, their involvement could have resulted in a loss of public trust because of the potential conflict of interest.

Frank, who had been next in line for a promotion on the force, set his sights on becoming chief one day, so he tried to convince her to take another position when a job opened on the newspaper’s features staff. He believed it would move her away from potential conflicts and clear the way for their romance to proceed. She balked, and six years later, their last conversation still haunted her.

That kind of writing is nothing more than fluff society drivel, she’d said. I could never do it. You know I worked my way up from that kind of garbage, and now I want to write about crime and politics, do investigative stuff. That kind of demotion would damage, probably even kill, my career! I’d be bored, and what if this doesn’t work between us?

Well, you’d probably resent it, regret it, and hate me, he’d countered. Is that what you want me to say? Forget it, Red. It sounds like you’ve already made the decision that your job is more important than a relationship with me.

He walked out of her apartment and never came back. They’d spoken on the phone a few times afterward but hadn’t seen each other since. What good would it have done? She knew the outcome would have been the same.

Career first, men second. She’d held true to that mantra so many times she could almost hear her thirty-seven-year-old biological clock ticking above the noise of the newsroom police scanner. Now, though, she wondered if sacrificing her personal life for her work had been the best choice.

Should I have told him? Would it have made a difference?

She looked across the newsroom and considered what she might be doing with her weekend if she hadn’t chosen this place over him, if her life wasn’t dictated by a wannabe cowboy’s rules and pressroom deadlines. Tearing up, she squeezed her eyes shut to stop the flow and block the view she’d seen every day for more than a decade. When she opened them again, her stomach churned. Surely, it would have been something better than this. But then, anything had to be better than writing about a missing child on a Saturday night. Especially when that child belonged to Frank Parks.

He’d already buried a son. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

Rita pushed memories of Frank out of her head when the police dispatcher answered the phone. Luckily, the duty officer was an old friend who tipped her occasionally on big news stories, and he was one of the few people who knew she and Frank had been a couple.

Hey bud, it’s Red, over at the paper. What’s up with this missing girl? Is this who I think it is?

Yep, that’s Frank’s kid, he confirmed. No, I haven’t talked to him. Yes, he’s still living in Oregon. His ex-wife and kid stayed around here. Don’t ask me anything else because that’s all I know. Guys are still out on it.

Thanks. Catch you later. She hung up and turned her chair to face her editor but paused to compose her thoughts, hoping she could sound detached when she spoke.

Hey Tom, remember that cop, Parks, who moved out of the ‘burbs for a county detective job in Portland a while back?

Maybe. I don’t know. He stared at his screen for a moment before his head snapped up in recognition and he turned around. Wait, is that the guy you were mooning over for so long? The one that I wasn’t supposed to know about?

She blushed a little. They’d been so careful to be discreet. Very funny. Never mind that, it’s ancient history now. Anyway, this is his daughter. I thought the name might mean something to you because her twin brother died when they were babies, and we ran a couple pieces on the death. Parks was working graveyard shift on patrol, came home in the morning to find one kid cold and blue in the crib and mommy still dreaming with an empty wine glass sitting on the nightstand.

Ugh, that’s bad.

Yep. Remember, I covered the coroner’s inquest right after I started here? Ugly at the time, but there were no charges because it was simple crib death, not negligence. The coroner found that even though the alcohol looked bad, it wasn’t a factor because only a few ounces were missing from the bottle. Apparently, she was kind of a teetotaler, never took more than a few sips of anything. If it’s okay with you, I want to follow this. Mommy works for that moneybags over at Mosser Industries now, if I remember correctly. If somebody snatched this girl, this is huge, even more so given the fact that this is their second child.

She hated herself for sounding so cold, but she had no other choice if she wanted this story to carry her byline. If Tom suspected personal involvement, she’d be yanked off the story and there was no way she’d give it up to another reporter now that she knew the child’s identity. Never. She’d already given up more than anyone would ever know.

Go for it, Red. Another award winner, for sure. But don’t start rehearsing your Pulitzer speech yet because it could be exactly what you said and she’s a runaway. Give me a missing person brief and leave it at that until tomorrow. See if she comes back. He broke into a wide smile. That is, if you don’t mind working on Sunday?

Nope, not at all.

Who are you and what have you done with Rita Locke? I could swear she was just here a minute ago, griping about working on Saturday night.

He turned back to his computer monitor and the front-page headline he’d been struggling with for the last fifteen minutes. A few seconds later, he wheeled his chair around toward her and looked directly into her eyes. He whispered, Hey Red, seriously, if you still have a thing for Daddy, say so. I can give this to Junior back there, let him get his feet wet. He’s ducked behind his computer long enough.

She shook her head, tossing her curls. Nah, I’m good. Water under the bridge. Just remember, I could be working on my series, so you owe me.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. You, my ex-wife, the IRS. Get in line.

###

During the next hour, Rita polished off the chips while gathering information and making calls. A man answered Lee Ann Parks’ home phone and declined comment. When Frank’s phone went straight to voicemail, she wiped grease from her fingers with a crumpled napkin she’d found in a desk drawer and searched through the paper’s electronic library, occasionally jotting down notes from her coverage of the coroner’s inquest and a brief on his departure for Oregon.

She knew he’d left the area almost five years ago, not long after he learned he wasn’t the top candidate in his department’s search for a new chief. She was disappointed in him for leaving his daughter, but not surprised at his desire for an upward career move, even if it meant moving so far away. However, she was stunned when she found a society column notice that announced his marriage to an event planner.

She checked the date of the ceremony: a year after they’d broken up. How did she not hear about that? He obviously didn’t mourn the end of their relationship the way she did, but maybe he would have, if he’d known.

Rita unlocked the door of her Jeep in the newspaper’s parking lot and slid into the driver’s seat just as her cell phone rang. By the time she felt around and found it on the bottom of her overstuffed satchel, it had rung four times, but she managed to answer before the call went to voicemail.

Is this Rita Locke? This is Lee Ann Parks.

Yes, thanks for calling me back Mrs. Parks. She hit the dome light and dug into her bag again for a notebook and pen, then glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. There might be time enough to add some quotes to her piece before deadline. I wanted to talk to you about your daughter. Has she been found?

She heard sniffling on the other end.

No, and that’s why I called. Can you help me? I know you did a story last year about the little boy who was lost in the mountains, the one the searchers found. Can you do that for me? Please?

She mentally calculated the distance to the Parks’ home and decided she couldn’t turn down the offer of a personal interview.

I’m just leaving the office, and I’m still in Pittsburgh, so it’ll take me about forty minutes to get there, if it’s not too late?

Please, yes. I won’t sleep.

When she hung up, the little voice nagged her once more, cautioning her against getting too close to the story, too close to Frank’s family. Again, she ignored it.

She had to try to help him.

Rita hummed along with the radio but made a mental list of questions on the drive, her thoughts interrupted occasionally by the soft robotic voice of her car’s navigation system. Forty-five minutes later, she parked in front of Lee Ann Parks’ two-story brick townhome, which occupied the right side of one of three buildings in a cul-de-sac, each with two identical units connected by single car garages. A hanging lantern near the small front porch illuminated a sidewalk of brick pavers and bright lights lit up front windows on both levels.

Nice, she thought. Safe, low maintenance, and perfect for a single mom in the suburbs.

###

Seconds after she rang the doorbell, the door flung open. Lee Ann, in jeans and a gray silk blouse stained with spotty tracks of mascara, stood in front of her, breathless. Her red-rimmed eyes, at first wide with hope, immediately overflowed with fresh tears when she saw Rita.

Rita took a deep breath. They’d never met, and she wondered whether Frank had ever mentioned her name. "Mrs. Parks, I’m Rita Locke."

The other woman wiped her face with a tissue and tucked it into her pocket. I thought it might be Lindy, that maybe she forgot her key. Her voice trailed into a whisper. Please, come in. We can talk in here.

She led Rita through the hallway and into the living room toward an overstuffed sectional directly opposite a man sitting in a wing chair with a small beagle on his lap. She introduced him as her friend, Greg Marten, and Rita recognized his voice as the man who answered the phone when she’d called earlier. The dog jumped from his lap onto Lee Ann’s when she took a seat on the sofa.

Mrs. Parks—

Lee Ann, please.

"Lee Ann, I know this isn’t easy, so maybe you can get started by telling me what happened today. When is the last