Taken (Dark Desires 1)

I shook my head slowly from side to side.

“To be honest, I don’t think any of those things would have helped him.” Watching Joshua thrash around in the back seat of the squad car I let out a sigh.

Officer Simmons pulled his keys from a long metal wire attached to a disk on the hip of his belt and pulled me up to my feet. He undid my restraints.

“Well, it’s pretty clear that your brother was the aggressor in this situation. We are going to have to take him downtown and he’ll probably spend the night in jail. If he doesn’t calm down it may be more than one. Do you plan on pressing

charges?”

“Yes.” I said. There was no other choice.

“You look pretty beat up. Would you like the paramedics to take a look at you?”

“No.” I said. “But what hospital did they take Natasha to?”

“St. Joseph Provena. You know where that is?”

Quickly the officer gave me directions and I headed off in pursuit of Natasha. A million thoughts were going through my head. How much damage had my brother done before I got there? Why did she choose to leave and not tell me where she was going? What if she was really hurt, like Denise had been? Like Diamond had been. How many people had been hurt because I hadn’t done something about my brother sooner? Tears began to fill my eyes. The traffic lights blurred as my eyes filled. Blinking, I felt them race down my cheeks.

This was not how relationships developed.

Snapping me out of my thoughts as I sped down the street was the chime to my phone. It was Ray.

“I am at the hospital with Diamond. How is Natasha?”

“I don’t know. They took her away in an ambulance.”

“Oh, God.”

“What about Diamond. Is she alright?”

“It some sick shit, Marty. It will break your heart. But this Diamond seems to be as tough as her name. She asked me to come with her to the hospital so I’ll be hanging around here for a while.”

“That’s good, Ray. Please do that. Make sure she gets whatever she needs and make sure I get the bills. At least there is one thing I know I can help with.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the easy part, Marty. What are we going to do about your brother?”

“Right now the police have him in custody. They said he’ll be spending at least the next couple of days in jail. But this could be attempted murder.”

“I hate to tell you this now but I think you’ve got another issue on your hands.”

“What are you talking about, Ray.”

There was a long silence on the end of the line but I could still hear Ray breathing on the other end.

“Do you remember the girl Joshua had been dating about a year ago? Her name was Molly.”

“Yeah. She is a Canadian model or something, right?”

“Yeah. Well, it turns out that she was a Canadian model.”

“Was?” I asked, feeling a wave of nausea wash over me. It couldn’t be this bad.

“I thought, after what happened to Denise to do a little checking. As it turns out Holly never made it back to Canada like she had told her parents she was planning. There is no body. No real, solid evidence but now that we know what he is capable of we might want to cast a bigger net. You catch my meaning?”

“I do, Ray. Thanks for the information.”

“I thought it should come from the inner circle. Not some hack reporter looking for a story or some pity for the poor Joshua Hewitt.”