Robert Crais - Taken

ALSO BY ROBERT CRAIS

The Sentry

The First Rule

Chasing Darkness

The Watchman

The Two Minute Rule

The Forgotten Man

The Last Detective

Hostage

Demolition Angel

L.A. Requiem

Indigo Slam

Sunset Express

Voodoo River

Free Fall

Lullaby Town

Stalking the Angel

The Monkeys Raincoat

TAKEN

Robert Crais

G. P. Putnams Sons

New York

G. P. PUTNAMS SONS

Publishers Since 1838

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright 2012 by Robert Crais

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN 978-1-101-55427-2

BOOK DESIGN BY AMANDA DEWEY

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Contents

for Aaron Priest

more than an agent

my good and trusted friend

with love

Cut you,

I bleed.

Our name is love.

Tattooed Beach Sluts

Jiminy Cricket: Hey, where ya goin?

Pinocchio: Im going to find him!

Prologue:

JACK AND KRISTA

Jack Berman wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, Krista Morales, and watched his breath fog in the cold desert air. Twenty minutes after midnight, fourteen miles south of Rancho Mirage in the otherwise impenetrable darkness of the Anza-Borrego Desert, Jack and Krista were lit in the harsh purple glare of the lights that blossomed from Danny Trehorns truck, Jack so much in love with this girl his heart beat with hers.

Trehorn gunned his engine.

You guys comin or what?

Krista snuggled deeper into Jacks arms.

Lets stay a little longer. Just us. Not them. I want to tell you something.

Jack called to his friend.

Maana, dude. Were gonna hang.

We roll early, bro. See you at nine.

See us at noon.

Pussy! Well wake your ass up!

Trehorn dropped back into his truck, and spun a one-eighty back toward town, Ride of the Valkyries blaring on his sound system. Chuck Lautner and Deli Blake tucked Chucks ancient Land Cruiser in tight behind Trehorn, their headlamps flashing over Jacks Mustang, which was parked up the old county road where the ground was more even. They had come out to show Krista a drug smugglers airplane that had crashed in 1972 because Krista wanted to see it.

Jack grew colder as their tail lights receded, and the desert grew darker. A thin crescent moon and cloudy star field gave them enough light to see, but little more.

Jack said, Dark.

She didnt answer.

Jack said, Cold.

He snuggled closer, spooning into her back, both of them staring at nothing. Jack wondered what she was seeing.

Krista had been pensive all night even though she had pushed them to come, and now her wanting to tell him something felt ominous. Jack had the sick feeling she was pregnant or dumping him. Krista was two months from graduating summa cum laude at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, and had taken a job in D.C. Jack had dropped out of USC.

Jack nuzzled into her hair.

Are we okay?

She pushed away far enough to study him, then smiled.

There have never been two people better than us. I am totally in love with you.

You had me worried.

Thanks for getting Danny to bring us out here. I dont think he wanted to come.

Its a long drive if youve seen it a million times. He stopped coming out here in high school.

According to Trehorn, the twin-engine Cessna 310 had crashed while bringing in a load of coke at night during a sandstorm. A local drug dealer named Greek Cisneros cleared enough cactus and rocks to fashion a landing strip in the middle of the desert twenty miles outside Palm Springs, and used the airplane to bring cocaine and marijuana up from Mexico, almost always at night when the outline of the runway was marked by burning tubs of gasoline. On the night of the crash, the right wingtip hooked into the ground, the landing gear collapsed, and the left wing snapped off outside the left engine. Fuel pouring from the ruptured fuel tanks ignited, enveloping the airplane in flames. The engines and instruments had long ago been salvaged for parts, but the broken airframe remained where it died, rusting, corroded, and covered with generations of overlapping graffiti and spray-painted initials: LJ+DF, eat me, PSHS#1.

Krista took his hand, and tugged him toward the plane.

Come with me. I want to show you something.

Cant you tell me about it in the car? Im cold.

No, not in the car. This is important.

Jack followed her along the fuselage to the tail, wondering what she wanted to show him about this stupid airplane, but instead she led him onto the overgrown remains of the runway. She stared into the darkness that masked the desert. Her smart, black eyes shined like jewels filled with starlight. Jack touched her hair.

Kris?

They had known each other for one year, two months, and sixteen days. They had been head-over-heels, crazy, there-and-back, inside-out, bottom-to-top in love for five months, three weeks, and eleven days. He hadnt told her the truth about himself until after she declared her love. If he had secrets then, she had secrets now.

Krista took his hand in both of hers, giving him the serious, all-business eyes.

This place is special to my family.

Jack had no idea what she was talking about.

A drug runners airstrip?

This place, right here between the mountains, its a place easily found by people coming from the south, for all the same reasons the drug dealers put their landing strip here. When my mother was seven, coyotes brought her up through the desert from the south. Mom and her sister and two cousins. A man with a hearse was waiting here at this airplane to drive them into town.