The Abandoned (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 14) Read online

  The Abandoned

  by

  Jonas Saul

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Imagine Press Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-927404-41-6

  The Abandoned

  Copyright © 2015 by Jonas Saul

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Jonas Saul Titles

  The Sarah Roberts Series

  1. Dark Visions

  2. The Warning

  3. The Crypt

  4. The Hostage (*Featuring Drake Bellamy from The Threat)

  5. The Victim (*Featuring Aaron Stevens from The Specter)

  6. The Enigma

  7. The Vigilante (*Featuring Aaron Stevens from The Specter)

  8. The Rogue (*Featuring Darwin and Rosina Kostas from The Mafia Trilogy)

  9. Killing Sarah

  10. The Antagonist

  11. The Redeemed

  12. The Haunted

  13. The Unlucky

  14. The Abandoned

  15. The Cartel

  16. Losing Sarah

  17. The Pact (Coming Soon)

  The Jake Wood Series

  1. The Snake

  The Mafia Trilogy (Starring Darwin and Rosina Kostas)

  1. The Kill

  2. The Blade

  3. The Scythe

  Standalone Novels

  1. The Threat (Starring Drake Bellamy)

  2. The Specter (Starring Aaron Stevens)

  3. A Murder in Time (Starring Marcus Johnson)

  Short Stories

  1. The Burning

  2. The Numbers Game

  3. Trapped

  4. Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror)

  Compilations

  1. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 1-3

  2. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 4-6

  3. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9

  4. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 10-12

  5. Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 13-15

  6. The Mafia Trilogy

  7. The Jonas Saul Thriller Trilogy (The Threat, The Specter, A Murder in Time)

  Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Sarah Roberts made it through security at Toronto’s International Airport without incident. She collected her passport and boarding pass from the guard and placed her billfold with her only credit/debit card in her front pocket and started across the corridor where she entered a small magazine kiosk. Near the back, she lifted a thick Vanity Fair off the rack and looked over the top of the pages at the man who had been following her.

  He was gone. He hadn’t followed her inside the store. Maybe he was simply staring at her figure, her hair. Not everybody had devious intent. A limited number of people knew why she was at the airport, so it couldn’t be that.

  Aaron and Parkman had dropped her off. A long few days in Toronto—harrowing days—had just ended. The nightmare of the Torture Club was over. A black book containing a list of names that could implicate dozens, if not hundreds of people involved with the Torture Club, had gone missing. Once Sarah retrieved that book and delivered it to the authorities, she could take a much-needed break. She had killed people and come close to being killed herself. The risk of being sent to prison for decades hung over her head the entire time. This experience had mentally cost her in ways she hadn’t discovered yet, but she would forge on regardless, because that’s what she did. Sarah Roberts forged on. And her dead sister Vivian knew this about Sarah, hence the directive to fly to Amsterdam today in search of the missing black book.

  With the magazine placed back on the shelf, Sarah meandered slowly through the store, stopping at the paperback shelf. The new Stephen King novel sat beside the new Clive Barker. She browsed for a few moments, lost in the world of fiction.

  Clutching her boarding pass, Sarah left the store and started for her gate. She bought a black coffee at a Tim Horton’s kiosk and scanned the patrons and travelers for the blonde man who had been watching her, but she couldn’t locate him.

  Maybe she’d imagined it.

  She continued toward her gate. Her flight to Amsterdam would start boarding in twenty minutes. This trip was an exercise in blind faith. She had no description of the man who possessed the black book. There was no location he’d be at or where his final destination was. All she knew was that he was heading to Amsterdam.

  It felt good to leave Canada after all she had gone through in Toronto. Even though she had felt unlucky, she now felt like she was abandoning Aaron. He was her purpose for coming to Toronto in the first place. They talked at his apartment the other night and then again last night at the hotel, but there was still a lot left unsaid.

  She promised him that as soon as she located the black book, she would return with it and turn Vivian off for a spell. She needed down time. She needed Aaron time. That’s what she felt Aaron had been missing all along and Parkman had agreed. Pick a spot on the map and they would vacation somewhere tropical. Just the two of them, even if that meant Sarah had to be drunk on whiskey the whole time to keep Vivian out of her head.

  Black book first, then Aaron. Then vacation.

  She hopped onto a people-mover, stood to the right and sipped her coffee. It was going down good, smooth.

  Up ahead, a man with the same color hair as the guy she thought had been following her sat at gate B14.

  She scanned her boarding pass for her gate number.

  B14.

  When she looked up, the blonde man was reading a newspaper, his legs crossed.

  She reached the end of the people-mover and stepped off, now slightly in front of him. Across the walkway and into the gate’s waiting area, she took a chair that faced him, leaving two rows of people between them.

  Elbows on her knees, coffee supported with both hands, she leaned forward and studied his lean face. He appeared to be an educated man, either in business for himself or with the government. Mid-forties, clean shaven, attractive in a George Clooney kind of way, but with a pale complexion.

  She set her coffee between her feet and rechecked her boarding pass.

  Then her hand numbed.

  Vivian?

  It started up her arm.

  Right now? Seriously?

  Four seats to Sarah’s left, an overweight couple in their sixties chatted while doing a crossword, their carry-on bags at their fee
t.

  She lunged off her chair just as the numbing reached her chest and she blacked out.

  Voices came from a distance, like she was underwater. Her hands ached. Something tugged at her, drawing her sideways.

  Was she floating? Falling? Pain in one of her shoulders.

  In a quest for answers, never one to dawdle, Sarah surged forward and upward.

  Her eyes popped open.

  The shoulder pain was from a circular saw injury she’d received recently. Injuries plagued her but she had learned how to handle them. Purpose minimized the pain.

  The concerned faces around her moved back. The man who had been doing a crossword attempted to wrest his pen from her grip. The ache in her hands intensified as she clung to the Bic pen.

  Airport security stepped into view.

  “Excuse us. Make some room.”

  Sarah released the pen and the man stood up and moved aside.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?” a female security guard asked.

  Sarah nodded. Everything felt back to normal except for the fact that she was laying on the floor three chairs from her coffee that was getting cold while Vivian had her fun.

  It had been a long while since Vivian had made her perform Automatic Writing. So long that Sarah felt mild embarrassment as everyone waiting at the gate watched her, trying to catch a glimpse of what the commotion was all about.

  “Just afraid to fly,” Sarah mumbled. “I pass out sometimes.”

  They helped her to her feet. She felt the eyes of a hundred people on her back.

  “I’ll just retake my seat.” She offered the guard a half smile. “Coffee’s getting cold.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but maybe you’re not fit for travel. Do you have someone traveling with you?”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Maybe you should come with us.”

  Sarah gently pulled her arm out of the guard’s grip and took a step back.

  “I’m fine. Just lightheaded. Coffee’ll do me just right.”

  The guard motioned for her colleagues to move closer.

  “I’m sorry, but I insist. We’d like you to see the nurse on duty. Then we’ll bring you right back out.”

  She couldn’t miss the plane. Nothing could be allowed to let her miss the plane. Sarah nudged past two onlookers, slipped behind them and dropped to retake her seat. She picked up her coffee, surprised it hadn’t been knocked over in the commotion, and took a sip.

  “As I said, I’m fine,” She glanced up as the guard moved closer. “But thanks for your concern.”

  “Embarrassing?” the guard asked. “Or polite?”

  Sarah squinted her eyes and tilted her head. “Excuse me?”

  “Pick one.” Two male guards were joined now by three more. Onlookers and bystanders were cleared away. Now a semi-circle of airport security surrounded her. “You’re coming with us willingly, the polite way, or unwillingly, the embarrassing way. Pick one. We prefer willing.”

  What is this, Vivian?

  Sarah studied the guard’s face as she drank from her cup one more time. They weren’t about to go away. The longer she dragged this on, the higher chance she would miss her plane.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll go with you.” She stood, adjusted her shirt and turned to face the female guard. “Which way?”

  “Follow them,” she said and pointed at two heavyset men in uniform.

  They nodded and started down the corridor past the other gates.

  Vivian? Anything? Why are we back to Automatic Writing?

  The guards opened a door that led to another corridor.

  “How long is this going to take?” Sarah asked. “I have a plane to catch.”

  No one responded.

  The guards in front stopped and motioned for her to enter a room. Inside, a single table and two chairs were set up under a bright florescent light, just like an interview room at a police station.

  “Where’s the nurse?” Sarah asked. She turned to address the female guard but she was gone. “What’s going on here?” The male guard gestured for her to enter the interview room. “I have a plane to catch. There’s no time for this.”

  Something wasn’t right here. There was an agenda at play she wasn’t privy to and Vivian was strangely silent.

  “Please, Miss Roberts, enter the room and take a seat. You won’t be catching any planes today.”

  Her stomach dropped. She ruled out violence. Attacking airport security and running for the plane would never work. This wasn’t a back alley or an attempted kidnapping. This was forcible confinement. All the power was in their hands.

  “And why is that? I have a plane ticket. My American passport is in good standing. I have no travel bans that I’m aware of and I have done nothing wrong. I demand to know why I’m being detained.”

  “You will be apprised of your situation shortly. Please step inside. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can expedite your release.”

  “My release?”

  “Inside, ma’am. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

  Sarah waited a few seconds before she entered the room. The door closed silently behind her.

  Then it locked.

  “Fuck!”

  What’s going on, Vivian? Talk to me.

  She paced the floor and checked for cameras. There was no two-way glass in the room and no listening devices as far as she could tell.

  “Hello!” she shouted. “I have a plane to catch.”

  She yanked out her boarding pass to check if there was a final boarding time and stopped pacing when she saw what was written on it in her own handwriting.

  Aaron must hospitalize his new student, then leave Toronto for one week. This must happen or Aaron will suffer.

  “What the hell is this?” Sarah asked. She looked up at the wall of the room. “Vivian, should I be heading to Europe for a black book? Or should I be staying here? What kind of trouble is Aaron in?”

  The lock clicked on the door.

  Sarah folded the boarding pass and slipped it into her back pocket.

  The door opened. Before anyone stepped inside, Sarah started forward.

  “I demand to speak to my lawyer.”

  The female guard from earlier appeared. The door closed again. It locked from the outside.

  “Sarah Roberts?” the woman asked.

  Sarah leaned against the wall as if this was boring her. “Of course you know that because I’m flying under my own name. International Travel Airlines has my ticket in their system and I’ve already checked in.” She pushed off the wall. “I hate to have to pull this card, but I’m an American citizen. I have rights. This is an illegal detainment. I was sitting quietly at my gate when I passed out. I’m fine.” She patted herself down, ignoring the protest of her fresh shoulder wound from yesterday. “See, all fit to travel.”

  “I admit it,” the guard said. “We made a mistake.”

  Surprised, but not willing to show it, Sarah said, “Great. I’d like to get to my plane now.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We know who you are.”

  “What’s your name?” Sarah asked. “Then we can be even.”

  “We know what you did in Toronto. Only twenty-four hours ago this airport was almost in a full lockdown in case an American fugitive named Sarah Roberts attempted to fly out of Toronto. But somehow, after all that was released to the media, you’re here, ready to fly to Europe and the Toronto police have acknowledged that you are no longer a suspect. According to them, you’re free to go.” She finished with a toss of her arm, as if exasperation got the better of her.

  “I already know all this,” Sarah said. “I’m the girl you’re talking about. Moving along now to the present, unlock that door. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Someone upstairs is looking out for you,” the guard said, almost under her breath.

  “Again, I would agree. We done here?”

  “Someone powerful just made a phone ca
ll. You’re to be left alone.”

  This intrigued Sarah. “Who?” Sarah asked. “How powerful?”

  “All the way to the top.”

  “The top? Like the president?”

  “All I know is the phone call came in and they know everything as if they are here, in the airport. Your blackout. My involvement. Our detainment of you. Everything. All within three minutes of you being in this room.”

  How the hell?

  “And that has pissed you off,” Sarah said, her voice low, non-threatening, “because you had other plans for me, didn’t you?”