Taken Read Free Page B

“I’d like to speak to the person who has been cleaning my house for the last three months.”
    He heard the flip of papers, and then she said, “That would be Joanne. She’s not in right now. Can I have her call you?”
    “Yes, I need to speak to her as soon as possible. It’s urgent.” He ended the call and punched in his mother’s number. She didn’t answer. Not wanting to leave a long message on her machine, he simply told her he was home and asked her to call him back as soon as possible.
    He moved across the living room and up the stairs.
    The master bedroom was the first door on the right. He paused just inside the room. The cream-colored down comforter on his bed was pulled back, the sheets and blankets tangled, as if someone had recently gotten up. A couple of towels from his bathroom lay in a heap on the floor. An empty wineglass sat on the bedside table.
    Every detail made his blood pressure rise. What kind of thief slept in his bed, took a shower in his bathroom, and kept food in his kitchen?
    The phone rang and he grabbed the extension by the bed, hoping for some answers. It was Joanne from the cleaning service.
    “Is something wrong, Mr. Granville?” she asked.
    “Laurie told me I needed to call you right away.”
    “Yes, there’s something wrong,” he snapped. “This place is a mess. There’s crap everywhere, towels on the floor, and the bed is unmade. What the hell has been going on in my home?”
    “Excuse me? I don’t understand,” she said, obvious confusion in her voice.

    TA K E N
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    “What don’t you understand? I’ve been out of the country. The only person to have access to my house is your cleaning service.”
    “But you were home a few weeks ago,” she said. “I ran into you right before Valentine’s Day. Don’t you remember? We spoke about how funny it was that we were finally meeting face-to-face.”
    “What are you talking about? I haven’t been home in three months, so you couldn’t possibly have spoken to me.” Nick’s mind raced. Joanne had spoken to someone—
    who? Obviously it had been a man, and that man had told her that he was Nick Granville. Who would do that? Nick didn’t have any brothers, no friends who would play that kind of a joke on him.
    The silence on the phone lengthened. Finally, Joanne said, “I don’t know what to say, Mr. Granville. Perhaps you’ve forgotten. You should ask the woman you were with.”
    The woman? He was reminded of the pleading, desperate voice from the answering machine.
    “You said you were getting married that weekend,”
    Joanne continued. “You both looked incredibly happy. I thought it was so romantic that you were going to have a Valentine’s Day wedding.”
    He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That wasn’t me. You didn’t talk to me.”
    “The man I spoke to said he was Nick Granville,”
    Joanne stated. “I didn’t imagine it.”
    “I’m sure you spoke to someone, but it wasn’t me. I’ll need to talk to you further about what these people look like. First I’m going to call the police.”
    “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Joanne replied, a ner-14
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    vous note in her voice. “But I swear I thought the man was you.”
    “I’m sure you did.” Nick hung up the phone, feeling completely rocked by the conversation. He’d always prided himself on being able to roll with the punches, adapt to any situation, no matter how dangerous or bizarre. But this invasion of his home, his privacy, his life, disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. As he gazed around the room, he saw his computer on the desk.
    The monitor was dark, but the light on the hard drive was on. Someone had been on his computer. He cursed himself for never setting a password, but he’d put it off. No one used the computer but him. Now he realized whoever had been in his home could have accessed his bank accounts, his credit cards, and God knew what else. It occurred to him that he hadn’t looked at a