Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season by Renna Peak Read Free Book Online Page A

behind me, my heart racing in my chest once more.
    I walked back to the bedroom and pulled open the third drawer of the dresser—Brandon’s drawer. I lifted out the folded shirts and set them next to me on the bed.
    I was pretty sure he didn’t know that I knew what was at the bottom of that drawer. I had never even touched a gun before, and I certainly didn’t know how to use one. But I stared at the thing that still sat at the back of his shirt drawer—a black gun that I was positive was fully loaded. The fact that it was still there only confirmed to me that he hadn’t left of his own free will. Someone had taken him by surprise—taken both of us by surprise. And I had been left to bleed alone on the kitchen floor and he … was gone.
    I tried to calm my nervous breaths. I knew what I needed to do—as soon as it was light, I would have to leave. I couldn’t just sit there and wait for Brandon to come back for me. Whoever had taken him knew I was there—it seemed like there was a strong chance that they would be coming back for me—not Brandon. I would take the gun. I would drive to the nearest place that had cell phone service and I would call … someone. I didn’t know who to call.
    Melissa. I could call Melissa. She might know what I should do. She might be able to ask Ryan.
    The realization of what must have happened almost hit me over the head at that moment. Ryan. Ryan and Melissa. It was almost blinding—the absolute clarity of who had been here in this cabin. Of who had taken Brandon.
    I turned to look at the bedspread. The bed was made. The bed was made .
    I knew how to make a bed. Growing up, I had made my bed sometimes when the maid had a day off. Sometimes when we were at the beach cabin, the maid was only there a few days every week and I had to make my bed. I knew how to make a bed … but not like this.
    Brandon made the bed sometimes before we got into it. He had told me before that he didn’t see the point of making a bed when we were just going to get in and mess it up again—but he did it sometimes. He pulled the covers over the pillows. That first night—the night I had met him and had what I thought was going to be a one night stand—he had rushed into the bedroom and pulled the covers up over the pillows, almost embarrassed that the bed hadn’t been made. Not that I had cared a bit at the time—whether his bed was made or not didn’t matter to me then, and it didn’t matter to me now if he made the bed, either. I knew Brandon could make a bed. But it wouldn’t look like this.
    Melissa was a slob. In the years I had lived with her, I was always picking up her clothes from the floor—picking up dishes from the couch or the dresser. But she had spent a few months working at some fancy hotel in downtown San Francisco the summer before she came to Georgetown. She had worked as a maid there … and I had heard too many times how they had drilled her like an army boot camp on how to make a bed. The military precision with which to fold the sheet over the bedspread—lining it up with even margins, everything just so.
    I had only ever seen beds made like this in hotels. And on Melissa’s bed.
    Melissa had been here. I knew it in my gut. Melissa had made the bed I was sitting on.
    My heart began racing again and I turned back to stare at the gun in the drawer. My eyes widened with realization. If Melissa had been here, her boyfriend Ryan had been here. And while I still didn’t understand the intricacies of the relationship that Ryan and Brandon shared, I knew he had been responsible for stabbing him a few months ago. I knew that he had been at least partly responsible for my failed kidnapping a few months ago. And I knew there was something sinister about him—the way my skin tended to crawl around him. The way my stomach rolled and something just felt off when he was around.
    I had only put up with being around him because Melissa was in love. And she had obviously fallen into