Taken (22 page)

She gave him a surprised look, nodded.

When he returned, she was studying a map of Illinois with Paul. “They reassemble as a group twice a year, typically in March and November. There’s a farm about half a day’s drive from here. A sort of home base for the group. It’s about here.” She put her finger down between two towns. “I’ll need to show it to you—I can find it once we’re there, but I never saw the approach, just worked out over time where it must be. The other place they considered a home base is on the East Coast. Again, easier to show you than to try to put my finger down on a map.”

“Will anyone be there this time of year?”

“It’s possible one person was left behind on the property as a caretaker, but in the past everyone has traveled. They might lease out the farmland for someone else to plant, but they’d simply winterize the buildings and leave. And if those places weren’t abandoned in a rush, they’ll be pretty innocuous on the surface. They didn’t trust that law enforcement would not stroll through the property when they weren’t around.”

“That’s useful to know.” Paul looked over at Ann. “Do you know the sheriff in that county?”

“Sam Dellherd. He’ll be cordial to work with.”

“When we’re ready to make the trip, we’ll want to give him an early call. We’ll make that drive when you feel up to it, Shannon.”

“The next few days, I think, as it’s something I want off my list.”

Matthew interrupted them by holding out his phone. “Paul, sorry to interrupt. John needs a word.”

Paul accepted the phone with a nod and stepped away to have the conversation. Matthew didn’t bother to look over—John would now be telling Paul to nod and say yes occasionally, that the only thing real about the call was the diversion it created.

Shannon was sorting through maps of the East Coast. Matthew leaned against the table beside her. “You need a break, Shannon,” he said quietly. “Now would be a good time. The gym down the block has a pool. A couple of hours, we’ll come back and continue this conversation, or leave the rest of it for another day. They’ve got a lot on their plate with what you’ve already given them. Let them work on finding database names and photos you can confirm.”

“I have to get this done today.”

He laid a hand on her arm. “Then let me help you. Let’s take a break. Catch your breath. Otherwise you may not get to the end.”

She closed her eyes, and her hand on the table trembled. “One more thing first.” She looked over at Paul, who had lowered the phone and was now refilling his coffee. “How big a favor can I ask of you?”

“Ask. You’ve earned yourself a great deal of goodwill,” Paul replied.

“I know you’re going to dig into anyone and everyone with
the Jacoby name or a relation, but I’d ask you to trust that after eleven years of learning this family, I understand some of the history. These eighteen are the only ones who were involved or conspired with those who acted in the crimes I saw occur. I’m going to write a second list of names you could consider helpful material witnesses but not pursue on charges. I’m not putting a name on this second list lightly. If I don’t know enough about them, I’m leaving their names off both lists. These are the ones I know were
not
involved.”

Paul considered what she said. “Write your list. I’ll talk with you about the individuals and what we’ve discovered about them before I do anything.”

Shannon nodded and started writing out names. Three were Jacobys, another six were various surnames that Matthew assumed would turn out to be Jacoby women now married. When she finished, she placed the marker in the tray, stepped back from the board, studied it, nodded to herself.

“Were there others besides this family involved in what was going on?” Paul asked.

“They did business with a lot of people whose names I can give you, but the family trusted only blood, and even then it was ‘trust but verify.’ They were a law unto themselves. What the head of the family decided would be done was the final word and complied with or you were kicked out of the family, and your freedom didn’t last long—you were in jail or dead within months.”

“Thanks for all this, Shannon. And it’s a good place for a break. Let’s have a late lunch around two o’clock, then talk about the other names on your list,” Paul suggested. “Possibly call it a day at that point. I’ll order in. Chinese sound okay? Or would you prefer Mexican?”

“Chinese is fine.”

M
atthew waited until they stepped onto the elevator and the doors closed before he asked what he had to know. “What went through your mind when we reached the FBI? What brought the fear rushing in?”

Shannon leaned her head back against the elevator wall, her face the picture of distress. “The Jacobys will clean house. The guys at the top of that family will simply kill the others. As soon as they realize their world is coming down around them, they will silence those who could speak against them, then disappear.”

It was a fear with a solid basis behind it, an all-too-possible outcome. The realization of it was overwhelming her. “I’ll take you for a swim so you can turn this off for an hour, Shannon. Ellie has brought over a swimsuit for you. She’ll meet us at the gym.”

“Should I be doing something different than what I am, Matthew? Not tell Paul any more? Or should I have told him a week ago?”

“Don’t revisit your decisions so far. Waiting to hear if some
one else had been able to get free was a calculated choice, and your silence gave her the best chance. That’s a good decision. Hopefully people are dispersed enough in their travels, can be located quickly enough that it’s not possible for what you are fearing to happen. But this ends this summer. That’s a good thing.”

She physically shivered, lifted her hands to rub her arms. “I should have gotten out years ago, at least risked trying. I didn’t because I could name the person who would die if I made the attempt, was able to make it. I just couldn’t take that step. Maybe I should have made that sacrifice, one for the many. Maybe the family wouldn’t have been as cohesive then, had a few less members.”

He took her hand and interlaced their fingers. “Enough,” he said huskily. “One thing I learned from Becky—when you’re in survival mode you make the best choice given what you know, and move on. Trust those choices and don’t look back.”

“I feel nauseous.”

“It’s nerves. We swim. Eat lunch. Spend another couple of hours talking with Paul. Then I’ll get you free of this. Let me handle those future hours, just stay in the moment. Don’t think beyond the present.”

She gave a jerky nod. “This is why I came and found you, Matthew. I couldn’t handle walking alone into an FBI office and telling what I know. I couldn’t do it.”

“You’re stronger than you realize. You’re doing it now. And you’re doing it with a clear, concise focus that is helpful to Paul. To everyone.”

“I’ve got more names to give. Facts. But don’t let Paul get to questions about what happened with me. Not today.”

“He won’t go there, but if someone does, I’ll step in,” Matthew promised.

Matthew held the door for Shannon as they returned to the conference room shortly before two p.m., gave a nod of thanks to the escorting agent. He thought the swim had helped. She was quieter now, that calm control she’d shown him before back in place, strong enough to handle the last few hours. Better to be done in a day than to let it stretch out for her to face another day.

Lunch was spread out on the table, open cartons of various Chinese choices. Ann and Theo were eating while they worked. Two more whiteboards had been brought up to the room. Printouts were clipped beside a few of the photos. “You’ve been busy,” Matthew remarked, holding a chair out for Shannon.

“The last name for the family, enough first names to give confirmations, revealed the historical center of the family as the small town of London, New York,” Theo replied.

Shannon shook her head. “They never visited there.”

“Wise on their part. The men at the top of the family tree went to high school there. We’ll be able to dig through layers now that we’ve got the family group located,” Theo said. “Paul’s on his way back. When my boss called, I elected to hand Paul the phone and let them sort out the particulars. Bottom line, this case stays in this room for now, as do I.”

Matthew nodded, pleased to hear that news. Shannon selected an open carton of white rice, then went to the sweet-and-sour pork and the cashew chicken, not taking much on her plate but enough to be an attempt at lunch.

“Shannon, I have some questions about the road trips,” Ann said—a softball topic, Matthew thought, glad to hear that approach.

“Sure.”

“Travelers come in different types. Did they stop at the Grand
Canyon when they were in the area? Did they regularly visit flea markets or antique shops? Were they food buffs, wanting to try out places in the best-of restaurant category lists? What kind of vehicles did they favor, and how often did they change them? Did they make a habit of speeding? Any particulars along those lines could be helpful.”

Shannon half smiled at the list of questions. “I think that’s why they separated and traveled in smaller groups. They could all indulge their own styles and interests. There were . . .
assignments
, for want of a better word.
You’ll deal with
this, you’ll handle that
, kinds of decisions. The direction of travel and a time frame for arriving somewhere would be loosely agreed upon. The family liked to arrange itself as a patrol string, so if one group got into trouble there was always someone else in the family within one to two hours available to assist. But within that loose agreement, it was up to the driver. Some groups stopped at every antique store—probably scoping out an overlooked prize that wouldn’t have to be stolen—others favored an evening at some local stock-car race, while others drove straight through, getting business done, then spent a few days being tourists while they waited for the rest to reach the area. Flynn and I were more the kind of travelers to take the back roads and enjoy the scenery.”

Paul joined them and fixed himself a lunch plate.

“It was a cardinal rule that you didn’t speed,” Shannon continued. “The cars were traded in when the mileage got to a certain point. Never a new car, nor a particularly old one—something dependable in a color that wouldn’t stand out. There was only one van in the mix. Most were midsize sedans.”

“That’s useful,” Ann commented.

Shannon took her plate over to the trash can, stopped to
consider the beverage choices, came back with a Cherry Coke. She resumed her place at the table, looked over at Paul, who appeared relaxed in the facing chair.

“Give me a semihard question,” she suggested.

He considered for a moment. “The graves. Thank you for what you gave Matthew. There are cops in California looking for Lindsey Bell now. About an hour ago officers in Colorado found Emily Lynn.”

She briefly closed her eyes.

“On behalf of the families, thank you,” he said.

She slowly nodded. “And the question?”

“Are you dealing okay with the fact there was nothing you could do to stop what happened to them?”

She flinched and rubbed both hands down her face, blew out a breath before placing her hands flat on the table. “Yes. Mostly. Those first years there was no way I could help. They stopped abducting children after the second death, took a break, and I hoped they wouldn’t go back to it. They did. The best I could do was figure out how to get packages out about the kids they were abducting. Stopping the family, getting myself out without causing someone else to die, wasn’t . . . easy to figure out. In the end, it was still more chance than plan that got me here.” She sighed. “I’m resigned, Paul, that I couldn’t stop what the kidnapping side of the family was doing over the years. And I’ll have to live with the fact that the explosion within the family leading to their deaths was probably in part my doing.”

Matthew looked over at her sharply. Paul took that comment without showing a reaction. Then he moved on.

“Let’s talk about something easier,” Paul said. “They smuggled stolen items. Who did they do business with? How did that work?”

Shannon pushed back from the table, picked up a marker for a new whiteboard. She began writing names. “These are people I know the family dealt with on more than one occasion.”

Matthew shared a long look with Paul.
She’d had a role in triggering
that internal family explosion, killing the five smuggling children
. Matthew could almost feel the painful edges of that conversation in the future, the dynamics that would have been in play. He hoped she handed him her diary from that time period so he wouldn’t have to ask her to elaborate on the statement.

Shannon was listing names along with a city and state, occasionally referring to her notes. “The family didn’t steal items. They would buy from a fence or from a broker who had a deal fall apart, put the item in storage, then sell it at a later date to private collectors, brokers, pawn dealers. They would never sell the item in the area it was acquired. Something gotten in the North would be sold in the South and vice versa.”

“What kind of records did they keep on the stolen items?” Paul asked.

“Good ones. They would store items for a long period of time. Five years was the norm from when they acquired it to when it was sold. But you’re going to have a problem, because as soon as they know you’re coming for them, anything they can reach is going to disappear. They don’t need access to bank accounts to flee; they just need time. They’ve got a fortune hidden in places around the nation.” She drew a line and began listing private collectors who had bought items from the group.

“There are two ledgers for each year, one for the East and one for the West. They record the location and date they received the item, the purchase price, the place they stored it, a photo reference number of the item, eventually listing the buyer and
the sale price. In recent years they started adding GPS locations. Every three months they would photocopy the ledger pages and store that copy somewhere as insurance against the original being lost or seized. They dispersed the photos of items into collections for a region, would store them for safety just as they did the stolen items. I was able to get to one of the photo collections for the Midwest.”

She lifted out of the canvas bag a sunglasses case, opened it to show several flash drives. “This is one of the newer collections. The photos are between two and six years old, so most of these articles should still be in storage around the Midwest. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get to any of the ledger copies from those years to tell me
where
these photographed items are stored, but I think I know where a couple of the ledger copies can be found. What I did manage to get ahold of is the full East Coast ledger from four years ago.” She tugged it out of her bag and unwrapped the plastic around the book. “It was stored in a box I cleared out in Atlanta. I didn’t know it would be there. They may have been in a hurry to get it stored, or they had used the place recently and put it in the most convenient location.”

She opened the book and showed Paul a page of entries.

Paul studied it, thumbed through the ledger. “This is priceless, Shannon, for what can be done with it.”

“I’m hoping the hideaway sites I can give you will yield more full ledgers or ledger copies so you can have precise lists to work from. I think I have seen probably twenty percent of the locations they used around the country. There are a lot of them that fall into the category of ‘I know there’s one in this town. I remember it’s somewhere around that library building or by the Civil War statue,’ where I’m going to have to visit the location to jog my memory unless a particular ledger shows up. So it’s
probably going to be necessary to cut a few deals with people to locate where the ledgers or the ledger copies have been stored.”

Paul was scanning pages and counting entries. “Having one in hand to know what we’re looking for is already a big step forward. We’ll figure out a way to locate them.” He looked up at her. “They’ve been dealing with a
lot
of merchandise.” He must have noted her expression. “What’s your concern?”

“Is it five years or ten for dealing in stolen goods?”

Paul closed the ledger and considered her. “Shannon, if I can’t put together the sum total of what has happened in the last eleven years, put all eighteen of those people still alive in jail for the rest of their lives, I shouldn’t be in this job. We need the evidence gathered, and there’s much work to come, but we
will
get it done. You can ask my wife to confirm it when I tell you I’m good at my job. Just sayin’.”

Shannon glanced over at Ann.

“He hates to brag,” Ann said with a smile. “Trust him, Shannon. Paul won’t let anyone the law can reach get free. It won’t be a slap-on-the-wrist sentence.”

Shannon turned back at Paul. “Can you do it without me having to tell my story in court?”

“I’ll do my best to restrict what depends on you.”

“Then I need to ask, could further questions wait for another day? What’s on the boards now is most of the facts I can give you.”

“You gave us a lot today, Shannon. When you’re up for it, we’ll take a drive and see that farm. And it would be helpful to have a list of the storage locations you can remember. Let’s make those the next steps whenever you’re ready.”

She nodded and pushed back her chair. Matthew was already picking up her bag and handing it to her, with a grateful nod to Paul that the day was ending here.