Taken (4 page)

Paul nodded. “We’ll probably call Theo at his home from the plane. Since Shannon showed up in Atlanta, the FBI can already claim jurisdiction if necessary. But it won’t be. Theo has the Chicago police resources, we’ve got the national ones, and we know how to collaborate when it’s in both our interests. Something this high profile—and still a black hole for what will be uncovered—neither department is going to want sole
ownership. We’ll work out a shared investigation and have it formalized before Shannon arrives in Chicago.”

“You make that sound easy when I can guess the politics that will be involved,” Matthew commented. “I’d also like to preempt whatever information she might need about her friends and family. Could I ask you to do a background update—who’s been married, divorced, had children, passed away, and so forth—among her family and friends, so she has a sense of the current world before she arrives?”

“I’ll be glad to do that,” Ann said.

Matthew glanced at his watch. “I need to get back. I’m relieved you two came to the conference so I didn’t have to try and explain over the phone what’s going on.”

“We weren’t planning to come,” Paul mentioned, “as our schedules have been hectic, but we both felt a last-minute nudge that we should fit this trip in. Probably a God-arranged decision.”

“Given how many things are falling in place to deal with this situation, I’m certain God is orchestrating much of this,” Matthew agreed. He lived his life depending on God to influence how events unfolded. “Ann, was there anything in that case file that mentioned Shannon’s religious background? She’s going to need someone to talk with, preferably from her home church.”

“I’ll pull the file and get you the name of the church she attended. I remember she was a regular attendee with the youth group, because the cops looked for some kind of problem with an adult that might have originated there.”

Matthew found it helpful to know Shannon had a faith background. “How this has affected what Shannon thinks about God and what she believes will lead to some difficult conversations.
I’ll need to find someone who can help her work through those issues who is more skilled at it than I am.”

Paul glanced over at Ann. “We know someone who might be able to help with those questions,” he replied.

Matthew took out his phone and snapped the photo Paul had suggested of the couple, Paul’s arm casually draped across Ann’s shoulders. Not much explanation would be needed when he showed it to Shannon, Matthew thought, glancing at the image before pocketing his phone. The photo practically shouted that these two people were comfortably married.

Ann retrieved for him the case summary report she’d printed out and walked with him to the door. “Try to get some sleep at some point tonight. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.”

Matthew smiled. Ann knew him well. He’d run nine Boston Marathons since his daughter went missing. The first ones to gather national media attention—
Cop runs for missing daughter
—the later ones as celebrations of her return. “I’ll work on that. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“We’ll be up for a few hours. If there’s news, don’t worry about the time.”

“Thanks, Ann.” Matthew headed back down to rejoin Shannon.

Shannon woke just after one a.m. Matthew was stretched out on top of the first bed, reading the report Theodore Lincoln had written. He let himself glance over, make a single sweeping assessment, before turning back to the report. He spoke quietly. “The room key for across the hall is on the desk if you’d like to use that room. DNA is back and confirms what you already
know. You can now prove in a court of law that you are Shannon Bliss.”

She set aside the blanket he’d draped over her, pushed to her feet. She walked into the bathroom, turned on the tap, came back with a glass of water. “Have some aspirin with you?”

“The shaving kit on the dresser.”

She found the bottle, popped off the top, dumped a couple into her hand. She leaned against the desk. “What are you reading?”

“A summary of the police investigation on your disappearance. Have you read the old newspaper accounts, looked up online information about the search to find you?”

“No.”

“Not curious?”

She shrugged. “If they had figured out what had happened, they would have found me. So whatever is out there is only speculation and a description of what did
not
happen.”

“Your family paid a ransom to get you back.”

The drink in her hand stilled, then deliberately lifted so she could finish drinking the water. “I gather it was a convincingly done con job.”

He shifted his head on the pillow as he studied her, trying to read the subtle expressions on her face. He could hear several layers of emotion in her voice, almost a flat factual curiosity. He would have liked to sit up, but he risked her retreating from the conversation if he moved. “Probably. They didn’t catch who made the call or received the money.”

“It was a con. I was on the West Coast forty-eight hours after I was taken, in Washington State.”

“Who with?”

She shook her head. She picked up the room key he had
arranged, then retrieved her sandals, carrying them with her rather than slipping them on. “I’ll call you when I wake up. Maybe we can have a late breakfast and then get on the road?”

“If you like. We need to talk some about ways to avoid the press interest, given your brother’s running for governor. Once he knows you’re alive, this will get complicated for him.”

She half smiled. “Jeff likes complicated. I’ll let you two figure it out. I’m going to like any situation that involves as few people as possible knowing where I am. Don’t expect my call to be early. I’m not setting an alarm.”

“Sleep as long as you can.” He picked up the box with the phone and sat up on the edge of the bed. He’d unwrapped Ann’s gift and configured it. “Before you go—this is for you. Sorry for the poor re-wrap job.”

She unwrapped the box and took out the phone, genuine surprise highlighting her face.

“There are photos in it, names, contact numbers—all of them good friends of mine and people you can trust,” he explained. “If you call and say it’s Shannon, you’ll get helped, no questions asked. They’ll do whatever needs done and take good care of you because you’re my friend. You can trust them not to pry.”

She turned over the phone. “I didn’t expect this.”

Matthew offered a relaxed smile. “The first of several useful gifts I intend to pass along. Don’t hesitate to use it if you’re in a situation where it would help.”

Her hand tightened around the phone. “Thank you, Matthew,” she whispered.

“I hope you have calm and pleasant dreams tonight, Shannon.”

“That’s a nice hope.” She nodded and disappeared from the room.

He closed the report and set it aside.
Washington State.
He’d read nothing in the case summary that indicated any focus there. He picked up his phone, ignored the time, called Ann to have her scan the first weeks in the case file for anything that pointed to the West Coast or Washington State. Had Shannon been out West this entire time? Had she gotten to freedom and instinctively headed as far away as possible, only stopping when she reached the East Coast?

Shannon seemed confident the ransom demand had been a con job, someone taking advantage of her disappearance. That implied only a limited number of people—possibly two or three—were involved with her abduction, and they had all been with her on the West Coast, leaving no one behind who could have made that ransom demand and pickup. If it had not been a demand from her actual abductors, had her uncle not only taken some of the ransom money but been behind the ransom call itself?

Matthew finished the call with Ann, got ready to turn in for the night, shut off the room light. As the still of the night settled around him, he found himself replaying some of the early days with his daughter. “God, a question,” he said softly into the darkness. He focused on one memory in particular. He and Becky were playing a game of Scrabble so they would have something else to do while they talked, could use it as a reason not to say anything when either needed time to just think. Becky had been just beginning to give him facts about what had happened on the day she was taken.

“What’s happening inside Shannon right now?” he asked God. “Is she wanting to talk, but hesitant to do so because she’s seeking to avoid having a wave of questions come at her when she offers those first facts? Or is she reluctant to say anything
and trying to find ways to accommodate me? Like with the list she handed me—I think she put it in writing so she would not have to say one word beyond what she had decided to say. She just now mentioned Washington State. Did she want to do so, or is Shannon’s true preference right now to say nothing and she’s trying to stay in my good graces by offering a few details?

“It worries me, Lord, if the information is coming because she feels like it’s currency she can use to keep me from being annoyed with her silence. I can accept the details if she wants to talk—I do need them—but I can also accept the silence if she needs that for a time. Whatever she needs is how this has to unfold. That was a turning point in Becky’s recovery, her freedom to share or not share as she wished. I wonder if I’m on the wrong footing with Shannon already. It’s a dreadful feeling.”

Just putting it into words was enough to bring some clarity. Matthew turned on the light, got up and crossed over to the desk, pulled over a blank sheet of paper, and wrote a note.

Shannon—

I like lists too.

I like glazed donuts and cream-filled chocolate-topped ones.

I like clams and scallops and Boston clam chowder.

My daughter is my best friend.

I want to hear your story when you are ready to share it.

I will listen to whatever you want to say, whenever you want to say it.

I’m in no hurry.

I can handle your silence.

I don’t mind tears.

Only when you are ready to talk about something should we do so.

I want to see arrested those who did this to you.

I have room for another friend.

If you choose me as a friend, you’ll find you can trust me.

He found an envelope and folded his page, slipped it inside, wrote her name on the top, dressed, walked across the hall, and slipped the envelope under her door. God had this figured out. What Matthew didn’t know about how to handle matters with Shannon would fill an ocean right now, but God understood her and what was going on. He wasn’t going to have to navigate this alone. Matthew returned to his hotel room, went back to bed, shut off the light, and this time sleep came.

I
nterstate traffic on this Saturday in June alternated between heavy and fast and sparse and fast. Matthew set the cruise control at the speed limit and let other motorists pass him, years as a cop making speeding a personal irritation. Shannon, curled up in the passenger seat beside him, slept through the first three hours of the audiobook by Nancy Rue. She began to stir just before two p.m. Matthew glanced over as she stretched. “Getting hungry? I’m ready for a break.”

“Sure. A steak sounds good.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

Shannon set aside the pillow and pushed her sock feet back into tennis shoes. She had appeared this morning carrying a box of donuts, two black gym bags, and the day’s newspaper. She had apparently acquired or accessed some of her own belongings in the last sixteen days. Her attire for traveling was casual—jeans, beat-up blue tennis shoes, a T-shirt advertising the
Mexican Festival
Feast
at the Tex-Mex Diner. It was such a specific old T-shirt that Matthew had sent a text to Ann to see if she could track down the restaurant location. It sounded like
a New Mexico or Texas interstate kind of place, where T-shirts were sold at cost for free advertising. Her choice of purse was an oversized tan canvas bag.

Her smile, relaxed posture, and calm “Good morning” had given the impression of an unhurried tourist. He’d stayed deliberately light and casual in his own approach, glad to see she appeared to have slept well and that her mood was good. They had shared the donuts, had a brief conversation about the map and the route to take north, debated four audiobook selections, and once the drive began, Shannon had settled in for a nap. Matthew was relieved at her apparent steadiness. He’d been worried that a fine edge of anxious nerves would appear now that events were moving forward, but if anything, she seemed calmer.

A phone rang. Matthew reached for his pocket an instant before he realized it wasn’t his. Shannon dug deep into the canvas bag and came up with a phone he didn’t recognize, as it had a blue cover. She looked at the screen and held it out to him. “I don’t want to talk with him.”

Matthew took the prepaid phone, still with store stickers on its back, and answered on the fourth ring, “A woman I know as Shannon just handed this phone to me.”

“Tell her the two girls are safe.”

Startled, he looked at Shannon and relayed the message. She gave a jerky nod. “Who is this?” Matthew asked.

“Adam York with the FBI, Virginia office.”

“Matthew Dane, retired cop out of Boston.”

“You’re with Shannon. Where are you?”

“No comment at the moment. I don’t know you well enough yet.”

“She’s sent me nine packages over the last six years—photos, addresses, all abducted kids one to four months gone, all
entangled in child custody disputes. Eighteen kids in total, from all over the nation. The recent package had this phone number and a note:
Call me once
you’ve got them
.”

Matthew glanced at Shannon, at the oversized envelope she was holding up for him to see. “Apparently we’re sending you another one. She’s got a manila envelope with your name on it. We’re in Tennessee. I’ll find somewhere to overnight it to you.” He put the phone on speaker.

“Let me come to you instead. I can be on a plane and be with you in a few hours.”

At Shannon’s nod, he thought for a moment and said, “There’s a restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky, the Blue Rose, just off Interstate 75. We’ll be there around seven p.m. I’ll meet you with the package; no promises Shannon will be with me.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get.”

He glanced over again and saw Shannon wipe at her eyes. “Let me offer some advice. Don’t push too hard. She’s Shannon Bliss. DNA confirmed it a few hours ago. I’m taking her home. And now that you know that fact, forget you heard it. It’s not . . . productive to have that news released just yet.”

There was a long silence. “I remember that case. What kind of shape is she in?”

Not as good as she’d be in a few weeks, Matthew thought. “She’ll be fine. Look me up under Dane Investigations, Boston. I’ll tell my staff to forward your calls. I’m shutting off this phone when I hang up.”

“I’ll see you at the restaurant at seven.”

He clicked off. “Expecting anyone other than Adam to call you at this number?”

She shook her head. He powered it off, handed it back to her, and she dropped it into the bag.

The extraordinary thing right now was that he didn’t find himself surprised to realize what she’d managed to do. He looked at the manila envelope in her hand. “Would that happen to be helpful information on the people who have been doing this?”

“Yes. There’s no hurry. They’re dead.” She shifted the envelope in her hands, added in a husky voice, “They’d have a photo of who to grab, a location, sometimes even a time, plus an address of where to make the delivery, often a few states away. They seemed to all be child custody disputes. By the time the child was dropped off, they would be terrified. They would warn the child, ‘If you ever talk about us, talk about where you were living before, give this relative any problems at all, we’ll come take you again and
keep
you with us this time.’ I doubt any of the kids ever talked about what happened with anyone.”

“You’re talking about people smugglers.”

“Yes. I never figured out who was hiring them.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

The silence lasted to the point he didn’t think she would answer. Then she sighed and said, “A cop car was in the driveway of the address where I was to be dropped off, so they kept driving. They had a fishing trawler in the Seattle area and put out to sea. They tossed me in the ocean to drown—only I swam longer than they expected. Flynn talked them into hauling me back into the boat.”

The pain that swept through his chest felt like a vice. He glanced over, saw that calm mask slip back in place as she simply buried the emotions of that memory. He instinctively reached over and laid his hand on hers. She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t pull away. When he finally spoke, his own control was
running deep, for there was only mild curiosity in his voice. “Your parents were having a custody dispute over you?”

“Not that I was aware of before I was grabbed.”

“Did you recognize the address where you were to be dropped off?”

“No. I’d never been to that town before.”

“Want to tell me where that was?”

She shook her head. Having this conversation while driving was getting risky, given how he was trying to focus on her and the road at the same time. “Your parents are divorced now,” he mentioned, “about three years after you were abducted.”

“I’m aware.”

“Would you tell me about Flynn?”

“No. I won’t talk about him. And for now, I’m done talking about this.”

He stopped his questions, let the silence return, grateful she’d given him as much as she had. She’d opened with one of the hardest points of her story. He briefly tightened his hand on hers, then moved his back to the wheel. “Thanks for what you did say.”

“Be cautious where you repeat it.”

He nodded and waited a long moment. “You don’t know what really happened in your family back then, do you?”

“No. So for now I only want to talk with my brother. He’s . . . safe.”

“The person behind this—it may not have been someone in your family. It may have been someone using you to bring pressure on your parents. It may be totally unrelated.”

“Maybe.”

And that one word summed up his problem. Without knowing what she was facing, without answers for how this
had begun, he would be trying to help her, protect her, while navigating in the dark as to the source of the most acute concerns. “Just to be on the safe side, it would be useful to have someone who’s aware of the history watch what your parents, and those around them, do in the days after they learn you’re alive.”

She looked his direction now. “Someone in my family or around them may have paid to have me grabbed. Would you really want to know that about your own family?”

The thought made him sick. He finally said quietly, “Whoever arranged it will have reason to fear your return, that you know who did this to you.”

“When the time’s right I’m going to bluff that I do know what happened, that I’ll be talking about it, and hopefully they’ll tip their hand. But it’s not going to happen in this first round of conversations. I’ve got too much on my list that has to be dealt with first. I’ll get to who did this to me in good time. But first things first.”

“Are there more kids to recover?”

Her hand flexed against her jeans. “None that can be rescued. Just graves to give their parents closure.”

“How many?”

“Enough, Matthew. I’m done talking for now.”

He drove another forty minutes, letting the silence have room to settle between them, giving her space to get her composure back. He found a Longhorn Steak House and hoped the person working the grill was turning a perfect steak today. They both needed good food to distract from the pain caused by the details she’d offered, even if the last thing he felt like doing right now was making light conversation over a meal.

He parked, and as they both stepped out of the car, he paused
to look across the roof of the vehicle. “Do you trust Adam York?”

She hesitated before shutting her door. “No.”

“Why not?”

“He’s politically wired and ambitious to move up in the FBI hierarchy.”

Matthew waited for her at the sidewalk curb, pushing aside the instinct of habit to reach out a hand as he would have for most women entering a restaurant with him. “Did you choose him for the packages because of that ambition?”

“Adam was the most aggressive field agent in the region, where the first photos and kids were located. He got them out. I sent him the next envelope. He got them out too. I don’t have to like him to make use of his skills.”

Matthew was puzzled by her opinion and curious as to how it had formed. “What if you’ve entirely misread him?” He held the first of the restaurant entrance doors for her.

She glanced over at him. “You mean what if he’s really a nice guy and will do right by me, even if that comes into conflict with what is best for his career?”

“Yes.”

She paused between the two sets of doors, the mostly empty restaurant and hostess waiting to seat them on the other side. “Matthew, you have reason to be altruistic. Your career is dead in terms of advancement, because you stepped away for a decade because of your daughter. You would be welcome back at the Boston PD and given back your rank as a detective, and you could spend the next twenty years working robbery if that was your wish. But you’ll never shift to the political track and work your way up to become the top cop for the city. You don’t need that ambition to reach your life goal. A guy like Adam York still
has the hope to rise to the top, and it’s that ambition that causes him to use cases such as this as stepping-stones. He’ll care, but only to a point, because he knows the next case is following behind this one. I’m useful to him, and he’ll be good to me and helpful right up to the point it might complicate his goal.”

“You would handle someone like Adam York as an ally but not as a friend,” Matthew said.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know whether to admire your blunt assessment and decision or feel sorry you’ve had to make it. Have you ever met Adam York?”

“No.”

He held the interior door for her. “Maybe it’s best if I meet Adam without you tonight.”

She gave him a glimmer of a smile. “That might be best.”

Interstate driving was a lesson in monotony. Matthew was thankful Shannon wasn’t napping, if only because she gave him something to focus on. “Hey, would you try to relax? Your brother is going to be overjoyed to see you,” he said, trying to dislodge the frown he could see forming. Shannon had been making notes on a pad of paper headlined with
JEFFERY
for the last hour back on the road, and Matthew could literally feel her building tension.

“He remembers someone who looks sixteen,” Shannon muttered. “I’m going to need something better than jeans and a T-shirt.”

She ignored the real reasons she was tense and had given him the
I
have nothing to wear
answer. He nearly laughed because he’d heard that line of retreat so many times from Becky that
he could finish the sentence. At least here was something with Shannon he could understand. “The next town we pass, we’ll stop at a mall and you can shop for something else. You’ll look just right,” he reassured, “because you’re the sister he loves and has hoped and longed to see. Just stay with low heels in case we have to hurry down some stairs to avoid the press.”

“Contingency planning?”

“We won’t need it, but it never hurts to be prepared. It’s why you have me helping you out.” Matthew spotted an exit sign ahead that looked promising and changed lanes, glad for a reason to take another break from the drive. “Would you not get insulted if I ask you how you’re set for cash?”

“I’ll need access to a gym bag in the trunk. I have more than enough for a dress, shoes, and accessories.”