Taken (8 page)

“How many from the family can you identify for the police?”

“Identifying is easy. Locating is hard. They travel the country in a way that’s somewhat predictable by season, but they never stay within a hundred miles of a place they’ve been before. And they have trip wires all over the nation—people they do business with, places they stop, names that change, even check-in calls. Have a cop ask the wrong question, mention the wrong name, raid the wrong place, detain the wrong person, and the entire family folds up shop and disappears like ghosts.”

He thought about that and realized her dilemma. “You’re aiming to get them all.”

Shannon nodded. “I chose my time when I could run with enough information to tear the group apart. Some of the
information I needed was on the West Coast, some on the East Coast. It took a while to get enough.”

And the danger
in that decision she’d made was breathtaking
. He forced himself not to follow up on her comment, kept his voice casual. “It sounds to me like a conversation with Paul is in order.”

She shook her head. “The children side of this is first, if there’s someone who hired them that can be traced. The five are dead, but I don’t know who was hiring them.”

“How did they die?”

“A family dispute settled with guns. The two sides of the family are like the Hatfields and McCoys right now. What was left of the kidnapping side of the family shut down and disbanded a year ago. These last two girls taken were an outlier—it’s what got the last two people in those photos killed. The rest of the family has gone quiet, sort of hibernating, shaking off the internal implosion.”

“Could you have gotten out earlier?”

“When Flynn was around, I could . . .
maneuver
is probably the right word. It’s how I got the packages mailed. But getting out would have meant someone left behind got killed. They were good at controlling people, making you responsible for someone else’s well-being. If you exhibited no concern over what happened to your assigned person, they assumed you were uncontrollable and put a bullet in your head.”

She glanced up, caught the expression of horror on his face, wiped hers clean of any emotion. “Sorry.”

He simply shook his head. “How big is this family?”

“Eighteen deserve to be in jail. Another six are . . . ‘mercy cases’ is how I think of them. They knew, but couldn’t do anything about it without such a price being paid that staying silent
was all they reasonably could do.” She pushed back from the table.

Matthew reached over and rested his hand on hers before she could rise. “Shannon, did someone die because you ran?” He asked it as gently as he could, but he had to ask, had to know. Nothing would destroy her faster than carrying around that kind of crushing guilt.

She blew out a breath. “No. They think I’m dead. I was one of the names on the cleanup list after the family implosion. Flynn was assigned to do it, but he didn’t use a bullet. He simply said ‘good luck’ and let me try to swim back to land.” She faintly smiled, remembering. “I’m pretty sure he was hoping I would make it, because he tucked a locker key to one of his private stashes in my hand before he pushed me overboard.”

“Where was this? How far did you swim?”

He caught a very brief change in her expression before she gained control again. Whatever the answer, at some point she’d thought she wouldn’t make it, that she’d drown. She shook her head.

“Is Flynn someone who deserves mercy?”

“Flynn is . . . nearly as dangerous to the family as I am.”

M
atthew, you’ve got to convince her to have a conversation with us,” Paul said early the next morning after he heard the update on what Shannon had shared.

“I’ll see once we arrive. She’s dumping the story at such a pace I think I’m going to have most of it by the time we reach Chicago. That may in fact have been her intention all along.”

He had his phone on speaker, making notes as they talked. He reached for his coffee and stilled as he saw movement. He lifted a hand in greeting to Shannon and motioned her to come on in. He’d pushed open the connecting door a foot when he heard her moving around. He pointed to the box of donuts he’d gone out early to buy, and the quart of orange juice he had opened. She smiled her thanks.

“If we knew the address where she was to be dropped off, we could very likely solve the reason for her abduction and who paid to have it done,” Paul pointed out, his voice sounding slightly hollow on the speakerphone.

“I know.” Matthew looked over at Shannon, who shook her head. “Whatever her reason is for holding it back, I think it’s
deliberate. I’ll ask her on the names, see if she recognizes anyone. Anything else you have on your short list?” He turned the pad of paper toward Shannon as he offered the comment so she could read the list. She looked over the nine names, shook her head no.

“John Key has arrangements made for a safe place to stay in Chicago. You’ll need two security codes for the entrances, but not a key. I’ll direct you once you hit town, as its location is a bit tucked away.”

“Tell him thanks. Once we’ve arrived, give us a day to shake off the travel fatigue, then call her brother and set up a meeting.”

“That works for me,” Paul agreed.

Matthew took back the pad of paper. “Shannon’s looked at the names and drawn a blank.”

“Well, that’s . . . disappointing,” Paul finally said. “We’ll keep digging.”

“Appreciate it. I’ll call you again this evening once we’ve settled for the night.”

“It’s a plan. Talk to you later.”

Matthew clicked off the phone.

“Who are they?” Shannon asked, tipping her glass of orange juice toward the list of names.

“Lawyers connected either directly or tangentially to your parents and extended family eleven years ago.”

“You think someone on that list helped put in motion what happened to me?”

“If the pattern holds, it’s probable. It’s also possible what happened back then is why they started doing only child custody disputes from then on. You might have been the last of some other kind of general business.”

“I was definitely the first case where they couldn’t make a
delivery as planned. They were furious I was still with them. And the custody disputes were lucrative enough they might have decided to specialize after that.”

Matthew got up to pour himself more coffee from the small coffee maker in the room. “Paul’s right, you know. The address where you were to be dropped off is a very big deal. With that address we can get a name of who was there eleven years ago, develop a bio, find out who we’re dealing with. That can be done quietly. They won’t even know we’re looking. The person who was expecting you to arrive that day is the one person who can answer the most questions about what happened to you and why.”

“I’m not prepared to give you that address. Not yet.”

“Would you tell me the reason?”

She shook her head. “I can be ready to be on the road in about an hour if that suits you.”

“That will be fine. No one is expecting us in Chicago on a particular day. If you’d find it helpful just to stay put, take some extra time to rest, we can do that.”

“I’m kind of enjoying sleeping in the car.”

Matthew laughed. “I don’t mind the quiet company.”

Matthew thought about that “quiet company” remark more than once over the next few hours. Shannon was asleep in the front passenger seat, turned slightly toward him, one hand slid under the shoulder strap of the seat belt, the other resting in her lap. She didn’t always sleep easily—he noticed the frequent dreams—but she did sleep, and that was something he was pleased to see. There would be a point where depression would trigger her to sleep too much, but this looked more like a body too long under stress trying to heal.

She eventually began to stir, and he mentally reviewed upcoming towns and where to stop for lunch. Rest, food, conversation when she wanted to talk—the basic equation he’d figured out with his daughter that had to undergird everything else he hoped might occur. He glanced over as she stretched, caught her yawn, shared a smile. “You look better for the sleep.”

“Feeling a bit better too.”

“How are the dreams?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Becky didn’t want to deal with the details of what happened, so her mind suppressed most of them. But they came back first in her dreams, then in random clips of memory, then as something which wouldn’t fade from her thoughts until she talked about it. Eleven years is a long time. Are you dealing with something similar?”

“Yes and no. And no, I don’t want to explain that answer just yet.”

He nodded acceptance of the closed door.

She studied exit signs and noted, “There’s a town south of Columbus called Seymour. If you can find it, there’s a stop we should make.”

She’d mentioned she knew where a stolen item was. If they were going to pick it up, that raised all kinds of interesting questions about who should search the place—Indiana State Police, FBI, cops in the town of Seymour? And how did he explain matters to the appropriate agency without complicating this further? Matthew found an Indiana State map in the driver’s side pocket, handed it to her. “Search out Seymour.”

She unfolded the map and studied the area. “It looks to be only about twenty minutes off our route,” she said. She put her finger on the map, and he glanced over at it a couple of times,
nodded that he had it. She folded the map to center Seymour on the page. “Can you not wonder too much about what it is until I first see if it’s even still there?”

She had a point. “I’ll try,” he said. “Tell me about the place we’re going, if not the item we’re hoping to find.”

“It’s an old apple orchard and roadside fruit stand. Nothing much to look at now, other than the apples being still pretty good on the trees that haven’t gone wild or died. The property probably was no longer a well-maintained business a few years after I was taken.”

“You’ve been here?”

“I’ve been through this area several times, stopped at this particular place just once. But it was memorable enough I should be able to find it again.”

They found the apple orchard forty minutes later. Matthew pulled off and parked beside a lean-to structure that, from its faded sign, once served as the roadside store. The roof was still attached, but one wall had collapsed and was simply waiting for the next good windstorm to flatten the last of it.

They got out of the car and looked around. Not a soul was in sight. Birds were singing, the sun was hot, and some of the trees looked like they could give some good apples. Shannon walked back into the center of the roadway and lifted her hand to shade her vision as she scanned the area. “I think we go that way.” She pointed toward the orchard.

Matthew picked up the bottles of cold drinks from their last stop and handed her one, locked the car. “What are we looking to find?” He fell in step beside her as they set out.

“A tree.”

“In a sea of trees,” he quipped.

“It’s not an apple tree.”

“That will help.”

They walked ten minutes through the orchard and reached its northern boundary. A plowed and planted field to the right, a fairly steep ravine on the left going down to a trickle of a stream that likely gushed after a big rain. More trees, oaks and elms and a few hickories, he thought, unsure about his leaf identifications.

“That one.” Shannon pointed out an oak tree at the point where the orchard met the field. An old building with stacked packing crates around it and what might have once been a tree sprayer and a conveyor belt, its engine now rusted, rested forlornly nearby.

“You’re sure?”

She walked over to the tree and looked up. “It’s grown.”

He laughed. “Was it not supposed to?”

“Give me a boost.”

“You mean to climb that tree.”

“Not very far, but yeah. I’d rather trust you than that wooden ladder that’s probably sun-rotted years ago.”

“How are you going to get down?”

“Matthew—I climb trees. It’s an odd hobby, but I’ll be fine. Now give me a boost.”

He put his hands together, and she put her foot in the cradle. He helped her reach the lowest limb of the oak tree, its circumference as big as a good-sized tree itself. She hoisted herself up to straddle it, then moved back to the trunk and stood up. She reached the next branch above her, picked her toeholds, and climbed up one more level. She looked into a hollow in the trunk where an owl might sit and nest. “It’s still here,” she called down. “What’s it worth to you?”

“What are you asking?”

“An ice-cream cone.”

“Deal.”

She reached into the hole and pulled out a small box covered with leaves and twigs. She shook it clean. “Catch!”

He moved swiftly and caught it. It was a bit fatter and stockier than a cigar box, carefully wrapped in white butcher paper. He placed it on the ground and moved to where he could watch as she came down a level and straddled the lowest limb.

“I’m not jumping for you to catch me. Move out of the way. I’m going to drop and roll.”

“You’ll break an ankle.”

“Trust me, this isn’t even high enough to be a challenge. I break a bone, you can say ‘I told you so,’ and I’ll even answer twenty questions without saying ‘no comment.’”

It was a confident wager. “Just be careful,” he insisted. “You break something, I’ll never live it down with my daughter.”

She laughed, and a moment later hit the ground and rolled. She rose to her feet and dusted herself off. “Down, safe and sound.”

He walked over and picked up what she had risked life and limb to retrieve. “What’s in the box you just rescued?”

“Someone’s dowry, I think. A woman named Ashimera Tai. It’s engraved on the top of the jewelry box. From what I overheard, you’re holding three hundred thousand in jewelry. They wanted it to cool off for a very long time before they did anything with it, hence the tree.”

“I would have expected a safe-deposit box.”

“Depends who was in charge of the hiding. Some of them didn’t like banks and guards and cameras and having to get permission to claim their stuff.”

“How did they find this place and decide to put it here?”

“Flynn and I used to do a lot of geocaching—you know, that
game using GPS where you locate metal tins or plastic containers holding a logbook to record you were there, and sometimes small trinkets to exchange. It’s how we would kill time on a cross-country trip. There was a find box near the roadside fruit stand. Flynn thought this place was interesting, so we walked around, and he found this tree. I watched Flynn put the package up there.” She looked at the wrapped package. “So . . . do you call the cops and report you found a box, or do we get to take it with us to Chicago to deal with there?”

“Is there anything else hidden around here?”

“Not that I know of.”

He made a decision that getting to Chicago rather than explaining matters to local authorities was the better part of wisdom. “Put it in one of your gym bags, and I’ll ask Paul what he wants me to do with it.”

“You’re killing me here, Matthew. You’re a robbery cop. You don’t want to open it, search the database of stolen goods, find the owner, learn how it was originally taken, talk with the insurance company that probably paid out on the claim, be the one to return the stolen property to its rightful owner, see her face light up when you return her jewelry?”

He would enjoy every bit of doing just that, but his shrug belied it. “Retired cop.”

“Un-retire. You’re dying to get back on the job with something interesting, and you’re holding interesting.”

He was more intrigued by what this item told him about her. “How many more stolen items are stashed somewhere you might be able to find?”

“Okay, fine. A few. But I’m not climbing any more trees for you if you’re going to be a stick-in-the-mud about it,” she muttered as she headed back to the road.

He laughed, jogged after her, dropped his arm casually around her shoulders, and was pleased when she didn’t flinch or shift away. “I haven’t heard that phrase in decades.”