The Stolen (11 page)

“What?” I said. “What happened?”

“The sonata. Michelle played it for me that night. I left the house cold, shivering. I didn’t sleep for a week.”

“Why?” I said, a shiver running down my back.

Delilah Lancaster turned toward me. “In the dozens of lessons I had with Michelle Oliveira, never once had she even attempted to play Beethoven. She had never tried to play that symphony. That sonata was not even in any of the books I purchased for her. Somehow she’d learned to play that piece in between the time she disappeared…”

“…and when she came back.”

I looked at Delilah Lancaster. She was trembling, her hands gripping the wheel so hard they’d become white.

“Somebody else taught her how to play that sonata.”

I
marched into Wallace Langston’s office and sat down. He was poring over a pile of loose pages. He simply looked up and stared at me.

“I don’t recall that chair offering you a seat,” he said. I stood back up. Without missing a beat, Wallace said, “Now you can sit down, Henry. What’s up?”

I took out the tape recorder, put it on the desk in front of Wallace. “I just spent the day in Meriden talking to Michelle Oliveira’s old music teacher, Delilah Lancaster. She—”

“Michelle who?” he said. I forgot for a moment that Wallace had dozens of other stories being run past him, and that even though this was hugely important to me, I needed to show him that I was right about my suspicions.

“Seven years before Daniel Linwood disappeared, a girl named Michelle Oliveira vanished from Meriden, Connecticut. For almost four years there was no trace of her. No suspects, no arrests, nada. Then, just like Danny Linwood, she shows up at her parents’ doorstep without the vaguest idea what happened. No scrapes, no bruises, and police can’t figure out what the hell happened or where she’d been.”

Wallace slowly put down the pages. I had his full attention.

“I thought that whole ‘brothers’ thing was strange, but it seemed clear to me that after Daniel was kidnapped, he retained some information from his time gone. I wanted to find out if this was a common occurrence for kidnapping victims. Upon running a search, I found this Oliveira girl, who disappeared in the exact same way. Michelle was very close to her music teacher, this Delilah Lancaster, so I figured she might be able to shed some light and maybe help me understand Danny’s case better. During the interview today, it turns out that in between Michelle Oliveira’s disappearance and return, the girl learned an
entire new
violin sonata. Somehow she’d had access to both instruments and music books. So not only was she kidnapped, but she was kidnapped by somebody who knew her well enough to know she was a violin prodigy.”

Wallace looked at me, looked at the recorder. “She played violin, this Michelle Oliveira?”

“A prodigy,” I said. “She’s at Juilliard now.”

“There’s no chance she started studying this sonata before she disappeared, and simply finished it later?”

I shook my head. “I asked Delilah that. She said they were using a workbook in which that specific sonata was not a part of the lesson. When they resumed lessons after Michelle returned, suddenly this ten-year-old has turned into Yo-Yo Ma.”

“How did Lancaster explain it?”

“She couldn’t,” I said. “And neither could Michelle. Delilah asked her where she learned it, but Michelle didn’t know.”

“And Lancaster believed her?”

“Without a doubt. Like Danny Linwood, it’s an imprint on her brain, the moves in her muscle memory. Unconscious. I did leave several messages for the Oliveiras but haven’t heard back yet, and frankly I’m not expecting to. But something strange is happening to these kids while they’re gone. Obviously somebody took them, and they’re retaining a piece of memory from their time away. It’s not much, but it definitively links Michelle Oliveira and Daniel Linwood. I don’t know how or why, but their disappearances are connected.”

“This is stunning stuff, Parker. And where did you get all this information on Oliveira?” Wallace asked.

“I…Most of it from newspapers. Lancaster was interviewed by the
Journal-Record.
”

“You just happened to come upon this?”

“I dig deep,” I said, thinking of Amanda, not wanting to get her into any trouble.

Just then there was a knock at Wallace’s door. We both turned. Our jaws simultaneously dropped when we saw the striking figure in the doorway.

“Gray,” Wallace said. I recognized the man immediately, but for the life of me couldn’t imagine why he was here.

The man entered, striding up to Wallace with casual confidence.

Wallace said, “Henry, you’ve met…”

“Senator Talbot,” I said. “We met just the other day.”

Gray Talbot smiled at me. “Hello, Henry,” he said. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

I
stood out in the hall, trying to hear what Wallace and Gray Talbot were discussing behind closed doors. Though Wallace had told me to wait by my desk, I wasn’t nearly patient enough. I felt better pacing a tread on the carpet outside of his office. I wondered what the hell Senator Talbot was doing in the
Gazette
offices. Wallace seemed surprised, and I was pretty sure Gray had stopped by totally unannounced. Generally not the behavior of most politicians who throw a press conference to announce they’ve voided their bowels.

I felt slightly dirty, like a journalistic Peeping Tom, straining for quick glimpses. I could only make out corners of the office—Wallace had drawn the shades. I could see Talbot pacing back and forth, his face angry. He was looking in one direction, which inferred that Wallace was sitting at his desk, most likely being defensive.

I got the distinct impression that Wallace was being read the riot act for something, I just wasn’t sure what.

Finally after about twenty minutes, the door opened and Gray Talbot exited. His navy suit was unruffled, his hair unmussed, his demeanor unshaken. Whatever he’d come for today, he’d gotten it.

As he walked by he slowed up, turned to me slightly, leaned in. I could smell his light aftershave, saw a small nick by his jawbone.

“Parker,” he said. “You’re better than this. I haven’t forgotten what we spoke about. And I hope you haven’t, either.”

Before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, Talbot was in the elevator.

Without waiting another second, I burst into Wallace’s office. The editor-in-chief was sitting down, hands steepled, chin resting on his thumbs. He looked up at me without moving, his eyes flickering.

“Sit down, Henry.” I sat.

“How did you get that information about Michelle Oliveira?” he asked. I opened my mouth to speak. “And if you lie to me you’re fired.”

I sighed, knew I was cornered, knew there was nothing I could do.

“I have a contact at the legal aid society. This person gave me information about the Oliveira case. The police report, and more.” I kept it gender nonspecific, just in case. “The rest I did myself. Frankly I didn’t really need it, it was just a shortcut—”

“Shortcuts are the death of our industry, Parker,” Wallace said. “Jayson Blair took shortcuts. Stephen Glass took shortcuts. I don’t expect you to want or need those. And I hope to God you yourself think you’re better than them.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “I knew there was more to this Linwood story than was being reported, and I needed something to tie them together. You know there’s a connection. And without those papers I might not have found it. You can call it a shortcut, I call it a story worth investigating. My source is reliable, and the papers are authentic.”

“Ethics and honesty are not always independent of each other,” Wallace said.

I felt my body go slack. “So what now?” I said. “What did Talbot want?”

“You forget about this story now.”

I felt my body go numb. “That’s ridiculous. He can’t spike a story because he doesn’t like my sources.”

“Gray Talbot has threatened to prosecute you, and by proxy us, if any of what you’ve told me about Daniel Linwood or Michelle Oliveira ever runs. He knows that you obtained those files and he knows you did it illegally, without the knowledge of the LAS. Like you said, it was one rogue employee. And like a good politician he’s going to hold it over our heads until we bend to his will. I know you’ve worked hard on this, Henry, but let it go.”

I stood up. “This is bullshit,” I said. “Do you really think it’s the right thing to let it go? Do you honestly believe there’s nothing more to find on this story?”

“We’re not crusaders,” Wallace said. “We’re not vigilantes, or judges or heroes. You are a reporter. Nothing more or less. It’s not my call to say what’s right and what’s wrong. But I can tell you what your job is. And as of Monday, I’ll have a new assignment for you. Now go. Get rid of any files you have. Take the weekend, recharge your batteries and get ready to kick some ass next week.”

“Right. Kick some ass,” I said lethargically. I left Wallace’s office without saying another word. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to “recharge” over the weekend, but one thing was for damn sure. I wasn’t getting rid of those files. And I sure as hell wasn’t letting this story go.

I
called Amanda as soon as I left the office. The call went straight to her voice mail at work. For a moment my breath caught in my throat. I prayed she hadn’t been fired. Then I tried her cell phone. When she picked up, her voice sounded upbeat, familiar. Not the voice of someone whose life had taken a turn for the worse.

“Oh, thank God, are you OK?” I asked.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be? Is that asteroid finally headed for earth or something?”

“No, even worse. Gray Talbot came by our office today.”

“The political dude?”

“Senator, yeah.”

“What was he doing at the
Gazette?
Doesn’t he get enough press?”

“That’s the thing, he wasn’t there about a story that had already run, he was there to make sure we didn’t print anything else about Danny Linwood or Michelle Oliveira.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why?”

I took a breath. “He knows about the files.”

There was silence. Then she spoke. “I assume you’re referring to whatever files I definitely had nothing to do with.”

“Those are the ones.”

“Goddamn it, Henry, you promised you wouldn’t say anything!”

“Amanda, I didn’t, I swear. But he knew about it and threatened to either fire me or castrate Wallace if we ran any stories about Michelle Oliveira, using the information you gave me. Is it possible someone in your office knows you took the files?”

“It’s possible,” she said. “I had to log in to our system to print out a lot of it. But if they know I took them, why haven’t I been led out by Security?”

“Same reason he came by our office. He wants this kept quiet. You get fired, the press gets hold of that, and he’s got much more than Wallace Langston to worry about.”

“But why is he taking such an interest in Michelle and Danny?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll find out.”

“I want to find out with you,” she said. “I’ll meet you at your apartment in an hour.”

“Amanda,” I said. “I don’t think—”

“Right, don’t think anything. I want to help figure out what the hell is going on. I work with kids seven days a week. Kids that have been beaten and left for dead because nobody fought for them. And now it turns out two of them are missing pieces of their lives and some stuffed shirt wants to step on it? Not on my watch.”

I came this close to saying
I love you.
I didn’t. But it sounded great in my head.

“I’ll be at my place in an hour,” I said. “See you then.”

“Have a pot of coffee ready,” she said. “And please, Henry. Pick up whatever dirty underwear is starting to grow spores in your hamper.”

“I have a hamper?”

She hung up.

I caught a cab back home, threw every article of clothing that appeared salvageable into a garbage bag and shoved it into my closet. I was apprehensive about letting her in. Amanda hadn’t set foot in my apartment in six months. Like me, Amanda had the inquisitive gene. And especially now that her ass was on the line, she was going to be a part of this until we figured out what happened to the years Michelle and Danny had lost. I just needed to make sure my nasty socks hadn’t grown a life of their own in the meantime.

Once the apartment was clean enough to present, I poured a glass of water and sat on the couch, thinking about Daniel Linwood and Michelle Oliveira. It had made me sick to read about how heartbroken their families were when they disappeared, how two families could be shattered in seconds. I could only imagine the joy when they came back, as though a hole in their parents’ hearts had suddenly been repaired.

I hadn’t spoken to my father or mother in two years. The last time was while I was on the run. I called my father one night, holed up in a dank room, waiting for two men who would either be my saviors or my executioners. I called him for two reasons. The first was to say goodbye, in the event that I didn’t make it out alive. The second was out of the hope that that bastard would give me something to keep going, a reason to live, to spite him if nothing more. He gave me that, and I lived. And we hadn’t spoken since. I never desired to. I didn’t wish him dead, but merely hoped he took care of my poor, absent mother the best he knew how. But I was glad to be gone from that home. I was happy to be living a life where I was the only arbiter of my triumphs or failures. Like Danny and Michelle, I’d been lost, too.

The buzzer jolted me out of my thoughts. I went to the window, looked down to see Amanda standing at the door. She looked up, saw me, gave me the finger. Classy as always. I jogged to the intercom and released the door lock, then did another once-over of the apartment to make sure no dust bunnies—or actual bunnies—were hiding from view.

In the minute I had before Amanda got to the door, I considered how to answer it. Suave, with a Rhett Butler-esque baritone in my voice? Should I leave the door unlatched, sit on the couch and try to act nonchalant? Maybe greet her with a glass of water, or wine? A plate of cheese? A half-eaten Snickers bar from my nightstand?

Then I remembered it was Amanda. She wasn’t impressed by overdone gestures. She’d spent years of her life sizing people up in mere seconds, a habit brought on by her adoption after the death of her parents. She was a better judge of character than anyone I’d ever known. She could tell who was real and who wanted you to believe they were real. I’d been nothing but real during our relationship. And even though I doubted we’d ever be together again, I couldn’t stop being that. She saw past it. And I didn’t want her to look any further.

The doorbell rang. I cleared my throat—the least I could do was talk to her phlegm-free—and answered it. She was dressed in fitted jeans, a gray T-shirt and a thin red cardigan. Her hair spilled gently over her shoulders. It was a few seconds before I realized how much I’d missed seeing her, cataloging her beauty on a daily basis. I threw the thoughts from my head, and said, “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” She was holding two cups of coffee, and offered me one. “I figured you’d forget to brew a pot. Milk and three hundred Splendas, right?”

I smiled. “Perfect. I was kind of hoping my teeth might jitter all night. Come on in.”

She entered the apartment, looked around. “Looks good,” she said. “It’s been a while. I was kind of expecting a bear to attack me, or some sort of underwear monster to run across the room.”

“The underwear monster doesn’t come out until the sock monster goes to sleep.”

“I’m going to ignore you now.”

She walked around to the couch, sat down, placed her coffee on the small marble table, already ringed with many old coffee cup stains, including a few that were most likely from Amanda’s cups and had never been cleaned.

“This place missed you,” I said, then felt silly for saying it. “Really? It probably has enough festering life forms hiding that it did tell you that.”

“Yeah, the comforter and I, we chat sometimes.”

“If cleanliness is next to godliness, I think this makes you the Antichrist.”

I laughed, took a sip of the coffee. Then we sat in silence for a moment.

“So Gray Talbot,” she said, thankfully breaking the tension. “What does he have to do with Michelle and Daniel?”

“I did a bit of a background check on the senator,” I said. “Found a few interesting facts.”

“Let me guess. This was after Wallace told you to let it be.”

“Naturally. Anyway, in 2001, after Michelle Oliveira disappeared from Meriden, Gray Talbot swooped in like an avenging angel and pretty much scorched the earth. He lambasted the government of Connecticut, the social services offices, the police force, criticized them all for betraying the families that lived within their borders. He said it was a sad day when an out-of-stater had to come in because the job wasn’t being done right. And Talbot saved his best blasts for then Governor John Rowland.”

“Rowland,” Amanda said. “That name rings a bell.”

“It should. John Rowland resigned from office as governor of the state of Connecticut in 2004 due to charges of massive corruption. Mail fraud, tax fraud, he even served ten months in a federal prison.”

“And this guy was running the state when Michelle disappeared?”

“Kind of like having a crack addict babysit your children. Rowland was skimming money for numerous personal projects that had nothing to do with the state. He took state money and paid for improvements to his weekend cottage, took thousands of dollars in gifts from his subcontractors. Of course, after prison he did the whole rehab-image deal, everything but appear on the cover of
People
magazine. Anyway, Talbot came in after Michelle disappeared and tore Rowland a new one for letting the state go to seed. He said the state was not protecting its youth. At the time, Meriden had the second-highest crime rate in the state, and it had gotten worse over the previous few years. Even though Talbot was a New York senator, he was quoted as saying, ‘This is a matter so vital to the future of our country that it would be irresponsible to only permit coloring within state lines.’”

“So Talbot ruins Rowland, then what?”

“Talbot institutes a program called ‘Not on Our Watch.’ He raises millions of dollars earmarked for improving security within Meriden and other surrounding counties. More money for police recruiting, neighborhood watches, more incentives for gang members and criminals to become informants. He raises thousands of dollars for the Oliveira family, basically seals up trust funds for their other children to go to college. Within two years, the crime rate in Meriden drops like a rock. He spent years working to help the Oliveiras move on with their lives.”

Amanda said, “And now this guy is knocking on Wallace’s door telling him to let the city move on. It sounds to me like Talbot is a guy who worked his ass off to rebuild a community, then sees some punk reporter, no offense…”

“None taken…”

“…digging around, looking for holes in the masonry.”

“Not to mention the most interesting part,” I said. “Michelle Oliveira grew up in Meriden, but guess where she was born?”

“I don’t know, where?”

“Hobbs County.”

“Like Danny Linwood?” she said. “Holy shit, that’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“Or maybe not,” I said. “Guess where our favorite senator also grew up?”

Amanda looked at me. She said, “No way…”

“That’s right, Hobbs County for two hundred, Alex.”

“So this guy has taken protecting his own to a whole new level. No wonder as a New York senator he decided to stick his nose into another state.”

“What’s also strange, though, is that both Meriden and Hobbs County were essentially cesspools before Michelle Oliveira and Daniel Linwood were kidnapped. Since Talbot came in, they’ve seen unprecedented growth and community support.”

“Talbot seems to have done his job well,” she said. “There are certainly enough shitty neighborhoods in New York, maybe he should take care of his own backyard for a bit.”

“That’s why he was at Danny Linwood’s home the day I interviewed him,” I said. “He is looking out for his own backyard. Literally.”

“What are you thinking we should do?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But it concerns me any time a politician does something for the alleged good of the community. It makes me wonder what the quid pro quo is.”

“Well, how has Talbot’s career been affected since Michelle Oliveira and Danny Linwood came back?”

“Well, he’s won by a landslide every time he’s run for reelection,” I said. “One would assume at some point he’ll want to move from the senate to the governor’s mansion. All that good press can’t hurt.”

“You think we might be a little too cynical?” Amanda said. “I mean, this guy seems to have legitimately changed lives. Maybe even saved a few. For all the politicians that talk a big game, this guy actually gets his feet dirty. Yet he ruffles a few feathers at your office and we’re ready to string him up.”

“I’m not doing anything like that,” I said defensively. “But I need to know why two children disappeared into thin air, reappeared years later with no memory of where they went, and nobody seems to be looking too hard into that fact. I have no idea if Gray Talbot is the greatest Samaritan of all time or Jack the Ripper in a good suit. I just want the truth. And one thing I’ve learned in this job is that anytime somebody tells you not to look under that rock, there’s something there they don’t want you to find.”

“And now you’re going to lift that rock. Even if it means your job.”

“Even if it means
your
job,” I said, looking her dead in the eye. Amanda seemed taken aback, then she took a breath and calmed down.

“Guess I should have expected that.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t be sorry. I want to respect you. If you pulled punches, I wouldn’t.”

“Sometimes I hit harder than I need to. Against people who don’t deserve it.”

“Yeah…” she said, eyeing me warily. “I think it’s time for me to head home.”

“You’re sure?” I said. “You want to grab dinner or something?”

Amanda looked at me, sadness in her eyes. “Henry, this is what it is. I’ll help you all you need. I want to know everything about Danny and Michelle, too. But this is what we are, now, you and me. And this is a choice you made.”