Taken (7 page)

“I’ll be fine—”

She started to tell him it wasn’t so bad, and he shook his head, stopping her words. The timing for it wasn’t ideal with Shannon arriving in town, with Matthew needing help, but it was necessary. “That was our deal, Ann. I want my wife, not a shell of who you are. You can’t be what you need—what I need—when you’re exhausted. You can disappoint other people for the next week to please me. We’ll host Shannon’s meeting with her brother here. You can come to the cookout when that gets arranged. Talk with Matthew when he calls. Otherwise, silence the phone, get some solitude and some rest. Do some painting. I’ll step in and handle matters regarding Shannon.” He tipped up her chin to kiss her. “If I’d been thinking, I would have gone to see Charlotte and Bryce today on your behalf.”

“I needed to do it. She’s my friend, and it was a lot to ask.”

“Charlotte’s been a good friend to you and you to her,” Paul agreed. “You’re brutally tired, Ann. You can’t ignore that, wish it away.”

She conceded the point. “I’ll go paint—five days, starting tomorrow after we get back from church. What about Black?”

He smiled. “Black and I could use some guy time to reconnect. No one fussing when I share my breakfast with him or wondering why we pause on a walk to watch a nice poodle stroll by.”

She laughed, rested her hands on his arms. “Thank you. More than you can know—most guys wouldn’t get me, but you do. It’s no wonder I love you. But could I make one change to that plan?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Let me go talk to Theo, look at the case board, and pose some questions. I’ve spent since Friday night pushing case-file information into my brain, and I can be useful to him for a few hours. You know I can.”

He leaned in to softly kiss her again. “I’m not questioning your usefulness, only the timing. Spend Monday afternoon with him. Sort out whether things are going the right direction. Then leave it to Theo and me for a few days, all right?”

“All right.”

“Good,” Paul replied with a nod of his head. “Now, what do you want on your cheeseburger? The works?”

“No onions.”

He smiled. “For either of us,” he decided. He finished the meal prep and set their plates on the counter where they often ate.

He knew others wondered at the way he guarded his life with Ann, the privacy they maintained, the quiet schedule they kept most of the year. He knew something they did not. In her element, Ann was one of the best thinkers he had ever met, able to make intuitive leaps and see connections that even seasoned investigators missed. She’d been an excellent homicide cop, she was a good writer, and had a relationship with God he envied. Those facets of who she was had developed because of the time she’d been able to spend thinking. He’d married her wanting to share that life, not push her into being a different person after adding the title
wife
. It mattered to him that he cared for her
well, that the woman he’d met and fallen in love with would still be found in his wife. The trade-off of some solitude for her was a rich marriage for himself—he knew how to protect what mattered.

The cheeseburgers tasted delicious. Still, Ann passed over half of hers and got herself another tapioca.

“Did you ever meet Adam York?” he asked her, curious.

“The one who’s been catching those missing-kid packages from Shannon?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been trying to place where I’ve heard his name. I don’t think I’ve met him, but a case out of Ohio crossed with one of his, I think. The cop thought the FBI was being pushy, so I tucked away the name.”

“Ideally, Shannon has only one contact with the FBI other than me, and it doesn’t sound like York is the right agent. I’d go with Rita as my first choice, but she’s involved elsewhere. While Sam would be able to set the right tone, I think we need a woman.”

“Shannon’s better off if it’s Matthew Dane and only one cop,” Ann suggested. “I’d choose Theodore Lincoln for the conversations. He knows her case, he has history with her family, he’s thorough and careful and the right mix of patient cop and calm detective—he’ll work the case and stay out of the press limelight until his boss sends him to a podium. I predict Shannon is going to meet Theo and be very comfortable with him. Let the FBI sit back in the information flow. You want Shannon to give you details, you need to keep her initial world small—under five people if possible. Matthew Dane, Theodore Lincoln, a good woman doctor, her brother, and maybe Charlotte. Make that the inner circle she deals with for the next several weeks.”

Paul thought Ann’s read of the situation was solid, and he had no problem with the FBI drafting behind Theo for the details. “I’ll keep the case on my desk for now, haul in Dave and Sam as the next additions. They get along well with Theo. Once we get the information suggesting the geography this case is going to cover, I’ll reassess who we need.”

The dog was pushing his bowl around the kitchen in a not-so-subtle reference to the fact it was empty. Paul got up to take plates over to the dishwasher. “Would a walk help, Black?”

The dog’s head came up, and he abandoned the bowl to dart into the entryway. His leash was draped over the saddle of the sculpture, and they heard it hit the floor. Black trotted back into the kitchen, trailing the leash behind him. Ann was laughing as she leaned down for it. “Thank you, Black. One long walk coming up.” She glanced over at Paul. “We need to send him up to the ranch with Quinn for a couple of weeks so he can stretch his legs and chase things, burn off some energy.”

“You know he slept the entire time we were gone,” Paul pointed out, as Black fidgeted impatiently while Ann clipped his leash on. “I’ll take him.” Paul took the leash, and the three of them headed out. Black didn’t love the elevator, but he’d learned to tolerate it. The animal was the first one on. Paul was glad the dog had transitioned to the concrete of living in downtown Chicago as well as he had. Ann and her dog had walked a lot of miles together before he’d met her, and Paul was beginning to appreciate the joy this animal brought to their lives. Black never failed to entertain. “Two miles tonight?” he asked as the elevator opened. And with Ann’s agreement, he turned them south so they’d pass by one decent-sized park during the walk.

M
atthew Dane?” The man had his hand already extended. “Adam York. Pleased to meet you.”

Matthew rose from the corner table in the Blue Rose restaurant to shake the agent’s hand. He could already tell they were heading toward a collision if he didn’t let York take the lead in this conversation. But given it would be to his advantage to have Adam do most of the talking, Matthew smiled and planned to give the man as much space as he wanted. “Please, have a seat,” Matthew said, gesturing to the chair across from his. “I figured this might be a long conversation, so I’ve already ordered appetizers to keep our waitress happy. We’ll be monopolizing a table in her section.”

Adam York drew out the chair. “The meal on the plane comprised a found bag of stale pretzels, so I’m already in your debt.” The waitress came over, and Adam requested both water and a soft drink. The man didn’t deliberately scan the restaurant, but Matthew could see his curiosity as he glanced around. “Is she here?”

“If I said no, would you believe me?” Matthew answered mildly.

“I’ve seen her photo from when she was sixteen. I might recognize her, but figure it would be just a guess after this many years. What can you tell me about her?”

“Beyond the fact she’s alive, in reasonably good health, and beginning to share what happened, I’m not planning to say much.”

The appetizer sampler arrived, along with their drinks. They both placed main-course orders, choosing the day’s special.

The manila envelope with
Adam York
written on it lay on the table between them, but Adam didn’t reach for it. He ate one of the stuffed mushrooms. “I’ve got eighteen kids who would like to tell Shannon thank you,” he mentioned around a bite.

Matthew relaxed. Maybe a touch too aggressive, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, but also a guy with a clear sense of the important to go with that direct approach. He thought he might come to like this FBI agent.

“Your Shannon was getting very early photos of the kids in their new locations,” Adam said, reaching for a napkin. “By the time we received the package and were on scene at the various addresses, the kids’ hair would be dyed a different color, it would be shorter, they’d have papers giving them a different age, different birthday, a few had new names, but it was them. None of the abducted children ever told us who had moved them to their new location. None ever mentioned Shannon or gave a description that might be her.

“The most surprising thing,” Adam continued, “was that we’d get them returned home to their rightful parent, only to realize the kids were terrified to be there. They were convinced someone was going to come grab them again. In every case we
ended up advising the parent to move, change their names, give their kid a sense of a new, safe start in order to find balance again. The abductions and how they were done put a deep scar in these kids’ lives.”

Matthew absorbed that information while he ate his share of the fried zucchini. “What were you able to tug loose about how the abductions were arranged?”

“As a group, the parent arrested illegally holding the child all had a variation on the same story. When the case looked like it would go against him or her, the lawyer suggested someone might be able to help. They could circumvent the courts and get their child—that was guaranteed. But it would be expensive and criminal. If they paid the fee, they were told to walk away from their present life, set up in a new place with a new name, then wait for the child to be delivered. The parent didn’t know the person who dropped the child off, and none were willing to give a full description. A white guy, maybe in his forties, a white panel van with muddy license plates—that was pretty much it for what we could get them to say.”

Their dinner orders arrived, and the conversation paused until the waitress had moved away. The seafood looked good. Matthew considered ordering the same as a carryout for Shannon when this meeting was over. “Did pursuing the lawyers get you anywhere?”

“All the abductions were different lawyers, some in Northern states, some in the South. The four lawyers who finally ended up cooperating with us said they’d received a business card at a family-law conference. They had a phone number, a description offering ‘special assistance for special circumstances.’ They got paid a cut of the fee to provide information and a photo of the child. The distance between where a child was grabbed and
where they were dropped off, along with the timing involved, suggests two or three drivers trading off to get the kid delivered as soon as it could be done. One of the kids confirmed that, in a roundabout way.”

Adam picked up an onion ring, split it in two, and ate half. “There was one rather odd thing we realized early on. Put the location where the child was abducted on the map, where each ended up, and it was always east to west across the Northern states, or west to east across the Southern states. A regular circuit. Also, the abductions in the North happened in the summer, while abductions in the South in the winter.”

“So they weren’t accepting every job they were offered, only those that fit their travel plans?” Matthew guessed.

Adam reached for his drink. “Had to be. I’d receive a package by first-class mail from Shannon in the spring, another in the fall, addressed to my attention. The return address would be real but taken at random from ads in the Yellow Pages in the town where it was mailed. She managed to get the packages put together without leaving any useable prints inside or out. She had to be with the group doing the abductions. Either that or in direct contact with someone in the group.”

The implications of that were worrying, but Matthew merely nodded. He pushed the manila envelope on the table over to Adam. “The people doing the abductions are dead,” he said. “Shannon doesn’t know who was hiring them. I think there was one more layer between the business card and these people. They’d have a photo of who to grab, a location, an address of where to make the delivery. Terror did the job. If the young child told anyone, gave the other parent any trouble, they would come take them again, keep them this time—implying a threat to kill the parents.”

Adam winced. “That would indeed terrify a child into keeping quiet.” He opened the envelope. Five photos spilled out. Four men, one woman. On the back of each was a name, the letters
DOD
followed by a date. A note with neat printing read:
The children abducted over the years should be able to
pick these people out of a photo display with ease.
It will help them to learn these people are gone
and cannot hurt them or their families again. Gravesite locations
are coming.
Adam picked up some of the photos, turned them over. “The date of death is the same for these three. Right at a year ago.”

Matthew checked the other two. “These are also identical—four months ago.”

“I’d hoped for something interesting when you told me there was another envelope, but I wasn’t expecting this,” Adam said, studying the photos with a frown. “We can run these names and photos through the databases, see what aliases and locations pop up. You don’t turn into people smugglers without getting caught for lesser crimes along the way.”

“May I suggest that you take it slow with this information? I think Shannon has more that will be useful to you before you start knocking on doors.”

“One or more of these people abducted her?”

“That’s my guess,” Matthew said.

“Maybe the names and locations for these five, set alongside the lawyers’ information, will yield a common denominator—someone was putting these players in motion. At least it will give us beginning and end points for the money that had to move hands. Maybe the guy that’s the key will show up in the money trail.”

Matthew was still focused on the implications of what Shannon had told him. “We need to know if someone in Shannon’s
family set her up to be abducted, or if someone arranged it to pressure her family,” he told Adam quietly.

“The kids she’s given me—the oldest was ten. Shannon was sixteen when she was taken. That’s old for a custody dispute.”

“Maybe they shifted to only custody disputes and younger children after what turned out to be a debacle with her. Shannon said she was grabbed, taken by these people to a specific address where she was to be delivered, there was a problem at that location, and she was forced to stay with them. So someone paid them to take her, gave directions on where to take her. We need to identify that person.”

“Who’s working this in Chicago?”

“Paul Falcon and his wife, Ann, are involved. Paul’s going to need a look at this envelope’s contents.”

“He’ll have it tonight.” Adam gathered up the photos. “If someone paid to have Shannon grabbed, if they are still around, they’re going to react badly to the fact Shannon turns up. I’d be careful about the ones you trust.”

“That’s what we’re trying to sort out now. The fact that her brother’s running for governor of Illinois isn’t going to help matters.”

“Politics and crime make for very interesting press,” Adam agreed. “I need to talk with Shannon, and sooner rather than later,” he insisted.

“That’s not going to happen in the near term,” Matthew replied flatly. “Neither of us can afford to cut off the flow of information. If you push, she’s going to stop talking.”

“Are there more kids to rescue?”

“She says no.”

Adam pulled out a business card, wrote a number on the back. “I looked you up. I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Appreciate that.”

“Becky’s the reason Shannon found you?”

“Yes.”

Adam pushed the card across the table. “I’ll keep that in mind when we butt heads on the timing of things.”

Matthew smiled and offered a card of his own. “I might come to like you, but don’t take it for granted.”

“Ditto. I’ll call when I’ve got something useful on these five. Tell Shannon thanks.”

“I will.”

Matthew waited until Adam had left the restaurant before he paid the bill and exited with a carryout order for Shannon. He drove south for ten minutes, watching to see if he was being followed, then turned north and headed back to the hotel. Rooms had been booked for them by Ann under names she’d selected at random from the phone book.

Matthew wasn’t surprised to find Shannon still up. They had adjoining rooms at the hotel, and the connecting door between them stood open. Shannon was curled up on his couch, watching television. She didn’t ask how the meeting had gone, but he offered something anyway. “I like Adam York.”

“I figured you might.”

Matthew set down the bag he carried in. “I brought you a meal if you want to add something further to that room-service tray.”

She uncoiled from the couch. “Yeah, thanks, I am hungry again.”

“Becky taught me early on that food started to taste really good to her again in the first months she was home.”

Shannon lifted the lid on the container, and her pleasure was obvious. “This is great.” Matthew pulled out a chair for her at the table, then stepped out to retrieve beverages from the vending machine. He settled in across from her at the table while she ate, working on a package of M&M’s as his dessert.

“Did you enjoy being a cop?”

He was surprised at the unexpected question. “Yes. I was good at it. I liked solving robberies.”

“You didn’t aspire to something else . . . maybe like homicides?”

“No. I liked property crimes. All too often it was someone poor stealing from someone equally poor. It mattered that the theft be solved.”

“You quit because of your daughter’s case?”

He nodded. “I needed more income than my salary could provide in order to hire people to stay on the case full time. Starting my own private firm let me keep working my daughter’s case as I wanted to have it run.”

“I like that about you—that you kept a full press on to solve your daughter’s case. A dad’s instinct, I know, but it says something that you persevered through all those years.” She gestured with her fork. “Will you ever go back to being a cop?”

He shrugged. “Probably. It’s what I enjoyed for the first eight years of my daughter’s life. They’ve asked me back. I’ve got staff who can run the day-to-day of Dane Investigations without me.”

He waited for something else, but she didn’t offer anything further. “What prompted the questions?” he asked.

“I know where something is that was stolen. I might have us stop and pick it up tomorrow.”

He lifted his root beer, considered her over the rim. This was getting even more interesting. He wondered what had been stolen. “People smugglers. Also thieves?”

“Think of it as a family of smugglers. Half the family liked the money that came from dealing with people. The other half preferred dealing only in objects. They smuggled art goods mostly, some jewelry. They’d let things sit for five years or more, then deliver them to a trusted broker in another part of the country.”

“Which side of the family did you spend most of the eleven years with?”

She shook her head.

He tried another query. “Were they good smugglers?”

“They liked boats. They moved a lot of goods up and down both the East and West Coast. The people side of the business was a strictly pickup and drop-off affair. But the objects—sometimes they’d wait a few years and have someone in the circle claim the reward for the item’s return. Most of the time they would sell it. They didn’t actually steal the items; they acquired them from those who were fencing the goods or from brokers who had a deal fall through.”