Taken

  “Memory cards for a digital camera. Photos I’ve taken.”

  His interest sharpened. “Over the last eleven years? Anything that will be helpful to the cops?”

  Shannon sorted out the smaller envelopes, turning them so the initials and dates written on the flaps were visible. “Sorry, not on these. There aren’t people in these photos, just landscapes, trees, animals, sunrises, that kind of thing. I can tell because the sealed sleeve is marked with the initials and date of the person who checked the memory card before I was allowed to keep it. These individuals would delete any photo that had a person in it, whether it was one of them or a stranger’s baby—if a person, it’s gone.”

  The dates covered a variety of random years, some recent, the oldest eight years ago. “How many photos are here?”

  “I’d guess between five hundred and a thousand across these memory cards. I don’t know if they can still be read or if they’ve gone bad.”

  “A camera shop will have the adaptor needed to read them. If you don’t mind me looking at them, I’ll see which cards are still good, load the photos onto my laptop, then get them transferred to a flash drive for you.”

  She dumped the smaller envelopes back into the larger one and handed it to him. “I appreciate the help. Take these other items to Paul, would you?”

  “We’ll swing by and drop them off on the way to the apartment. Is there anything else we can check in this area?”

  “There are a few places I don’t want to be the one to disturb. But there is something . . .” She tugged a notepad out of her canvas bag and flipped to a blank page. “Do me a favor and put this note in the box you just emptied. Flynn might convince the shop owner to open the old box for him by saying he lost his key.”

  He read the note: Flynn, I needed the baseballs as a gift for my brother and dad. Shannon

  “He should know me well enough to see right through the note. He knows I’m not going to give stolen goods to my family. But if someone else is with him, it’s an explanation that would seem plausible for the empty box. If they think it’s me, they’ll react differently than if they think it’s the cops who cleared it.”

  “You don’t mind tipping Flynn to the fact you’re alive.”

  “He would already be acting on the assumption I might be. It won’t change his behavior much to have it confirmed. And it might be . . . useful if he thought I was alive and talking to the cops. It might speed up whatever he’s doing this summer.”

  Matthew wanted more details about Flynn, about what might be going on in the family, but didn’t think probing would get his questions answered just yet. “Give me a minute.” He walked back into the store and put the note in the box.

  Matthew tabbed through the pictures Shannon had taken. Driftwood. Beaches. Sand crabs. Ocean waves. “Do you remember where you took these photos?”

  Shannon came over to the kitchen table and looked over his shoulder at the laptop screen as he moved through the images. “Yes.”

  “Would you tell me something about that place?”

  “One day I might,” she replied lightly. “It’s not that far from Boston. I’ll show it to you.”

  He turned to look at her. It was the first time she’d hinted at coming east. “I’d like that.”

  “I’m not going to want to be in Chicago once this becomes public. The East Coast is not the most pleasant place to drive with all the traffic congestion, but there are some nice places I wouldn’t mind revisiting as a tourist.”

  He nodded and turned back to the laptop. She’d offered something he’d be able to come back to at another time. He looked at more of the images. “They really are good photographs. Nice compositions, interesting subjects. These”—he pointed out two—“are visually stunning.”

  “Thanks.”

  He’d been loading the memory cards without a problem. Even the oldest ones had been readable. “Is this all your photos, these cards?”

  “No . . . there are more.”

  He caught something in her voice. “Shannon?”

  She slid into the seat across from him with a small shrug. “It was how I survived, staying out of people’s way and spending my time with a camera when I wasn’t expected to be doing something else. They photographed and indexed every item they were going to store and later sell, and it was tedious work. A good photograph meant a better sale price could be negotiated before they actually risked transporting the item to the buyer. I volunteered to do it because it kept me out of the way of what else was going on. Since they could check my work with what I had on the memory card, they let me take the photos.

  “I convinced them the better I handled a camera, the better the photos I could take for them. I could carry around one of the older cameras so long as they saw the thumbprints showing every photo on the card and deleted what they didn’t like. And I could keep the old memory cards of photos so long as I bought a new memory card to replace the old one. I’d send these memory cards of photos away to storage; otherwise they had a habit of disappearing. Flynn would do that for me—drop off the memory cards at one of his private boxes. There are more cards I might be able to locate, depending on where Flynn put them.”

  “These photos mean a lot to you.”

  “They were the only things that were mine.”

  He now understood why they mattered so much to her. Taking photos was the only thing in the eleven years where she’d been able to be herself. “Would you mind if I had the camera shop print these images for you onto decent photo paper?”

  “That would get expensive.”

  “Consider it a gift. I’ll take a copy of a couple photos I like as payment, hang them on the wall in my office one day.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I would like to see them printed.”

  There were 417 photos, and Matthew had the camera shop owner print the first 50 while he waited for the Chinese restaurant next door to prepare his to-go order.

  The shop owner handed him a sturdy box holding the prints. “Yours?”

  “A friend’s.”

  “There are some stunning photos here. A few would look really sharp enlarged, maybe up to twenty by thirty. Keep that in mind when you look through them. I’ll offer a good price on the printing, even make it a trade if she’d share a few of the images. They’d make for good advertising in my window.”

  “Yeah? That’s nice of you. I’ll let her know.”

  Matthew told Shannon the shop owner’s remark after they’d finished dinner and she was opening the box of prints. “It’s been several years since you saw these photos if the memory cards have been stored for years. What do you think of your own work?” The photos spread across the tabletop made an impressive panorama.

  “I think I liked nature,” she said with a smile, sorting through the images.

  He picked up one. “You had to be high in a tree to get this perspective.”

  “I’m sure I was. I enjoyed climbing trees and looking down at the world.”

  He studied a few of them, appreciating how they’d turned out in print. “I told your brother we would be over around nine this evening. You could take a couple of these prints to them if you like.”

  She considered the suggestion. “Not tonight, but I might enlarge and frame a couple of the better ones for him.”

  Matthew thought that was a good idea. It would be a visual record of her missing years, but one of the few nice memories she’d been able to make for herself. “He’d like that, I’m sure.”

  Jeffery welcomed Shannon to his home with a hug, introduced Cindy, and made a point of letting the women set off on a tour of the house without him. Matthew appreciated the move. He followed Jeffery into the living room, accepted with a thanks the soda already poured.

  “She’s looking more rested,” Jeffery remarked.

  “She had a good day.”

  “Now, you . . . you’re looking worse.”

  “There’s a diary from the first month,” Matthew replied, and he proceeded to h
eavily edit what he chose to say about its contents. This journey with Shannon was going to require bearing up under very difficult information, and Jeffery seemed prepared to deal with that reality. Matthew gave Jeffery points for simply nodding when he finished.

  Matthew made sure Shannon was upstairs with Cindy before he turned the conversation to what was coming this evening. The good parts of the evening were coming to an end. A root canal without Novocain was how he would describe what was ahead. Matthew took a deep swallow of the drink he’d been handed. “Are you ready?”

  Jeffery paced. “Are you sure about this—doing it tonight?”

  “It has to be done. Make it as simple and as direct as you can. Don’t bury the lead or try to downplay it. Just level emotion. ‘I love you, we’re family, Mom made a mistake a long time ago, and I wanted you to hear about it from me rather than from some reporter.’”

  Jeffery shook his head. “I’m about to hurt the innocent person in this family who has already taken enough hurts for a lifetime. It would be easier to take a bullet.”

  Matthew understood the sentiment. “You’re feeling what she’s about to. At least you’ll be able to truly empathize. You’ve warned your parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can either one of them handle a conversation with her tonight?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. Mom’s already sobbing her heart out, and Dad’s basically the opposite—emotionally numb. Mom would give Shannon a variation of ‘I’m so sorry. You must hate me. I never wanted you to find out this way. Your father was so focused on the business I never saw him,’ and turn self-absorbed throughout the conversation. Dad wants to apologize and say the marriage was having some problems, he’s deeply upset she had to learn about her past this way, that the divorce wasn’t about her but about the affair and that he couldn’t rebuild trust with her mom. He won’t be able to get through it to say a clean ‘I love you, Shannon,’ even though he gets there by the time he’s done. Neither one are going to be helpful to Shannon. She needs a hug, an ‘I love you, and it’s going to be okay,’ and neither will be able to give her that tonight. They’ll be piling their own history of marriage troubles onto Shannon’s shoulders while breaking her heart.”

  Matthew accepted Jeffery’s read of the situation. Given what he said, Matthew worked out what best could be done. “We’ll have Shannon talk with you, we give it a few hours, and then I’ll suggest she call you later tonight, mention that again in the morning, again tomorrow night. I’ll keep pushing that she should call you until we make sure she’s going to keep the lines of communication open. As I said, stay emotionally level: ‘I love you. This is our parents’ problem, not ours. I’m still your same brother. Cindy wants you to come over and see the wedding photos.’ You’ll know what will work in the moment.”

  Jeffery nodded. “Get her to call me and I can deliver on that.” He paced the room again. “In forty-eight hours this has gone from one of the best moments of my life to one of the worst. We need to be past this, Matthew.”

  They heard the women coming down the stairs. Matthew moved to a nearby chair while Jeffery took a seat toward the opposite end of the couch, ensuring Shannon would sit between them.

  Shannon came with Cindy into the living room. “Your daughter’s beautiful, Jeffery. And her room is a child’s delight.” She glanced over at Cindy with a smile. “I love what you’re doing with the house.”

  “It’s been a joy. I can’t wait to have your help on paint samples and fabric choices. I’m trying to figure out how to finish the upstairs. Jeffery’s no help, I’m afraid.”

  Shannon laughed.

  “Sit and chat for a while,” Cindy suggested. “I’m going to go and freshen our drinks.” She took Shannon’s glass to add with her own. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jeffery patted the couch beside him, and Shannon went to join him.

  “I’m glad you came over tonight,” Jeffery said. “I so wanted you to get to see our Ashley. Cindy’s been busy getting an envelope full of pictures to send back with you, from the hospital on through first steps and first birthday cake.” He handed it to her.

  Shannon thumbed through the envelope of photographs. She looked over and smiled as Cindy brought back their sodas. “Thanks, Cindy,” she said, holding up the envelope. “This is really nice.”

  “I love pictures.”

  “Me too.”

  Shannon hadn’t brought in her canvas bag, so Matthew held out his hand. “I’ve got room in my pocket for those.”

  Shannon handed him the envelope.

  “I’m glad you came over tonight for a lot of reasons, Shannon,” Jeffery said, and Matthew heard in his tone of voice a shift in the conversation. “You can’t believe how nice it is to have you in this house. It’s a joy that you’re here. But a more serious reason I’m glad you’re here is that it gives me a chance to tell you a piece of news you’ll need to hear at some point—something I wish I didn’t have to say. Would you mind if I just got it over with tonight? It’s nothing to do with our relationship, but I’ve got something you need to know.”

  His distress was obvious, and she reached out her hand to his, offered a tentative smile. “Okay. Just tell me.”

  “Shannon . . . Mom made a mistake, a long time ago. I wanted to tell you about it before you heard it from someone else. Dad . . . he isn’t your biological father.”

  She blinked, and Jeffery wisely didn’t say anything more.

  Matthew saw that control he’d seen in Atlanta smooth the emotion from her face, until calm became the only thing that showed through.

  “Jeffery . . . you’re his son? You’ve checked?”

  “I’ve checked.”

  “Dad—” she stumbled on the word—“your father, I mean . . . he doesn’t want to see me?” she asked, her words both a statement and a question, and it made them all fight against tears.

  “He will, Shannon. He needs some time to get his words together. Mom is trying to figure out how to ask your forgiveness, also for your having to find out this way.” Jeffery’s hand tightened around hers. “You’re my sister. I love you. They’re still Mom and Dad to the two of us. They are both so glad and relieved you’re back. They just need some time. They weren’t prepared . . . weren’t ready to explain this to you, to tell you what happened. Given the campaign, and the risk that some reporter makes this news into a story, telling you couldn’t wait. I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone other than family. I love you. Nothing has changed. We’re still family. They’ll figure out how to answer your questions. They just need some time.”

  She slowly nodded. “Okay.” She looked over at Matthew. “We need to go.”

  “Shannon . . .” Jeffery began.

  Matthew stepped in and cut him off with a murmured, “Later, Jeffery,” then offered Shannon his hand.

  To his credit, Jeffery didn’t try to intervene further, nor did Cindy. With softly said goodbyes and brief hugs, they walked them to the front door and let them leave.

  Shannon’s vision would be blurry with the tears she wasn’t letting fall. Matthew put his arm around her waist as they left to make sure she didn’t trip going down the steps. He guided her into the car and helped her with the seat belt, ran a comforting hand down her arm that she didn’t appear to notice, walked around to the driver’s side, then silently held up his hand in the shape of a phone to let Jeffery know he’d call.

  Matthew started the car, backed out of the driveway.

  “I don’t want to go back to the apartment,” Shannon whispered.

  “Choose a direction.”

  “West.”

  Matthew took any road heading west, set the radio to music. He reached over and put his hand over hers. She didn’t turn her hand to link with his, nor did she move it away. Instead she disappeared into her thoughts and tuned the world out.

  15

  Did this have anything to do with my abduction?”

  Matthew knew it was coming and had been dreading the question
. Shannon was sitting with her hands neatly resting in her lap, her body still, subdued, her eyes on the passing roadway. “The early answer is no, but we don’t know. We’re looking.” He wasn’t sure what she needed from him right now, and he took a careful step onto thin ice, trying to get a feel for where her thoughts had taken her. “I can tell you something about the house where you were to have been taken, if you would find that helpful.”

  “Tell me.”

  The information she had previously insisted she didn’t want to know now barely stirred her flat and hollow tone.

  “Eleven years ago the house was owned by Sanford Bliss. He died eight years ago from cancer. He’s a cousin of your father’s.”

  She was quiet for a long time. “I vaguely recognize the name, but I don’t know him.”

  “He may have been an innocent third party to this. Maybe your being dropped off on his doorstep was supposed to happen after the ransom had been paid, after this was over, because he could be trusted to get you back to your family.”

  She looked over at him. “An interesting possibility.”

  “They grab you, a ransom gets paid, they drop you off with a family member, and keep driving. There’s elegance in its simplicity, if I can describe a horrific act in those terms.”

  “Or it could be something entirely different.”

  Matthew hesitated. “Yes. At the other extreme, Sanford may have been solely responsible for arranging your abduction. Maybe he had a problem with your father, and abducting you for ransom would be a fast way to make his point and cost your father dearly while at the same time he’ll play the hero and bring you home. The middle ground answer, Sanford and your uncle were working some scheme together. We just don’t have the answers yet.”

  “Thank you for finding out about the house,” Shannon finally said. “But there’s an option you haven’t mentioned.” She sighed and continued, “My mother knew her affair was going to come out, was facing her marriage ending in a divorce, and to save her marriage she arranged to have me taken to Sanford in the hopes that my few-days’-long abduction would so shake my father—” she faltered—“her husband, that he’d accept me even if I wasn’t his child. If that didn’t work, and he still threw us out, she’d use the ransom money as a nest egg for both of us.”