Taken

  “Thanks, Ann.”

  Matthew headed back to the lobby. She’d get him the case info he needed. He had an idea of who could help move the next boulder he had to shift. Now, if he could just locate the man in this crowd . . . He thought a moment and turned toward the hotel bar.

  “Tom.” Matthew slid onto the stool next to the sheriff hosting the conference. His friend looked to be sipping a carbonated soft drink and hoping it would taste different than it did. “Who owes you a favor at the lab?” Matthew asked.

  “I’ve got a few names tucked away. Whaddya need?”

  Matthew unfolded the napkin. “A DNA panel on this. Tonight.”

  “This personal or professional?”

  “Professional, but unofficial until it’s worth saying it’s official. No use stirring the pot without good reason.” The two went back more than a decade, and his answer was sufficient given the kind of work he often did.

  Tom nodded. “As it so happens, the local FBI lab owes me a sizable favor.” He pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket, wrote something, tore off the sheet and folded it. He snapped his fingers and motioned to a deputy over by the door. “This is Collins,” the sheriff said as the man hurried over. “He’s good at moving bureaucracies.” He handed over his note and the napkin. “I want you to deliver that to Elizabeth Perkins at the FBI lab,” he told the deputy. “Then wait a few hours for her to hand you back a memory stick with the results.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Matthew wrote a phone number on the back of a business card. “Please call me when you have that, Deputy, and I’ll send Elizabeth a DNA file for comparison. Ask her to then destroy the sample and the results. The memory stick itself needs to go into a safe with the sheriff’s name on it.”

  The deputy accepted his business card and left.

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Tom asked dryly.

  Matthew slapped the sheriff on the shoulder as he slid off the stool. “Get in touch before you leave the conference. I may have something for you to do in a couple of days.”

  “An interesting something?”

  “Have I ever laid something boring on you?” Matthew countered and got a laugh in reply. “Thanks, Tom.”

  “Anytime. Elizabeth is good. You’ll have your data in about three hours.”

  “I’ll let you know how it turns out.” Matthew headed back to the lobby to get directions to the hotel business center, two of his three pressing needs now in play.

  The hotel business center was crowded with cops dealing with emergencies in their home jurisdictions. Matthew squeezed in access to the fax machine as his call to Gregory at the missing-persons registry was answered by a gruff hello. “I thought I’d catch you still at your desk.”

  “You know me, Matthew. Friday night is when the mayhem happens. You’re in Atlanta, I see. What’s on your plate tonight?”

  “I’m faxing you fingerprints.”

  “Ah, I see the pages arriving now. Hold on.” The voice on the line disappeared for a moment. “What is this, coffee smears? Tea?”

  “The moment required some creativity.”

  “So I see. They’re . . . not bad. Decent enough to work with. I’ll have to remember that technique.”

  Matthew stepped out of the busy business center, found a quiet alcove, flipped through the images on his phone. “I’m also sending you a photo.” He sent it to Gregory’s direct email account.

  “Okay . . . got it. Who’s our pretty lady?”

  “Why don’t you tell me if it’s Shannon Bliss, an old case out of Chicago.”

  “Are you kidding?” Gregory’s voice rose in surprise. “You’re not kidding. The press gets in touch occasionally on this one because of the election. Okay, hold on. I can tell you something on the prints in a matter of minutes. The photo is going to take some time as it’s an old case.”

  “Don’t let the photo and prints get logged into the database. This inquiry needs to stay unofficial and on your desk only, for now.”

  “No problem. They’re doing a software upgrade right now, and I couldn’t get anything into the system even if I wanted to. I see this photo has a time stamp of less than an hour ago. She’s in Atlanta with you?”

  “No comment.”

  “One of those . . . All right, let’s see, prints are scanned and are being ridge-defined now. And the comparison matches tell us . . . I’m hoping you know how to get ahold of her again, because the woman is definitely Shannon Bliss. I’ve got a solid match for the entire ten-print card.”

  Matthew felt the muscles in his back tighten with the stress of that affirmative answer. It was good news, but it also presented an acute sequence of next steps that had the risk of turning chaotic on him. “There’s no question on the prints?”

  “None,” Gregory assured. “Give me two hours on the photo. What is it, eleven years? That’s a lot of aging cycles to complete. I’m looking in the file now . . . There are three comparison photos—one looks like a school yearbook photo, and two others like casual photos with friends. So I’ve got a good base to work from. Visually, I think it’s right, but she’s changed rather significantly in those eleven years.”

  “Text me when you have the results. What’s the registry file look like?”

  “Pages deep. I’ll text you the inquiry code so you can log on and read through the details. The call on news list has fourteen names. Chicago police, Midwest region FBI, family, what looks like two private investigators, and three cops inquiring because they’re working similar cases. You want a text with the call-list details?”

  “Please.”

  “I’m sending it now. Her current photo . . . she looks in good health. Was this a runaway situation?”

  “I can’t comment yet. I’ll update you tomorrow and let you know if we’re ready to make this an official submission. It will likely stay need to know for a time.”

  “My lips are sealed until you tell me otherwise.”

  “Can you source me a DNA comparison file?”

  “I just sent you the FTP code. We’ve got protocols in place with about every DNA testing facility in the country, so you can transfer a copy of the file straight to the lab of your choice.”

  “Thanks. Listen . . . if this gets away from me, if the press gives you a call, or someone with the family or the cops—”

  “I do a nice ‘what are you talking about?’ non-comment. If I get cornered on the data, I’ll say it came anonymously on the tip line, again until you tell me otherwise. I can see the public firestorm this will become. I’ll stay out of it, thank you. I like my quiet Friday nights working the desk.”

  “Appreciate it, Gregory.”

  “What are friends for if not this? I’m glad for you, Matthew. You needed a win.”

  “Not one of my cases—it rather dropped in my lap.”

  “Work them however they come. Take care of her.”

  “I’m going to try.”

  Matthew clicked off. Fingerprints were a match. The rest of the confirmation data was a necessary formality. She was Shannon Bliss. And his coming weekend had just ramped up several notches.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and wished he had gotten more sleep last night rather than working on further revisions to his presentation. Shannon had seemed pretty collected when she had approached him, but that was likely a carefully constructed mirage. As her story became known, he’d see the layers under that calm. He couldn’t afford to lose focus because fatigue crept in. He knew, in many ways, he was going to be the one holding her together as this played out.

  Matthew placed calls to his friends and canceled dinner plans, said only that a case needed his attention. He’d have to get Shannon through the coming days with some space to breathe or this experience was going to be as damaging to her as when she’d originally been abducted. Protecting her privacy as long as he could was critical. He couldn’t pull that off alone. He was going to need some carefully selected help. Ann and Paul Falcon—they’d have the Chicago conne
ctions and clout to buffer matters related to her family. The Falcons were returning to Chicago tomorrow and likely would be taking a private plane, since Ann was an experienced pilot—she’d paid for college by ferrying planes around. Maybe he could talk Shannon into traveling to Chicago with them.

  He looked at the time. He had been away from the room for forty-seven minutes. That was too long. Get DNA results to confirm the fingerprints, then get the last pieces of this in motion. He headed to the elevator.

  Shannon was going to remember this night for the next twenty years. It was on him to see it turned out as something that helped rather than hurt her. The thought crossed his mind that when God promised to use all things for good, even the tragedies of life, he was now living in one of those moments. He was seeing God pick up and use the tragedy of what had happened to his daughter Becky as the reason, the open door, for why Shannon had sought him out. Shannon would have the benefit of what he’d learned with Becky, and would have an easier time of this return to her life because of that experience. Okay, game on. He’d get this done right.

  2

  Matthew cleared any emotion other than polite calm from his face as he unlocked the hotel room door, stepped inside, and found himself deeply relieved to see his guest was still present. He tossed his room key on the dresser and out of habit slid the suit jacket off along with his shoes. The day had been long already, and it was about to get significantly longer. He hung up the jacket in the closet. “What did you choose for dinner?”

  “Mexican. They do a nice chicken enchilada and rice.”

  His room service tray was on the desk. She was curled up in the barrel chair and had a baseball game on TV—an unusual enough selection for a woman that he noted the teams were Chicago and St. Louis. Hometown nostalgia? he wondered. He took a seat at the desk and lifted the cover from his plate, found the meal still hot enough to be tolerable. The steak looked excellent, and the potato was piled with melting butter and sour cream. She’d ordered him an apple cobbler, and he appreciated her thoughtfulness. There were several finger-soft dinner rolls in a basket.

  “The napkin with the blood sample is on its way to an FBI lab here in town where they can turn it around in about three hours. Your prints are a match. The photo is crunching now to age-progress a comparison.”

  She simply nodded.

  “How did you know I’d be at this hotel?”

  “Your daughter posted online that you were speaking at this conference. She’s proud of you.”

  “As I’m proud of her.”

  He took his time on the steak, aware that Shannon was watching him as much as the baseball game. She wasn’t nervous, but she did look very tired, and mostly she was . . . wary. How well he understood that emotion, having lived with it during the years after his daughter returned home.

  “Who did you call?”

  He knew she wasn’t asking about the friends he’d called to excuse himself from dinner. “I’ve told three people. A friend at the missing-persons registry who knows I’m looking at you in particular. He’s accessing records for me, but will keep this work on his desk only, until I clear him to officially file the prints and discuss the matter with others. Another friend here in Atlanta has arranged for the FBI to expedite a DNA panel and make a comparison. I didn’t give them your name.”

  He cut into his steak. “The third person I’ve told is Ann Falcon, a retired cop from Chicago. I trust Ann. She’s pulling the case file so I can get up to speed on what it has looked like in Chicago since you disappeared. Ann’s husband, Paul, happens to head the Chicago FBI office, and if this has crossed state lines, he’ll be involved in the case soon as a matter of course. Ann’s got a lot of history with high-profile cases. She can keep a secret. You’ll like her, Shannon. You’re going to need someone like her helping you.”

  “Are you going with me to Chicago?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes briefly closed, and she visibly relaxed. “Thanks.” She half smiled. “I don’t have a valid driver’s license and I hate to fly. So I hope you like to make long road trips.”

  Her words scotched his tentative plans for them to fly back to Chicago with Ann and Paul Falcon in the morning. “You sound like my daughter,” he commented lightly. “Give her an unabridged audiobook and ten hours of me driving so she can listen to the story from beginning to end, and she’s in heaven.”

  “That sounds very nice. I’ll even let you choose which audiobook.” She shifted in the chair. “When we get to Chicago, I want to see only my brother at first. I don’t want him calling people and my parents showing up, other friends and relatives. I don’t want cops showing up.”

  He buttered a dinner roll and just absorbed that request. “I’d like to hear the details behind that decision about your family when you are comfortable talking about it,” he said as idly as he could manage, “but I’ll do my best to arrange that for you. Do you want to stay in the Chicago area after you meet your brother?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I may prefer to come back here to Atlanta and let the dust settle, give them time to regroup around the fact I’m alive, before I make contact again—see my brother another time or meet with others in the family.”

  “Keep in mind there are smaller options if you wish to start some kind of dialog with your family and friends in Chicago. I’m guessing Ann would be more than willing to forward mail on if you would like her to do that for you. That might be better than simply vanishing again. It’s going to be quite an emotional time for your family.”

  “Everyone is going to want to know what happened.”

  The understatement in those words was titanic. “Yes.”

  “I’m not ignoring that . . . I’m just postponing it.”

  “I’ll help however you would like me to, Shannon. If you want to come back here after you see your brother, I will see you safely back here. Or if you would like to see some of the country, I can recommend Boston as a nice place to visit for the summer. Finding you an apartment in a safe area of town is something I could arrange without much trouble. You could take some time just to settle in someplace as you decide how and when you want to engage with your family.”

  “You’ve suddenly found yourself with another lost duckling.”

  He looked over. “What?” he said, startled.

  “You’re arranging life to take care of me.”

  “Habit,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “If I step on your toes, just say so.”

  “I’m not like your daughter, Matthew. I’m not being rescued at sixteen, finding myself uncertain about how to handle the world. I was that age when this began. I’m twenty-seven, and I probably rival a lot of cops for how acutely I see reality. You really don’t need to worry about me. I chose you because it made sense to do so, to have some help, not because I couldn’t navigate this on my own. I’m just tired enough I don’t want to have to try.”

  “When I treat you like my daughter—she’s my reference point, after all—just correct me and tell me what you need instead,” he said. Shannon could navigate matters on her own, but had determined she would rather have help—an adult decision, one well-reasoned. He locked on to the one piece of news he needed to better understand the significance of right now. “How bad is the fatigue? What’s going on with that?”

  “I feel like I just ran a couple of back-to-back marathons. I’ve got no stamina. I want a book to read, a baseball game to watch, occasionally I can catch a decent nap. I’m not sleepy. I’m just deeply tired.”

  “Dreaming much?”

  She shrugged rather than answered that query.

  “Seriously, it would help me a lot if you would answer this question: how long has this been over for you?”

  She reached over to the end table, picked up an envelope, tossed it to him. He opened it and pulled out a single sheet of hotel stationery. Her handwriting was a very neat print.

  I arrived in Atlanta two days ago.

  This is day sixteen of freedom.

&n
bsp; I like donuts and chili cheese dogs and most fast food.

  I like lists.

  I don’t like crowds.

  I prefer quiet places.

  I’m very tired.

  I don’t want to talk about it.

  The third time he read the statements his tension uncoiled enough to note with some humor that they both liked donuts and lists. “Thank you for this,” he said softly. He folded the page and carefully slipped it into his pocket. And for her sake, he changed the subject. “I asked at the front desk, and the room across the hall is available. Would you like me to reserve it for you?”

  “I’ll decide that after you have the DNA results.”

  As he’d rather not lose sight of her until he had that answer, he was fine with that. “Did you join the audience and listen to my presentation?”

  “I planned to, but I accidentally slept through it.”

  He laughed. “I was concerned a few in the audience might as well.” He finished another dinner roll, wondering how far she would let him take the conversation tonight. “Are you traveling with anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Is there anyone you’re worried about who will be looking for you here or in Chicago?”

  “There’s no concern tonight, but there will be an acute concern once it’s known I’m alive.” She offered nothing else.

  “A conversation for tomorrow?”

  “Possibly.”

  He pulled out a business card and wrote a number on the back, rose from the desk and walked over, handed it to her and then picked up her glass. “I’ll always answer that number,” he said as he refilled her soda. The number was one that until tonight only his daughter knew.

  She fingered the card. “Okay.”

  “I’d like to ask one thing from you, Shannon.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t run. When the pressure hits, when this becomes unbearable—and there will be that moment—use that number and call me. Don’t disappear.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Then at least memorize my number.”

  “That I can do.” She took the glass he brought back to her. “I’ll understand, Matthew, if you change your mind after thinking about this overnight and decide not to get further involved. My brother is running for governor of Illinois. When it’s known I’m alive, the publicity is going to be intense. You’ve already spent more than your share of life in the public spotlight, and you and Becky deserve your privacy.”