Taken

by Dee Henderson

  “Another hour is fine,” she replied, offering him a bite of the cheesecake. He wasn’t turning it down and nipped it neatly off her fork. “Which one is Ruth Bazoni?” she asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t figured that out yet? Charlotte.”

  She looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Okay.”

  “I’m going to be out back. Come hit a ball around later. It’s surprisingly fun.”

  She grinned. “I might do that.”

  Matthew walked outside, content with the way the evening was working out. He rejoined Cole, an interesting man with a good eye for how the yard played. It wasn’t golf, but the tall grass and the occasional past rabbit nest with its bald spot of earth meant some tactics were required to make it through the eight gates in only a few shots.

  They had worked it down to fifteen shots as par when the Bishops’ two dogs arrived home and the backyard game of croquet turned into a melee of great shots and dog interference. The comedy was worth the evening, and the women wandered out to watch. Black was determined to chase down any ball Paul hit, and the two Irish Setters were paws down on the earth, waiting for a ball to come their direction. Matthew spotted Shannon talking with Bryce between shots and delayed walking over to join them until the conversation looked like it was coming to a close. Shannon seemed more relaxed than she had in all the time Matthew had known her.

  In the end, Bryce laughingly declared the dogs the winners of the croquet match. The group began to break up, calling out their good-nights. Matthew added his thanks for the evening and chose to steer Shannon out as one of the first to depart.

  “Are you glad you went?” Matthew asked as they drove back to the apartment.

  Shannon stirred to glance over at him. “Mmm. They’re nice people. Nancy travels a lot with her job. We were comparing favorite parts of the country, great scenery, tucked away places to find really good food—we’ve overlapped quite a bit. Rachel bubbles, I really liked her. And Bryce and Charlotte seem . . . like a close couple, nicely in tune with each other.”

  “They’ve put together a good marriage.”

  “It looked like it.”

  Shannon went quiet. Matthew decided it was as peaceful a time as he would get to tell her about the next evening. “We’re going to stop by your brother’s home tomorrow night around nine so you can meet his wife. Their daughter will already be asleep, but you’ll be able to look in on her. Jeffery heads south for three days of campaign-related events, and this makes sense for the timing.”

  “I would like to meet his wife again, so I can update my memories of her.”

  “The rest of the day is wide open. I’d even be okay with shopping as the plan for the afternoon.”

  She offered a tired smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  Shannon broke the silence a few minutes later. “Matthew, earlier today I know you accepted my conditions, but before you start reading that diary I need to repeat one of them. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’ll respect that, Shannon.” He’d be reading it tonight, and he was already bracing for what it would say.

  “Thank you. For the cookout too. It was . . . nice. Really nice.”

  “Did you put more numbers in your phone?”

  “A few more.”

  “I’d encourage you to call them, if only for a few minutes of casual conversation. ‘It was nice to meet you last night,’ that kind of thing.”

  “I’m not accustomed to calling people just to chat.”

  “Think of it as practice. I should give you Becky’s number. She loves to chat.”

  “Do that, please. I think I’d like to meet your daughter by phone and at least apologize for you being in Chicago when she expected you back in Boston.”

  “Becky thinks you’re good for me.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re the perfect age—old enough I won’t treat you like I do my daughter, but young enough I may try to shed a few of my years and appear more youthful, energetic, and up on current trends.”

  Shannon’s laughter pealed through the car. “Oh, I love her already.”

  14

  Matthew didn’t pick up the diary until Shannon had turned in. He knew it was going to be tough to read. He took it across the hall and settled into the chair in the bedroom, propped his feet up on the corner of the bed, and opened the fabric-covered book to the first and the last pages. He started by looking for dates, noting how the blue ink had faded but was still legible. The diary began a week before the Memorial Day abduction and ended on a Saturday, three weeks after she was taken.

  He started reading page one. Diaries were particularly powerful things, he found. She’d been so young. He could hear it in the words on the page. High school. Sixteen. He felt like an intruder into Shannon’s private thoughts.

  The first several entries were comments about a boy she liked at school, the girl he was interested in instead of her—Matthew heard just a bit of the woman he knew today in the younger version’s comments. She shifted to talking about two girlfriends who both wanted the same part in the school play, and the price playing honest broker was having on her friendships. She worried about her math exam since she’d run out of time to finish it. Jeffery was being a pain again—not inviting a girlfriend over to the house to meet Mom until he thought she was “the one,” which meant every boy Shannon brought home was being looked at by her family as “the one.” She’d never be able to have a life so long as her brother insisted on letting all Mom’s curiosity fall on her. But at least Jeffery was being generous. She had her license and loved being able to drive the car Jeffery had passed on to her when he upgraded to a used truck.

  Matthew had to smile at the all-so-common trials of being a teenager ringing through the pages. Memorial Day weekend was a single paragraph in the diary.

  Jenny is hosting four of us for the long weekend, which promises to be painting her room, talking boys, getting some sun by the pool, and hopefully saying hi to her brother Stephen. He’s nice for a college guy. Annabel has the repaired guitar ready for me to pick up. I promised Mom I’d be home by seven Monday night. She’s encouraged me to go for all three days. I think she wants a private weekend with Dad since Jeffery will also be out of town.

  The normal entries ceased. Matthew found pages of the diary ripped out with a jagged, hurried tear, the remaining edge only blank. The next scrawled entry began on a crumpled page that had folded over. The entry went on for several pages. He smoothed out the paper.

  I can’t hear him anymore. I’m writing fast. I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. Jeffery—I wouldn’t be mad if you beat them up for me.

  There are six of them I’ve come to realize, traveling in two cars. Mostly just voices. My ears are still ringing from the blow when I talked, so silence is the order of the day. If I sleep they ignore me, so even when I’m awake I’m trying to be motionless. Though the younger man beside me in the back seat isn’t fooled. My face hurts so bad. He got in a fight with the woman for handing me an ice pack, but must have won because they let me keep it. He’s the most rational of the six. Do what he says and he’s businesslike with me. It’s the middle of the night. I’m mostly traveling in the back seat, now wearing over my T-shirt an oversized sweatshirt with a hood. The hood is an effective blindfold the way he can drop it and tug it down at a moment’s notice. I’m beginning to think that’s as much for my security as theirs. He’s being careful I don’t see many faces, and none clearly. A light in my eyes, the hood, I might be in the middle of Kansas for all I can figure out. I’m sure we’re heading west, but that’s all I’m sure about.

  He handed me my backpack I had tossed in my car with a toothbrush and change of clothes and pointed toward this bathroom. I figure I have ten minutes max. He didn’t remove this diary or the pen, though I know he searched the bag earlier and wouldn’t have missed them. He took the phone but left me the music player and the cash. He knocks, I have to leave this small place of safety. I’ve left a note stuffed
inside the toilet paper roll and hope it falls out when someone puts in a new roll. They search where I’ve been and they find anything obvious and it’s more than a slap then. My body aches, and worse, I’m sure no note has gotten through. I’m an idiot to try again the way I’m hurting, but hope is eternal. I think he left the diary in the backpack, because he knows it’s going into a fire somewhere, and for now it’s a way to pacify me with an illusion I can keep some of my own things.

  What has it been . . . thirty hours now? A few more days of this and I’ll be a total mess. If I can keep away from the woman, the older man, maybe I can hold it together. It was the older guy beside me for the first ten hours after they yanked me out of my car and shoved me into this one . . . I don’t want any of them near me, but please, God, don’t let that younger man decide to change cars. Tossing the car door open and tumbling out onto the highway seems like a decent risk to me. I’ve almost made it twice, but each time his hand flexed across mine, silently stopping me. My hand goes back in my lap and he lets me go, no other response, like he had anticipated the attempt was coming and simply waited to counter it. I don’t think I’d still be breathing if I’d pulled that on the older guy. We’re close to wherever we’re going. I’ve heard them say enough that I know that. I worry where that is. The third time I try, I’m going to have to get out of that car no matter what happens. This highway is my best chance to be seen by someone who can help me. They get me any more isolated, I’m dead.

  The entries stopped again.

  Matthew didn’t want to turn the page. She hadn’t escaped, as he knew she’d spent years with this group—or with a larger group this one was part of—and she’d survived. He should be able to read her words with some distance knowing this was history, but it didn’t change the impact her account was having on him.

  He forced himself to turn the page. Flinched. There was dried blood staining the edge of the paper.

  He read until two a.m. He had to put the diary down several times, get up to pace, give himself a few minutes to get his composure back. It got progressively harder to read, the words of a terrified teenager, followed by the hardened words of someone determined to survive. His heart at times felt like it was pounding so hard it would burst. The entries were sporadic, sometimes several entries for one day, then gaps of several days. Her writing had changed in the span of weeks, from open, flowing cursive to a small print that shook and often became hard to decipher. The private written prayers to God were crushing. When he turned the last page he felt like he wanted to puke, so intense were the emotions the words had triggered.

  He forced himself to go back to the beginning and methodically read it again, writing down every name, location, and date he came across. When he was done, he picked up the phone and called Paul. He’d learned the younger man’s name was Flynn. She’d latched on to him even in the earliest hours as a possible aid for her survival. Flynn had helped her. He just hadn’t been able to help her enough.

  Matthew crossed the hall shortly after eight a.m., carrying the diary. He entered the security code and let himself into the apartment. Shannon was eating breakfast. A glance showed him her choice this morning was Cheerios with strawberries. He poured himself coffee. He placed the diary on the table beside her. “Thank you for letting me read it,” he said quietly, the most emotionally careful words he’d ever said. He’d practiced them repeatedly as he dressed to get the tone right. The thanks had to be said because of what she’d been willing to let him learn, and she needed to know he’d read every word.

  She ignored the diary, even as she gave a terse nod to acknowledge his statement.

  He put sugar in his coffee, though he normally preferred it black, and found a spoon to stir it. “Did you keep a diary for most of the eleven years?” he asked, keeping his tone even.

  Her gaze met his. “Yes.”

  He refused to lower his eyes or alter his expression. Eleven years of truth was going to be brutal to absorb. “Did the other books survive?” he asked quietly.

  “Probably. It depends on where Flynn decided to store them for me.”

  He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. “Would you like me to put that one in a secure location for you, or would you prefer to keep it with you?”

  “I don’t need to see it again. I wrote it. I know what it says.”

  “I’ll put it somewhere private,” he promised.

  She nudged a strawberry from atop the cereal with her spoon. “They don’t need to be read. There’s no reason you need to know more, why anyone needs to know. It’s history now.”

  “But it’s your history. Someone should stand as witness.”

  “God did.”

  And wasn’t that its own tragedy? “I’d rather not talk about God today,” he admitted.

  “I was never as young again as that first diary reads. The others may be hard to read, but I’m tougher-minded in them.”

  “A fact which makes your story even sadder.”

  She pushed the container of strawberries over to him. “I accept your horror on my behalf, but let it go. Look at me.” She held out her arms. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll get there, Shannon. But not easily.” He drank the sweetened coffee and changed subjects. “What do you want to do today?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” she replied with a brief smile. “I wouldn’t mind shopping for shoes. But before the shoes, there’s another place near here we might check.”

  “That works for me. Want to leave soon or wait until after lunch?”

  “Let’s go after you eat something more substantial for breakfast than a few strawberries.”

  “We could find a drive-thru someplace and order a fast-food breakfast,” he suggested.

  She grinned. “Now you’re talking.”

  Matthew didn’t know the suburbs of Chicago. The community Shannon directed him to was an older area—smaller homes, not much grass, kids playing ball in the street. “Take a left at the stop sign,” she said. They passed a school with a nearly empty parking lot, a corner hardware store, an insurance agency, a small shoe-repair business. “Can you park on the street, just past that car-repair shop?”

  He pulled to the curb in front of an old brick building that looked as though it had been a repair shop for the last fifty years. Two men in coveralls were working on a car’s engine inside the open bay. “Wait here,” Shannon said and pushed open her door. She walked across the parking lot to a collection of cars parked tight in the limited space. She picked up two wooden parts crates and carried them over to the building’s side door. She looked up at the round oil-and-gas sign that still had some neon edging it. She stacked the crates, stepped up on them, reached up to the sign and pulled something out from inside the curved mounting bracket. She slid it in her pocket, returned the crates, and walked back to the car. She settled into the passenger seat.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She pulled the tape off a folded handkerchief and showed him a red circle tag attached to a key. “Flynn has a preference for deposit boxes. This one is at the wine shop half a mile back—if it’s still in business. They have temperature- and humidity-controlled boxes you can lease. The shop probably doesn’t open for another hour, but it’s worth driving by.”

  The neon sign OPEN glowed in the window. Matthew parked in the side lot.

  Shannon handed him the key. “All you need is this to have access. Why don’t you go empty the box? I’d rather not walk in there. You should take the grocery sack. The box might be full.”

  Matthew wondered if this would identify his summer—Shannon showing him out-of-the-way places, recovering stolen items. Actually, the thought had some appeal. He would be seeing places she’d been these last eleven years, doing something useful, mostly building trust with her as she shared information. She needed that bedrock of trust to form. As put together as she presented herself, he knew most of it was what she wanted him to see. Inside, there had to be a deep slice of raw emotional pain
that had yet to surface. She’d need someone she trusted around to help her when that time came, and he thought road trips would be useful when talking about hard things. But first, this leased box. He was curious about what it would contain. He left the car running and the air-conditioning on for her. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  He took the key and sack and went inside the store, saw the wall of leased boxes. He used the key to open box thirty-eight. There were four items inside: a stationery box, two square mug-sized boxes, and a manila envelope. The envelope had Shannon’s name written on it, but this envelope was smaller and didn’t feel like it held a book. He closed and relocked the box, pocketed the key, and took the items back to the car. He passed the sack to Shannon.

  “Want me to show you the treasures?” she asked.

  “Sure, if only so I can tell Paul what I’m bringing him.”

  She carefully opened the stationery box. The papers inside were in cellophane sleeves, neatly stacked. “They’re very old letters. They’re worth something because of the signatures.”

  “How valuable?”

  “Maybe a few thousand? I don’t know for sure. Flynn had a romantic streak—he liked to be the one to tuck away things like this.”

  Shannon used his pocketknife to open the two square boxes. She grinned. “Interested in old baseballs?” She held one up. “Autographed, and worth something.”

  He didn’t recognize the signatures, but the condition of the ball suggested something from the early era of the sport.

  “These two should be easy to trace. They’ve probably been in that storage box for years,” she said.

  He pointed to the last item. “The envelope has your name on it. Something else Flynn stored for you?”

  “Yes.” She picked it up, unwrapped the thread tie, turned it to dump out the contents. A handful of smaller sealed envelopes slid out into her lap.

  “What are they?”