Taken

by Dee Henderson

  Shannon dropped the last letters in and slid the lid onto the Scrabble box. “Was Becky able to make that transition?”

  “It took five years before I could look across the breakfast table and see my daughter as she should be, not my daughter with a painful memory or two still lingering there with her.”

  “It was her concept of herself which got shattered.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m different from Becky in one key respect, I think. When I described myself as a cactus, Matthew, able to handle a tough environment, it was because I made a decision early on. I looked at that group and decided it was possible to get inside their logic and work the angles, and it provided a way to survive. I began proactively living inside that bubble they put me in, not just responding to it. I accomplished something in captivity during those eleven years. That internal ‘me’ survived. I was never passive about what was going on. If anything, my sense of who I am is stronger today because of what happened. They couldn’t get to the core of me. Yes, I have hard things to work through, but I’m not as injured as you might think. I’m like a beat-up old car that’s won a few stock-car races. I need some dents hammered out. But the guts are still running fine.”

  Matthew had to laugh at the imagery. Yet again Shannon surprised him with her inner strength. “Maybe you’re right, Shannon. I do love that visual. I’m going to be pleasantly surprised to find out I haven’t understood how far along you are in this process, that it’s going to be a shorter journey for you than I expect. I’d love for that to be true. Just give room for some caution about how long it might take.”

  She nodded as she pushed back her chair. “To repeat something I’ve said before, your perspective because of Becky is one of the reasons I chose you. If you’re right, I’m going to lean hard on your advice for what I should do to get through it. I want what your daughter has, Matthew. A good life back.”

  “And I’m going to help you get there,” he promised.

  Matthew placed a call to Paul Sunday night after he had walked across the hall and had some privacy for the conversation. “Shannon just gave me a long, handwritten sheet detailing locations she can remember where stolen items were stored. I’m going to fax it over to you. She said there are a lot more to come, but this is a place to start.”

  “I’ve got people in mind that can start clearing them once we decide to tip our hand.”

  “Shannon’s ready to take you to see the farm. Let’s do it tomorrow, if that fits with your schedule.”

  “Good,” Paul said. “It does. She needs to be done with this, and I need cops on the property. I’m figuring five days from the time we raid the farm, put out public word we’re searching for these people, distribute the photos with a reward, to Jeffery needing to release the news about Shannon’s return. Can she handle that?”

  “She knows it’s coming. But she needs to have met with her parents before the news is made public. I’m working on those arrangements now. Can you get me more than five days?”

  “It may not even hold for five. Day one, the farm; day two, we release the photos of who we’re searching for; day three, Adam York briefs on the children recovered and he’ll have to reveal it was someone inside providing the information; day four, we have a press conference about the farm and what’s being recovered; day five, Jeffery reveals his sister is alive. Can she meet with her parents in the next few days?”

  “She’s not quite ready yet. They weren’t ready for the conversation when she first arrived, and she’s not ready for it now that she knows the truth about her father. She needs a few more days before that family reunion.”

  “Then we go to the farm, Jeffery’s announcement comes five days later, seven if we think we can hold it off that long, and you buffer matters between Shannon and her family as best you can. Plan on keeping her out of Illinois once the news breaks. There’s a reason she hasn’t met with her parents yet, she was helping the FBI, and she’s out of state to avoid causing problems with the election. Something like that could work.”

  “Yeah.” Matthew could see next week’s calendar compressing. This case had a dynamic of its own now. Even if everyone agreed to slow it down, there would be a limit to the amount of additional time they could get. A day or two was about it. “Call the county sheriff, give him a heads-up we’re coming. If we leave before eight in the morning, we should be on the property by early afternoon with enough daylight to be useful.”

  “I’ll get things in motion here. Tell Shannon thanks for me. I know this won’t be easy, but it’s critical.”

  “It’ll be good to have this behind her,” Matthew agreed. “I’ll tell her.”

  22

  Take a left at the faded church sign,” Shannon directed. Matthew noticed the closer they got to the farm, the quieter she became. Other than instructions, she hadn’t offered anything in the last hour. Matthew glanced in his rearview mirror to confirm Paul and Theo were still with them.

  “Now a right after we pass over the railroad tracks.”

  They were deep into the countryside. Cornfields, the occasional bean field, pastureland with cows, and a few solitary farmhouses. The only thing differentiating one gravel road from another was the variation in potholes from heavy farm equipment. The closest town of any size was twenty miles behind them.

  “The farm is just up ahead. Tell Paul he should fall back a bit.”

  Matthew made the call and the trailing car slowed.

  Shannon sat forward, the most animated she’d been since beginning the trip. “It’s rained on and off in this area the last couple of days,” she said, pointing. “Look at the ditches. There will be tire tracks going into the farm if anyone’s traveled it recently.”

  She pointed. “See the fence that runs down to the road? That’s the edge of the property. Drop your speed to about twenty-five, and let’s drive past the entrance and see what it looks like. It’s on your left after this bean field, tucked in between two hedgerows. The driveway in is narrow.”

  “They bottlenecked traffic into the property.”

  “Yes. The hedges run about forty yards along the entrance.”

  She craned her head to the left as they passed. “Not a single tire track in that muddy lane. Slow as you reach the top of this hill so I can look east between the trees.”

  She turned to see out the back windows. “No cars visible. No trucks. The barn doors are closed.” She settled back in her seat. “Up ahead by that grain storage bin, there’s a turnaround. Pull over, let’s talk to Paul.”

  Paul and Theo pulled in beside them. Matthew lowered the car windows.

  “From the condition of the driveway, the lack of vehicles, I think the property’s empty—what I would expect this time of year,” Shannon told them. “Paul, how much trouble would you be in if you fired off a single gunshot over that cornfield?”

  “To what purpose?”

  “The dogs will bark. If there are no dogs, it’s fifty-fifty the property is abandoned, not just empty. Normally they’re here year-round, trained to approach vehicles, make it difficult to get a door open unless they’re called off.”

  Paul glanced at Theo.

  Theo shrugged. “Worst case, a car or two exits the property at high speed. We’ve got the sheriff and his deputies in the area waiting to come in when we indicate where precisely we’re going and that we’re ready for them. They can block the roads if someone makes a run for it.”

  “Given that hedgerow, the problem of not knowing what we’re driving into, finding out if dogs are on the property before we drive in, it seems like common sense,” Matthew concurred.

  Paul stepped out of the car, walked a good distance away so that the noise wouldn’t deafen those in the cars, removed his service revolver, and fired the single shot. The echo sent a flock of blackbirds lifting into the sky and sent up a howl to their north from a lone hound dog, but there was only silence coming from the farm property.

  “Watch the ridgeline behind the barn,” Shannon said aft
er the silence had again settled around them. “That’s the highest vantage point on the property. They’ll want to see who’s on the approach road. Give it ten minutes. If no one shows, I suggest we drive in.”

  Matthew lifted his binoculars to scan the area.

  Paul took out his phone and said to Shannon, “The judge considered your handwritten statement on the graves sufficient to get us access to the property, since it led to our recovering the remains of Emily Lynn. I only needed the precise address for the farm, and GPS has given me that location. Once we enter and you’ve pointed out where you were held, we’ll have a second warrant issued covering all the buildings.”

  Paul finished his call to the judge’s office, then updated the sheriff. Ten minutes later, seeing no signs of life, they drove onto the property. Paul steered toward the barn while Matthew parked closer to the house. The whole place looked deserted—overgrown grass, knee-high weeds, dead flowers in the pots on the porch. A broken shutter was knocking against the side of the house in the wind gusts. They sat waiting to see if the vehicles brought any attention from inside the house. After two minutes, Paul stepped out. The rest joined him a minute later.

  Shannon pointed. “The best view is from the rise behind the barn. Let me show you the farm from there.”

  The incline wasn’t steep, but the steady climb took them four minutes to reach the crest. The panoramic view showed the main house and barn at the front end of a fan-shaped distribution of buildings. Deeper into the site were two metal grain-storage bins, then a second barn in classic red paint, its roof holding a rooster weathervane. Two outbuildings in longtime disrepair. A chicken coop. Watering troughs. Barbwire fencing marked a pasture. An oval-shaped pond. Wide gates for farm equipment. Two smaller houses. Planted fields patterned the land, the corn and beans in precise rows. Large sixty-year-old trees formed a windbreak slashing across the property. The farm was an odd mix of disrepair and neat order.

  Matthew glanced over at Shannon, who stood looking around with her hands pushed into her pockets, with that enforced calm creating a mask over her features. This place represented a prison for her.

  “Where did you stay when you were here?” Paul asked, watching her as well.

  She pointed to the middle house. “The pale blue one, normally the second floor, east middle room.” She turned to indicate the distant white house with the front porch. “The family shootout happened in that house. The lower level probably still doesn’t have all the bullet holes patched.”

  She took a long breath. “As for the graves, that’s the windmill I mentioned, and you can barely see it, but there’s a bench there by the pond. The five family members”—she turned to her left—“are there, buried in a neat row to the left of that pine tree on the opposite rise. I’ll walk around and flag other places I think you need to check for graves. I’d like to do that before a lot of other cops arrive.”

  “I’m holding off others joining us for now,” Paul reassured her. “Matthew will mark locations you identify for us. For the buildings—what am I dealing with? Hard-to-find storage areas, hidden cubbyholes, loose floorboards, false walls?”

  “Yes.”

  Paul smiled. “I should have expected that. Any buried locations of hoarded goods?”

  “The only one I know of is what used to be a root cellar they covered over to look like the rest of the grounds. It’s by the blue house.” She scuffed her tennis shoe on the ground. “I can walk around in the buildings and point out places you’ll want to check, but I don’t want to talk about my history with this place. And I really don’t want to be on this property for very long.”

  “Understandable,” Paul said, his voice staying even. “How about a compromise, Shannon? Give us a quick tour through the buildings, a walk-through where you tell us only what seems relevant to you. And I won’t ask you to go back into that building once you’re done. I’ll work with whatever you choose to give me. Flag the areas you believe we should search for graves. After that, you and Matthew can leave. You’ll never have to return. If I need something specific answered, I’ll bring you photos to work from. That sound workable for you?”

  She hesitated, but nodded. “We’ll start with the houses, see if I can get through them.”

  “I’m going to call the sheriff in so he can put a perimeter in place around the farm. That’ll be it for officers until you’ve left the property. And your name isn’t going to leak because of today. You have my word on that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Matthew nodded toward the blue house. “Why don’t we start there?”

  She didn’t say anything but fell into step beside him, Theo walking a distance behind. Matthew carried a handful of metal rods with red flags attached. He’d come prepared to mark locations she identified.

  “There,” Shannon said, pointing out an old mailbox on a post. “It’s said they buried the mailman when he got too curious, gave him a fitting marker. I think it’s maybe folklore, but it was the first such story I heard. And the post does seem odd, given mail hasn’t been delivered to the property in a decade. The mail is left in town in a post-office box for residents to collect.”

  She pointed out another location. “The root cellar is midway between that clothesline pole and the corner of the porch. It’s got about a foot of dirt on top of its two heavy metal doors, but they kept waterproof crates down there that supposedly contained stolen art. I never saw one of the crates opened.”

  Matthew marked it, then walked up onto the porch of the blue house and held open the front door for her. She didn’t want to enter the house, that was obvious, but she finally stepped through. The air felt stuffy and hot. Drapes were closed, blinds pulled. The electricity was still on. Light switches lit the hallway and living room. The house was extremely neat—even the floor rugs were squared to the walls. Theo checked the water, found it had been shut off.

  Shannon turned toward the stairs. “Let’s start at the top and work our way to the basement.” Matthew followed her.

  She stopped in the doorway of a room. It gave no hint of being anything other than a guest room, with not a single personal item on display. The open closet stood empty. “I mostly stayed here.” She crossed the room and opened the window blind, rested her hand on the sill. “That tree can be reached from here. I’d step out on that limb and climb up to be level with the roof. I could see for miles from there.”

  “Anything left in that tree?”

  She turned her head and gave her first glimmer of a smile since they had started their quest. “Yes. I’ll get it later.”

  She placed both hands on the windowsill, gripping the piece of wood and lifting it. “Most of the sills come off to allow access to the underlying wall. You’ll want to check every window in all the buildings.” Theo produced a flashlight, and she used it to search the opening. “Nothing here—I didn’t think I’d left anything.”

  She rested her hand on the post of the bed. “Most of the furniture that’s wood with an ornate post like this has been hollowed out, so that something can be rolled up and slipped inside. Documents mostly, plus new IDs, sometimes cash. They used those places for their personal items.”

  She walked over to the doorway and knelt down, pulled up on the threshold. When she couldn’t budge it, Matthew handed her his pocketknife. Seconds later the threshold slid smoothly upward as she pried it from the corners. In the space between the floor joists lay a thin piece of canvas. She picked it up and unwrapped it. In her hand was a watch, nothing elaborate. She turned it over, held it out to Matthew, and the engraving on the back was her name and a date. “My brother gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday because I was never on time. Proof I was here.” He handed the watch to Theo, as it would need to go into evidence. She took a final look around the room before walking out.

  “They didn’t like putting items in the attic,” she said over her shoulder. “Too much heat and a chance of damage in a bad storm while they were away. The halls are another matter, though. Remove every
picture and check for a piece of fishing line looped around the nail and inserted back into the wall. If there is one, you’ll need to open up the wall. They have the equivalent of their own bank stored in these homes. Small objects, mostly gold coins. They sealed it up like this so that no one got tempted to lift items from the emergency fund. The fact the walls are still intact here tells me they didn’t know there was trouble coming when they left. Which makes me surprised they took the dogs with them.”

  The tour through the blue house continued for the next thirty minutes. Matthew’s gaze followed Shannon for most of the half hour. There was little emotion in her voice—factual, calm, steady, with no animation in her movements. She was doing what needed to be done. The woman he’d known since Atlanta was nowhere near the surface. She was in hiding now, just as she’d functioned on this property for most of the eleven years—merely a shadow of who she really was. It hurt him to see it.

  She stepped out of the front door, and he could see her relief at the knowledge she would never have to enter the place again. She went over to the tree with its limbs reaching out toward the house and that second-floor window. “Give me a minute.” She used the birdbath as an initial step and swung up to the first limb. She climbed the tree with ease, experience telling her which limb to choose next. She stopped when she was level with the roof. Paused there. She came back down carrying a camouflage pouch. “Catch.”

  Matthew caught the canvas bag, and she dropped the last few feet to the ground, dusted off her hands. “The last time I’ll climb that one.” She opened it when he handed it back to her and slid out a journal. “My diary covering the family shooting and its aftermath. I don’t want Paul to read it, but I’d like you to tell him what you think he needs to know regarding the events of that day and what led up to it.” She held it out to him.