The Stolen hp-3 Page 5

  "In what way don't you recognize yourself?"

  "Just, ways."

  "Like what?"

  He eyed his mother, a look of worry on his face. "I don't know if I can say with my mom here."

  "Say whatever you need to, baby," Shelly added, for once chiming in at the right time.

  "Well…I don't think I remember having hair down there."

  I snorted a laugh without thinking. Shelly's face turned beet-red.

  I said, "Moms don't usually like hearing things like that."

  Danny shrugged. "She told me to say whatever I needed to."

  "She sure did."

  "How's your mom taking it?" I said. I looked at Shelly.

  She knew I needed this from him, as well.

  "I don't know. Fine, I guess. I mean, she's always hugging me and kissing me. I mean, like the kids don't have enough to make fun of already, I don't want to show up at school covered in lipstick."

  "She missed you is all," I said.

  "Yeah, I know, but she could back off a little bit."

  "I was your age once," I said. "I kind of wish my mom was more like yours."

  Danny laughed. "Yeah, right," he said. "I guess she's just glad to have me back." Shelly was nodding, her face in the pillow. Danny looked somewhat at ease. I knew that likely wouldn't last long.

  "My mom told me you got in trouble a while ago,"

  Danny said. "She looked you up in the newspapers when she found out you were coming. Was she telling the truth?

  Were you in trouble?"

  I felt the air rush from my lungs. I nodded. "Yeah, she's telling the truth."

  "What did you do?"

  I took a breath. "Some people thought I hurt someone," I said.

  Danny looked at me, riveted.

  "Did you?"

  "Not on purpose," I said.

  "What did it feel like?"

  I thought for a moment, then said, "Probably a little like what you're going through. I felt like a stranger everywhere I went. Like nobody knew who I really was, they just saw what they read about or watched on TV."

  "That's what'll happen to me, right? People will think I'm some freak weirdo when they don't even know who I am."

  "They'll think that for a little while. Then it's up to you to prove them wrong."

  "I don't see why they need me to prove anything," he said quietly. "It's not like I'm a different person or something."

  I couldn't say this to Danny, but no matter what he or

  Shelly wanted to believe, he was a different person.

  Scandals resonated for a long time. Perceptions died hard.

  Danny took a celery stalk, munched on it, leafy threads stuck between misaligned teeth. Shelly watched approv-60

  Jason Pinter ingly. Danny would need braces, that was for sure. No escaping that part of adolescence.

  "I don't remember the house being so clean," Danny said. "And the color on the walls outside used to be gross."

  "I had it repainted a few years ago," Shelly said. She turned to me. "I wanted things to be clean in case…in case my boy ever came back. I wanted him to know things would be different."

  "You never lost hope, did you?" I asked.

  "Never."

  "Do you think things will be different?" I asked Shelly.

  "For Danny and your family?"

  She gave me a smile, weaker than she likely thought it came off.

  "Yes, they will. For the first time I truly know my babies will be safe."

  Danny and I both looked at her, wondering just how she could be so certain.

  5

  I listened to the recording of my interview with Daniel on the ride back to the city. I tried to focus as much on Danny

  Linwood's cadences, his voice inflections, as what he actually said. I'd spoken to abducted children before, as well as men and women responsible for kidnapping children.

  The children were always withdrawn, as if a piece of their soul had been sucked out. Only they never knew why. The luckier ones, the ones that were found quicker, had withdrawn into a shallower hole. Eventually they could rejoin society, restart their lives. The ones like Daniel, who were removed for years, they weren't so lucky. It was fortunate enough they beat the tremendous odds to survive, but more than likely they'd be stuck in that hole their entire lives. They would spend as much time scrabbling for footing as they did living. With Daniel Linwood, it was as though four-plus years had simply been lopped off clean. No ragged edges to be caught on. Just a gaping hole that left barely a trace.

  When Stavros dropped me at Rockefeller Plaza, I entered the Gazette and headed to my desk. First I would have the tape duplicated, then transcribed. I couldn't promise Daniel and Shelly that they would see my story before it ran, but I had given them my word that Daniel would be treated with respect. Right before I left, Shelly

  Linwood told me that Paulina Cole had been calling every fifteen minutes, begging her to reconsider giving me the exclusive. Apparently Paulina promised to set Shelly up with the Dispatch 's parent company, which had subsidiaries in television, film and publishing. News would be the beginning. Film deals and book deals would follow. The money would come rolling in.

  According to Paulina, "The Linwoods will no longer be victims. They'll be a brand name for survival."

  Shelly said their family wanted no part of it. Once my story ran, what she wanted more than anything was for her children to lead normal lives. Shockingly, Haley Joel

  Osment cast as Danny didn't fit in.

  I sat down at my desk, checked my messages. There was one from Wallace asking me to stop by as soon as I got back. There was another from Jack O'Donnell asking if I wanted to grab a beer and a shot after work. Both sounded like great ideas.

  I walked into Wallace's office, found the editor-in-chief balancing the phone in the crook of his neck while simultaneously typing on his keyboard. The receiver fell twice, and finally Wallace gave up, slamming it back in the cradle and offering a string of colorful profanities.

  "You know they make earpieces for people just like you," I said.

  "No way. Next thing you know I'll have a chip implanted in my cerebellum instead of a laptop. I know I can't stop technology, but I can keep it from plowing me over like a Thoroughbred. I swear, this industry was more efficient before stupid Al Gore invented the Internet."

  "Hey, once the Atlantic swallows the city up, the

  Internet will be the least of your concerns. So what's up?"

  "You talked to the Linwoods?"

  "I did," I said, holding the tape recorder out for him.

  "Fantastic." He looked at his watch. "How'd it go?"

  "I got as much as you can expect from a ten-year-old who fell into a black hole and can't remember the last five years of his life. You get as much from looking at Shelly

  Linwood's face as you do hearing the story. Just heartbreaking. Strange, though. The kid disappears for almost five years, yet talks and acts like your typical ten-year-old.

  Nobody has any idea where Danny Linwood went, but somehow his body and mind developed like a normal adolescent boy's."

  Wallace looked a minimum of disturbed by this, more distracted if anything. I had to remember that Wallace had been in this industry for longer than I'd been alive. He'd seen atrocities like this day after day, year after year. My conscience hadn't calloused over the years. Stories like this still angered me.

  "That's good work, Henry. I need thirty inches for tomorrow's page one. I swear, Ted Allen over at the

  Dispatch is probably trying to bug this building as we speak to get what's on that tape."

  "Shelly Linwood told me Paulina Cole all but offered her body and soul in exchange for this interview."

  "Just what the world needs, another forty-year-old woman sleeping with a toddler. For the sake of Daniel's future and his sanity, he's lucky his mother picked us."

  "For Danny's sake, sir."

  "Danny?"

  "That's what Daniel Linwood prefers to be cal
led now. Danny."

  "I'm taking it this is a new development."

  "Shelly doesn't seem too keen on it."

  "Makes you wonder just what happened to Daniel-

  Danny-during the past few years," Wallace said. "Speaking of memory lapses, have you spoken to Jack today?"

  "Not in person, but he left me a message about grabbing a drink after work."

  Wallace's faced showed a mixture of anger and concern. "You're going to politely decline that offer," he said.

  I was about to ask why, but didn't need to. Over the past year I'd noticed a change in Jack's drinking habits. Onemartini lunches had turned into three shots of Jim Beam.

  Drinks after work turned into drinks during work. Veins began popping up where I hadn't seen them before, the old newsman's equilibrium always seeming a little off. It was clear Jack was developing a problem. Either that, or the problem was already here and we'd just been enabling him, turning a blind eye for months.

  "Anytime Jack requests your company for a drink,"

  Wallace continued, "make it clear you don't approve and you're more than aware. A little humiliation goes a long way for a proud man. That's all we can do short of sending him to rehab."

  "Would that be such a terrible thing?" I asked.

  "Actually, yes. Our circulation has been flat since your reporting on William Henry Roberts last year. Paulina Cole has the Dispatch breathing down our necks, and Ted Allen is using every dirty trick in the book to up their numbers.

  Giving out more free newspapers than high schools give out condoms, dropping thousands of copies in Dumpsters and recording them as part of their circulation."

  "But if the numbers are inflated," I said, "who cares?"

  "Advertisers," Wallace said. "Not to mention subjects who, unlike Shelly Linwood, truly care about maximizing their publicity. If our top writer goes into the detox, it's one less leg for us to stand on, one more piece of ammo for

  Paulina's slime cannon."

  "I'll ease off with Jack," I said. "I need to cut back on my own extracurriculars as it is."

  "Glad to hear you say that, Henry. Don't think I'm unaware that you seemed to have mistakenly thought your desk came from 1-800-MATTRESS. Speaking of social lives, how's that girlfriend of yours? Amanda, right?"

  I toed the floor. Looked away.

  "We aren't seeing each other anymore," I said. "Haven't talked in a while, actually."

  "That's a shame. Remember you talking about her from time to time. In a good way."

  She was worth talking about, I wanted to say. Instead,

  I let my silence speak for me. It was an issue I couldn't talk about with Wallace. Or Jack. Or anyone. I wasn't fully ready to face it myself. Knowing the woman I loved was out there in the same city walking the same streets, it was enough to tear me apart if I thought about it too much.

  Knowing what I'd let-what I'd forced away.

  "Not to get too parental, but you'll meet someone nice,"

  Wallace said. "All these bylines, your name in the paper, lots of girls would probably kill to go out with a hotshot journalist."

  "Yeah, nothing sexier than a guy with half a dozen cartons of half-eaten Chinese food, who makes less money than a public school teacher and doesn't own a mattress cover."

  I could tell Wallace didn't find that funny. I decided to change the subject.

  "Hey, know who showed up at the Linwoods' place today? Gray Talbot."

  "No kidding?"

  "In the flesh. Or suit."

  "The savior of suburbia checking on his constituents."

  "What do you mean, savior?"

  "After Daniel Linwood disappeared, Gray Talbot came in and rattled the cage until someone changed the lining.

  Made a big stink about how the town was becoming a cesspool, how the crime rate was simply unacceptable. He got state and federal funding to rebuild Hobbs County pretty much from the ground up. Nearly doubled the police force, turned a hellhole of a town into a damn fine place to raise a family. There's still work to be done, but that place is pretty unrecognizable compared to what it was."

  I thought about what Wallace said, and agreed with him. Even Stavros, the driver, had said the same thing.

  "Daniel Linwood's kidnapping was a terrible thing, but the silver lining is he forced change," he continued. "That boy basically returned to a brand-new, safer home and community. That's all Gray Talbot. Rumor has it he contributed close to a million from his own coffers to aid the effort."

  "I thought his suits looked nice. Guess he's got enough money for them."

  "I have Gray's home phone number. It'd be great to get him on record for this story as well. He's got a lot invested in Hobbs County, both in time and money, and I'm sure he's expecting a heck of a story from you as well. You don't construct a house and then not care how it's decorated. Get to it," Wallace said. "All story, all the time. I want to see ink on your eyeballs. If I hear you had a single drink with Jack, you'll be reporting on the passing of venereal diseases in the champagne room. Show me the copy before you send it to Evelyn."

  "No problem," I said.

  "Then tomorrow morning, I'll send over a copy of the paper with a fruit basket to Ted Allen and Paulina Cole."

  "Do me a favor, leave my name off the card,' I said.

  "Enough people in this town hate me."

  "If they hate you it's because you're doing a good job.

  You're getting the scoops they want. So go make some enemies. Just make sure they're the right enemies."

  "Operation Piss People Off to commence immediately, sir."

  I gave Wallace a halfhearted salute and returned to my desk. I sent Jack a quick e-mail declining drinks.

  I pushed all that aside and got to work. Punching keys.

  Making enemies of the right people. Something still didn't sit right with me about the interview. I needed to pinpoint it. To do justice to the story. To give justice to Danny Linwood.

  6

  "It's called 'declared dead in absentia,'" Amanda said.

  "It's when a person is presumed dead, yet there is insufficient evidence to prove such a death occurred."

  Darcy Lapore chewed her gum thoughtfully. At least

  Amanda assumed it was thoughtful, because her brows were furrowed as if creating space for a gopher to hibernate. Regardless, she continued. Amanda Davies had been working at the New York Legal Aid Society for several years. In that time, she'd witnessed some of the most horrific cases of neglect and abuse. And she'd seen children taken from the depths of hell and given hope. Yet, as she sat there with Darcy Lapore, Amanda couldn't recall ever working on a case as bizarre as that of Daniel

  Linwood.

  "However, if a person has either been missing for a significant amount of time-for adults it's usually seven years-or has disappeared under unusual circumstances, the death certificate can be sped up. It's a way to both give the family some closure, and to make sure they get any benefits they're entitled to, like life insurance."

  "So…the Linwoods have been collecting their son's life insurance?" Darcy asked. Amanda mentally slapped her head, then for fun mentally slapped Darcy's head. Then she reminded herself that no matter how often she wanted to strangle the stupid out of the girl, she couldn't get mad at Darcy. Kind of the same way you couldn't really be upset with a puppy who peed on the rug. Though most puppies did eventually learn to hold their bladders,

  Amanda did wonder whether Darcy would ever really commit to the job. The girl meant well, but for some reason her ability to recall thousands of shades of lip gloss and memorize every designer from Betsey Johnson to Umbro outweighed her ability to retain legal aid information by a multiple of, oh, about a trillion. The children they worked with needed passionate advocates.

  "Daniel didn't have life insurance," Amanda continued, not letting an ounce of condescension drip into her voice.

  While Darcy would never win employee-of-the-month- or day, or even minute-in addition to being a colleague, she'd been a b
etter friend than most people Amanda had ever known.

  Last year, when Henry ended their relationship, when

  Amanda had no place to sleep, Darcy opened up her home and her sofa bed without thinking twice. Darcy's husband, Nick, moaned for a millisecond, but apparently

  Darcy gave him a look that first night and Nick never peeped again. Amanda knew Nick brought home a salary closer to seven figures than six, so Darcy didn't need nonprofit work, or any kind of work for that matter. Nick didn't get home most nights until midnight, if not later, so if her generosity was for companionship Amanda didn't know, but she was thankful for it, nonetheless.

  Which meant forgiving occasional, scratch that, regular lapses in judgment.

  "You know, you should have come out last night,"

  Darcy said. "They gave out gift bags at the end. Each one had a tube of La Mer. I swear it's like rubbing liquid silk on your skin. And Nick's friend Spencer, remember the one I told you about? He was there, and honey, that boy can wear a Brooks Brothers."

  "I'm sorry, Darce, I was tired. I'll be there next time."

  "Wow," Darcy said sardonically. "If there ever is a next time, you'll have to clone yourself, like, fifty times to make up for all your excuses."

  Amanda turned to her, said, "I'm sorry, it's just…it's not me. I don't get all giggly for that kind of stuff. If I'm going to meet someone, it'll happen the way it's meant to happen. Like…"

  "Like a fugitive asking for a ride out of the state."

  She smiled. "Yeah. Something like that."

  "Well, fine. I'll tell Nick to tell Spencer to find another playmate. But, Amanda?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Next time you might want to come just for the moisturizer. Your dry-as-dust forehead will thank you."

  Amanda shut her gaping mouth, then play-slapped

  Darcy. She never wanted to be rude, and surely appreciated the effort, but she wasn't a socialite, the kind of woman who spent more time getting dressed than she did sleeping.

  And that's what she missed most about Henry. Those nights where it was just the two of them, cuddled in sweats and T-shirts, relaxing on his couch, watching a funny movie, talking, making love, then falling asleep. Bodies intertwined as though there was no world other than theirs.