The Stolen (2008) Read online

  excused you from the table. You have to ask to be

  excused.” James looked at his mother and gave an exaggerated sigh, then picked up a single piece of lettuce. He

  took a bite, grimacing as if it had been marinating in oyster

  juice. “I don’t know what you’re looking at me for,” Shelly

  said. “Some people actually think vegetables taste good.”

  Tasha nodded along with her mother, opened wide and

  shoved a whole stalk of celery in her mouth.

  “Those people are stupid,” James said, nibbling at the

  lettuce.

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  “No, if you knew what kind of vitamins and minerals

  veggies had, you’d know those people are quite smart,”

  Shelly said. “Did you know LeBron James eats a double

  helping of carrots before every game?”

  “Does not,” James replied.

  “Does too,” said Shelly.

  “Does too,” said Tasha.

  James gave his sister a cold glare. He tore off a piece

  of lettuce and chewed it with vigor, letting several shreds

  of green gristle fall onto the table.

  Shelly watched her children eat, their eyes more concerned with her approval than their nutrition. The soft

  jingle of a wind chime could be heard from the back porch,

  as well as the noise of a television set blaring from the

  house next door. Mrs. Niederman’s hearing had begun to

  go last year, and now she watched Alex Trebek at a volume

  that could be heard from space.

  Shelly took a moment to gaze around her house. Just a

  few years ago, the back porch was riddled with termites,

  the wood rotted, the whole structure ready to collapse. She

  never would have let Tasha and James play on it. Randy

  was never very good with tools, and they simply didn’t

  have the money to rebuild it. Not yet.

  After their terrible ordeal, when their family had been

  fractured, the Good Samaritans of Hobbs County had

  reached out to help the Linwoods. Now barely a day

  passed where James and Tasha weren’t outside shooting

  off water guns, dangling from the railing like a pair of

  spider monkeys. At least the porch had been rebuilt.

  While the kids were at school, while Randy was away

  at work, Shelly would often find herself looking at the old

  photos of their house, taken when they’d first moved in

  years ago. She barely recognized what it had become.

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  The white paint was fresh, blue trim even, the mailbox

  upright. Nobody egged their house on Halloween, and she

  never had to call the police to report the teenagers who

  used to drive by once a week and knock the mailbox

  sideways with wielded baseball bats. Those kinds of things

  never happened anymore. There were more cops; she

  could feel their presence. They stopped by every so often,

  just to see how she and Randy were holding up. I’m fine,

  Shelly would say. We’re fine.

  The cops always turned down a cup of coffee. As though

  being any closer to the sorrow might somehow infect them.

  James was grimacing through his last scraps of food

  when Shelly heard the doorbell.

  “That’s got to be Daddy,” Shelly said. “He probably

  forgot his keys again this morning. James, would you let

  your father in?” James didn’t move. “Did you hear me?”

  “I’m cleaning my plate like you told me. I can’t answer

  the door and eat at the same time.” He smiled at this

  catch-22. Shelly sighed, though silently proud of her

  son’s intelligence.

  “Fine, you can stop eating if you let your father in. But

  if I hear that video game start up before you finish your

  social studies homework, you won’t watch television until

  you graduate college.”

  James sprung up like he’d been shot from a cannon,

  then bolted from his chair.

  Shelly smiled at her daughter. Tasha. Her beautiful,

  young daughter, who would grow up to be strong and

  vivacious like her mother had never been. Shelly felt an

  ache in her stomach and placed her palm on Tasha’s cheek.

  Tasha smiled at her, that big goofy grin full of baby teeth.

  “Mom?” James’s voice bellowed from the hallway.

  “There’s a kid here. Do you know anyone named Daniel?”

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  A napkin fell from Shelly’s hand and fluttered to the

  floor.

  “Wha…what did you say, baby?”

  “Daniel. There’s some kid at the door says he knows you.

  Wait, huh? Uh, Mom? He says…he says you’re his mom.”

  Shelly leapt from her seat. She dashed through the

  house, nearly knocking over the coffee table, and sprinted

  into the front hallway.

  The wooden frame was open to reveal the screen door.

  A boy was standing behind the screen, looking confused

  as to why he hadn’t been allowed in yet. Shelly covered

  her mouth to prevent a scream from escaping her lips.

  On the other side of the door stood a boy Shelly both

  knew and didn’t know. He was about five foot three with

  a lock of dark hair that fell over his hazel eyes. His father’s

  eyes. His limbs were gangly, full of sharp angles, as if he’d

  grown a great deal in a short amount of time and the flesh

  hadn’t caught up to his bones. Everything and nothing

  was just like she remembered.

  “Baby, oh my God…”

  She gently pushed James away from the door and tore

  open the screen. The boy stood on the front porch with a look

  of slight bewilderment, a twinkle of recognition, a blurry

  memory slowly coming into focus. He didn’t move. Instead,

  the boy’s eyes met Shelly’s as though waiting for something,

  and before another second passed Shelly Linwood gathered

  the boy up into her arms and squeezed him like there was

  no tomorrow, until his arms tentatively wrapped themselves

  around her body and held on. She remembered how he’d felt

  in her arms, and though heavier, he was the same child she’d

  held in her arms for the first six years of his life. She

  showered the boy’s head with kisses until he pulled away

  slightly, an embarrassed grin on his young face.

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  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God, oh my God,

  oh my God. Baby, is it really you?” The boy shrugged, then

  was muffled as Shelly attempted to squeeze the life out

  of him again.

  Shelly heard a car pull up. When the engine cut off, she

  looked up to see Randy’s silver V70 Volvo in the driveway.

  The door opened, and her husband climbed out with a

  groan. Randy was forty-one, just ten pounds heavier than

  when they’d met in high school. His jawline was still

  visible above a slight jowl, his arms still maintaining some

  of the tone from his linebacker days at Hobbs High. Shelly

  loved to run her hands down his arms when he lay on top

  of her, the definition of his triceps making her shiver. It

  had been a year since she last felt that, but now she needed

  to feel him
closer more than ever.

  Her family.

  Randy stretched his back, ran his fingers through his

  thinning hair, then reached back inside to grab his briefcase.

  “Honey,” he said, noticing the commotion on the front

  porch. “Please tell me there’s a Michelob left in the fridge,

  I—”

  “It’s Daniel,” Shelly blurted. “He’s back.”

  Randy looked up, confused. Then when everything

  came into focus, his briefcase fell to the ground. He stared

  for a moment, shaking his head, then ran up the steps to

  join his wife. He placed his palm over the boy’s forehead,

  pulled his hair back, gazing into the young, confused eyes.

  Then he joined his wife in the embrace.

  “You people are weird,” James muttered. “I don’t get

  it. Who is he?”

  “This,” Randy said, turning the boy to face him, tears

  streaming down his face, “is your brother. His name is

  Daniel. Do you remember him?”

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  Jason Pinter

  James had been just three when it all happened. Shelly

  didn’t take it personally when Daniel looked at his sibling,

  bewilderment reigning over his face, a slight twinkle of

  memory.

  “My brother?” James said. “I thought he was, like,

  stolen or something.”

  “He was,” Shelly said, stroking Daniel’s hair. “But

  thank you, God, somehow our boy has found his way

  home.”

  James looked at Daniel. There were no bruises on his

  body; no cuts or scrapes. His clothes looked new enough

  to still have the tags on them. Though he was so young,

  Shelly wondered if James remembered all those people

  rushing in and out of their house. Men and women with

  badges, other loud people with cameras and microphones.

  Once on an Easter egg hunt, Shelly had entered the

  bedroom to find James and Tasha rifling through a trunk

  stuffed full of newspaper clippings about Daniel’s disappearance. James had asked Shelly about Daniel once, and

  she answered with a single tear, a trembling lip. He never

  asked again.

  To Shelly, this was God’s will. It was fate that her

  family be reunited.

  To James Linwood, though, he couldn’t understand

  how his brother, who’d disappeared nearly five years ago

  without a trace, could simply reappear like magic without

  a scratch on him.

  2

  The bar was sweltering hot, but the swirling fans made

  it more palatable than the thick sweater choking the New

  York streets. It didn’t take long to learn that Augusts in

  New York could be brutal. My first summer in the city, I

  made the mistake one day of wearing a T-shirt and sweater

  to the office. Jack told me between my clothes and the

  Gazette’s sporadic air-conditioning, I’d lose ten pounds

  before the day was up. While I doubted the New York

  summer could get any hotter than my childhood years in

  Bend, Oregon, when later that night I peeled off my

  sweater and squeezed out the moisture, I realized East

  Coast summers were just as brutal as their West Coast

  counterparts.

  I took another sip of my beer—my third of the night,

  and third in slightly under an hour—and casually glanced

  up at the baseball game. Out of the dozen or so patrons,

  only two or three seemed to care about the outcome. The

  others were nursing a drink, chatting up the bartender or,

  like the six people my age playing darts, far too busy

  reveling in their own bliss.

  I’d gotten to know the bartender, Seamus. Things like

  that happen when you become a regular. Some nights I had

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  trouble sleeping. This necessitated finding somewhere to

  go to kill time. Somewhere I could be lost in my own

  thoughts. That’s how I stumbled upon Finnerty’s. Quiet

  enough to lose yourself. Loud enough to drown everything

  out.

  Most nights I was happy to imbibe among young Irish

  gents and apple-cheeked female bartenders. U2 and Morrissey seemed to emanate from the jukebox on an endless

  loop. Though I enjoyed the Irish pub, sitting in Finnerty’s

  made me feel that much closer to the elder drinkers, sitting

  with bottomless glasses of whiskey, talking to the bartender because he was cheaper than a psychiatrist. All of

  this, by proxy, made me feel more and more like I was

  becoming Jack O’Donnell. In many ways being compared

  to Jack would be a compliment. Just not this one.

  Jack O’Donnell, to put it bluntly, was my idol. He’d

  worked the city beat for going on forty years, and any conversation about New York journalism was incomplete

  without mention of the old man. Growing up, I’d gone out

  of my way to read every story O’Donnell wrote, not an

  easy task for a kid who lived three thousand miles away

  from New York. I had our library special-order the Gazette

  on microfiche. I would take on an extra newspaper route

  just so I could afford the next O’Donnell book in hardcover

  when it hit stores. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, wait for the

  paperback.

  A few years ago I’d arrived at the New York Gazette a

  fresh-faced newbie reporter who deigned only to shine

  O’Donnell’s shoes. He was a journalistic institution,

  writing some of the most important stories of the past half

  century. Despite his age, Jack seemed to grow younger

  with every word he typed. Even though Jack’s first assignment for me led to disaster—namely me being accused of

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  murder—he was the first person at the newspaper to give

  me an honest shot at showing what I was worth. Both Jack

  and Wallace Langston, the Gazette’s editor-in-chief, had

  taken me under their wings, given me stories that I grabbed

  on to tenaciously and reported the hell out of. Without Jack

  I probably wouldn’t have come to New York. Because of

  him I found my calling.

  Like any idol, though, once you got closer you could

  see that some of the gold paint covered a chipped bronze

  interior. For all his brilliance with a pen, Jack’s personal

  life was a disaster. Several times married and divorced. On

  the highway to alcoholism while seeming to hit every

  speed bump at sixty miles an hour. Yet, despite Jack’s

  faults, he was the tent pole to which I aspired to in this

  business. As long as I could stop there.

  Nights like tonight, I was content to sit on the aged bar

  stool and ignore everything. It was easier that way.

  Then I felt a cold splash on my back, whipped around

  to see a tall, lithe redhead standing over my shoulder, her

  hand over her mouth as if she’d just seen a bad car accident.

  “Oh, my gosh!” she said, grabbing a pile of napkins off

  the bar and mopping at my shirt where she’d spilled her

  drink. From the look and smell, I could tell she’d spilled a

  cosmopolitan. I’d say I was thankful it wasn’t one of my

  good shirts, but the truth was I didn’t own any good shirts.

  Just one m
ore article of clothing with an unidentifiable stain.

  “No big deal,” I said, wringing as much liquid from the

  cloth as I could. “It’s a bar. You kind of expect to be hit

  with a drink or two.”

  She smiled at me. I wondered if she thought I was

  funny, or if she was just relieved I wasn’t the kind of

  asshole who would bark and shout at a girl who’d accidentally spilled a drink on him.

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  Jason Pinter

  She was pretty. Tall, in good shape, but I could tell a

  lot of effort went into her appearance. Probably too much.

  Her jeans were tight, light blue tank top with a neckline

  that plunged far down enough to catch the eyes. Her

  cheeks and eyelids glistened with sweat on top of sweatproof makeup. She was probably a natural beauty but

  simply didn’t trust herself. I thought I noticed a small dark

  spot, a mole perhaps, by her right collarbone, but quickly

  realized it was a passing shadow. She was the prettiest girl

  I’d noticed in Finnerty’s in a long while. Either that, or I

  just never bothered to notice.

  “Here,” she said, putting down the soiled napkins and

  reaching into her purse, “let me buy you a drink. Least I

  can do, right, since you’re being such a gentleman? What

  kind of beer is that?”

  I shook my head. “No need. It happens.” I caught the

  ball game from the corner of my eye. The fans were on

  their feet. Looked like someone had hit a home run.

  “Well, can I just buy you a drink to buy you a drink?”

  I looked at her, a cautious smile. My beer was almost

  empty. And my wallet was running light.

  “It’s okay,” I said after a moment. “Really, it’s not necessary.” She put her purse away, eyed me with a combination of skepticism and curiosity.

  “Are you here with friends?” she asked.

  “Nope. Just watching the game.”

  She glanced around the bar, watched the guys with

  gelled hair and long button-down shirts hanging over expensive jeans, high-fiving one another while a gaggle of

  girls cheered every dart throw.

  “So you’re just here to, what…hang out by yourself?”

  “That’s the idea,” I said. Her smile turned demure. I felt

  her move closer. Her arm brushed mine, and for a moment

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  27

  I felt that tingle of electricity. It had been so long. I didn’t

  move my arm.

  “That’s kind of cool,” she said. “Lot of guys try too hard

  to be all macho and stuff. It takes confidence to stay quiet.”