The Stolen (2008) Read online

  anymore. My dad said he took it down but didn’t tell me

  why.”

  I didn’t have the heart to bring up the fact that Jason

  Giambi had admitted using steroids, and his deteriorating

  performance was likely the result of his body breaking

  down. Danny Linwood was going to have enough prob-56

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  lems reentering society; tearing down his boyhood heroes

  would happen eventually. Yet I understood his father’s

  hesitance to wield the sledgehammer.

  “Do you remember feeling pain?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you remember a face, someone unfamiliar, something frightening you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Do you remember anything about the past few years?

  Sights? Sounds? Memories?”

  Daniel sat there for a few moments. He seemed almost

  to be in pain, searching his thoughts as hard as he could

  for something, straining to find what wasn’t there.

  “A room,” he said. “Like mine, but…I don’t know.”

  “How like yours?”

  “I think there were toys, but I don’t know.”

  “Okay…what was the first thing you thought when

  your mom came out the door that day? The day you came

  back?”

  “I remember being kind of confused. She didn’t hug me

  like that when I came back from school or practice usually,

  so I kind of knew something was different. I was a little

  scared, like something might have happened to James or

  Tasha or my brothers. When my dad got home and started

  crying, that’s when I started crying, too. Like maybe I

  was sick and didn’t know it or something. All those TV

  shows where someone gets sick and then everyone is really

  nice to them, it’s usually because they’re going to die.”

  Again I got that feeling. There was more to what Danny

  Linwood was saying than even he knew.

  I noticed Shelly Linwood’s lip trembling. She was

  aching to say something, gather her son up and hold him.

  My heart hurt for her.

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  “How did you find out what actually happened?”

  “I still don’t know what happened,” Danny said, anger

  rising.

  “I didn’t mean…Who told you that you’d been gone?”

  “My mom,” he said, looking at Shelly. “She took me in

  here, sat me down where you’re sitting. James and Tasha

  and my dad were with her. Then Mom told me.”

  “What did you think when she told you?”

  “I didn’t believe her,” he said. “I thought it was, like,

  April Fools’ or something.”

  “How did you realize she was telling the truth?”

  “My dad showed me the Derek Jeter baseball rookie

  card he bought me for my birthday a while ago. He told

  me to look at the back. He said he’d bought the card the

  year I was born, 1996, Derek Jeter’s rookie year. Jeter

  was twenty-two. Then he showed me a brand-new Jeter

  card. From this year. And on the back of that card, Jeter

  was thirty-three.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Scared. Upset. I mean, he’d been my favorite player

  and I didn’t get to watch him grow up.”

  “What did you think about what your parents told you?”

  I clarified.

  “Really scared,” Danny said. “I cried, I think, because

  I didn’t know what else to do. But I didn’t really know

  why. I mean, I didn’t feel sick, I wasn’t hurt, it’s not like

  I missed anyone, it was just…like, weird. Like you know

  when you wake up from a nap and you’re not really sure

  what time it is?”

  I nodded. The past few months of my life could have

  been accurately described that way.

  “Do you think it’ll be hard going back to school?

  Starting your life again? Just being a kid?”

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  Danny chewed his lip, looked at his mother. I could tell

  it was killing her to stay quiet, but she also knew her son

  needed to heal. And talking would help that process.

  “I don’t feel different. And I probably won’t until I go

  back and, like, see people. Or like today when I want to

  watch a show but don’t recognize anything that’s on. I

  don’t even really recognize myself, if that makes sense.”

  “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.”

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  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

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  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

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  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?”

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  “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 called

  now. Danny.”

  “I’m taking it this is a new development.”

  “Shelly doesn’t seem too keen on it.”

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  “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 do
n’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

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  65

  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