The Stolen - Jason Pinter [18]
"Right," I continued. "Do you know how long you
were gone?"
"Mom says almost five years."
"Does it feel like you've been gone a long time?"
"Not really," Danny said. "I mean, it's hard when I, like,
go to do something and can't do it. Like there used to be
a radiator in my room where I could turn up the heat, but
now we have these electronic-control things. And I don't
recognize anything on TV, which sucks. All of a sudden
my brothers and sister are, like, old." I felt a strange mental
tugging sensation. Something Danny had said triggered it,
but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
"Danny, I know the police have probably asked you
these questions already, but did you have any enemies at
school? On the team? Someone you were scared of?" He
shook his head vehemently.
"I remember breaking up with my girlfriend once and
she got mad and cried, that's it."
"You had a girlfriend?" Shelly said. "When was this?"
"Mom, come on," he said.
"What, you can tell the whole world but you can't
tell me?"
The Stolen
55
Danny looked at me, his eyes pleading. I smiled at him.
Six-year-old Danny Linwood with a girlfriend. I wondered
if she'd missed him, or even understood what had happened.
"Mrs. Linwood. Shelly," I said, looking at Danny from
the corner of my eye. "I need to be able to talk to your son
with his full concentration. I know this is hard and you have
a lot to catch up on with Danny, but I need this to do my job."
"Your job." She sneered. "My job is my son."
"I know that. All I want to do is tell the truth about your
boy. Trust me, I don't want to upset your family at all."
"Mom..." Danny said softly. This was likely the first
chance Danny had had to talk about what happened, and
it seemed to even be a bit cathartic for him.
"You're right. I'm sorry. Henry, please."
"Thank you," I said politely. "Danny, what was the last
thing you remember before you woke up on that field?"
"I remember being at baseball practice," he said. "I
don't know if that's the last thing that happened. But I
remember Mike Bursaw got hit in the knee by a line drive
and was crying, and Coach was going to send him to the
nurse but Mike wouldn't let him. And I remember
watching the Yankees on TV and my dad saying Jason
Giambi couldn't get a hit to save his life, which is weird
because he used to be so good. I mean, I had his poster on
my wall, and every night I'd tell it to go three-for-four with
a home run. I noticed the poster wasn't on my wall
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
Jason Pinter
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