The Stolen - Jason Pinter [32]
to change our number." She said this with an air of
apology. She still saw me as a friend. Unlike the other
vultures who wanted to pick the bones.
"I understand that. Again, I appreciate you and Daniel
talking to me the other day."
"It's Danny," she said, her voice less than enthusiastic.
"That's what he wants to be called now."
"Right. I remember. Anyway, Mrs. Linwood, Shelly, I
was going back over the tape of the interview, and something seemed a little strange to me."
"Strange? How so?"
"When Danny is talking about reuniting with his
family, he says the word brothers. As in more than one.
And he says it several times. I know this is a silly question,
but Daniel doesn't have any other siblings besides Tasha
and James, right?"
"That's right." The acceptance was gone. At that
moment I knew I was an outsider again.
"Any close friends he might consider a part of the
family? A cousin so close he might call him a brother?"
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"No."
"Has he mentioned anything to you about his abduction? Any memories that might offer a clue as to why he
said that?"
"I said no, Mr. Parker." Not Henry. Mr. Parker. "It's just
the five of us. Thank God. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have
a pot roast in the oven." I checked my watch. It was eleven
in the morning. Kind of early for a pot roast.
She didn't wait for me to respond, and I knew when the
line went dead Shelly Linwood would no longer be returning any more of my calls. I sent off a quick e-mail to Wallace.
Shelly Linwood doesn't know where "brothers" came
from. Got very defensive. Will update you on progress.
H
I tapped my pencil against the desk. Wherever Danny
Linwood was during those years, there was another person
he'd called "brother." I was sure of it. Of course, there was a
chance his mind had simply been damaged from the absence,
but something in Shelly's voice and the lack of cooperation
from the HCPD told me if I asked more questions, I'd find
very unhappy answers. Which meant they had to be asked.
I decided to take a stab at something, then work from
there.
I performed a LexisNexis search for child abductions
within the past ten years, then narrowed the search to cases
where the child returned alive. Sadly, there were over one
thousand reported cases of child abductions in the United
States during that span, and less than fifty of those
thousand children had been found alive. The others had
either been found dead, or never found at all.
I searched through the results looking for any simi-94
Jason Pinter
larities, specifically cases, like Danny Linwood's, where
the abducted was returned to his or her home with no
memory of their time gone.
I was surprised when one hit came back. Seven years ago,
an eight-year-old girl named Michelle Oliveira disappeared
outside of Meriden, Connecticut, following a playdate at a
neighbor's house. The Oliveiras lived just four houses down
the block from their friends, a family of four named the
Lowes, which explained why she was unsupervised upon
her return home. The investigation turned up nothing but a
tassel from Michelle's hair that had been caught on a nearby
branch. After a month the search was called off. Two years
later Michelle Oliveira was declared deceased.
And three years after that, Michelle Oliveira appeared
in her parents' front yard in Meriden, in perfect health with
the exception of some vitamin deficiencies. According to
a newspaper report, Michelle had no recollection of the
intervening years.
The police had conducted numerous interviews with
Michelle, her parents and younger brother, as well as with
the Lowe family. The records had been sealed off due to
the victim's young age. The abductor or abductors were
never found. And Michelle went on with her life.
While Michelle clearly wasn't a "brother," it did make
me wonder. Meriden was just a few hours from Hobbs
County, and more important, it set a precedent for this kind
of unexplained absence and subsequent reappearance.
I needed to see those records. Fortunately I knew