Taken Read Online Free PDF

few years ago. I’ll print you a copy.”
    “I’m coming up. What’s your suite number?” He picked up his room key and his wallet, pushed his feet into his shoes.
    “Ten ninety-six.”
    He wrote a quick note for Shannon and left it on the desk in case she woke up. “Tell me about her brother,” he asked Ann, shifting his phone to the other hand as the room’s door closed behind him. He headed toward the elevator.
    “Our next governor, if the tracking polls are to be believed. He’s been leading the search to find his sister almost from day one, and from what I can see here, he’s done a good job of keeping her photo out there, as well as information about the reward. He paid Chicago-based companies to include her missing-person flyer in every customer mailing they put out—there have been millions of them distributed in the last eleven years. This has been an intense, sustained, and expensive search. He sold his interest in the family business in order to fund that effort.”
    “So he’s serious about finding his sister and may be open to taking some advice on how to proceed,” Matthew speculated.
    “I’d think so. He makes a point of mentioning her, asking for information from the public, at every event where he speaks.”
    The elevator doors opened on the tenth floor, and Matthew walked down to suite 1096, showed his credentials to the officer providing security in the hall. The head of the Chicago FBI office wouldn’t have a choice about the security; it went with the job.
    “Why the interest in this case?” Ann was asking in his ear. “You have something?”
    Matthew ignored the question for the moment. “I’m at the door.” He knocked lightly as he spoke and waited for Annto answer, silencing and pocketing his phone when the door opened. She’d changed into jeans and a Chicago Bulls T-shirt. Her husband was on the hotel phone. Matthew lifted a hand to acknowledge Paul’s silent hello, then turned his attention back to Ann and her question. “I may have met Shannon. DNA is running now.”

3
    S o if the woman in your room really is Shannon Bliss, what’s the plan?” Paul Falcon asked, settling on the couch next to his wife in their hotel suite.
    “She would like to go home,” Matthew began, choosing a soda and dumping it over ice. He needed the caffeine to give himself a second burst of energy. “That’s the starting premise. What steps get taken in the next forty-eight hours depends in part on that case file and what the situation looks like in Chicago.”
    “Has she told you anything about what happened? Is there a case to peel back at this point? A name? Location? Time period involved?” Paul asked.
    “She’s shared a few facts I can tell you once DNA confirms her identity,” Matthew replied. He settled into a chair across from the couch, feeling the fatigue of the long day setting in. Paul would be the right person to see that Shannon got justice for what had happened to her. The sooner Matthew could introduce the two of them, the stronger the likelihood this situationwould unfold to the good. But that wasn’t going to happen in the next twenty-four hours.
    His phone chimed. He looked at the screen. The initial DNA panel was ready. He used the FTP code and sent the comparison panel stripped of any name reference on to the lab to have the comparison done. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Ten minutes, fifteen, he was going to know. He looked back at Paul. “Shannon wants to meet only with her brother initially, not the rest of her family or friends. What do you think? Can the brother meet her and sit on the news he knows she’s alive?”
    Paul shared a look with Ann, who finally shook her head and replied, “Maybe. Anything is possible. But the practical answer is he can’t. We’re less than five months away from the vote. He can’t talk about her as missing once he knows she’s alive; it would be political suicide for him to lie. He can’t avoid questions about