Chapter 11

“Brian, for the love of God, stop pacing!” Regan had lost her patience.

Brian paused in mid-step and looked over at her. “What? Why? What’s your problem?”

Regan sighed and turned away from the laptop currently displaying files on ten different men from both Brian and Sienna’s pasts. Some were high school friends of Brian’s that he’d had bad falling outs with, while others were past men that Sienna had dated. They were the only concrete suspects that Regan had been able to cull out—ones that fit the revenge profile that the criminal psychologist had pieced together using Brian’s conversations with the kidnapper.

Regan took a deep breath. “Look, I know you’re worried, so am I. Unfortunately, your pacing when I’m trying to work is really distracting. Maybe, instead of pacing, you should get out of the house, go for a drive, or something.”

Brian shook his head. “Nope, no way. What if he calls again? Then, I’ll be outside somewhere, and how would you be able to trace the call?”

“Give our technology a little credit would you? We’re hooked into the satellite that your phone works with, Brian. Any call you’ll get, no matter where you are, we’ll be able to trace it. So, go, go for a drive, walk in a park, something.” Regan wanted him to have some peace of mind as well as her own. If he stayed in the house much longer with the constant reminders of his family everywhere, she was afraid he would crack under the stress.

Brian thought for a few moments. “No,” he said, finally. “I’m sorry, Regan. I really need to be here in case anything happens. I promise I won’t pace,” he said quickly, seeing her look. “But I need to stay.”

Regan nodded and turned back to her work. She heard Brian settle into a chair against the far wall from her, and she tried to think of some way to distract him as she stared at the file for a Garrison, Daniel who lived in Boston now.

Brian tried not to tap his foot and looked up when Regan spoke. “Tell me about yourself, Brian. I mean,” she turned around. “I know all about Sienna and the kids, but I have no idea who you are, aside from looking at the people you were once friends with. I know you’ve got a loving family and wonderful friends, but who is Brian Thomas Littrell?” she asked.

He frowned. “How is that going to help the investigation at all? Shouldn’t the focus be on Sienna more than me?”

Regan shook her head. “I have to take a holistic approach to every investigation. I need to know about everyone involved. Maybe there’s a key piece in there somewhere that might seem tiny to you but, in actuality, it’s the missing puzzle piece,” she explained. “So, go ahead, tell me about yourself.”

Brian shrugged. “Well, I was born here, in Lexington in 1975, and I had a life-threatening staph infection where the doctors advised my parents to make funeral arrangements. But that’s not what you want to hear?” Brian asked, confused at the way she shook her head.

“That’s all facts, Brian,” she told him. “I already know that, and so do millions of people around the world. Dig into the inner workings of you.”

“I’ll have to think about it, then,” he told her, and she nodded. After several minutes, he spoke again. “The most important things in my life are my family, my faith, and music. If I didn’t have one of those three, I don’t think I could be who I am today. And, while my family is missing, the other two things are keeping me sane when everyone thinks I’m going to fall apart. Although, I’ve decided, but haven’t told the guys yet, that, when all this is resolved, I’m going to leave the group, leave the professional singing. I can’t do it, Regan, not when I know that if I had been home and not singing, nothing would have happened to Sienna and our kids. If I had been home, I could have kept a better eye on them.”

“AJ was here, Brian, and we both know that nothing would have stopped whoever took your family from getting in. You can’t always protect those you love,” Regan said, trying not to think of her own past. “Sometimes, things happen for a reason, and, at the end of this nightmare, maybe we’ll understand why it had to happen.” She sighed. “Look, maybe you should just go outside, get some fresh air. Take Kelly with you.” Regan frowned. “Where is she, anyway? I haven’t seen her for the last couple days.”

“She’s been on the phone with her agent, who wants her to come back to work. I told her to go, that her work is important, too, but she won’t listen,” Brian explained.

Regan smiled. “It’s because she’s your friend, and she’s not going to leave you when you need all the support possible.”

“Speaking of friends,” Brian began. “I didn’t think I’d ever become friends with an FBI agent, but I’m glad I am. Thank you for doing everything you can, Regan.”

She shook her head. “It’s what I’d do for anyone. It’s how I work, Brian.” She stopped. “Okay, yes, I’m glad we’ve become friends. Usually, I don’t get this close with the families I work for, probably because none of them have ever insisted that I stay in their homes.”

Brian gave her a smile, one of the few he’d had in nearly three weeks. “See, persistence pays,” he told her and she rolled her eyes.

“Go, find Kelly, AJ, whoever, and get out of this place. I promise, we’ll trace any call and let you know if anything new happens.” She glanced up as another one of her team members came into the room. “Brian, seriously, go. You’ll have a better peace of mind once you get out of the house and get fresh air. Plus, we’ll be able to work better, too,” she added.

“Okay, I’ll go,” Brian stood. “But you have to call me the instant you know anything.”

“I promise,” Regan assured him. “Now, out!”

Brian left the study and decided that maybe she had a point. He hadn’t left the house in the three weeks since Sienna and the kids had been kidnapped. The house was beginning to suffocate him, he realized. Everywhere he turned, there were pictures of his family, and he was beginning to be afraid that not even God could save him from losing it if his family wasn’t found soon. Thinking of places he could go where reporters and fans wouldn’t notice him, Brian climbed the stairs and headed towards the guestroom where he was sure he would find Kelly.

As he neared the open door to her room, he heard her talking and, when he saw her, noticed that she was curled under the covers, on the phone.

“Steve, I know it’s spreading it thin, but I’m fine. You’d be the first person to know if I was overdoing it and needed help. I promise…Yes, I know. But the most important thing right now is to stay with Brian until we know where his family is…Thanks, Steve. You’re one of the best friends a woman could have. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she laughed a little. “Okay, listen, I’ll call you later.” She looked over when Brian stepped into the doorway and gave him a smile. “No problem. I love you, too. Later.” Kelly snapped her phone shut and turned to Brian. “Hey, how’s it going in FBI headquarters?”

Brian sighed and stepped into the room. “Regan got angry when I started pacing. She said it was distracting and that I should get out of the house and go for a drive.”

“She’s probably right, you know,” Kelly told him. “You haven’t gotten any fresh air in weeks. I think you need to clear your head a little.”

Brian shrugged. “Yeah, I probably do. I think the house is starting to suffocate me. So,” he gave her a big smile, “you’re going to come with me, right? I was thinking of going to this park where there’s a little lake. It’s fifteen minutes away.”

Kelly shook her head. “You should go on your own, Brian. You need quality Brian time, not quality Kelly time. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

He rolled his eyes. “Honey, I’m not the only one who needs quality me time. You haven’t come out of this place since we talked to the press five days ago. What’s going on, Kelly?”

Kelly sighed. She couldn’t tell him what was really going on, she knew. What would telling him about the reasons he hadn’t heard from her for months do to help him? He didn’t need the burden of her past on him, anyway. She hadn’t told him about the incident with his mother, either, because it had nothing to do with Brian, and, if he knew, it would be one more stressor in his life.

Shrugging it off, she smiled up at him. “You go to the lake, and I’ll take a walk around your huge backyard. I’ll leave my cell in this room and not pick it up the rest of today, okay? Deal?”

Brian sighed. “Yeah, that’s fine. I probably should go on my own, huh?” At her nod, he reached out and squeezed her hand. “I don’t know what I’d do without my friends here,” he told her gratefully. “It’s been really comforting to have you, AJ, and Nick here.”

“Even if Nick and AJ spend their time online reading fan fictions on you guys and laughing over them?” Kelly wondered.

Brian rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, they’re weird, but it’s still comforting to know you guys are here. I’m gonna head out then. I guess I’ll have to leave through the back gate so no one follows me, right?”

“Probably,” Kelly agreed. “It’s safer that way.”

He nodded and headed to the door. Then he stopped. “Hey, Kelly? You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” Brian looked back at her.

“Yeah,” Kelly assured him, wondering if she was going to hell for lying to a friend even if it was to leave him with fewer worries. “I promise if there was something wrong I’d tell you.”

“And if you needed to leave, you would go, wouldn’t you? Because I don’t want you jeopardizing your career for me. If the directors want you back for shootings then you’re going to go back,” Brian told her firmly.

She nodded. “I promise, Brian. Now, go,” she gestured him out the door.

When he had gone, she flopped back onto the bed. She didn’t like lying to him, but she would justify it as an omission, Kelly decided. She didn’t want him to worry about her when he needed to be worrying about his own family. If she told him about the cancer eating its way through her, Brian would probably take her to the hospital and worry about her more than his family. And, that, Kelly decided was not why she was there. So, she’d take her medication and hope that the weakness that had her in bed would go away soon.

***

Brian glanced at the keys for his car, then, bypassing them, he chose another set of keys and headed out. As he passed the den, he could hear AJ and Nick snickering about something and figured it was probably another fan site for them. God knew, they had millions in every shape and form, and he often wondered where they got half of his pictures from because he couldn’t remember posing for them.

As he stepped into the chilly March air, he zipped up his coat and moved toward the large, deep blue Land Cruiser that sat at the end of the drive, unused for three weeks. Brian unlocked the car and climbed into it, settling in and trying not to see the three children’s car seats that sat on the back seats. Remembering the times he and Sienna had strapped all three babies into the car and driven somewhere, he tried to think positively. It wouldn’t be too long from now, Brian kept telling himself as he drove the car out the back gate, and his family would be piled into the car again. As long as he kept telling himself that, he figured he’d be okay.

He smiled at the bobble head dog Sienna had stuck onto the dashboard. It was one of the homeliest looking dogs he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t help but think of his own dogs, Tyk and Litty Leigh. They’d grown lonely in the last few weeks because Kara and Serena weren’t around to pester them. Though the two dogs often acted annoyed and yipped, he knew they secretly liked all the attention the twins lavished on them.

As Brian drove down streets he hadn’t seen in three weeks, he noticed the posters plastered with his family’s faces on each telephone pole. Well, he couldn’t say nothing was being done, he decided. There were people searching everywhere for them, and sooner or later someone would find them.

Turning off his thoughts, Brian turned into the parking lot near the park and, turning off the car, got out and strode into the park. It was late morning in early March and not many people were in the park. He slipped a baseball cap onto his head and knew that, in the gloomy weather, sunglasses would look really conspicuous. He headed for the trail that wound its way around a lake that reflected the gray of the sky. A few geese were scattered across the lake, and Brian noticed a few elderly men and women walking or sitting on the benches around the lake.

As the wind blew cool air off the lake, Brian shivered and hoped it wouldn’t rain while he was there. He could see a few late winter flowers struggling to stay alive, and he understood their feelings exactly. His hopes were in the same boat, he silently told the flowers. Plucking a white flower up, he twirled it as he walked.

When his stomach growled, Brian realized he hadn’t had any breakfast that morning. Or the previous morning, for that matter, he reminded himself. His appetite had disappeared with his family, and he was actually surprised that he was starving. Just a few more minutes, he told his ravenous stomach. Then I’ll stop by some fast food place on the way home.

The path was slowly winding towards the place where Brian had stepped onto it, and he noticed a young couple sitting on one of the picnic tables. They seemed very much in love, Brian saw and tried not to feel pain as he remembered the times he had dragged Sienna off to picnics in the middle of their gardens during the workday.

As he got closer to the couple, his brows shot up. He raised a hand, waved, and grinned when Shane waved back.

“Well, well, well,” Brian began as he walked up to where Shane and Marlena were sitting. “This is a rather pleasant surprise. How long has this been going on?”

“You mean how long has it been since Marlena stopped denying my amazing qualities and succumbed to them?” Shane winked at Marlena. “About two weeks.”

“Wow,” Brian smiled. “I’m glad the two of you got your act together because it was obvious that you were both miserable. Don’t pull that again,” Brian told Marlena.

“Don’t worry, Brian,” she smiled back. “I’m happy, and I think a compromise really is the best way.”

Brian nodded. “Yeah, Sienna and I learned that last year.” His smile faltered, and Marlena patted the space on the seat next to her.

“Sit, Bri,” she said gently. Shane squeezed her hand appreciatively as Brian sat.

“I tried to get out of the house to clear my mind. I hadn’t left the house for three weeks, and it was going well. I was even hungry,” Brian said incredulously. “I haven’t felt hungry in three weeks!”

Shane nodded. “And it shows. I could probably knock you down with one punch, buddy.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re five inches taller than me, you could always knock me down with a punch.”

Shane grinned. “Oh, yeah. I forgot that part.”

Brian couldn’t help but grin at Marlena’s confused expression. “Shane threatened to kill me if I ever hurt Sienna again after that horrible mess a couple years ago. I figured if he had really wanted to, he could’ve taken me out really easily.”

Marlena patted Shane’s arm. “That’s my fierce warrior. He loves to go around knocking people down,” she said in a patronizingly sweet voice.

“Shut up,” he told her good-naturedly.

“Well, lord, you two are the sickening couple,” Brian pretended to gag, but stopped when he heard his stomach growl again. He looked over at Shane and Marlena sheepishly. “I’d better get going. I was going to stop off and get food before heading back.” He stopped and frowned. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to be running my wife’s shop right now?” he asked Marlena.

She nodded. “Yeah, and I am. Sienna and I always took an hour’s break between eleven and noon, so” she glanced at her watch “I’ve gotta get going, too. We’ll walk back to the parking lot together,” she told Brian, standing up.

Shane lifted the picnic basket sitting on the table. “If we had any food left, I’d give it to you,” he told Brian apologetically.

Brian shrugged. “No problem. I’ve got a craving for a hamburger anyway, and I think I’ll just get something for everyone at home, too.”

As they reached their cars, Marlena gave him a hug. “Let us know if you need anything, okay? And let us know the instant anything happens, too.”

Brian nodded and climbed into Sienna’s car, and, to keep his thoughts from straying towards his missing family, he tried to think of the best place he could get lunch from.

***

The digital readout at the bottom of the computer screen read 2:00 AM, and Regan tried not to squint as she peered through tired eyes at the screen currently displaying the file on Jamison, Eric. He had been a friend of Brian’s that had ended up trying to knock Brian’s lights out during their sophomore year and had threatened Brian for several months after that. Brian couldn’t remember what their argument was about, but he had simply remembered that Eric had threatened him for an irrationally long time.

As she went to flip from the Jamison file to one for a Thompson, Scott, the screen switched off, startling Regan. She glanced up and scowled. “I’m trying to work here, so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to turn this back on,” she told AJ.

He shook his head. “Absolutely not, Regan. It’s two in the morning and you need sleep. You look like you haven’t slept in years.”

“Look,” Regan began, her voice testy, “I’m trying to bring four very precious people home. I haven’t been able to do a good enough job so far, and, until I can find them, I don’t have time to sleep.”

AJ lifted a brow. “Are you saying that you’ve been doing a poor job in trying to track down the guy who kidnapped Sienna and her kids? Because if you are, I’m going to have to shake some sense into you.”

“Who the hell are you to want to shake sense into me?! Unless you become a part of the FBI, you won’t know how difficult it is and how frustrating it is to know the lives of people are in your hands, okay? I’m in charge of bringing Brian’s family home and appeasing his worries is so damn difficult to do when I have no leads, nothing! So back off, and let me work!” Regan nearly shouted.

AJ sighed. “Look, we all know you’re trying your hardest, okay? No one is blaming you for not finding them, yet, least of all Brian. He knows you’re trying your hardest and that’s all he really needs to appease his fears. So, turn it off for a few hours, Regan,” he added gently.

She tried to suppress the frustrated and tired tears that threatened to spill over by pressing her fingers to her eyes. The headache that was boiling behind them upped the pressure, and Regan turned away from AJ to stare blindly out the window as the tears started to flow down her cheeks.

“I want to close my eyes, AJ. I want to sleep, but I keep seeing Sienna and the babies’ faces when I close my eyes. It’s like they’re accusing me of not finding them, yet. Until I find them, I won’t be able to sleep properly,” she quietly explained.

AJ could hear the tears in her voice, and, placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. Seeing her tears made his heart jerk a little, and he reached out and brushed them off. “Baby,” he murmured. “Really, just turn it off. Just for a little while. There’s nothing more you can do for them tonight, anyway. Please, if you won’t sleep for yourself, remember that if you don’t get enough rest, you’ll probably be useless in being efficient enough to do your work during the day, too.”

Regan shook her head and turned back to the computer. “I’m sorry, AJ, but I can work fine on little catnaps. Don’t worry about me.”

But I do, AJ thought then sighed. “Well, damn it, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he told her casually.

Before she could react, he’d walked over to her, hauled her over his shoulder, and, turning off the lights in the room, he began to carry a kicking Regan up the stairs.

“Let me down, AJ! This is so stupid! You are so damned irritating!” she hissed at him over his shoulder.

“Pipe down, darling. There are other people trying to get their beauty sleep, too,” AJ murmured back.

Knowing that there were other people in the house, she quieted down, but continued to stew as the blood began to rush to her head while she hung upside down over AJ’s shoulder. How he’d managed to haul her up, she couldn’t figure out, but she tried to calm herself down. Maybe, if she waited long enough, he’d go to sleep, and she could sneak back down to the study.

“I’ll sit in the room with you all night and make sure you don’t,” AJ told her.

She gasped. “How the hell do you know what I’m thinking?” she demanded.

AJ pushed open the door to her room and stepped in. “Because you’re so tired, you’re forgetting to think inside. You just mumbled that out loud,” he informed her. Regan mentally kicked herself.

AJ shifted her so that she could easily slip out of his hold. Unfortunately, as she did get out of his arms, her entire body slid down his, and, suddenly, both of them were very much aware of the other. She tried not to look into his eyes, afraid of what she might read in them.

For the last week and a half, they’d avoided each other as much as humanly possible, and AJ had appreciated the separation, though he’d found himself thinking about her, too. Wondering if she thought about him. And, judging from her current evasion, AJ figured that she might have let a wayward thought float his way.

He tilted her chin up, meeting her eyes. The apprehension and fatigue he read in their smoky gray depths was compounded by what was unmistakably desire. He’d known enough women to know what desire looked like in a woman’s eyes, and Regan’s were full of it.

She desperately wanted to look away but couldn’t. This was what she’d tried to avoid for days, Regan knew. The wanting was distracting, and, try as she might, she couldn’t look away and couldn’t help herself. So, when AJ’s lips met her own, her eyes drifted shut on their own from the sheer pleasure of a man’s lips on her own. It had been a long time since she’d touched a man, let alone kissed one, but it came back to her quickly.

AJ kept the kiss brief and, leaning back, he waited until her eyes opened. Her usually clear gray eyes were clouded, and he knew she’d felt something as out of the ordinary as he had. “Let’s try it again,” he murmured, and, before she could protest, he pressed his lips to hers again, taking her deep this time.

The kiss was so stunningly sweet compared to what Regan had thought to experience that it made tears rise in her throat. When she felt his hands leave her face to trail down her shoulders, she knew she couldn’t go too fast, either.

Breaking away, Regan stepped back. “I’m sorry, AJ. I can’t. I can’t do this,” she whispered.

He didn’t let go of her hands, forcing her to look up at him. “What can’t you do, Regan? It was a kiss, nothing more, nothing less,” he said, wondering if lying to himself was a bad idea.

She frowned. “There was nothing simple about that kiss, AJ. Just like there’s nothing simple about you. You’ve got ‘Complication’ stamped across your forehead, and I don’t know what to do, what you want, or what to give you,” she told him.

“So you felt something?” AJ wondered.

“Of course, I did! Didn’t you?” she asked him.

AJ sighed. Truth it was. “Yeah. Yeah, I did feel something, but I don’t know what I want you to do or give me, Regan,” he told her. “It’s the truth. All I really know is I want you. If you’re not ready for that, that’s fine. But, I thought it was past time we got that out in the open,” he added.

“I might not be able to give you what you want, AJ. I’m the FBI agent assigned to help find Brian’s family, and you’re one of the witnesses. It’s a fucking conflict of interest, and I don’t know if I want to let that stop me from taking this somewhere,” she told him gesturing to the two of them. “Whatever is between us, I don’t know if I can stay with it. I can’t see where it’s going to go, and I can’t plan anything because I can’t see it.”

“Who said there had to be a plan for anything?” he wondered. “Things like this shouldn’t require planning. All you have to do is go with the flow, for now. We’ll figure it out as it comes.”

Regan sighed. “I don’t know if I can just leave it like that, AJ. I thrive on organization, and I’m terrified that this is all going to turn into a huge mess because” she paused and looked up at him “I want you, too. And I haven’t felt that in a while, so I need to know what’s going to happen now.”

“For now, all you have to do is sleep. Everything else, we can take care of in the morning. Really, we won’t do anything you don’t want,” he assured her. Though he knew that, after one taste of Regan, he was going to have to fight hard to resist her again.

She sighed, giving up for the moment. “Okay, I’ll sleep, and I promise I won’t sneak back downstairs, either. But we’re going to have to figure out what’s going on between us, AJ,” she added.

AJ headed towards the door. “Like I said, all the figuring out can be done later. Just sleep right now,” he told her. When she had kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed, he smiled. “Sleep well, darling.”

When the lights turned off, Regan sighed and fell asleep promptly.

***

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