Chapter 14

“You’re home, Luke,” Brian murmured to the baby slowly falling asleep in his arms. “You’re safe now.”

He pressed his lips to Luke’s smooth cheek and sighed. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he was more than elated at the fact that at least part of his family was safe and with him. True, Sienna and the girls were still stuck somewhere with that rat bastard who had taken them in the first place, but, if Luke had been safe all this time, he prayed that they would be fine, too.

Sighing again, he cradled Luke and stared out the window of the car at the Lexington suburbs he was passing.

Kelly watched him in the rearview mirror. She was glad that Luke was safe and back where he belonged. She really was. She just wasn’t happy that she had been roped into driving Brian and Luke to the doctor’s office because it had given Jackie another reason to dislike her. She had usurped Jackie’s rights as a doting grandmother, and annoying Jackie had been the last thing Kelly had wanted to do.

“Turn right at the next street,” Brian spoke up from the backseat, and she turned her attention back to the road. She turned onto a street lined with office complexes and turned left into the parking lot Brian pointed out.

“Do you want me to wait out here?” she asked him as he slid out of the car with Luke in his arms.

“No, come with me, please,” he replied. “It would be good to have someone there. Support and all,” he added.

Nodding, Kelly turned off the car and followed him into the building.

Inside, the hallways were quiet, and the carpeting swallowed the sounds of footsteps. Brian walked up to a door marked with Carson and Jenkins, Pediatrics M.D. and pushed open the door. When he stepped into the waiting room, empty except for a mother holding her sleeping toddler, the receptionist looked up and hurried over to them.

“Mr. Littrell, I am so glad your son is home. When Shelley told me the news, I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved,” the elderly woman told him.

Brian smiled and glanced down at the precious child he carried. “Thank you, Molly. I don’t think I could have lasted much longer without any sort of hope. And, now that Luke is home, I have so much more hope that Sienna and the girls will be home soon, too.”

Molly patted his arm. “It’s only a matter of time.” She glanced back towards her desk as the phone rang. “One moment, dear, and I’ll see if Dr. Jenkins is ready to see Luke.”

Brian nodded then ushered himself and Kelly over to a pair of seats across the waiting room from the only other occupants of the room.

“Do you know the office well?” Kelly asked him, thinking of his informal conversation with the receptionist.

“Yeah,” Brian told her, shifting Luke slightly. “Sienna and I made sure that we got to know the doctors who would treat our children. Shelley and Mac, Dr. Carson and Dr. Jenkins,” he explained, “are wonderful. I couldn’t imagine taking my kids anywhere else.”

“We wouldn’t want you to take your children anywhere else,” a voice drawled from the entrance to the examining rooms.

Brian looked up and grinned. “Mac! Luke’s home!”

Dr. Mac Jenkins stepped into the room and made his way over to where Kelly and Brian sat. Looking down at the sleeping baby, he smiled.

“Well, thank God,” he began. “I have to tell you, at this point, I wasn’t holding out much hope. I hate that I thought that, but I’m damned glad I was proven wrong,” he added.

Brian nodded. “Believe me, Mac, I was feeling the same thing, but I’m glad it wasn’t the case.”

The doctor nodded and turned to Kelly. “Hi, I’m Mac Jenkins, and you must be Kelly,” he introduced himself.

Kelly nodded. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“Celebrities. My ex was a celebrity watcher, and I remember seeing you on one of those reality shows way back when,” he explained.

“Dancing with the Stars,” Kelly smiled. “Yeah, I remember that one. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dr. Jenkins.”

“Mac,” he corrected her, then turned to Brian. “So, let’s get Luke checked out to make sure he’s okay, shall we?”

Brian stood. “Absolutely. I want to take him home, but not before I know that there’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Then we’ll make sure he’s fine,” Mac assured him. As he passed the woman holding her child, he leaned over. “Mrs. Harris, Dr. Carson is just cleaning up an examining area for Debbie, so it’ll just be another five minutes.”

“Thank you,” the woman replied. Looking at Brian, she added, “I’m glad one of your children is safe. No one deserves this kind of heartbreak.”

Brian couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you so much. You don’t know what it means to have someone tell me that.”

“When it’s the truth, it’s the truth,” she told him.

Brian nodded then followed Mac back into the examining room. Inside, he was instructed to set his son on the examining table. As he watched Mac examine Luke’s eyes, throat, ears, and general cranial area, Brian held onto Kelly’s hand.

“Hey, Bri, are these the same clothes that Luke was wearing the day of the kidnapping?” Mac asked him, gesturing to the green and white overalls and shirt that Luke, now wide awake and lying quietly on the table, was wearing.

Brian frowned. “I wasn’t home that day, but they probably are because I remember Sienna buying them. So, yeah, they are.”

Mac quickly slid Luke out of the clothing, making the baby gurgle. “He shouldn’t be wearing this anymore. It must be full of bacteria and it can make him sick. We have some clothes here that you can put him into and take him home.”

“Thanks, Mac,” Brian sighed. “I can’t believe this even happened.”

“Bad things happen to good people all the time, Brian. It’s not fair, but it’s life,” Mac added as he pressed a stethoscope to Luke’s chest and back to listen for proper breathing sounds and to make sure there was no irregular heartbeat. Then, he gently pressed down on the baby’s belly to feel for any swelling or anything abnormal. “Your kid’s looking good, Bri. So far so good. Plus, there are no bruises or anything to indicate he was abused.”

Brian swallowed hard. Abused? He hadn’t even considered that possibility for his children. He should’ve, he knew. A man who would ruthlessly kidnap three children would do anything.

“What’s this?” Mac’s question broke into Brian’s morbid thoughts.

“What?” Brian turned towards the doctor, who was holding a folded piece of paper.

Mac held it out to Brian. “It was tucked into Luke’s diaper. Maybe you should see what it is.”

Brian took the paper and unfolded it. As he read the words scratched onto it in red crayon, his jaw dropped.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered.

“What is it, Bri?” Kelly tried to look over his shoulder.

Brian looked up at his two friends, waiting expectantly for his explanation.

“The bastard took my family! Sienna wrote his name on here,” he managed to say, the anger making his voice choke in his throat.

“Who, Brian?”

***

“Scott Thompson,” Regan murmured, clicking on his file again. She needed to re-eliminate him from the list of possible suspects.

Since returning from the trip to the airstrip to meet Luke, she had been on the phone with the Alpharietta police, but nothing had, as yet, matched the tire tracks they’d found. Thinking that she may as well continue what she had been doing prior to the call Brian had received earlier, Regan had returned to rereading files of possible suspects again.

Her mouth fell open in shock.

“Oh, my holy God,” she murmured. “How the hell did this slide through?!”

Scott Thompson, the man Sienna had dated before Brian, now worked for Cartrech, the security firm that had installed both Littrell properties’ security systems. He lived in New York, but the fact that he worked for Cartrech was too much of a coincidence for Regan to ignore.

Reaching for the phone, she dialed the number of the company and, within five minutes, had waded her way through to having the manager overseeing Scott’s department on the phone.

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me Mr. Thompson took two months’ vacation? How the hell did he manage that?” Regan wondered.

“Agent Daniels, Mr. Thompson took no vacation since he started working for us, so he had quite a bit of vacation time coming. Besides, he was promoted in January to head of our out-of-state commissions department. He’s been an amazing asset to this company,” the nasaly-voiced manager explained to her in a bored voice.

“I’ll bet he is an amazing asset. He’s also an amazing kidnapper,” Regan informed the manager. “Your wonderful Thompson kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and her three children from their home. A home, I might add, that was protected by Cartrech’s top of the line system. He knew exactly how to change their codes and how to get Mr. Littrell’s social security number in order to authorize those changes. He had access to the Littrells’ accounts because he worked in the out-of-state commissions department, and he managed to pull an ingenious kidnapping,” she finished.

“But—but…” the manager sputtered. “He couldn’t have done that!”

“He could and he did. When we find him, I suggest you find yourself a new head of department,” Regan finished and hung up.

As soon as she put the phone down, it rang again. Recognizing Brian’s number, she answered.

“Regan! I know who kidnapped my family! Scott Thompson!” Brian nearly shouted over the phone. “He was dating Sienna when I first met her.”

“Slow down, Brian,” she told him. “How did you find this out?”

“Sienna wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it into Luke’s diaper,” Brian explained.

Good thinking. “I just got off the phone with Scott’s manager up at Cartrech. Did you know Scott worked for the same company that installed your security systems on both properties?” Regan asked him.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Fuck,” Brian murmured. “It was the perfect kidnapping. Abso-fucking-lutely perfect.”

“Yeah,” Regan agreed. “Don’t worry. Now that we know who he is, we can do everything to find him. He’s heading south, so there must be a property down there somewhere that he’s going for. We’ll find him, soon,” she promised.

“Thanks, Regan. We’ll see you back at the house, then. Luke’s perfectly fine,” he added. “They just want to take blood for tests to make sure there isn’t anything in his bloodstream that could be harmful.”

“I’m glad he’s doing well. We’ll see you in a bit, then.”

“Yup,” Brian replied then hung up.

Regan called her superiors at headquarters and explained the situation. They agreed that she should talk to the media as soon as possible, putting out pictures of Scott everywhere. Meanwhile, her team began to sift through Scott’s information, and agents in New York were sent to search for evidence in Scott’s apartment. Scott had no known family, and his adoptive parents had died in a car crash ten years earlier. There was no record of their families, at least none that were alive, and Regan decided that the family angle was just another dead end.

Around six in the evening, Brian and Regan held a joint press conference to announce Luke’s return and to reveal the identity of the kidnapper. Pictures of Scott Thompson were spread across the country.

As she began to search through Scott’s financial records, there was a knock on the study door.

“Come in!” Regan called out.

The door opened, and Liv popped her head in.

“Hey, Regan,” Liv began. “I know you’re working on finding Scott, but why don’t you take a break and see something really beautiful?”

Regan frowned. “What’s that?”

Liv gestured her out in the hall. “Just come and see!”

Shrugging, Regan stood and followed Liv into the living room where AJ, Kevin, Howie, Nick, and Brian sat. Brian was holding Luke, while Kevin and Howie each held onto their own children. The scene would have looked like something out a magazine photo shoot if it weren’t for the sound filling the room and the tears staining Brian’s cheeks.

I know that I, I can't believe
Just what the past has brought me
To the man I wanna be
I know that we have had some times
That we can't forget the struggle
Cause we have so far to go

Brian’s voice shook a little, but he was quickly joined by AJ, who had winked at Regan and Liv when he’d seen them come in. He put a hand on Brian’s shoulders and sang along. The song was one that they had written together during one of the most difficult times in their careers, and singing it now was making Brian feel better. The harmonizing was calming him, so the others had wordlessly agreed and joined him. Nick chimed in now.

I remember when, mom used to say
That things are getting better
And you'll soon be on your way
Remember those days
When we would sing at the drop of a dime
Way back when nothing mattered

I know we've changed, but
Change can be so good
Oh so let's not forget why it's understood that

As he sang, AJ’s gaze held Regan’s, and when his voice was joined by the others’, he blew her a kiss, making her blush. She was positive everyone knew they were together, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted the entire world to know it yet.

Time, look where we are and what we've been through
Time, sharing our dreams
Time, goes on and on everyday
Time is what it is
Come what may

So here we are
And we'll always stay together
And through it all you know we owe it all to you
Time goes on and on

Regan watched them sing and, though she’d never really understood the appeal of their group before, she understood it now. It wasn’t the words, it wasn’t the song either. It was the sense of support, togetherness, the sense of brotherhood they felt when they sang together that had kept them going when most groups of their kind had long since quit. It was that feeling that was now helping them through a rough time, and, seeing them together, Regan came to understand AJ more, too.

When they began another song, Liv left to feed her son, and Regan returned to her work feeling more energized, more positive that things would work out.

As it neared midnight, Regan continued to examine Scott’s financial records to see if he had made any purchases or transactions in the last two months. Other than a large withdrawal of five thousand dollars, there was nothing. Regan assumed that the five thousand was for his expenses. If he paid in cash, nothing could be traced back to him. He really was smart, Regan realized. Good thing Sienna was smarter.

Lyrics from “Time” Backstreet Boys

***

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