Chapter 4

I didn't hear you leave,
I wonder how am I still here
I don't want to move a thing,
It might change my memory

His thoughts careened all over the place as he thought of his children and Sienna, taken by someone—stolen from him, Brian thought. He’d seen it coming and he’d done everything in his power to protect them, from installing a state-of-the-arts security system to having AJ stay with them. He figured it was cruel irony on the part of the bastard who had stolen his family that it should happen on his birthday. He couldn’t feel sorry for himself, Brian knew. He needed to find that anger that was currently being directed towards AJ and focus it on whoever had taken them.

He had hopped on the first flight that had been leaving Minneapolis for Lexington. He knew the woman sitting next to him had known who he was, but he was thankful that she hadn’t said anything. He had been afraid that if anyone had stopped him, he would have broken down or exploded in their face. Now, he drove what seemed like a thousand miles to his home from the airport. His mother had called when he had landed. Apparently, Kevin, Kristin, AJ, Howie, Liv, Sienna’s family, and his own were at the house with the police. She had told him that the police had used caution tape to block off the sunroom area and had begun to inspect the rest of the property to see if they could figure out where the walls had been breached. Brian resisted the urge to simply drive his car into the nearest wall out of frustration and anger. He was glad he was feeling anger and not helplessness. The helplessness would have killed him, he knew, but he was still afraid it would come soon.

As he pulled up to the gates, he was relieved to note that no neighbors had gathered to see what was going on. The less people that got in his way, the better, Brian thought. The gates opened and he pulled his car in next to the Land Cruiser he had bought Sienna for her last birthday. She had been furious that he had bought her a car that she didn’t need, but he knew she secretly liked it more than the old clunker she had been driving. Leaning his head against the steering wheel, he squeezed his eyes shut to prevent the tears from flowing. That would be giving in to the helplessness, and he knew he would be of no help to his family if he broke down and couldn’t think properly.

The doors were open and, as he stepped in the door, a detective walked towards him. “Mr. Littrell? I’m Lieutenant Sheridan from the LPD,” she held out a hand that Brian shook. “I’m sorry about your family, but we’re going to do everything possible to find them. Your wife is well-known, so they can’t get very far without being recognized.”

Brian held up a hand to stop her. “I can’t think. I’m sorry I can’t think past the fact that my family was, oh god, kidnapped. How could this happen?” he half-asked himself.

Sheridan shifted on her feet and watched him. “Mr. McLean and Mr. Dorough said that you had been receiving threatening phone calls. Is this true? Did you go to the police about this?”

“Yes, I did,” Brian looked up at her, his expression hardening. “I went to the police and they told me that it was probably just a prank caller. I changed my number and received another message on Saturday. Unfortunately, because the police, the people who are supposed to protect the innocent, told me that it was a prank caller, I did nothing. And you know what the consequence of that was, Lieutenant? My family was kidnapped—they were taken from our home. Stolen,” he spat the word in her face.

Sheridan nodded. “I know,” she said, her voice softening. “It’s terrible and I’m sorry that we couldn’t do anything to better protect your family, but we’re going to try to bring them home safely.”

“My kids are all under two years old! How the hell are they going to survive without proper care? God, how are any of the four of them going to survive,” Brian fought the urge to dissolve in a puddle on the floor. He took several deep breaths, then calmly asked, “Have you found anything, yet? Any evidence? Anything?”

She sighed. “You have one of the best security systems in the market right now, and it doesn’t look like it’s been tampered with at all. Except for the fact that when the glass was shattered, the alarms didn’t go off.” She frowned. “Do you have your system set to not respond when something happens to the house?”

Brian furrowed his brow and tried to remember. “No,” he answered. “We had the company set up the system so that the gates would need the proper combo punched in, and, if a window was broken, it would set the alarms off. Cartrech set everything up and the only way to change it is to call the company. Sienna would have told me if she had changed anything,” he added. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Wait a minute. You said nothing looked as though it had been tampered with, right?” At her nod, he continued. “The code to the gate. Only Sienna and I know it, and neither of us told anyone. How could this guy have gotten in?”

Before the lieutenant could answer his question, Jackie came into the foyer. “Brian? Oh, honey,” she held out her arms, and Brian couldn’t help but go into them and be held. “I’m so sorry, baby duck. I’m so sorry.”

Brian tried not to give in to the urge to scream, shout, and hurl objects. He stepped back and managed a smiled. “When the cops find who the hell took my kids and my wife, no one is going to be able to stop me from tearing the bastard into tiny pieces. And we will find them,” Brian said firmly.

“That’s my son,” Harold said as he came into the foyer, followed by everyone else except for AJ. “We’re going to find my daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and then we’ll deal with the wretched soul who took them. I’ll be right there with you, kiddo.”

Brian smiled grimly and greeted his extended family, watching as Sienna’s aunts tried not to fall apart. He could tell that the women, his mother included, had been weeping and he figured the menfolk must have gotten angry somewhere in the last four hours. He knew that he couldn’t handle their emotions, though, so he turned back to the lieutenant.

“Tell me what you’ve found so far,” he demanded.

She nodded. “As of right now, there is no evidence. No tire marks from possible vehicles—and we have to assume that he had a vehicle because of the five minute time frame he had while Mr. McLean was in the house. Neither of your gates looked tampered with, so the only thing we’ve wondered about is why the alarms didn’t go off when the glass was broken. However, we’d like you to open both gates from the outside for us. A test,” she told him when he seemed confused.

Knowing that if he did something, he wouldn’t crack, Brian agreed and went with her to try out the gates. The front gate opened easily when he pressed the proper combination, so Sheridan drove him around to the back of his property, and Brian stepped up to the keypad. He pressed the combination in and hit “Enter” and waited for the gates to swing open. When they didn’t, he frowned. Trying the combination again and watching it fail again, dread rushed through him.

He turned to Sheridan, who had come to stand next to him. “It doesn’t work. The combination doesn’t work,” he repeated.

She sighed. “I was afraid of this. You said only you and your wife had knowledge of the code, so the only other way someone could switch the code on you is…”

“If they worked for the company and somehow got access into my account,” Brian finished for her. “I’m calling them, right now, then. And when I find out what the hell went wrong, I will sue their tails off.”

“Calm down, Mr. Littrell. Anger is not going to get your wife back,” Sheridan reminded him. Brian watched her for a few moments, then sighed. “I’ll call them,” she told him.

Half an hour later, Cartrech couldn’t give them an answer as to how the code had been changed. All they knew from their records was that it had been changed on February nineteenth.

“Yesterday,” Brian muttered. “It was changed yesterday, when it was the least likely possibility that either Sienna or I would try to enter through the back. For the love of God, who authorized the damn change?!”

Sheridan nodded at his question and related it to the company. After listening for a few moments, she thanked them and hung up. “They said that you called and asked to have it changed, along with turning off the alarm system for the doors and windows. They verified that it was you before they changed it by asking for your birth date and social security number. Apparently, the caller knew both.”

Brian stifled the need to scream and began to pace. “I don’t know what to do,” he murmured. “Did you ask if any of the neighbors had noticed someone leaving through the back gate, today?”

Sheridan nodded. “I sent a couple officers to talk to the neighbors, and no one saw anything suspicious. None of them noticed anyone leaving your home either. I’m sorry, but unless whoever took your family calls you again, we have no leads, no avenues, nothing to pursue.”

“Jesus,” Brian whispered. “It’s like this guy knew exactly how to pull off the perfect abduction. He figured out all the things to do to throw everyone off track. Oh god,” he shuddered. “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle this anymore.”

She sat next to him. “Mr. Littrell, we are not giving up. We’re going to set a tap on your home phone lines and your cell phone. The second this guy calls, we’ll trace the call. If we could just find out where he’s heading, we can start searching. Until then, I suggest you talk to the media and send out pictures of your family so they can be played on the major news networks. This way, we’ll have millions of eyes looking out for them.”

Brian nodded and managed a weak smile. “For fourteen years, I’ve tried to avoid the press whenever possible. Now, I have to ask them for help. Life is strange, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Call them, and we’ll increase the area for the APB further. We’re going to bring them home safely, I promise.”

***

AJ stayed out of the way as much as possible. He knew that if he hadn’t left Sienna and the babies alone, they’d still be safe. When Brian had come home, he hadn’t gone to greet him because he knew Brian was angry with him. Instead of keeping his family safe, AJ had left them alone for a crazy psychopath to pluck off. So, he’d spent the last seven hours avoiding Brian, while the efforts to search for Sienna, Luke, and the twins had begun. He’d crept upstairs into one of the last guest rooms and watched the goings-on outside.

A cluster of media personnel had appeared two hours after Brian had arrived home. At six, Brian had gone out to speak to them. AJ figured Brian must have come up with a statement and was using the media to help search for his family. Around seven, the police had left, and AJ could hear murmurs from the first floor. Around eight, he watched Howie help a weeping Liv into their car and secure Ryan into a carseat. Half an hour later, Jacob and Lucy Roberts and their children left. Following them, he watched the rest of Sienna’s family leave.

“You shouldn’t be alone, Brian,” AJ heard Harold say from the foyer. “At least let your mother stay with you, tonight.”

“No, Dad. I need to be by myself. Please,” Brian told his father.

“Honey,” Jackie tried to persuade him otherwise, but Brian held firm. So, ten minutes later, AJ watched Jackie and Harold make their way to their car.

“You sure you’ll be okay, Bri?” AJ realized Kevin was still there.

“Kev, I just need to think. I need to be alone because I’m afraid I’ll do something terrible if everyone hovers around me constantly. So, please, go home and be with your family. Take care of them,” Brian told his older cousin.

“It’s not your fault,” Kevin reminded him.

“If it’s not my fault, then whose fault is it? I should’ve been here! I should’ve taken care of them! Instead, I was in Minneapolis, singing, while my family was abducted. Of course I feel responsible, Kevin!” Brian shouted. Then, more calmly, “It’s okay, Kev. I won’t do anything drastic. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Kevin said after long moments. “I’ll be back tomorrow, though.”

“That’s fine,” Brian said. Soon after, Kevin climbed into his car and headed out.

AJ strained to hear any sound from the first floor, and, after several minutes, he realized that it was just him and Brian in the house. Well, he’d have to face him sooner or later, AJ thought. Why not let Brian kill him now, with no witnesses around, right?

He descended the stairs and found Brian standing in the taped off doorway to the sunroom. He turned when he heard AJ’s footsteps, and his expression became unreadable.

“I didn’t know you were still here,” Brian told him.

AJ shrugged. “I stayed out of your way, so you wouldn’t kill me when there were witnesses around. But, now that there’s no one here, go ahead. I wouldn’t blame you,” he added.

Brian watched him for several, long moments then, shaking his head, he walked into the living room. Confused, AJ followed him and watched as Brian opened the small liquor cabinet and, pulling the cap off a bottle of, what AJ recognized as Jack Daniels, poured it into a glass. Taking the glass and the bottle, Brian sat on a couch and swallowed the alcohol.

“Do you really think I’m going to be mad at you, AJ?” Brian wondered.

AJ frowned and carefully sat on an armchair across from Brian. “I don’t know, Rok. I thought you’d be furious with me for not taking care of your family better. I mean, you told me you had trusted me before you hung up this afternoon. I thought you thought it was my fault.”

Brian sighed heavily and drank another shot down. “AJ, I didn’t expect you to watch them twenty four hours of the day. Besides, it turns out that no matter what you or I could have done, the bastard would have gotten to them anyway. He called the security company and, knowing my social security number, changed the combination on the back gate and dropped the security on the doors and windows. He was determined to get to my family, and he did. Congratulations you son of a bitch,” Brian toasted what lay outside the window. “I hope you rot in hell for this.”

AJ watched as Brian took another shot and another. Knowing that Brian would feel no better if he drank, he stood and snatched the glass and bottle from his friend.

“Hey!” Brian stood and reached for the alcohol.

“Absolutely not, Brian,” AJ told him and, walking to the kitchen, he dumped the rest of the bottle out. “It’s not going to get rid of the fact that your wife and children aren’t here. In fact, it’ll only make you feel worse with the hangover on top everything else.”

Brian flopped down in a kitchen chair and scowled at him. “Why the hell do always have to be right, Alex?” he muttered, his words barely slurring.

“Because I’ve been through it,” AJ reminded him. “Why haven’t you broken down, yet, Bri? Cried, screamed, thrown things? It’s not healthy to bottle it all up.”

Brian looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “Every time I turned around, someone was there crying or telling me it was okay to cry. I can’t do that, Alex. If I do, I won’t be any good to Sienna and the kids. I won’t be able to help them because I’ll feel absolutely helpless.”

AJ shrugged. “Good point. How about throwing things, Rok? That always makes most people feel better, and you won’t lose control either?”

Brian lifted a brow. “You telling me to be violent and break stuff, pal?”

“Absolutely,” AJ managed a smile.

Brian rubbed his eyes. “It’s like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest, and I keep asking God why this had to happen. I mean, where are they? Did the girls get fed, and is Luke okay? They’re babies, AJ,” he murmured. “And what about Sienna? What if, what if the bastard’s done something to her?” He tried not to think of the possibilities of what could have happened to her.

AJ put an arm around Brian’s shoulders. “Don’t, Bri. Don’t think about what could have happened to them. Just concentrate on how to get them back.”

“But that’s just it,” Brian said, frustrated. “There’s nothing more I can do. The police have nowhere to look because no one knows what the car this guy drove looks like. My best bet is to wait by the phone for someone to call and say they’ve seen Sienna. And I can’t wait because I’m going to go absolutely insane with the worry and the wondering.”

“Then take your mind off it,” AJ suggested.

Brian thought for a few moments, then he stood. “Let’s break shit, AJ. I’ll pretend everything I smash is the bastard’s face. God help him when I find him because he doesn’t stand a chance,” he added.

Lyrics from “Here With Me” Dido

***

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