Words weren’t enough. I skipped over and hugged him. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need. You’re like family,” he said as he let me go. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, and we’ll get this all over with as soon as possible, so you can get back to California.”
Luke looked away when I turned.
Josh opened his arm toward the door of the Inn. “Let’s go in. Only Kelly and Adam are here so far.”
I didn’t move. “Josh, I’m embarrassed to say this, but I don’t remember anyone else’s name.”
I moved to Luke and took his hand.
“Understandable,” Josh said. “You were only five. I’ll help you out with that.” He put his leg up on the short brick wall of the path, pulled up the leg of his slacks, and pulled down his sock to reveal a tattoo. “We never forgot you.”
DEB
“Your initials,” he said.
My eyes welled with tears.
I had a family, and I was about to meet them for the first time.
Chapter 42
Luke
I recoiled when Steven mentioned Debbie going to California, as if it was a pre-ordained plan. That was an impression I’d have to fix later.
Inside, Josh led us to a meeting room of sorts at the Inn. A table of refreshments sat against the wall, and we were introduced to Adam and his wife, Kelly. She was the blood connection to my Debbie.
“And your last name?” Adam asked as we shook.
“Carver,” I answered. I watched him for the reaction that sometimes accompanied my family name, but didn’t see it.
“I’m with the Bureau, and Kelly here works at the Smithsonian,” Adam told us with obvious pride.
Bureau was a snooty, inside-the-beltway term for the FBI. His using it showed the same smug conceit I disliked in all cops.
“Luke used to be a firefighter,” Debbie added.
Kelly looked to me. “That sounds exciting. Why’d you give it up?”
Adam’s eyes narrowed as he waited for my answer.
I hadn’t prepared for the question. “I moved.” My answer was short, but true. Explaining that I’d moved into Augusta State Prison wasn’t necessary.
“That takes a lot of training, I hear,” Adam said.
“Yeah,” Debbie answered for me. “He’s also a certified paramedic, which came in handy.”
“How’s that?” Kelly asked.
“That’s how we met,” Debbie replied as she moved closer to me. “He patched me up when I got mugged.”
Adam’s brow rose. Kelly’s face dropped.
“It was just a few scrapes and bruises,” I assured them.
Debbie put her arm around me. “If it weren’t for Luke, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Was that when you got away from them?” Adam asked.
“The day after,” Debbie said. “I had a plan to leave the state.” She pulled herself closer to me. “In the end it was Luke who convinced me to turn state’s evidence against them instead of running.”
“I’m glad he did,” Adam said with a nod.
It wasn’t long before the rest of the group arrived, headed by the Colonel Sanders lookalike himself, Debbie’s uncle, Lloyd.
Debbie was soon mobbed by her extended family, and I couldn’t keep track of all the names. Their happiness was overwhelming. A dozen new faces—all of them overjoyed that Debbie was alive and chattering a mile a minute about what had happened, and all wanting to know about her life.
A simple handshake and a few words was all I managed, reminding each of them that my name was actually Luke, not Jay. Evidently the whole clan had been briefed on the short conversations we’d had with Josh and knew about Jay, the guy helping Debbie reach out.
I slipped my hand from Debbie’s after a while. “Something to drink?” I asked her.
She turned from Serena and Dennis, the pair of cousins she was talking with. “Please.”
I made my way to the refreshments table, which I hadn’t realized until now was stocked with wine, champagne, and soda, but no beer. The glasses were all dainty ones. Searching for a normal glass without a fragile stem, I came up empty. After pouring my girl a glass of white, I delivered it to her and made my way back to the edge of the room.
There, I put my listening skills to work. I’d already noticed that all the women wore big rocks on their fingers, and only one of the people, male or female, had any visible ink. The conversations yielded more clues—questions about how business was going and the like. The questions about pending mergers nailed it: her family was loaded.
And another cousin of hers, Vincent, had married an FBI agent. That couple lived in a large house in Brookline, which I knew from my time in Massachusetts took a truckload of money to afford.
The patriarch of the group, Lloyd, had built a company with the family name on it. Josh was engaged to a lady who owned a grocery chain with her family name on it too.
This group was one-hundred-percent entitled rich, all except maybe the guy named Duke, the one with ink. He stood apart on the other side of the room. He was Serena’s boyfriend was all I’d learned in the introductions.
Adam was on his phone, but in the far corner and speaking softly enough that I couldn’t make it out.
Duke noticed me when my eyes lingered a bit longer on him than they should have. I looked away, but not soon enough.
He made his way over to me, Coke can in hand. He nodded down toward my boots. “You ride?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. I hadn’t noticed until now, but there it was: the telltale mark on his left boot made by a bike’s shift lever. “You too?”
“Every chance I get. I don’t know how often that’ll be over in London. The rain, ya know. I’m a California boy; sunshine and dry roads are what I like.”
“Rains out here too. Doesn’t stop me. You get used to it. Hell, they make Triumphs in England. They must have days you can ride.”
“Makes sense.” He nodded toward Debbie. “I see she had good taste in bikes.”
“Got her that shirt when I taught her to ride.”
Duke cocked his head. “No shit? She rides a hawg?”
“Not yet, but she’s a fast learner. Have her on a little Honda. She’ll be ready for a real bike in no time.”
He checked the table next to us. “I wish they had beer.”
I liked this guy more every minute. “Me too.”
He raised his Coke can to me. “Nice meeting ya, Luke, and thanks for keeping Debbie safe.”
I raised the wine glass I was holding as a prop. “You too, Duke. And check out the Triumphs when you’re over there. The Rocket Three is a beast.”
“I will.” He wandered back toward his girl Serena. I noticed she didn’t have a sparkling rock on her finger.
Adam had gotten off his phone and pulled Debbie’s uncle, Lloyd, away from her aunt, Robin.
I focused my concentration on their conversation from where I stood.
“They’ve been apprehended,” Adam told the old man. “And the woman had to have been involved in the original kidnapping. It turns out her sister was Debbie’s nanny at the time. That’s how they got access and how the child was convinced to leave with them.”