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All his life, Brian had been told that his voice was a gift from God. Growing up, he had heard it from his family, his pastor at church, and his choir director at school. Throughout his career as a professional singer, he had been praised for his vocals by record executives, producers, fellow artists, and fans. But after almost two decades in the music business, Brian’s “gift” was abruptly taken back.

He didn’t blame God for the loss of his voice. Muscle tension dysphonia and dystonia: those were medical diagnoses made by doctors, not curses cast upon him by a vengeful deity. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t struggled to come to terms with it. Brian had gone through all five stages of grief while coping with his loss; years of denial, bargaining, anger, and depression had preceded his finally accepting that he had a problem and seeking help. Since then, he had worked hard to get better, spending endless hours in therapy, doing vocal drills and breathing exercises, even getting Botox injections into his vocal cords. And now, just when he was beginning to hear results, Brian was right back at square one, rendered speechless.

“Where did the other guys go?” he had Baylee’s phone ask for him when he was brought back to his room and found only family there.

“They’re on their way to Miami,” said Kevin. “The helicopter left with Nick a little while ago. They let Lauren fly with him, but Howie and AJ have to drive there.”

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Brian nodded. He was glad to hear Nick was apparently stable enough to be airlifted to another hospital, but he wished he had been able to say goodbye beforehand. He didn’t know when he would be able to see Nick again, and that bothered him. After being stuck in the same tiny room together for almost three weeks, it felt strange to be separated. Brian’s only source of comfort during his confinement had been hearing Nick’s voice and knowing he was just in the next bed. Now that comfort was gone.

Brian’s face must have betrayed the anxious way he was feeling because Kevin added apologetically, “I wish you could have seen him first, but they didn’t want to wait any longer than they had to.”

Forcing his frown into a smile, Brian waved his hand to one side, as if to say, “It’s okay. I understand.”

“He wasn’t conscious anyway,” Kevin went on, “so he wouldn’t have even known you were there.”

You never know, thought Brian bitterly, remembering the frustrating feeling of being fully aware when everyone claimed he was in a coma.

After a while, his doctor and nurse came back, accompanied by a blonde woman who was wearing pale blue scrubs. “Good news, Mr. Littrell,” Dr. Oussoren announced. “Your head CT came back normal: no sign of a skull fracture or brain bleed. You could still have a simple concussion - they don’t always show up on CT scans - but nothing to be too concerned about.”

Brian nodded, but his relief was bittersweet, as he remembered one of the last things Nick had said to him: “Look, dude, I don’t think you’re in as bad of shape as they’ve been saying you are...” He wished Nick were there to hear that he had been right.

“Your chest X-ray did show some congestion in your lungs, which isn’t surprising, considering how long you were kept lying in bed,” the doctor continued, pressing her lips into a thin line of disapproval. “It could be the beginnings of ventilator-associated pneumonia. I’d like to admit you for observation and start you on a course of IV antibiotics to clear up any infection.”

Brian felt his heart sink. The last thing he wanted was to spend another night in a hospital bed.

Leighanne was thinking along the same lines. “How long will he need to stay here?” she asked anxiously.

“Hopefully just for a day or so,” said Dr. Oussoren. “Once we know he’s able to swallow and keep liquids down, we can switch him to an oral antibiotic. Then, if he’s doing well, we’ll be able to discharge him.”

Leighanne seemed satisfied with that answer, but Brian was not. Give me a glass of water, and I’ll swallow as many pills as it takes to prove it to you right now, he wanted to say, but it took too long to type. Before he could get the words out, the doctor had turned to introduce her colleague.

“Tracy here is one of our respiratory therapists. She’s going to take a look at your trach and try to clear out your lungs so you can breathe a little easier.”

The woman in the blue scrubs smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Littrell,” she said, as she approached his bed.

“You can call me Brian,” he typed into the app, tired of all the formality. He just wanted to be treated like a person again, not a patient.

“Ah, that’s a clever way to communicate!” exclaimed Tracy. “But after I’m done with you, Brian, you should be able to speak with your own voice again.”

That was music to Brian’s ears. He smiled with relief, warming to the respiratory therapist. “Are you going to take it out?” he asked, touching the end of the trach tube.

“Not right now. We need to make sure you can breathe well enough without the trach before we remove it,” Tracy told him.

But I never needed it in the first place! Brian thought, feeling the smile fade from his face. I can breathe fine! In fact, I’ll be able to breathe a lot better without it!

“We’ll monitor your oxygen levels for twenty-four hours, and if all goes well, we can take it out tomorrow.”

Brian didn’t want to wait that long. He looked desperately at Leighanne, waiting for her to jump to his defense again, but she didn’t argue this time. Giving him an apologetic glance, all she said was, “That sounds like a good plan.”

Brian tried to be patient as Tracy took her turn to examine him. He was tired of being poked and prodded, even though he knew it was necessary. “This is a cuffed trach,” Tracy said, as she inspected it. “It’s normally only used in patients who need mechanical ventilation. The tube inside your trachea has a balloon that’s been inflated around it to prevent any air from getting past it. When you were hooked up to the ventilator, it helped make sure the oxygen went into your lungs and didn’t leak out through your mouth and nose. But now that you’re no longer dependent on the vent, you don’t need it anymore - all it’s doing is blocking the upper part of your airway. Once I deflate the cuff, you should be able to breathe normally again.”

Brian nodded eagerly.

“I’m going to use this to draw the air out of the cuff,” Tracy said, brandishing a big syringe. “At the same time, Nancy is going to suction your airway, which will make you cough. It may be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s necessary to clear out the mucus so you can breathe.”

Nodding again, Brian lay back and tried to brace himself as they both leaned over him. He couldn’t see what they were doing beneath his chin, but when he felt the suction tube snake down his throat, he began to cough and choke. “Almost done,” said Nancy soothingly, as he gasped for air. “You’re doing great.” As soon as she withdrew the tube, the suffocating sensation went away, and he could breathe again, better than before.

Tracy placed her stethoscope on the side of his neck. “Can you blow, Brian?” she asked, holding her hand near his mouth. It no longer felt like he was trying to breathe through a straw; he was able to take a deep breath in through his nose and blow it out through his mouth. “Good,” said Tracy, giving a satisfied nod as she listened to the airflow. “Now I’m going to cover the end of your trach tube with my finger, and I want you to try counting to five for me.”

Brian swallowed hard before he attempted to speak. “One…” His voice was so weak, he could barely whisper. “...two… three...” He tried to talk louder, but he still sounded hoarse and breathy. “...four… five.”

“Yay!” exclaimed Leighanne, clapping her hands in excitement. The room erupted with a burst of applause, as Baylee and Kevin both joined in.

“Nicely done,” said Tracy, smiling, as she removed her stethoscope. “Deflating the cuff also allows air to flow through your vocal cords so you can finally talk again.”

“Thank you,” Brian croaked, though he cringed at the rough quality of his voice. It brought him right back to the day he had finally received a diagnosis for his vocal condition, reminding him of the way he had sounded at his worst, when he could barely speak, let alone sing. He feared this would be another setback, another battle to fight in his decade-long war against dysphonia and dystonia.

Catching his eye, Kevin seemed to understand. “How long will he sound like that?” he asked.

“He may be hoarse for a few days as his vocal cords recover. They haven’t been used in a while, so they’re weak right now, but as they get stronger, so will his voice,” the respiratory therapist reassured them. “In the meantime, we’ll try putting a cap on the end of the tube. This will prevent air from leaking out through the trach and hopefully make it a little easier for Brian to talk. It’ll also allow us to make sure he can maintain his oxygen saturation without it.” She picked up Brian’s left hand, showing them the probe that had been placed on the tip of his index finger earlier. “This is a pulse oximeter; it measures the level of oxygen in the blood,” she explained and pointed to a number on the monitor next to Brian’s bed. “Anywhere between ninety-five and one hundred percent is normal, so as long as the reading remains in that range, we should be able to remove the trach tomorrow.”

“There you go, baby!” said Leighanne enthusiastically, giving him an encouraging grin. “All good news!”

Brian forced himself to smile back. He felt a little bit better at hearing that his hoarseness was only temporary, but it was hard to be happy knowing he had to spend at least one more night in the hospital. Not knowing how Nick was doing in Miami only made it worse. He wanted to be there with his brother, not stuck here in a hospital bed.

“I brought some paperwork for you to fill out,” said Dr. Oussoren, placing a packet of forms in front of Brian. “Once we finish processing your admission, you’ll be taken to a different room and assigned to another doctor. I’ve also arranged for a urologist to see you upstairs.”

“Urologist?” repeated Kevin, raising his brow in confusion.

Brian felt his face redden. Shaking his head, he replied in his raspy voice, “You don’t even wanna know.”

***


By that afternoon, Brian had been admitted and moved to a private room on the third floor of the hospital.

As Dr. Oussoren had promised, he was seen by a urologist who, after more poking and prodding and another round of X-rays, determined he hadn’t done any permanent damage by pulling out his catheter. To Brian’s relief, it had caused only a tiny tear in his urethra, which would not require surgical repair.

“You may have some discomfort for a few days, especially when urinating, but the injury should heal on its own,” the urologist said. “For future reference, never try to remove a Foley catheter without first being trained on the proper way to do it.”

Brian forced himself to chuckle. “You don’t have to tell me twice, Doc,” he muttered, trying to hide his humiliation with a weak attempt at humor.

Kevin quickly came to his defense. “Spare him the lecture,” he snapped at the doctor. “Do you have any idea what he went through? Desperate times call for desperate measures. He did what he had to do to get himself out of a horrible situation. How dare you give him a hard time about it?”

The urologist apologized and left in a hurry. Afterwards, Brian looked at his cousin in amusement. “Dang, Kev - you sure let him have it.”

Kevin shrugged. “He was being a dick,” he replied matter-of-factly. “No pun intended.”

Brian snorted. “That must be why he went into urology. He already had plenty of personal experience.”

His comment cracked Kevin up. Hearing his cousin laugh like that, Brian couldn’t help but join in. It felt good to laugh for real, rather than having to force it. As their laughter faded, Kevin looked at him fondly. “At least your sense of humor seems to be intact,” he remarked.

“I hope so,” said Brian, feeling the muscles in his face working hard as he smiled back. After everything he had been through, it felt weird to joke around as if nothing had happened, especially while Nick was still hovering between life and death.

Howie had called Kevin an hour earlier to let him know he and AJ had made it to Miami. “Nicky’s not good,” he had confessed, his voice cracking through the speaker as Brian, Leighanne, and Baylee all listened in, “but he’s where he needs to be right now. He’s got a whole team of nurses and doctors who are taking great care of him. All we can do is keep praying.”

Brian prayed Nick really was being taken care of this time, not tortured by more people who meant to exploit him for their own sick pleasure. His trust in the medical community had been badly shaken by what he and Nick had endured.

When a knock came on the closed door of his hospital room, he expected it to be another doctor or nurse wanting to assess his breathing or check his blood pressure again. He was so sick of being examined, his stomach actually lurched as Leighanne jumped up to answer the door.

“Detective!” he heard her exclaim. “Come on in!”

Brian looked up as a brunette woman wearing a gray blazer and slacks walked into the room, carrying a large briefcase. She set the case down by the foot of his bed as she approached it slowly, her hand outstretched. “Hello, Mr. Littrell,” she said. “I’m Detective Overton, with the Key West Police Department.”

“Detective Overton was the lead investigator in your disappearance,” Leighanne explained.

“I still am, actually,” added the detective, as she showed Brian her badge, “only it’s not a missing persons case anymore. Now it’s become an investigation into a pair of kidnappings and an attempted murder.”

Brian sat up straighter in his bed. “Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking the detective’s hand. His voice was still scratchy and weak, but it didn’t waver as much as it had earlier in the day.

“Not as nice as it is for me to meet you,” replied the detective with a crooked smile. “I wish I could shake the hand of everyone whose name crossed my desk, but sadly, that isn’t always the case. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you alive, Mr. Littrell.”

A chill went down Brian’s spine as he considered her words, his blood running cold with the realization of how close both he and Nick had come to dying. He knew he was safe now, but Nick was not yet out of danger. Nick could still die.

“How are you doing?” Detective Overton asked.

Brian swallowed hard. “Okay, I guess,” he answered. Compared to Nick, he was in good shape. He couldn’t complain.

“I’m glad to hear that. Are you up for answering a few questions about what happened to you and Mr. Carter? I would love to gather some more information while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“Like I could forget,” scoffed Brian. “But yeah, go for it.”

The detective nodded, looking at him with sympathy. “Would you like your family to stay with you, or is it all right if they wait outside while we talk?” she asked, giving Leighanne, Baylee, and Kevin a sidelong glance.

Brian understood what she was getting at. It would be easier for him to give a detailed account of what he had gone through without his wife and son around. “Why don’t y’all go downstairs and get something to eat while I talk to the detective?” he suggested.

Leighanne frowned, looking slightly offended by the implication that he wouldn’t want his family with him during the interview, but she didn’t complain when Kevin escorted her and Baylee out of the room.

In the meantime, Detective Overton had taken a digital recorder out of her briefcase. “Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

Brian dreaded the thought of hearing his hoarse voice being played back in a courtroom or on the news one day, but he was willing to do whatever he could to ensure the people who had done this to him were prosecuted and convicted for their crimes. “No… that’s fine,” he forced himself to say. While the detective got set up, he poured some water from the plastic pitcher on his bed tray into his cup and took a tiny sip through the straw. His nurse had warned him to take it easy with the water, as his digestive system needed time to adjust after going almost three weeks without eating or drinking anything by mouth, but the cool liquid felt so good going down his dry throat. He couldn’t get enough.

In the meantime, Detective Overton had pulled up a chair next to his bed and sat down, placing the small recording device on the tray between them. Brian’s stomach rocked with queasiness when he saw her press the red button. “This is Detective Karen Overton,” she stated in a crisp, professional tone, “interviewing Brian Littrell at Lower Keys Medical Center on November 23, 2019.”

His eyes widened when he heard the date. Despite his best efforts to keep track of the time during his ordeal, Brian had never known for sure what day it was or exactly how long he had been in the “hospital.” He had flown to Key West to see Nick on November third. Now it was the twenty-third. That meant he had lost twenty days of his life trapped in that bed.

The realization made him angry at first… then grateful. His son’s seventeenth birthday was in three days, and Thanksgiving would follow five days later. He had almost missed both occasions, but now that he was free, he had all the more reason to celebrate. He thanked the Lord for that.

Detective Overton crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “Let’s start at the beginning, Mr. Littrell. Can you describe the phone call you received on the morning of November third?”

Brian nodded, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves before he spoke. “Let me tell you the story ‘bout the call that changed my destiny,” he began, totally deadpan. Then he paused, looking up at the detective to see if she recognized the lyrics. It really wasn’t the right time for jokes, yet when the perfect opportunity to quote a line from one of his songs presented itself, Brian Littrell felt obligated to take advantage of it. But Detective Overton didn’t laugh or even crack a smile, remaining straight-faced as she waited for him to continue. Must not be a Backstreet fan, he determined, slightly disappointed by the lack of a reaction. If this recording did ever get released to the public, he hoped someone would appreciate his quick wit and perfect sense of comedic timing.

Clearing his throat, he continued, “I was back home in Alpharetta, in bed with my wife, Leighanne, when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer at first - I let it go to voicemail. The caller left a message. When I listened to it, it was a woman who claimed to be calling from a hospital in Key West. This hospital, actually - Lower Keys Medical Center.”

“Did the woman leave a name?” Detective Overton asked.

He nodded. “Yeah… Danica Logan. She said my friend Nick was here and asked me to call her back. When I called the number she gave me, I was told Nick was in intensive care.”

“Do you know who answered when you called that number?”

“It was the same woman. Danica Logan.”

“Did she tell you what happened to Nick?”

He shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t say. All she told me was that he was in critical condition. She kept saying she couldn’t give me any other details over the phone. So I decided to come down here and find out for myself. I booked a flight, then called my friend Howie… Howie Dorough. He was going to meet me here later that afternoon.”

“So you flew to Key West that same day,” said Detective Overton. “What happened when you arrived at the airport?”

Brian thought back to that afternoon, twenty days ago. “I was met by a man I thought the hospital had sent to drive me there. I forgot to mention, Danica Logan said they would do that, so I’d given her my flight information.” In hindsight, he had been stupid for blindly trusting a stranger to take him to the hospital. He had been in such a hurry to get to Nick, he hadn’t even bothered asking to see any type of identification. His naivety had nearly cost him his life.

“So you didn’t know the man who picked you up?”

He shook his head. “Not then, but I know his name now. It was Patrick.”

“Patrick Gravel?”

“I guess,” said Brian, shrugging. “I never heard his last name, but the place he took me to was called the Gravel Funeral Home, so that would make sense.”

“Did you know at the time that’s where you were being taken?” the detective asked.

“No…” Brian hesitated. Here was where his memory began to get a hazy. “The last thing I remember was riding in the back seat of his car. It was raining, and I was just sort of staring out my window, not really paying attention, when he suddenly slammed on the brakes. I guess I must’ve forgotten to put on my seat belt, because I went flying forward into the seat in front of me, and then I felt something hit us hard from behind. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed.”

“So you never saw what hit you?”

He shook his head. “No. Do you know?”

Detective Overton seemed reluctant to answer at first, but finally, she said, “We found a pick-up truck with front-end damage registered to a man named Robin Henault at his residence. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Brian frowned. His first response was “No,” but then he realized: “Wait… that must be Dr. Rob’s real name. Right?”

“When you say ‘Dr. Rob,’ you mean…?”

“The man who pretended to be treating me, when really he just wanted to torture me,” replied Brian, his heart accelerating as he relived the trauma of Rob slicing open a hole in his trachea without any anesthesia. At the time, he had thought the doctor must have made a mistake with the drugs and didn’t realize his patient was awake during the procedure. Now he knew Rob had done it on purpose, putting him through that fiery pain and fear purely for his own sick pleasure. “He must have helped Patrick kidnap me, too, huh?” he asked hoarsely.

Detective Overton nodded. “His truck’s exterior does match flecks of paint found on the dented rear bumper of the silver Corolla belonging to Patrick Gravel, which was located in the garage of the former Gravel Funeral Home after you were found. This gives us reason to believe Mr. Henault purposefully hit Mr. Gravel’s vehicle, then aided him in the plot to abduct you.”

Brian swallowed hard. “Why me?” he wondered. “And why Nick?”

“I wish I could tell you, but the truth is, we may never know,” was all the detective would say. “Now let’s go back to when you woke up. What was that like?”

Brian took a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. “It was terrifying,” he admitted, his voice cracking as his eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t even breathe on my own - there was a machine doing that for me. But I could still hear, and I could still think. They told Nick I was in a coma and that I might never wake up, but I was conscious the whole time. I was aware of everything that was happening around me; I just couldn’t do anything about it.”

“That must have been horrible,” said Detective Overton softly, looking at him with sympathy in her eyes. “I hate to make you relive it now, but I need you to describe what you observed happening. You said you overheard them telling Nick about your condition. Was he nearby the whole time?”

Brian nodded as he took another sip of water. “They kept us in the same room. It looked like a hospital room. His bed was right next to mine.”

“And by ‘they,’ you mean…”

Brian’s blood ran cold when he thought of his captors. He remembered their voices more than anything, but he had seen enough of their faces to be able to picture them clearly in his mind. “Rob and Patrick… plus two women. One of them was Danica Logan, but she went by the name Dani. The other one was called Dr. Elizabeth. I don’t know her last name; she never used it.”

“What did they do to you and Nick?” the detective wanted to know.

Sucking in another shaky breath, Brian began to recount all that he could remember. He told her how he’d heard Elizabeth filling Nick’s head with lies about needing a heart transplant and an ICD. Haltingly, he spoke of having to helplessly listen to Nick’s heart monitor flatline repeatedly and the frantic efforts to resuscitate him that had followed. He didn’t want to describe Dani raping Nick as he lay dying, but he did anyway - Dani deserved to be punished for what she had done, and in order for that to happen, the detective needed to know the whole story.

The only part he left out was the relationship that had developed between Dani and Nick before Nick knew what was really going on. Though Brian doubted Dani was really pregnant with Nick’s baby, Nick must have had his reasons for believing her. Brian didn’t know if Nick had actually done anything more than make out with Dani or if she had made the rest up, but it wasn’t his place to divulge those details. It would be up to Nick to decide what to tell the police. If he had been unfaithful, Lauren deserved to hear it from her husband first, not find out about it in a police report or courtroom. And if, God forbid, Nick did not survive, then the truth would die with him.

Instead, Brian talked about the hurricane and how he had nearly suffocated during the power failure. He wasn’t surprised to hear there had been no bad storms while he and Nick were missing. He had already suspected their captors had faked that, too, just to further traumatize them.

Reluctantly, he described the other sadistic things that were done to him: Dani stripping him down each day to subject him to the unnecessary humiliation of having his naked body bathed by a stranger… Rob doing the tracheostomy without anesthesia… Patrick stopping his heart with an overdose of sedative… and Elizabeth sexually assaulting him.

“Then she took me back to the room and told Nick I was brain dead,” Brian told Detective Overton, as tears poured down his cheeks. “She did a bunch of tests to ‘prove’ it to him, which was total bullshit because I was completely paralyzed and couldn’t respond in any way. She claimed we both had the same blood type and tried to convince Nick to consent to having my heart transplanted into his body.”

The detective raised her eyebrows. “Clearly, that’s not what happened, but do you think they would have really tried to perform a heart transplant in that place?”

Brian hesitated, wiping his eyes as he considered the question. “Probably not,” he finally answered, his voice flat, almost matter-of-fact. “I bet they would have just killed me or hidden me away in some kind of sex dungeon. Then they could have cut Nick open, sewn him back up, and told him he had my heart beating inside his chest - he would have had no way of knowing whether it was true or not. That may have been their plan all along, but he found out about them before they could carry it out.”

“How did he find out?” asked Detective Overton.

Brian recalled the heated conversation he’d overheard Nick having with Elizabeth, in which Nick had accused Patrick of necrophilia and Elizabeth had responded by describing the properties of the drug digoxin as she administered a near-fatal overdose. “That was the same day Dani raped him,” he said. “Nick almost died twice, and there was nothing I could do except lie there and listen to it happen. Actually, no, I take that back - Elizabeth pried my eyes open and rolled me over so I had to watch while they were resuscitating him.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue. He spat them out like venom, hoping it would help him feel better.

“Just let it all out, honey,” his mother had always told him as a child, when he was sick with the stomach flu and fighting the urge to vomit. “No one likes throwing up, but you’ll feel a lot better once you do.” For Brian, talking to the detective about what he had been through was very much like vomiting. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew he needed to get it over with in order to start feeling like himself again.

By the time he finished, Detective Overton was staring at him intently, clearly disturbed by what she had heard. “How did you escape?” she asked in a hushed tone.

He swallowed hard. “After Dani took Nick away, no one ever came back to check on me or change my IV bag. It must have run dry because the drugs they’d been using to paralyze me wore off. As soon as I could get out of bed, I made a break for it. I didn’t get far, though - Patrick caught up to me a couple blocks from the funeral home. I was so weak, he overpowered me and put me in the trunk of his car. That’s where I was when the police officer pulled him over and found me.”

Detective Overton nodded. “That red car was registered to Dani - Danielle Henault is her real name. We’ve been trying to locate Ms. Henault and her husband, Rob, for several days now. There was an APB sent out about them - that’s why Officer Martinez pulled the car over in the first place.”

“So you haven’t found them yet,” said Brian, disappointed.

“Unfortunately, no. Both Dani and Rob are still at large… but we do have Patrick in police custody, along with his twin sister, Dr. Elizabeth Gravel.”

Brian raised his eyebrows. “Twin sister?” he repeated, taking a second to absorb this revelation. “That explains a lot.”

“You’ve explained a lot, too,” said Detective Overton, offering him a grim smile. “I spent all morning trying to interrogate the Gravels, but neither of them would talk without an attorney present - and when their lawyer finally did arrive, they still wouldn’t give much information. Thank you for filling in the gaps for me by opening up about what must have been an awful, traumatic experience.”

He nodded, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes. “Whatever I can do to help y’all put these people behind bars, I’ll do.”

“I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Littrell.” The detective rose from her chair and leaned over to shake his hand again. “I’ll let you get some rest now, but if you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to call me, day or night,” she said, handing him a card with her phone number on it.

Brian thanked her and watched her walk out of the room. Once she was gone, he leaned back against the head of his bed, both physically and emotionally drained. But despite everything, his mother had been right: he did feel better after getting it all out.

***