Chapter 10: Capture
Will's phone beeped in alarm, and the message "911! Come to Titan NOW! 911! ASAP! Don't call, come!" flashed across the screen.
His first thought was that something must have happened to his father. "Call Dad," he instructed the phone even as he grabbed his coat and hastened to obey Philip's summons. Just in case, he grabbed his medical bag as well.
"Will? What's going on?" Lucas' voice had a hard edge to it.
"I just got a message from Philip."
"I got the same one. I thought there might be a problem with you."
Will laughed without amusement at the irony. "That's what I thought. I mean, I thought something happened to you. Are you on your way to Titan?"
"Almost there. I'll see you in a few minutes."
Will's phone rang again as he disconnected. The ring was the one that indicated Theo was the caller. Will hadn't heard much from Theo since he'd taken off for his grand tour of DiMera Europe, but right now he didn't have the time to talk. He sent Theo's call directly to voicemail, resolving to get in touch with him once the current crisis, whatever it might be, was under control.
He made it to Titan in record time and slammed through the front door. He bypassed security, but the guards either recognized him or didn't care.
Will and Lucas met in the elevator. They didn't bother with a verbal greeting, but Lucas' hand came to rest on Will's arm, and Will appreciated the reminder that whatever had happened, he would not be dealing with it alone.
"This better be good, Phil," Lucas burst out as soon as they were safely inside Philip's office.
Philip's face was solemn and steady, giving nothing away. "It is good. But maybe you should both sit down."
"Maybe you should just tell us," Will suggested with more than a little irritation. He did not feel at all reassured by Philip's vague, pokerfaced description of the news as "good."
Philip shrugged. "Suit yourselves." For an agonizingly long moment, there three of them stared at each other. Then Philip said "I think some of my people have found Allie."
Will's vision darkened and he staggered to the couch, where he collapsed with his head in his hands. His ears were ringing, but he could hear his father's desperate voice asking "Where is she?"
"She's on her way here. My people got her and a woman she was with on a plane a few hours ago."
"A plane from where?"
"London."
"What about Johnny?" Will asked hoarsely when he found his voice.
"There's no sign of him." Philip crossed the room with the slight limp which only manifested itself when he was exhausted or stressed and ran a hand over Will's shoulder. Suddenly he was Uncle Philip instead of Mr. Kiriakis, Titan of Titan. "I hope Allie can tell you something about him. My people hadn't talked to her when they sent a message to me. Unfortunately, they may have been a little over-enthusiastic when they found her."
Lucas, who had been pacing the length of the office, stopped in front of Will and Philip. "What do you mean, 'over-enthusiastic?'"
"According to the message, she's fine. It shouldn't cause any lasting effects."
"What shouldn't?" growled Lucas and Will in unison.
"They might have used chloroform on her."
"They used chloroform on my thirteen-year-old daughter?"
Philip nodded. "I don't like it, either. I'll mention that to them. But keep in mind that they might have a reasonable explanation. It's been a lot of years since Sami got hurt and we lost touch with the twins. If they really felt like their one chance to get Allie back would have been jeopardized if they didn't physically subdue her, they did the right thing."
"She's healthy otherwise?" Will asked, already mentally debating which pediatrician should be asked to take Allie on as a patient.
"There's nothing to suggest that she's not. We'll go meet the plane and you can see her for yourself."
"They're flying into Salem International?" Lucas wanted to know.
"No. The landing strip on the other side of town. More private when you might have kidnapped someone."
"She's my daughter. If anyone is a kidnapper here, it's EJ DiMera."
"You're right about Allie. But there was a woman in her late twenties or early thirties taken with Allie, and I don't know who she is." Philip deliberately turned his back and Lucas' ire and held his hands out to Will. Will obediently allowed Philip to tug him into a standing position and direct him toward the private exit.
Within minutes they were on their way to a Titan warehouse that stood beside the landing strip.
The warehouse was secure, well-lit, and warm, but it was still a warehouse in all its boxy, dusty glory. Lucas had pictured his reunion with Allie ten thousand different ways, but this had not been one of them.
He reminded himself that Philip had received limited information from the detectives and bounty hunters in his employ. The girl, the little stranger, who would soon join them in the warehouse might not even be his daughter. He hadn't seen Allie in person since her infancy, and she had been only three years old when Sami had last sent photographs home to Salem. The two of them didn't know each other and had no way of recognizing each other.
The thing to do, Lucas decided, was to introduce himself to the girl in as non-threatening a way as possible and politely explain that they needed to do a DNA test to determine if she might be his long-lost daughter.
Somewhere along the far wall, a door creaked open and the tiniest sliver of November sunlight illuminated flecks of dust dancing in the air.
Three figures shuffled through the door. Two tall, strong men dressed in black flanked a much smaller girl who stumbled with every step. As the trio approached Will, Philip, and Lucas, the girl raised her trembling head in a show of defiance.
Lucas' eyes filled with hot tears before he knew why. It was Will's shaky voice beside Lucas that stated the obvious. "She looks like Mom."
All the lessons Lucas had learned in prison—lessons about hiding emotion, controlling movements, allowing abundant personal space—abandoned him. He rushed toward Allie and folded her into his arms; Philip's employees backed away as if they had been commanded.
Allie stiffly submitted to the embrace. Lucas relished the feeling of her heart beating against him. He knew that heartbeat; he remembered it from the first time he'd held her in his arms more than thirteen years before. When he pulled back to get a better look at Allie's face—Sami's face, again—he saw only a blank, vaguely frightened expression.
"Allie, sweetheart, I'm your daddy. I've missed you so much. I love you so much, and I was so worried I wouldn't get to see you again." He swallowed past a sob; he had to get control of himself. "What do you need, Allie? Are you hungry? Are you cold?" He divested himself of his jacket and dropped it around his daughter's small shoulders, but that didn't make Allie stop shaking. "You can have anything you want. Anything in the world. What can I give you?"
Allie didn't respond.
"Dad?" Will's voice was hoarse with emotion; his cheeks, like Lucas', were streaked with tears. Lucas grabbed his son and pulled him into a tight embrace, which Will returned fiercely. Will buried his face in Lucas' shoulder like he hadn't since he'd been a very small boy. Instinctively, Lucas knew that Will wasn't crying just from relief and happiness that Allie had come home. Will was crying about everything that had led them to stand in this warehouse with a mute girl who didn't know them. Will was crying about everything he had claimed to be "over" since the day Lucas began serving his prison sentence.
They disentangled themselves in a wet, hurried mess when they heard light footsteps retreating toward the far door. Philip had vanished, presumably intending to give Lucas and Will some privacy and to debrief his black-clad employees. Allie had taken advantage of their absence and was trying to make a run for it.
Allie was too shaky on her feet to get far; Will and Lucas caught up to her well before she neared the door. "There's nothing out there for you," Will told her gently. "Just the landing strip and more warehouses. Where are you trying to go?"
"Home," Allie whispered, and Lucas' heart missed a beat at finally hearing her voice.
"Where's home?" Will asked.
"I don't know."
"Then it would definitely be hard for you to get there."
Allie glared.
"What do you want that I can give you?"
Will received the same silence Lucas had received a moment before.
"Does anything hurt?"
More silence.
"I'm a doctor. If—"
"I'm not hurt." The words came out in a defensive rush.
"Good. Then can you do me a favor?"
"What favor?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'd like to run a DNA test to prove, well, to prove that you are who we think you are. Allie Horton."
"If you're going to stick a needle in me, you're going to have to hold me down and listen to me scream."
Lucas knelt beside Allie. "Allie, baby, no one is going to do anything to hurt you. He can do this without a needle."
Will collected his bag, which had dropped unceremoniously to the floor when he'd first seen Allie, and removed a cotton swab and a pair of plastic bags. "The two easiest ways would be to give me a piece of your hair, or to let me swab the inside of your cheek." He held up the cotton and hoped it looked non-threatening.
Allie ran her right hand through her long, blonde hair and presented Will with the first tangled strand that pulled loose. He secured it in the bag.
"That's all. Thank you." He tore his attention from Allie and returned it to Lucas. "Maybe it's better if I go to the hospital and make sure this gets done now. Before gossip gets around about what's going on. It might be less overwhelming for Allie to have just you instead of both of us here, too."
The last thing that Lucas wanted was for Will to leave his sight. He didn't want to be away from his children ever again, and certainly not now. But Will raised a fair point. The sooner they had scientific confirmation that Allie was his daughter, the better. "You're right, Buddy," he agreed reluctantly. "Get the job done as fast as you can. Think they'll let you in the lab to watch over the tech's shoulder?"
"I'll try." Will held out the other bag to his father. "Hair," he commanded. Lucas obliged, and then pulled Will into another hug.
"Love you, Will."
"Love you too. See you soon." He glanced at Allie over his shoulder. "See you soon, too, Allie."
Lucas was wondering what he could possibly say to help Allie feel safe and comfortable when a shout interrupted them.
"So you had me kidnapped?" asked a vaguely familiar female voice.
"I had Allie re-kidnapped. You were just in the way," Philip explained in a way that Lucas did not think could possibly improve the woman's mood.
"Well, you never change, do you? Last time I saw you, all those years ago, you were bribing judges so you could steal Claire Brady from her parents—"
"That was entirely different."
"You can't just take things because you want them."
"I don't want you. You're free to go."
Before Lucas could quite place the voice, Allie was running for the door again. "ABBY?" she shouted.
"ALLIE, YOU'RE OKAY?"
Abby Deveraux exploded into the warehouse. She and Allie rushed up to each other, but stopped just short of touching. "Are you all right, Allie?"
Allie's wide eyes darted from Philip to Lucas. "Do you know these people?"
Abby heaved a dramatic sigh. "Unfortunately, this idiot is your Uncle Philip, who I will be suing for anything I can think of." Philip rolled his eyes. When Abby noticed Lucas, though, she smiled radiantly. "And this is my Uncle Lucas."
"The one you said was my father," said Allie flatly.
"Yes. He's your father."
Allie's eyes locked challengingly with Abby's. "How do I know you didn't plan for us to get kidnapped and taken over here?"
"I don't know," said Abby thoughtfully. "It must seem like an incredible betrayal of trust to be sitting in a house where I promised you would be safe when someone breaks though the window, chloroforms you, and drags you forty-five hundred miles without your permission to meet the people you'd been hoping to meet on your own terms."
Lucas interrupted before the disagreement could escalate further. "Philip, did your people break into Jack and Jennifer's house?"
"Their job was to get Allie. That's what they did," said Philip coolly. "I think I'll give them an extra bonus this Christmas." He subtly jutted his chin in Abby's direction.
Lucas sighed inwardly. Philip's attitude was the least of his concerns. If he really felt that Philip needed to be taken to task, he'd call Billie, since that seemed to be her hobby lately. He certainly wasn't going to let Abby do it in front of Allie.
"Would you like Abby to come home with us?" he asked his daughter. "Please," he mouthed at Abby over Allie's head, and Abby nodded.
"Yes, please."
"All right." Lucas reached for his daughter with one arm and his niece with the other. Abby gave him a half-hug as a greeting; Allie avoided the contact but still allowed Lucas to guide her from the warehouse.
It was a start.
TBC