Author's Note: Hey everyone hope the holiday season is bringing you all a little bit more joy. This is your last chance if you wanted to try and figure out what those numbers meant on your own because it is all revealed below. I hope you all enjoy. Happy reading.


It had been a frustrating day of getting nowhere. The lead from the motel that had once looked promising had fizzled out and the search was back to square one. The only clue was that they were possibly going North.

Elizabeth had sat in the living room the entire morning, watching everyone try his or her best but come up with nothing. And eventually she had to escape. As she walked into the hall she noticed how the rest of the house was silent. No music coming from David's office. No noise from the kitchen where she would have expected Taylor. No echoes of video games trailing down the stairs from Grant's room.

As she walked up the stairs she couldn't shake herself of the memory of all their faces when she had returned from the motel without Carter. Taylor and Grant had had such hope in their eyes, but of a shake of her head had erased it all.

At the top of the stairs a small wave of relief washed over her. She could hear a faint humming from Taylor's room and knew she was listening to music. Elizabeth walked closer to her daughter's door and as she listened her heart ached a bit. It wasn't the music Taylor normally listened to, but she recognized it instantly. Taylor was playing one of Carter's favorite CDs. Elizabeth had despised the same songs only a few months prior, as Carter had played them on full blast when she had first arrived just to annoy her. Now though, she would have given pretty much anything to hear it blaring from her room again.

David's raised voice coming from their room pulled her attention from Taylor and to that direction. She could hear he was arguing and was able to make out enough that she knew Toby was on the other end. Toby had never been one of her favorite people and had been steadily declining in her ranks over the past couple of days. David couldn't seem to keep the man away for a second, with calls coming in continually about adding an additional chapter to the book about Carter's second abduction. David's voice escalated before she heard a loud thump and assumed he had thrown the phone at the wall. Wanting to give him time to calm down, she made her way over to Grant's room.

He was the one she was the most concerned about. He had become very quiet from the moment she had told him Carter had been taken again. She knew they had become very close, bonding over their shared humor and feelings of being the outsider of the family. Elizabeth cursed internally at herself at the thought, yet another way she felt she was failing at a parent, two of her kids felt like they didn't belong. As she walked down the hall though she stopped at Carter's room first.

From inside she could hear soft rustling, so slowly she cracked open the door. Tears welled in her eyes as she watched Grant fiddle with trinkets on Carter's desk and dresser. Occasionally he would pick up a photo and smile, or sniff a scarf or hat. Eventually he sat on the corner of her bed and Elizabeth had to muffle the sobs that came once he started to speak.

"Hey Elephant, it's Armadillo. I know you can't hear this but just maybe you'll get the message somehow. I know for a while you wanted to go back to Lori because she was your mom and you loved her more than us. We were all strangers to you then, but I have to believe that now you see us as your family. That you know you belong with us and that you want to come back home. So please Elephant, leave something so mom can find you," he stopped for a moment and laughed to himself as a memory came to mind.

"You already know she's good at following your clues. Remember when she followed all those fake ones to the mall. She was pretty angry with you then, but you have to do the same thing now. Please Carter…" he trailed off and Elizabeth could hear him sniffling to himself.

She decided to give him a minute before going in to comfort him; she didn't want him knowing she had heard such a personal conversation. Just as she was about to push the door open and announce herself to Grant, when there was a flurry of action downstairs. She was torn between wanting to tell her son that everything was going to be okay and seeing if something had come up with her daughter.

Elizabeth glanced towards the stairs and realized that Grant must have heard the commotion as well because by the time she turned back to Carter's room, Grant was at her side.

"What's happening down there?" he asked her.

"I'm not sure. Let's go find out," she replied wrapping her arm around his shoulders.

When they got downstairs everyone was moving a mile a minute. People were frantically typing on their keyboards, papers were being spit out from the printer, Agent Sands was giving directions to multiple agents at once. As Elizabeth continued to observe everything happening in the living room she froze. Her eyes became glued to the computer monitor that was replaying a scene of Carter in a gas station.

Tears instantly welled in her eyes. She had known Carter was okay from her previous note and figured Lori would never intentionally hurt her, but actually seeing her filled Elizabeth with so much relief and hope it was almost too much to take. She realized it was the first time she had actually seen Carter since she had been taken, and though it had only been a few days it felt like an eternity.

"We got a hit off of facial recognition. Security cameras picked this up about five hours North of here. We have local agents headed over there now to survey the area and to ask the cashier more about what he saw," Sands said, startling her from her gaze on the computer.

"It appears Carter may have left something in one of the snack displays near the door," he continued, pointing to the computer as it came to that point in the footage.

A wide smile grew on Grant's face as he looked up to Elizabeth. "She's leaving you more clues."

Elizabeth's face matched his and she pulled him closer and nodded.

"Since everything was purchased with cash we can't be certain what it was, but we will let you know more once the agents get over there," the agent concluded as he walked back to his main station.

Elizabeth watched the clock as the minutes passed by at an agonizingly slow pace. It had only been forty-five minutes, but it felt like much longer. Grant had made his way back upstairs, while David had come down, anxious for more information. They sat next to each other at the dinning room table. He rubbed small, reassuring circles over his wife's back and she leaned into him, both relying on the other for strength as they waited for more information to become available.

Finally agent Sands phone rang and after a few acknowledgements and a "continue a perimeter search" he waived both of them over.

"We know they're driving a car similar to an unmarked. Lori removed the license plate but at least we know what to look for. After talking with the cashier it appears that Carter bought a lottery ticket, and that is what she left behind," Sands told them, earning him a confused look from Elizabeth and David. "We should be getting a scan of it any moment now."

As if on cue and image of a lottery ticket appeared on the computer screen. With a few taps on the keyboard Sands had printed out the picture for the both of them and handed them over.

"Do these numbers mean anything to either of you?"

They both scanned them over and began to shake their heads.

"Nothing I recognize," David spoke up first.

"Yeah me either," Elizabeth followed.

"Okay, well keep looking them over, maybe something will pop out. I've got a special team gathered as well so we can figure out what Carter was trying to get across."

With that the agent left them alone with each other, both continuing to stare at the paper in their hands. They remained silent for a few minutes; each giving their full attention to deciphering what Carter had left them. Elizabeth began to grow slightly frustrated. Her daughter had left her a message that she couldn't seem to figure out and she hated feeling like she was letting her down once again.

"Could these be zip codes or phone numbers?" David asked, grasping at straws to come up with anything.

Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't think so." She turned to a woman sitting at a computer. "Can I see the full footage from the gas station?"

The woman complied and ran the tape from the beginning Carter and Lori walked inside. Elizabeth kept her eyes on Carter as the girl wandered the aisles a little bit and then she noticed something as Carter's gaze fell on the lottery display.

"There," she said point to the screen. "Play it again."

"I didn't notice anything," David said watching from over her shoulder.

Elizabeth pointed it out again. "There. Carter sees the display and freezes for just a moment before dashing over there. It's like an idea hit her once she saw it. So these numbers mean something simple, she didn't have time to plan anything."

David nodded, understanding what his wife meant and went back to looking as the paper in his hand. He felt out of his element. He was a man of letters and words, not numbers. And that's when it hit him.

"Letters," he mumbled softly.

"What?" Elizabeth asked, turning from the computer and giving him her attention.

"Letters. What if these numbers correspond to their letter order in the alphabet? Carter could be spelling something out," he replied, and with no hesitation they both started to decode the numbers on the ticket.

3-1-18-12-25-19 became C-A-R-L-Y-S

12-1-21-18-5-14 became L-A-U-R-E-N

19-20-5-6-14-19 became S-T-E-F-N-S

"They're names," Elizabeth said in a hushed tone. She was in shock that they had managed to discover what it meant.

"Do you think it's what they're going by now? Carly and Lauren Stevens?" David asked.

Elizabeth paused for a moment to think. She recognized that Lori must have wanted to keep the names close, but keeping the same last name wouldn't be smart so she slowly started to shake her head.

"It's not Stevens, Lori is too smart to use that last name again and Carter would have used a "v" not a "f". " She started to run possible last names through her head before it came to her. "Stephenson. Carly and Lauren Stephenson."

The two of them raced over to where agent Sands stood at his desk and practically forced the paper into his hands. He took a moment to read over all the scribbles before looking up and into their eyes. He could see the slight desperation in their eyes. How much they wanted this to be the answer, how badly they wanted to find their daughter, and normally he would have let his own team finish their decoding but something told him that these names were correct and he couldn't waste any time. Quickly he grabbed the phone and started punching numbers.

"Get these names out to all important outlets. Carly Stephenson and Lauren Stephenson. Possible alias' for Carter Stevens and Lori Stevens…" he continued on but Elizabeth had started to tune him out.

David wrapped his arm around her and as she leaned into him he placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"They won't get far now. Carter is going to be home soon," he reassured.

She nodded. They always had seemed one step behind and she hoped that this would give them the advantage they needed.