Written in exactly 60 minutes. Exhausted, lol. Enjoy the cliff hanger 😛

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Elizabeth leaned up to tug a plate from the third shelf of the cabinet, then jolted when Jason’s arms slid around her waist and he pulled her back against him, kissing the pulse point beneath her ear.

“One of these days, you’re going to do that, and I’m going to break something—” She set the plate on the counter, and then twisted in his arms, wrinkling her nose when she realized he’d changed into jeans and a t-shirt instead of staying in his usual sweat pants on their days off. “Oh, right, I forgot.”

She wiggled out of his embrace, then went to the toaster where her bagel was waiting. “You’re driving down to Silver Linings today.”

“Justus is picking me up in twenty minutes.” Jason leaned against the fridge, watched her concentrate on buttering the bagel with more focus than anyone had ever used on a bread product. “I could tell him to wait. You could go.”

“We’re not still having this conversation. I told you a week ago when you had this idea, three days ago when you scheduled it, and last night—”

“Last night, you distracted me before I could ask you, which is why—” Jason gestured to the space between them. “I’m standing on this side of the kitchen.”

“Only because I moved over here.” She bit into the bagel, and he just lifted his brows. “My answer isn’t going to change.”

“Okay.” Jason left the kitchen, went over to the sofa where he’d left his boots the night before after work. Elizabeth watched his suspiciously, wondering what he was going to try next.

“I don’t know what the point is in asking AJ what happened that day. He was too drunk to know better.”

“Probably true. But we need to cross him off. Justus says if we can show that the Quartermaines had any malicious intent in the conservatorship, it’ll sway the judge.” Jason tied the last lace, then straightened. “And isn’t that the point of all this? To do whatever we can to get this thrown out so it just can be over?”

“I know.” She stared down at the bagel. Jason needed to see him, and that was fine for him. But she could die happy never being in the same room again.  “You said Monica is the one who extended his stay?” she asked reluctantly, setting the plate aside, washing her hands to remove traces of butter and crumbs. She’d lost her appetite.

“Yeah. At least that’s what Ned says, and he hasn’t been wrong before. Why?”

“Well, I guess if that’s true—than that probably means AJ knows something. Or that Monica thinks he knows something.” She made a face. “You think he’ll tell you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because you don’t know if he’s lying. He could make something up—” Elizabeth folded her arms, looked down at her toenails. The pink polish was starting to chip. “I feel like I’m finally starting to let go of all that,” she said finally. She looked up, met his eyes. “Like I’m turning a page. I don’t want to keep going back to that day—to that time. I want it to be over. Don’t you?”

“I do. After this over, I never want to think about the Quartermaines again,” Jason said. “But we need enough to throw this whole thing out. I know it’s harder for you. You still remember everything, and if seeing AJ messes any of that up for you, I don’t want you to go. You’ve done more than enough to stop this conservatorship—”

“I just—I don’t want him to screw with your head. I know you’re not the same. I know you don’t let anyone guilt trip — especially people you don’t know or like. But—” Elizabeth just shook her head. “Can you call Justus? Ask him to push back leaving for another twenty? I can be ready in a half hour, maybe forty minutes.”

“Elizabeth—”

“I made a promise to who you used to be,” she said quietly and he closed his mouth. “I’ve kept it this long — no point in running when the finish line is in sight.”

“I mean it, you being happy is more important—” Jason started, but she crossed the room, stopped in front of him, slid her hands up his chest. “Don’t distract me—”

“Maybe this is one last ghost I have to confront.” She leaned up on her toes, pressed her lips against his. “Call Justus.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but that’s why I have to go. No more running. If I can do that—” She nodded towards the second bedroom, still closed. “I can do anything, right?”

He cupped her face, kissed her again. “Okay. I’ll call Justus.”

——

The ride to Silver Linings was nearly an hour, and Jason spent it restlessly looking out the window, wishing he’d been the one to drive. Elizabeth was in the backseat, looking through paperwork, and Justus behind the wheel.

The rehab center was a sprawling campus of buildings — Justus pulled off the main road onto a long driveway, then around three or four more cream-colored brick buildings before parking in one of the lots that ringed the campus area.

There wasn’t much conversation as the trio headed for the visitor’s building. Justus signed them in and Jason clipped a blue badge to his shirt. Two turns down another set of halls, and into a large room with circular tables.

Near the windows sat a man with shaggy blond hair. He was looking out the window, but he was sitting alone — one of the few people in the room on their own.

“AJ?” Jason asked, nodding towards him. Elizabeth’s mouth pinched, and he sighed. “All right, let’s get this over with.”

AJ rose when he saw them approach. He was of similar height to Jason, average build, though less muscle.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d show up,” he said, holding out a hand for just a moment before running it through his hair. He looked at Elizabeth. “I—I didn’t know you were coming.”

“To keep you honest,” she said coolly, taking a seat at the table. “Jason doesn’t know you like I do.”  Jason sat next to her, and Justus pulled out the chair next to him.

“No, I suppose that’s true. ” AJ returned to his own seat. “Justus said you had some questions about the accident. I, uh, don’t know what I can do to help—”

“Your blood alcohol was never tested,” Justus said, and AJ frowned at him. “How drunk were you?”

“I don’t know. I never knew that. I just kept drinking until the world went away. Stopped counting how many drinks that took back in high school.” He cleared his throat. “Why does it matter—”

“Alan and Edward filed for a conservatorship. Jason can’t legally enter or break contracts or make any medical decisions without their permission,” Elizabeth cut in. “And they say they did it because Jason told Monica before the accident he wanted to divorce me.”

AJ’s eyes widened. “A conservatorship? Whoa. That’s—that’s crazy even for them. That’s the legal thing where you’re basically powerless? Man—” He clasped his hands together. “That’s wild. And—” He squinted, looked at Justus. “Monica says Jason wanted a divorce?”

“That’s their basis for filing for divorce as conservators,” Jason said, drawing AJ’s attention back to him. “We know that I didn’t want it. But we can’t prove that Monica knew the divorce papers I brought were fake.”

“Divorce papers? Geez. Well, I don’t know anything any divorce papers, but she sure as hell knew you didn’t want a divorce,” AJ said.

“How can you be sure? You were drunk enough to get behind the wheel—”

“I didn’t need to be plastered to do that. Just…just loaded enough to think I wasn’t drunk,” AJ admitted. He stared down at his hands. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, for what I’ve put you through—”

“If you’re sorry, then you’ll tell me—tell us what happened that day.” Elizabeth lifted her brow. “And don’t leave anything out.”

“Oh. Well, I can try. I don’t know what happened before I got there, just that I heard shouting from the family room—”

AJ hesitated just before he reached the doorway. The last thing he needed was another lecture from his mother or brother about ruining his life and the people around him—but maybe they wouldn’t even notice him if they kept arguing—

“You’re an unnatural child, do you know that?” Monica demanded. AJ peered around the edge of the doorframe, saw his mother stalk across the room towards Jason standing by the terrace. “To do this to your own mother—”

“What about what my mother is doing to me? Or does the guilt only work one way?” Jason demanded. “Did you think about that before you told the Sun’s reporter that Elizabeth was going back to work? Before you told them our apartment number?”

“These accusations, Jason! How can you think I would do that to you—”

“Because no one would, Mother. Even Grandfather has his limits.”

“This is such an awful thing to say to me. To do—what kind of person goes to all this trouble just to lie to their mother?” Monica lifted a chunk of papers, shaking them in his face. “Have you no shame? No decency?”

“You weren’t so mad when you thought they were the truth—you were so eager to believe the worst about Elizabeth that you didn’t even bother to realize these were your words. Not mine.”

Monica scowled. “She’s done this. She’s put you up to this—”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here. Or that you were behind this last stunt. Wasn’t it enough that you told them when we were burying her?” Jason bit out. “Wasn’t it enough for you when that reporter accused Elizabeth of drinking and driving, killing our daughter?”

“You’re just angry because that woman has twisted you up so much that you’re facing assault charges—” Monica tried to go around Jason, back to the desk, but Jason grabbed her elbow swung her back. “

“Those charges went away when I filed my own. Harassment and stalking. But I knew he didn’t get that information out of nowhere. You were the only one that knew Elizabeth was going back to work that day. The only one I told!”

“I’m sure—well, that can’t be true—”

“It is! You set her up to be confronted all over again when she was just starting to feel better!”

“Well, maybe she doesn’t deserve to feel better!” Monica spat. “She’s the reason we put an infant in the ground—”

Something crashed and shattered, and AJ moved into the doorway to see better. Jason had reached for one of the crystal decanters of water they kept in the library — right next to all that lovely vodka, and he’d thrown it across the wall. Jagged shards and water stained the carpet.

“That is the last time you’ll ever speak about my daughter that way. About my wife. I thought if I confronted you, if I could make you believe that I would leave Elizabeth, you’d confess and take credit for finally winning, but I don’t need you to confess. Because it won’t change what a cold, unfeeling bitch you are—”

“And then he turned and he—you—,” he said to Jason, “saw me in the doorway.”  AJ rubbed his neck. “Mom started freaking out, accusing me of drinking—I mean, yeah, I had been, but she needed to start discrediting me. Why do you think I’m here?” He gestured around them. “In exchange for an advance for my trust fund, I got ninety days here.”

Justus tipped his head. “And when did that turn into one hundred and twenty?”

“Around Easter. Mom said if I stayed in here longer and didn’t come home and tell anyone what I heard, well, she’d make sure I got another advance.” AJ looked at his hands. “But you know, I didn’t go home and tell anyone. You came to me. And anyway, I’m gonna lie to the guy I put in the hospital? No way. Maybe she paid me to come here—but I’m trying. I want—I don’t want to do this to another family—”

“You shouldn’t have needed to bash Jason’s brains against a rock to learn that lesson,” Elizabeth said, speaking up for the first time since AJ had recounted his memory of that day. “Our daughter should have been enough.”

“That’s what Jason said that day. When he tried to stop me from leaving. Cady was enough, he said. Enough for a life time. He’d never pick up another drink as long as he lived. But I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured to. You were picking at me because I was drunk at one in the afternoon. Like I cared about the clock,” AJ said dismissively. “I told you to go to hell and suck up to Mom some more, because even though you were mad at her, it wouldn’t last. It never did. Then I left. You followed, and well—” He trailed off. “Sorry isn’t enough.”

“It’s really not,” Elizabeth said. She shoved away from the table. “Finish whatever you need to do. I’ll wait at the car.” She left the room.

Jason looked at AJ, at the man who was supposed to be the brother, then shook his head. “We have nothing to say to each other. Justus?”

“I’ll take care of it.” When Jason had followed Elizabeth, Justus slid a pad of paper across the table. “I need you to write that down, and I’ll be back with affidavit to sign for court. With what you’ve told me, we should have enough to make the Quartermaines drop the conservatorship.”

“It’s the least I owe them—”

“You could try for a thousand years, AJ, and never come even close to what you owe. That’s not a debt you settle,” Justus said. “So don’t bother trying.”

—

Monica finishing making notes in her planner, looked up when Alan came into their bedroom, a familiar set of papers in his hands. “What—what are those?”

“I’ve read these over and over and over since Ned gave them to us.” Alan looked down at them then at his wife. “You told me that first night in the hospital that Jason wanted a divorce. And I believed you because you were so upset. And I still hoped Jason would wake up. Why would you tell such a disprovable lie? So I made sure we’d find a way to respect Jason’s wishes. Father and I—”

“Don’t you dare blame me for that conservatorship—”

“It was the only way we’d get enough control to get Elizabeth out of his life. But—but Jason never wanted that? Did he?” Alan demanded when Monica said nothing. “I read this—it’s fantasy. Father pointed out quite rightly that there’s language in there that Jason never, on his worst day, would have used against Elizabeth. Calling her an alcoholic, accusing her of taking his money. Believing she’d caused the accident—that’s where you want too far—even Father knew how staunch Jason was in his support of Elizabeth. You don’t go from that to believing the opposite overnight.”

“What exactly are you accusing me of?” Monica rose, fisting her hands at her side. “What do you think I’ve done?”

“Written papers up to support this story you’ve been telling us for month.” Alan flung the papers towards her. She didn’t reach for them—they fell to the carpet between them. “You pushed me time and time again to think of Elizabeth as nothing more than another Nikki Langton—”

“She’s worse. Because she actually managed to turn Jason against this family! And you can believe whatever you want—but Jason wrote every single word in those papers. Maybe he wasn’t ready to admit that he wanted to be rid of her, but I knew it—why else would he go to all that trouble and bring me this—”

“I don’t believe you. And no judge is going to accept those papers. Jason never wanted a divorce. This was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Monica growled, the rage rising. How dare he accuse her of lying—of not knowing her own son! “If you want proof, I’ll give it to you.” She stalked over to her dresser, yanked it open and fished through it. When she came back to Alan, she held up a single gold band. “He took this off that day—”

Alan took the ring from her, then sighed. “The lies need to stop, Monica. This was on his finger the night of the accident—”

“How—I handled the inventory! I took those things home—” Monica closed her mouth, and Alan looked at her.

“Yes. You did. You took those home. The wallet, the keys, and the ring he never took off. You may have handled the physical inventory, Monica. But I signed the papers that listed this as his property.” He closed his fingers around the ring. “You’re lying. Just like the papers. You’ve been lying from the start—”

“You don’t—you don’t understand—” Monica leapt forward, when Alan turned away from her. “The doctors, they told us that Jason had terrible brain damage. That if he woke up, he’d never be the same. I knew he wouldn’t remember — he wouldn’t remember that last day—I’d lost him, Alan. I’d pushed too hard and he was so angry—”

“So you thought you’d rewrite the story and push Elizabeth out before Jason could even decide what he wanted. You thought you could control him the way you have his whole life. He chose the career we wanted, the school we wanted, the friends—but we never could stop him from loving who we picked out. You got rid of Keesha Ward, didn’t you? Funding a scholarship she couldn’t turn down—” Alan shook his head. “But Elizabeth—she wasn’t going anywhere. And now you’ve destroyed any chance we ever had of Jason coming home.”

“No, Alan, that was you—you took away his control and his rights—”

“Because I believed it was the right thing to do. Because I believed you that Jason wanted it. Because I wanted him to want it. I wanted him to go back to being our son. To the best in his class at Stanford, matching with the best schools—we couldn’t see that the life we’d picked out for him—he didn’t want it Monica. We didn’t see it. And now it’s too late to even try.”

——

Jason unlocked the apartment door, and waited for Elizabeth to go inside first. She’d been quiet on the ride home, not having any real input on Justus’s discussion of the road ahead. Filing AJ’s affidavit would be the nail in the coffin, he thought. Alan and Edward would read it, realize how much Monica had torched their case, and maybe they’d file on their own to make it over.

“Just think,” Jason said, “a week from now on this, this could be over.”

Elizabeth turned, looked at him, smiled, but was tinged with sadness. “I can’t believe Justus was right. That AJ could hold the key. Any judge who hears about all of that—” She rubbed her chest. “When the conservatorship is dissolved, we’ll ask Justus to draw up divorce papers.”

Written in 64 minutes — Dad called halfway through to ask about the Phillies and Spencer Strider’s elbow injury (pitcher for the Braves). Hard to get him off the phone, lol.

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Emily dropped her purse and coat onto one of the empty tables at Luke’s and came over to the bar where Elizabeth was restocking for the upcoming shift. “Do you, like, live here?”

“Seems like it sometimes,” Elizabeth said, lifting a bottle of Grey Goose onto the back shelf. “Why, what’s up?”

“Oh, well, I came in over the weekend but it was that really crazy night, and I only got a second to talk to Jason.” Emily climbed onto the stool. “I got stuck at L&B—you know how Lois is. Impossible to say no to.”

“Have you tried?” Elizabeth asked, and Emily rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s really changed in the last few days if that’s what you’re wondering—”

“Well, I didn’t even get the actual scoop from Jason. He just told me it was some kind of trick and not to talk to Mom until he said so, so tell me everything.”

Elizabeth bit her lip, looked at Emily. “How mad are you going to be if I tell you that’s the limit of what I know?”

“What? Elizabeth!”

“We were slammed at the bar, so we didn’t get a chance to talk. And when we were done…I just—” she hesitated. “He told me that they weren’t real. That it was being used as a trick on Monica, and honestly—that’s all I needed to know.”

“How can you not want to know what he was planning? That’s insane—”

“My life has been dominated by  your family since the second Jason brought me to that Christmas party. Schemes to set your brother up with other women, his trust fund being frozen, ELQ—last fall—is it so crazy to believe that I just don’t want that to be my life anymore?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I got what I needed to know, Em. Jason wasn’t going to divorce. He didn’t say the things in those papers. Not really. He probably wrote up those papers using every accusation Monica ever flung at me. I don’t know why he’d do it without telling me, but it’s enough for me to know that those last few weeks — they weren’t a lie. I can…I can turn the page on all of that now. The probate hearing is coming up, and Justus is pretty sure the conservatorship will be tossed out at that point.”

“Dad and Grandfather seemed shaken by the audit Justus had done. It wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t even object to ending the whole thing. But—you and Jason are still married. You can’t really turn the page on all of it.” Emily bit her lip. “Unless—I mean, are you thinking maybe once this is over, so are you and Jason?”

“No. Maybe once, but I think—I don’t know.” Elizabeth smiled, looked down at her inventory clipboard. “I think maybe we’ll be okay. It’s not like before. None of it is. We don’t do the same things—well, some of them are still the same—”

“Oh—” Emily held her hands up. “Don’t say stuff like that with that look in your eyes, because you’re talking about sex with my brother. Take some pity, please.”

“Haha, very funny. But yeah, we just—we’re different. Or maybe we’re what we would have been all along if your family didn’t throw obstacles and roadblocks at us—”

“Or what you’d be if Jason had actually done anything about those obstacles and roadblocks,” Emily said. “Because having spent some time with my brother, he is really different. But not in the ways that count, you know? Like he’s still really sweet. And kind. But not to everyone. Like he got legit mad at me over the phone that day, and Jason’s never yelled at me a day in my life. Even when I deserved it.”

“He rides motorcycles and spends all his free time in the gym. He wants me to take skydiving lessons with him, but we compromised on rollercoasters. He’s…harder than he was,” Elizabeth said. “And maybe that makes me a little sad sometimes, you know? But it’s good, too.”

“He was a pushover. Do you see Jason getting into a car with a drunken moron again?” Emily asked. “No. He’d just punch AJ and take the keys. Definitely better choices. Better results. So…like, are you in love with him?”

Elizabeth hesitated. “I don’t…I want to say yes,” she said slowly. “But I don’t know. I like him. I like what we are together. But I think maybe we need more time. More of nights like last Saturdays.” She grinned, thinking about the mad dash upstairs, how they hadn’t made it off the floor for at least an hour—

“Oh, ew, you’re thinking about sex again—” Emily grimaced. “Nasty.”

——

At the apartment, Jason was opening the door for Justus. “Hey. Elizabeth had inventory at the club. We can head over if you need her—”

“No, no,  you can pass this on to her. I talked to Ned about the papers, and he thinks it might be good to tell Alan and Edward that divorce papers exist. Nothing else about them,” Justus added. “He won’t tip our hand that they’re not real. We don’t know for sure Monica knows they’re fake, so I want to keep that quiet until we have something else to work with.”

“What’s the point in telling Alan or Edward?” Jason opened the fridge, retrieved a beer. “You want something?”

“No, I’m good.” Justus leaned against the back of the sofa. “Ned says the financial audit really screwed with Alan’s head. He’s had it in his head Elizabeth was out for the trust fund from the beginning — apparently, when Elizabeth’s parents refused to pay for art school, you went to Alan asking for the money. You’d need his permission to take that amount all at once.”

“Let me guess — he assumed Elizabeth put me up to it.”

“This was maybe six months before you brought her to the party, so it wasn’t that long before you started dating her. When she turns up pregnant not much later—” Justus shrugged. “Look, Alan’s touchy about that kind of thing. Monica married him for his money back in the day. They went back and forth a lot with affairs and divorces. He watched it happen with AJ—”

“Elizabeth said something.”

“And he thought it was happening with you. He wasn’t wrong to be concerned. But he was wrong not to give Elizabeth a chance and to let Edward and Monica in his ear about her manipulating her. I’m not saying you gotta forgive the guy or start calling him Dad. I know he didn’t handle any of this well, and he was never that nice to Elizabeth either. He went for that power of attorney originally, before the conservatorship.”

“He was different in court,” Jason admitted. “When Elizabeth found out about the divorce. He answered her, remembered?”

“I do. Which is why I sent the audit to him. I thought proof that Elizabeth was supporting you would screw with him. It did. Emily said he was upset, confused. And now we’re going to put it in his head that Monica who told him about this divorce story has proof she’s never shown? He’s going to have questions. We need him to have questions. Because if the probate judge won’t appoint Elizabeth as co-conservator—”

“Alan could petition to dissolve without you,” Jason finished. “Okay. If you think so—”

“There’s another angle we could do to nail Monica down. There are only two people who know what happened that day,” Justus told Jason. “Monica will never tell us and you can’t remember. But we forgot that a third person showed up at some point.”

“AJ, the brother I never met because he’d already gone to rehab,” Jason said. “And hasn’t come back.”

“He’s in a six-month program. Best thing for him honestly but it was Monica’s idea to extend it to six months. Ned says she decided on that six weeks ago.”

“Six weeks ago—” Jason straightened. “Wasn’t that—”

“Around the same time I took your case? Isn’t it interesting that Monica found out about the conservatorship and divorce case and then took steps to make sure the only other witness to that day can’t come home and tell us what he knows?”

Jason leaned against the counter. “But he’s still not coming home for a month—”

“Ned told me where to find him. And he can make some calls, get you on the visiting list. Just tell him when.”

“Let me run this past Elizabeth.” Jason sipped the beer. “She hasn’t really wanted to talk about any of this the last few days. It was enough for her to know the papers weren’t real. But I don’t feel right about going to see AJ without telling her.”

“I don’t blame her for needing a break. When you live among the Quartermaines like you did and Emily still does — you get immune to the way they treat people. How they can turn so viciously on one another.” Justus picked up his briefcase. “Give me a call when you want me to set things up with Ned.”

—

“I have to tell you father,” Alan said, laying some papers on Edward’s desk. “I don’t know how this probate hearing is going to go. I think we’re looking at a loss.”

Edward grimaced, picked up the report. “Not if I make some calls,” he muttered.

“Do you really want to waste favors on this?” Alan asked. He paced across the study to the window then back. “I keep thinking about seeing Jason in court. He looked good, didn’t he?”

“Anyone can put on a suit and—”

“Father, he testified,” Alan cut in. “He sounded perfectly capable. Normal. All the things the doctors said he couldn’t be. He spoke about the aphasia without hesitation. Father, he never completed the testing in the hospital. If we’ve been underestimating his capabilty all this time—”

“I depended on you for the medicine! You told me the doctors said he was limited! That he’d never function normally, live independently—”

“I was devastated! One of my sons had permanently damaged the life of another! Can you even imagine the stress and pressure I was under—the grief—”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

Alan whirled to find Ned in the open door way. He grimaced. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to see how things were going in Jason’s case. I  would think you’d be feeling confident. At least in the divorce case. Have you filed an appeal?”

Edward stood up, flattened both his hands on the desk. “Have you come to gloat, you reprobate?”

“Me?” Ned set his hand against his chest. “I would never. I thought you’d be over the moon since Monica found those divorce papers.”

“Divorce—” Alan came towards him. “Explain. Now. What divorce papers?”

Ned widened his eyes. “I thought for sure you’d have seen them. They confirm everything you’ve been saying—Monica brought them to Elizabeth at Luke’s last week. Justus brought me a copy, wanting to get my perspective.” He handed them to Alan who snatched it up. “Strange that Monica didn’t tell you about them, isn’t it?”

“What is it?” Edward demanded, coming around his desk. “What’s going on?”

“Divorce papers—Jason was filing for divorce—” Alan stared at them for a long moment. Dated December 27. “He drew them up the day of the accident. He went to the lawyer and came straight here?”

“I suppose so. Why wouldn’t Monica give them to you if she had them all along?”

Edward snatched them from Alan, started to skim them. “Who is this lawyer? I’ve never heard of him.”

“Alan?” Ned asked, and his uncle looked at him, blinking. “When did Monica tell you about the divorce?”

“In the hospital. After the accident,” he said numbly. “She was hysterical when Tony told us Jason might never wake up. You can’t imagine. We’d just—we’d just lost our granddaughter. She never had a chance, did you know that? Dead on impact, the reports said. And Elizabeth having to wake up to it—whatever her faults, I know she loved that baby. Jason—he was just destroyed. And now another drunk driver—my own son—had taken Jason from us.”

“The divorce?” Ned pressed gently. Alan cleared his throat.

“Elizabeth was in the lobby, trying to get into the ICU, but Monica didn’t want her there. It was all her fault, Monica kept saying. Jason was at the house because of her. Because he was filing for divorce, and he came to tell us—and he saw AJ with the car—” Alan rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. “She begged me to keep Elizabeth away—she was absolutely hysterical, and I thought, all right. Just for tonight. Just to keep Monica calm.”

Alan exhaled slowly. “Later, she told me the rest of it. What Jason had told her. But she never, ever told me about these papers—Father—”

Edward shook his head, looked at his son. “They’re not real,” he said. “These—these are things that Jason would never say about that girl.”

Alan frowned. “What? What do you mean?”

“Blaming her for the accident. How many fights did we get into?” Edward wondered. “How many times did I demand that he see sense — that he admit if he’d just married a proper girl who didn’t work in a bar that Cadence would be alive — that it was Elizabeth’s fault—but Jason—he always defended her. Always. We had that last fight just before the holidays. I told him that as long as he was defending her, we didn’t have to speak a word. And he told me that it would be a cold day in hell before he came back to this house.”

Ned raised his brows. “But he came back.”

“I had that argument with him here in this room. December 20. A week later, after two months, he has an epiphany? He suddenly gives up and says everything we ever wanted him to believe about her? Using some of the exact same words that Monica herself had used?” Edward tossed the papers on the desk. “As much as I want to believe it — no wonder Monica never showed them to us. I’d never have believed my grandson would say those things. I may not think Elizabeth was worthy of the love or devotion he showed her, but I certainly won’t pretend he didn’t feel those things.”

“Then why did you believe he was asking for a divorce?” Ned asked. “You’re not making sense, Grandfather.”

“I thought—I thought he had doubts. I thought maybe—Monica told us it was because he believed the accident was Elizabeth’s fault, but I just—it was so hard. He was grieving so hard, Alan.” Edward looked at his son. “I just thought maybe he’d reached his breaking point, and he didn’t know how to explain to Monica, so he’d told her what she wanted to hear. I just—I thought maybe she’d asked him for money, and he’d begun to see what we’d always said, but now—now, I just don’t know.”

He sat down, scrubbed his face. “It’s one thing to have Monica tell you this is what he said, this is why he’s doing it, and it—it confirms what you think, so you just go along with it. Jason wanted a divorce. Why would Monica lie? But to see it in print, to see those words—the way it’s written. I don’t know. Maybe he did ask for the divorce. But those papers — that’s not how he would have done it. It’s cold. Jason—” Edward sighed. “He was soft, kind. He’d never have done that to her. Not that way. Even if I would have.”

Edward looked at Alan. “What the hell is your wife trying to pull?”

“I don’t know,” Alan said, grimly, “but I’m going to find out.”

—

Elizabeth tossed a copy of the schedule at Jason when he came to work later. “I gave us both off next Saturday,” she told him, reaching for the ingredients to blend a margarita. “We’re going to find an amusement park with good rollercoasters.”

Jason sighed. “We could do that, or we could do something else—”

“I’m not skydiving—”

“We could go see AJ in rehab.”

Her fingers stilled for a moment, then pressed the button to start the blender. Jason went to fill some orders, waiting for her to be done. When she’d handed off her own set of orders, she  came to stand next to him, leaning back against the bar.

“Why are we going to see AJ on Saturday?” she wanted to know. “Isn’t it enough to know the papers are fake?”

“They’re not fake in the way you mean. The lawyer is real. He drew them up. But nothing in them are real. I told you, the idea was to trick Monica. But no one knows if she knew they were real. When Monica found out Alan and Edward had started divorce proceedings based on her story, she arranged for AJ’s rehab stay to be doubled. He’s the only other person who was in the room that day.”

“A witness that can tell us what Monica knew and when. Maybe. If his alcohol-soaked brain remembers any of it. Well, you and Justus can go—”

“I want you to go with me. You know AJ—”

“You want me to go see the drunk driver that killed my husband?” Elizabeth bit out, then looked away. “I mean, you’re not dead. But that part of you is, and it’s never going back, so it’s not that different, okay? So why would I go? Why would either of us go? Tell Justus to go take a statement.”

“Because I want to look him in the eye,” Jason said, and she sighed. “You don’t have to go. I just thought maybe you’d need to see him the way I do. I don’t care much about who I used to be. I don’t care about the future I was planning, or the memories I lost. But I do care about it did to you. And that because of AJ, I’ll never know or remember my own daughter outside of pictures. So I need to see him. Just once. But you don’t have to go.”

“Good. Because I’m not.” And with that, the conversation was over, and Elizabeth moved to the other end of the bar to take another order.

Written in 65 minutes. Song at the end is Red Light Special (TLC)

---

Luke’s was in full swing by the time Jason arrived to work the eight to two shift, and the club was packed to the brim for a band Luke had lured up from New York for a special week of performances. Most of the time, Jason didn’t mind the crowds — he didn’t much like people but when it was busy, the night went quickly and no one lingered at the bar. He could fill the orders without much thinking, leaving his mind to wander on more important things.

Tonight, all he really wanted to do was tell Elizabeth what he’d learned at the lawyer’s office, wondering what her reaction would be to learning that the divorce papers had been a ruse to lure Monica into admitting her part in the press leaks. Jason was partially relieved his former self hadn’t been a complete asshole, but he also thought it was still a stupid idea. Why bother making Monica admit anything? He could have just cut the entire family off.

But there was barely a quiet moment to be had that night — the music was pumping, echoing off the walls, the dance floor was packed, and he could barely keep up with the demands for Blue Moons, Budweisers, Rolling Rocks, and the occasional Guiness. Elizabeth was working as quickly as she could to fill the orders for martinis, margaritas, and other stupid mixed drink people could think of.

The tips rolled in, though, and Jason appreciated those. Sky diving lessons weren’t going to come cheap, he thought, and he was still holding out hope he’d be able to convince Elizabeth to try it. He thought it might be like the bike only a thousand times more intense.

“Behind,” Elizabeth called out, scooting past Jason with a tray of drinks she delivered to  waiting server, then twirled around past him again to grab another set of orders. He watched her for an extra minute, wondering how she kept all those drinks straight in her head and could fill the orders flawlessly. And she still found time to check in with everyone at the bar, offering quick smiles conversations—

“Well, one thing hasn’t changed.”

Jason whipped his head around at the familiar voice shouted over the music. Emily had wedged herself into the a space on the bar. “Just give me a Corona!” she shouted over the music. Jason grunted, grabbed a glass, filled it and set it in front of the bar.

“Did you go to see the lawyer today?” Emily wanted to know when Jason came back from getting a new rack of orders from the server.

“Yeah,” he said, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard. “Long story short, they’re real but it was a trick. Monica was feeding stories to the press.”

Emily winced. “Damn it.” Whatever she said next was lost in the wave of music. “Did you tell Liz yet?”

“No. Not yet. And don’t say anything to Monica until we know what we want to do,” Jason told her. He delivered a drink order.

“Whatever you guys need.” Emily tossed a twenty on the bar, took her drink and disappeared into the crowd. He lost her after a few minutes, and focused on getting through the shift.

The band finished their set around eleven, and the club thinned out by at least half. There was finally time to take a breath.

“Christ, I think I’m going to clear a grand tonight,” Elizabeth muttered, shoving another wad of bills into the tip jar secured beneath the bar. “But I’m glad to have a minute to myself.” She grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler behind them, rested it against the skin left bare by her scoop-necked tank top.

Jason leaned against the bar back, folding his arms. “I don’t know how you can stand this every day,” he admitted. “This is way too many people.”

Elizabeth grinned at him. “You’d much rather working the opening shift when we have twelve people, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Jason said, immediately.

“This is definitely not your scene.” Elizabeth sipped her water, then handed him the bottle. “You should talk to Luke or Sonny about finding something else in the clubs. Less people, you know? I mean, I’d miss you back here,” she admitted. “But there’s no point working a job you hate.”

Jason took a long swig of water, handed it back. “I don’t hate it. But it’s not my favorite thing.”

“Did you like the warehouse when you worked there?” Elizabeth asked, before heading over to fill an order. She mixed some vodka with a spray of Coke, then delivered the drink.

“People left you alone. They gave you a task, and as long as you did, you weren’t bothered.”

“Sounds perfect for you. Seriously, when we get this conservatorship done, you should really think about what you want to do. You’ll have options again.”

“Maybe. You…you haven’t asked about the lawyer.”

Elizabeth sighed. “On purpose, I guess.” She looked towards the stage where the musicians were packing up. The live music had been replaced by the jukebox in the corner. “I don’t know about you, but I am really over dealing with the Quartermaines.”

“Since the moment I woke up,” Jason muttered, and she laughed. It was good, he thought, to see her happy. Whatever mind games Monica had tried to play, Elizabeth had brushed them off. She’d seemed much lighter in general since the day they’d packed up the second bedroom.

“We don’t have to get into the details, but you should know the papers weren’t for the court. They were to trick Monica into admitting something.”

Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, then tipped her head. “So he didn’t mean any of it?”

“No. Not a single word.”

She looked forward again, nodded. “Okay.” She smiled. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. Thank you. But everything else?”

“It can wait,” Jason promised.

“Tonight, I just want to pretend none of that is out there,” Elizabeth told him, and then went to server waiting at the end of the bar.

—

Across town, Justus Ward was also looking forward to putting this case to bed and not being surrounded constantly by the Quartermaines. But he’d gone to the gatehouse with the file Jack Bingham had given them after the apppointment.

“He never told me he was doing any of this,” Ned murmured, sifting through the press articles. “I thought that the press mostly went away after the funeral.”

“WKPC did,” Justus said. “But the Herald and Sun kept printing. I didn’t know Jason was charged with assault after punching a reporter until Luke mentioned it a few weeks ago. Did you?”

“He said nothing.” Ned picked up an editorial about rich families throwing their weight around. “Which makes you wonder why he was cutting us both out of the loop. Did he think we might be the leak?”

“He didn’t tell anyone, including Emily. But look — he’s circling things in every article. Facts that no one could know unless they’d been told personally. Maybe you could find out where their apartment building was, but not the apartment number.  This article talks about Elizabeth’s shifts at the bar — which she hadn’t worked since before the baby.”

“He was tracking how much information was being shared.”

“And after he got the charges dropped against the reporter, the day after Christmas, he went to see Bingham and came up with a scheme to make Monica think he was on her side.”

“And wrote up these divorce papers, designed specifically to delight her.” Ned stroked his chin. “But why would Monica not use them? I can’t believe Alan and Edward would have agreed to keep these quiet—”

“I think she knew they weren’t real. She told Alan and Edward Jason wanted a divorce. I bet  that’s when Alan went for the power of attorney, and it snowballed from there.”

“She knew if Elizabeth saw these papers, she might have ask the lawyer—”

“I have that covered, too. Bingham was instructed to confirm Jason was a client and these papers were real if he was ever asked. Only Jason would ever have been able to get the rest of info. Jason said Monica was ready to bolt when he showed up at the bar.”

“She wanted to guilt Elizabeth into leaving, but not have Jason ask too many questions. That’s desperation.” Ned closed the folder. “Alan and Edward have been singing a different tune since your financial audit came back the other day. Edward’s going to be in touch in a day or two to return Elizabeth’s money. Alan wants to drop the conservatorship.”

“Desperation,” Justus repeated. “Monica made one last play to get Elizabeth out of Jason’s life. Well, it backfired, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, I can just imagine.” Ned looked at Justus. “You know who we haven’t talked to yet. The only person who was in the house that day and can tell us what Monica and Jason were talking about.”

“That’s a good point. Do you know if AJ can have any visitors in rehab?”

—

The club continued to empty out as the clock crawled towards two, and the final pair of college students staggered out ten minutes to the hour. Elizabeth locked the front door with a relieved flourish, then leaned against it. “Thank God.”

Jason was on the floor, clearing empty glasses into the rubber tub. “Luke told you to stop scheduling doubles when you do inventory.”

“Well, tell him to hire me a bartender who can mix drinks next time,” she replied with a smirk. She headed over to the jukebox and flipped on the freeplay mode so that it would cycle through the songs. “Let’s clear down and get the hell out of here.”

Jason continued to clear the dirty glassware, setting them in the kitchen for the dishwashers the next morning while Elizabeth cashed out the registers, matching orders to the cash on hand.

When he returned, she was counting out money from the tip jar. “After we’re done paying out to the servers, and bus boys—it’s just under eleven hundred for us both.”

“Good. That covers the first round of sky diving lessons.” Jason leaned against the front of the bar, watching her count. “I’ll sign us for our next off day.”

“You can keep trying,” Elizabeth said, flashing him a quick smile, “but there’s no chance you get me to jump out of airplane.”

“You love the turns on the bike,” Jason reminded her. “The wind rushing past your face so loud you can’t hear anything—you don’t think it might be fun to try it from a thousand feet in the air?”

“Oh, God, not even a little bit,” she said with a shudder. “The bike is still on the ground.”

“You want me to try new things, but you won’t?” Jason asked. “Didn’t I let you teach me to dance?”

“I’m sorry, we’re definitely not calling what you tried to do dancing—”

“I managed the slower one,” Jason said, insulted. “I could do it if I wanted.”

Elizabeth just laughed and slid his share of the tips across the bar. “I’m sure you could. But I’m not skydiving, and you’re not dancing.”

“They’re not the same thing—”

“Ha! Exactly. You want me to jump out of a plane, you have to d something nearly as scary in return.”

Jason furrowed his brow. “Like what? What am I supposed to be scared of?”

“I don’t know, but when we think of something, we can trade the plane for it.” Elizabeth pocketed her tips. “But if you want to think of something smaller for me to do with you, like—I don’t know. What about roller coasters?”

“Roller coasters,” Jason repeated. “I don’t know if it’d be the same but we can talk about it. But I get something in return, don’t I?”

“Yeah, sure.” She propped her elbows on the bar, leaned forward, with a smirk on her lips. “What do you have in mind?”

Jason was stumped for a minute, but then the jukebox clipped to a different song, and the music was slower, not that different from that night in the apartment.

Take a good look at it look at it now
Might be the last time you’ll have a go round

“Dance with me.”

Elizabeth shrugged, came around the bar. “Okay, I was expecting some a bit more demanding but—”

He set his hands at her hips, pulled her close, and she smiled, tilting her head back to look at him. “Oh, okay, I see what you’re doing.”

I’ll let you touch it if you like to go down
I’ll let you go further if you take this southern route

“What am I doing?” he asked, sliding one hand into the back pockets of her jeans, the other resting on the strip of skin left bare between the hem of her tank top and her jeans.

Elizabeth curled an arm around his neck, her nails lightly scratching against the nape of his neck. “So you like this kind of dancing?”

Don’t go too fast don’t go too slow
You got to let your body flow

“I like anything that lets me touch you,” Jason told her, and the flush he liked so much rose from her chest into her cheeks. She rested a hand over his chest.

I like ’em attentive and I like ’em in control

“I like it, too,” she murmured, then leaned her head against his chest, curling into his arms, their dancing little more than just gently swaying to the slow pulsing music. The last time they’d danced, she’d still been nervous, he thought. But it was different now after all these weeks together.

Baby, it’s yours, all yours, if you want it tonight
I’ll give you the red light special all through the night

He stroked her back, from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck, then back again.

Baby, it’s yours, all yours, if you want it tonight
Come through my door, take off my clothes and turn on the red light

“Maybe we should go home,” Elizabeth murmured. She tipped her head up, her eyes dark and hooded. “If you’re ready.”

“We could do that,” Jason said, leaning down, brushing his lips against hers, lightly first—once, twice, then sinking in, drawing it out until they were both breathing heavily. “But I have a better idea—”

“I don’t think I’d ever be able to look Luke in the eye again if we had sex on his desk,” she quipped, and for that, he lightly pinched her butt. She laughed, but he kissed her again, cutting it off, dragging her hard against him.

I know that you want me, I can see it in your eyes
You might as well be honest, ’cause the body never lies

“I still have the key for the room upstairs,” he whispered in her ear. “Unless you really want to go all the home first—”

Tell me your secrets and I’ll, I’ll tell you mine
I’m feelin’ quite sexy and I want you for tonight

“Say less,” Elizabeth said, fisting her hand in his shirt and dragging him towards the back stairs. He laughed, following her up the steps and down the hall. She dug into his back pocket where he kept his keys, making sure to let her fingers return the pinch he’d given her. He put his hand at her neck and dragged her against him for a hard, intense kiss while fumbling with the keys in the lock.

If I move too fast (too fast) just let me know (just let me know)
‘Cause it means you move too slow

The door suddenly opened, and they fell through it,  Jason landing first with Elizabeth on top of him. She flattened her hand on either side of his head, and grinned. “Well, you know, the bed’s a good idea, but the floor will do just fine.”

He grinned, used a leg to kick the door closed, then dragged her top over her head. “For the first time anyway. We’ll get to the bed eventually.”

I like some excitement and I like a man that goes
Baby, it’s yours, all yours, if you want it tonight

Written in 59 minutes. I’m a little annoyed. I was hoping I’d have time to do add a quick Liason scene that wasn’t in the outline after the Luke/Jason scene in the beginning, but I ran out of time. It’ll be there in the edits, so just imagine Jason going home to Elizabeth that night, lol.

---

“Thought you were gonna sit out tonight,” Luke said when Jason joined him behind the bar later that night for his regularly scheduled shift. “You bring Lizzie with you?”

“No, she’s still at home,” Jason replied, then got to work.

When the night’s featured act took the stage, there was a lull in the drink orders, giving Luke a chance to dig in a little bit more. “How she taking it?”

Jason hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know. She told me to come to work, and not to leave you short handed. I think she wanted some time alone.” He took a tub of dirty glasses, then returned from the kitchen with a rank of clean ones.

“For what it’s worth, I meant what I said earlier. This isn’t real. I don’t know what the doc is cooking up, but I don’t buy any of it.” Luke paused. “But you didn’t want any part of that old life, so maybe it doesn’t matter to you—”

“You think I don’t care that they’re using me to hurt her again?” Jason demanded, his eyes flashing. “Because they ran out of everything else, now they’re dragging up things she said—” He stopped. “Monica knew things that only…that she have only learned from him.”

“From you,” Luke corrected, and Jason glared at him. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit about not being Jason Quartermaine. It’s a copout. Lets you walk away from all the people and things in your life, acting like none of them existed. But they did. Just because you don’t remember it—that don’t erase what you did or said. Maybe that works on Elizabeth, maybe that’s how you get her hooked again—”

“Do you have something to say to me?” Jason cut in sharply. “Because this is none of your business—”

“The hell it’s not.” Luke grimaced when his tone and volume caught some eyes. He jerked his thumb towards the back office. “Let’s go. Claude,” he called to the man at the end of the bar. “Take over for a bit.”

In the office, Luke headed straight for his chair and box of cigars. “Don’t you ever tell me what happens to Elizabeth isn’t my business. Who do you think scraped her off the damn floor when your family locked her out of your life? When they stole her money? Tried to evict her from her home? You don’t get to ride in here like the white knight after me and Sonny and Mike did the hard work of keeping her in one piece—”

“And you don’t get to take credit for what she did. You stood by her, and that’s great. But getting up and still fighting? Elizabeth did that, not you.”

Some of the flush faded from Luke’s cheek, and he squinted, tipped his head. “She did. No one’s disputing that. But—”

“I get that you don’t want me in Elizabeth’s life. That you only brought me here so she’d see that I didn’t remember her, so she’d move on. But I’m not going anywhere until she tells me to.”

Luke sat down, lit his cigar, then leaned back. “When Lizzie first took up with you, I told her — that one will only bring you down. Edward and Alan will never see past her lack of college education and polish, and no one will ever be good enough for Monica’s golden boy. She told me she didn’t care and went on her merry way. I never liked you.”

“I don’t think that much of who I used to be either,” Jason said, some of his own anger fading. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that despite knowing you’d bring her nothing but pain, I changed my mind about you a little after you lost that baby.” He sat up, had to take a minute. “Christ, the way that accident would have leveled even a strong man, and I figured you were such a weak-willed Mama’s boy that you’d crumble under the pressure, and how could anyone blame you? You’re barely grown, and you got a wife in the ICU who might not live, and that angel who never had much of a chance to live—who would have blamed you if you’d been like your brother and crawled into a bottle?”

Luke tipped the ash from the cigar into a nearby ash tray. “But you didn’t falter. You sat with Elizabeth until she woke up, until they knew she’d recover. And you found the strength to tell her that awful news. Maybe it’s good that you don’t remember that part.” He waited a beat. “And you stood up to your family when they wanted to blame her. That’s the part Doc isn’t remembering. You stood in that hospital and told them off when Monica started going in on Lizzie working here, bringing Cady here. You knew she was only coming by to show that darling off to her family. Because me and Sonny, we’re her family. You knew that, Jason. You said it before Elizabeth ever woke up from that accident.”

Jason leaned forward, realizing where Luke was going. “So why, two months later, did I write in divorce papers that I blamed her all along?”

“Exactly —” Luke gestured at him with the cigar. “And that’s crap about suicide threats — you brought her to us that day. You sent her off with Sonny, and you sat in this office—” His voice faltered, and he looked away. “You told me what she’d said. And that you were worried that she meant it. Because she couldn’t live with the guilt. You knew she blamed herself, and you were scared she’d never accept the truth. That the only person to blame was the damn driver they never found.”

“I told you that,” Jason said slowly.

“You did. And you asked us to sit with her while you cleaned up things at home. You’d put everything in her room because Elizabeth would be ready one day, and you’d be there when she was. But until then, you had to protect what was left of your family.” Luke looked at him. “So when I say there’s not a chance in hell that you went to some cheap ass lawyer to sell Elizabeth up the river, I’m telling you it as a fact. I gained more respect for you in that single conversation than I had in all the time that came in front of it. Monica is working some scheme. I don’t know how she knows about those threats, but you told me. You might have told someone else who passed those on to her.”

“They know they’re going to lose in court,” Jason said. “That’s why she’s doing this now. The probate hearing is coming in a few weeks.”

“You do yourself a favor — you get to the bottom of this divorce thing, and you go into that hearing and you show just how relentless that family has been to get her out of your life. It goes back so much further than you know. This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to use the law against you and her. Did she talk about the business about a prenuptial agreement? How they tried to force it through ELQ, freezing your trust fund and putting your medical school tuition at risk?”

“She mentioned it.”

“You put that together with the bullshit about the power of attorney, this conservatorship, the divorce they filed, and now this—this is the nail in the coffin. So do yourself and Elizabeth a favor — find out what the hell you were doing at that house before the accident.”

—

“Jack J. Bingham.” Justus scowled as they looked at the sign above the dingy building and pot-holed ridden parking lost. “It just sounds like an ambulance chaser.”

“Sonny said this guy was cheap, used by the strippers he knew at the Paradise Lounge.” Jason folded his arms. “You think Monica paid him off?”

“I think there’s always a possibility, especially since these were never filed, so it’d be tough to prove an ethical violation.” Justus pulled open the door. “Let’s go find out.”

Inside, the lobby looked even worse. The carpet was threadbare, with patches of subfloor peeking through. The walls were peeling, and the chairs didn’t look like they’d support a small child much less a grown adult.

A woman with blonde hair sat behind the receptionist desk. Her eyes were wide when she saw Jason and Justus. “Oh. I didn’t have an appointment on the books.”

“This is going to sound like a strange question,” Justus began, flashing a bright smile. “But my client here, Jason Quartermaine, was in a car accident that damaged his memory. You might have read about it in the papers.”

“Oh.” Her voice was breathy, and somehow high-pitched at the same time. “I did! But if he’s your client—are we representing the driver?”

“No. Recently, my client was made aware of some divorce papers created on his behalf. There’s a claim that he directed Mr. Bingham to file them. We were hoping to confirm that and have a conversation about it.”

The woman accepted the papers Justus handed her. “Well, that’s our letterhead. I’ll go get Jack. See if he can take a minute.”

She disappeared behind a door, and Jason sighed. “Why the hell would I do this?” he muttered.

“We’re going to find out.”

The woman reappeared. “Jack says come on back.”

They followed her back through the door and into an office that wasn’t much better than the lobby. A tall man, with a receding hair line and a bulge around the middle got up from his chair, came around the desk. “Mr. Quartermaine, can’t say I expected to see you again.”  He extended his hand, but Jason just stared at him.

“So I was a client.”

“Yes, well…” Jack Bingham shifted uncomfortable. “I suppose you don’t remember.”

“No. Not until Monica Quartermaine gave these to my wife—” He gestured at the papers in Justus’s hand. “Are they real?”

“Well, that would depend on your definition.” Jack gestured for them to take a seat, and reluctantly Jason did. “You came to me a few days before Christmas and asked me to draw up divorce papers.”

Jason gripped the arms of the chair tightly, his stomach rolling. “I did.”

“You never intended to file them,” Jack continued, and Jason released his first easy breath in twenty-four hours. “It’s not unusual for a spouse to draw up papers as a threat, so I was happy to do it, but you wanted me to know that your wife was never supposed to see them.”

Jason straightened slightly. “She wasn’t?”

“No. And if you remembered that, you’d be very angry right now,” Jack said. He went to a filing cabinet, pulled out a thin green hanging folder with white hooks. He set it down and flipped it open. “You’d been collecting newspaper articles since your wife and daughter were in an accident.” He slid the file across to Jason, but Jason didn’t touch it.

“Why would I do that? Why would I create a divorce that Elizabeth would never see?”

“Because you were hoping it would be enough leverage so that your mother would admit she’d been the leak to the press,” Jack said. “For weeks, there had been editorials and news coverage about the accident. About the search for the driver. About the funeral. Every little tidbit. And they were full of information that no reporter could have known without a source. The final straw for you to come to me was the reporters outside your building.”

Justus frowned, looked at Jason. “I knew you were having issues with the press, but I didn’t know they came to the apartment.”

“They knew where you lived. And they had been lying in wait for your wife outside in the hallway,” Jack said. “And shoved a camera in her face the first day she was going back to work.”

Jason scrubbed a hand down his face. “The reporter. Luke said I punched one.”

“Yeah. And the reporter was going to file charges until you threatened trespassing charges. Suddenly, he was full of information. And had no problem revealing the source came from your family. But that was far as he was willing to go.”

“So you put together papers that would convince Monica everything she ever thought about Elizabeth was true. So she’d admit the truth.” Jason grimaced. “And I must have gone to the house with them.”

“I heard about your accident later and just assumed you never had a reason to use them. But I suppose you got as far as talking to your mother—”

“She’s not my mother,” Jason interrupted. “She’ll never be my mother. This isn’t what mothers do, is it?” He thought of Elizabeth, the way she’d talked about their daughter, the loving way she’d packed Cady’s things, the way she’d looked in photos, holding the baby— “She made Elizabeth’s life miserable.”

“I’m sorry. I tried to talk you out of it,” Jack said, “but—” He gestured at the office. “It’s not like I can turn down a paying client. I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way you hoped.”

“No, it really didn’t.”

—

Elizabeth had gone to the club, not wanting to sit around the apartment waiting for Jason to get back from meeting with the lawyer. She’d busied herself doing scut work and redoing the inventory she’d never finished.

But it was impossible to put it out of her head — to stop wondering if everything she’d thought about her life had been nothing more than a lie—

“Hey, darlin’, any word?”

Elizabeth turned, saw Luke sliding onto a bar stool, a glass of whiskey already in his hand. “No. No, not yet.”

“You shouldn’t worry so much. I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass when I tell you whatever those papers are, they’re not real.” Luke raised his brows. “And you know how I felt about that husband of yours, so I ain’t lying.”

“I know. I know. But—” Elizabeth sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re not real. Maybe Monica cooked them up or Jason had a plan—I should know, right? I should be able to be one hundred percent certain that my husband loved me—”

“And you think because you got some doubts that somehow it messes up everything else?” Luke shook his head. “You forget how chaotic it all was. How messy and rough it all was. You and Jason were finding your way after a traumatic, terrible event. Maybe you didn’t handle it well, maybe he didn’t confide in you — but that doesn’t have to change what you do know.”

“It shouldn’t, but—”

“Do you know why I wanted to bring Jason here to work?”

“To jolt me back into the land of the living,” Elizabeth said with a half smile. “To show me that I was just standing still—”

“You were holding onto the dream that if you and Jason saw each other, somehow you’d be the exception to all the rest of it. That he’d see you, and he’d feel something. Maybe he still wouldn’t remember, but what you had, it mattered enough to survive whatever that rock did to his brain.”

“I was wrong, and I needed to see that—”

“You were right,” Luke cut in gently. Startled, Elizabeth’s eyes flew to his, and he grinned. “You know how much I hate to say that, but you were right. Maybe it took some time for it find root again. But from the moment that boy knew who you’d been to him, when he found out about his daughter — something was there. And now look at you—”

“Luke—”

“I sat with him in my office yesterday after that whole scene, ready to tear him a new one because as far as I was concerned, he was doing nothing but messing up your life and making it impossible for you to move on. But he did the ripping. Came at me for acting like me and Sonny did all the hard work of keeping you in one piece. Because as far as he was concerned, the only person that deserved that credit was you. And he was right. You took hits that would have leveled someone twice your age—and you kept taking them. But you got back up again. And you kept trying. And he saw that. He wanted to make sure I did, too.”

Elizabeth blinked, holding back the tears stinging her eyes. “Luke.”

“You don’t think there’s a little something to wonder about how out of every one in Jason’s life, you’re the one he’s let back in? Whatever dumbass thing your husband was doing at the Qaurtermaine house that day, I can’t picture him turning his back on you. Not then, with all you’d been through. And not now. There’s something about you that he can’t let go of. Even when he doesn’t remember anything else. You don’t have to doubt that, Lizzie. Not anymore.”