Open your eyes
And look outside
Find the reasons why
You’ve been rejected
And now you can’t find
What you left behind
Be strong, be strong now
Too many, too many problems
Don’t know where she belongs
Where she belongs
– Nobody’s Home, Avril Lavigne

---

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Corinthos Penthouse: Living Room

When Sonny strode out from the kitchen after cleaning up breakfast, he found Carly seated at his desk, the phone at her ear, and a pen in her hand.

“I’m sorry, Jen, but I’m not okay with that cost—no, you tell David Harris that we can buy our liquor from a thousand people. If he wants our business, he’s not raising our prices. Not right before the holiday season—”

Carly smiled at him, but she was distracted, turned away from him. Sonny frowned and went over to pour himself another cup of coffee from the pitcher they’d left warming on the side table.

“Okay. Let me know. Don’t worry—this won’t be your job much longer. I’ll be back before you know it. Yeah, okay—see you later.” Carly hung up the phone and crossed over to him, gracing him with a looser smile than he’d seen in a few days. She poured herself the last of the orange juice and joined him at the table. “Sorry. I guess I can’t turn off work.”

“I thought you’d turned The Cellar over to a manager while you were out on maternity leave,” Sonny said. He furrowed his brow. “Aren’t you taking a few months?”

“Oh, no. That’s the best thing about being my own boss,” Carly told him. “I get to pick my hours. Morgan can nap in my office while I work, and I can build my schedule around him. At least for the first few months, and Leticia will take over whenever—” Her smile faded. “You don’t look happy.”

“I—” Sonny shrugged lightly. “No, I guess I just didn’t think about you going back to work. You don’t have to—”

“I like the club,” Carly said with a frown. “You know, with Jax taking a sabbatical from his company to work with Ned in the mayor’s office, he offered to sell me Club 101.”

“You don’t have the funds to do that,” Sonny said shortly, his shoulders tensing at the suggestion of his wife doing business with Jasper Jacks.

Carly exhaled slowly. “I guess I don’t have the cash on hand to do it outright,” she murmured. “But The Cellar is doing really well. I can easily get a business loan, and I’m sure Jax will work something out. He only pushed me out of the club when we got back together. He didn’t want to be in business with you.”

“And that’s changed?” Sonny demanded.

“No,” Carly drawled. “But he’s seen what I’ve done at The Cellar, and he’s impressed by how I launched it. We draw an older crowd there, and 101 is more for younger—” She sat back. “Sonny, just say it. You don’t want me to work.”

“Don’t say it like that. I’ve always supported you,” Sonny said, but Carly shook her head.

“No, you liked it when I asked you for things. You forced Laura to let me into Deception, and you gave me the money for The Cellar. I did the work, but I know the backing came from you. Is it just that you don’t like that I’m doing well at it?” She squinted at him. “That maybe I could do Club 101 on my own? Without you?”

“No. I just—” Sonny grimaced. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think you’d be going back to work already. Morgan’s barely a week old—”

“You went back to work the next day,” Carly said softly. She focused on him. “I like my job, Sonny. I’m good at it. And I’m happy to be more than a wife and mother. I never thought I’d be good at something like this.”

“I’m glad, but—you should just—” Sonny shook his head. “You should stop hanging out with Elizabeth,” he muttered.

Carly did a double take, widening her eyes. “What—What are you even talking about? Elizabeth and I don’t hang out—and she’s not even working right now—”

“She’s volunteering at the hospital,” Sonny told her. “Jason told me she’s planning to do that right up until she has the baby—and then she’s going to school to get better at it.” He shook his head. “And you—Morgan barely knows who you are and you want to leave him with a nanny—”

“Ah.” Carly smiled at him—a sickly, sweet smile. “You didn’t mind giving me a little help to go to work, so I wouldn’t irritate you at home. Michael was at school already, and you wanted to keep me out of trouble. But now that I have an infant, I need to be occupied all the damn time.” She jerked out of her seat and stalked away towards the kitchen. “I never knew you were so damn sexist—”

“I’m not sexist. Women can do whatever the hell they want,” Sonny retorted as he followed her. He arrived in the kitchen just as she tossed the rest of the orange juice down the drain. “All I said was you didn’t have to work—”

“And then got angry because I said I wanted to. In fact, Sonny, Morgan’s birth was so relatively easy that I could go back in another week,” Carly tossed back at him. “I never thought you’d be like this—”

“You can’t go back to work until we find Ric.”

Carly stared at him for a long moment, then closed her eyes. Then she looked at him, her hand braced on the counter. “Speaking of Ric, how is that going? You haven’t said.”

“We haven’t found him. That’s all you need to know.”

Clearly, that was the wrong answer because his wife just stared at him, her lips pursed. “What?” Sonny demanded defensively. “I’m sorry. We’re doing the best we can—”

“Don’t bother. I’ll just ask Elizabeth,” Carly snarled. She shoved past him. “I can’t believe nothing has changed—”

“What does that mean, you’ll ask Elizabeth?” Sonny followed her as she stalked towards the stairs. “She doesn’t know anything either!”

Carly stopped on the landing, whirling around to glare daggers at him. “She knows more than I do. Because Jason respects her. He tells her things—and I bet when she told him that she wanted to go back to work, he just asked what the hell he could do to help!”

Sonny’s scowl deepened as he charged up the stairs at her, catching her just before entering the master bedroom. “We’re not Jason and Elizabeth,” he retorted.

She glared at him from just over the threshold. “No shit.”

Then she slammed the door.

Municipal Building: Scott’s Office

For the second time in as many weeks, Elizabeth allowed Scott to usher her into his office, where Ned and Lois were waiting.

Lois’s mouth tightened when she saw Elizabeth. “Oh, it’s bad news, isn’t it?” she murmured, looking at Scott. “You never would have asked Elizabeth to come in if it wasn’t.”

“Uh, it’s not that it’s bad news,” Scott said. He gestured for them to take a seat. “It’s just that it’s surprising news—”

“Unless you’re telling someone shanked the bastard in prison, everything else is bad news,” Ned bit out as he pulled out chairs for Lois and Elizabeth. He sat on the other side of the conference table. “Don’t try to sugar coat this, Scott. What’s going on?”

“It seems Vinnie’s lawyer has been playing a few cards we didn’t see coming,” Scott admitted. “Heed the U.S. Attorney’s office in Syracuse asking them to support a petition to the federal court. He’s arguing that the PCPD violated his civil rights by framing him—the way Mac framed Tom Baker with the false lab report.”

Elizabeth exhaled slowly, looked at Lois, then at Scott. “I don’t understand. Vinnie—you said he made a deal—this was over. He just needed to be sentenced—”

“That was the situation in October when this all went down,” Scott told them. “I didn’t expect it to change. With the attack on Elizabeth and the DNA results, I honestly thought we’d closed the book on him.”

“But you seem worried,” Lois murmured, her eyes filled with worry. Without thinking, she reached next to her to squeeze Elizabeth’s hand. They exchanged a tense look—the horror of Vinnie beating these charges was almost too much for either of them to bear.

“The evidence is still there, isn’t it? The DNA tests—my testimony,” Elizabeth said. “Why do you think making this a federal case will be a problem?”

“Because I think there’s a reason Syracuse is interested in this,” Scott told them. “Otherwise, there’s no point in getting involved with a serial rapist case with evidence like ours. The feds are looking to prove they take allegations of police abuse seriously.”

“And that might be enough for them to screw over six women?” Ned demanded. “Six victims, Scott!”

“Nine,” Elizabeth corrected softly. “Three more in Buffalo. Lucky told me those DNA results came back positive for DNA. And God knows how many others.” She took a deep breath as the others focused on her. “I’ve been thinking about it—about the gaps in the original attacks. The ones that began with me in 1998. I can’t believe he’d wait a year.”

Ned frowned her, then exhaled on a swear. “That fall with the Baker trial. You had contact with the PCPD.”

“Not even just that fall,” Elizabeth said. “If you’re right, and Vinnie was triggered to attack someone when I was at the PCPD—I had a lot of involvement that first year. My first report—when Lucky and I were dragged in for being runaways before the Tom Baker case. All of that was before the garage fire.”

“How many women might never have reported?” Lois said. “It’s horrible to think about.”

“Those long gaps only make sense if they never came forward. That’s—” She looked at Scott. “That’s one of the reasons I started the support group. I put an ad in the paper, and I did an interview on the news about it. I wanted to see if anyone would come forward.”

“Have they?” Scott asked, dreading her answer.

“Not yet, but we’ve only met once,” Elizabeth said. “But Ned’s point is true. Everyone knows if he raped nine women, he might as well have raped double that. What could he possibly offer that would get him a deal?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I’m still trying to find out. It’s possible we might not know that unless the judge agrees the PCPD violated Vinnie’s civil rights. They could just order a change of venue—” Scott hesitated. “The judge could throw the entire case out. I’d like to say it’s not going to happen, but—”

“But the PCPD does have a history of falsifying evidence and burying cases,” Ned muttered. “And the Lansing case didn’t help matters. Well, I’ve already fired Mac. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“So we need to convince the judge Vinnie wasn’t framed,” Elizabeth said. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s make that happen. How does the hearing work? Do you—do you just make arguments? Can you present witnesses?”

“It’s a preliminary hearing. His lawyer has to prove malfeasance. I’m sure Mac will be getting a subpoena any day now. Floyd as well,” Scott added.

“Then I’ll testify there,” Elizabeth said. Her smile was thin. “And the DNA evidence—Taggert said he sent that to an FBI lab for more advanced testing. That was why it took so long to come back in the first place. But if it’s my case and the lab report—” She closed her eyes. “You can drop my rape case. Go ahead with one of the other women.”

“No,” Ned snapped. He slapped his hand on the table. “Damn it. No. You are not sacrificing Elizabeth again,” he told Scott sharply.

“Ned,” Lois said softly. “Elizabeth might have a point. If this whole ploy is predicated on what Mac did with her rape kit—”

“I don’t care! She shouldn’t have to pay for this—haven’t we paid enough?” Ned demanded, his eyes burning into hers.

“Ned, it’s more important that we get justice for all of us,” Elizabeth told him. She reached across the table to put her hands around his fist before he could slam the table again. “Brooke can’t fight. I can. I’m okay as long as he goes to jail—”

“I appreciate that, Elizabeth,” Scott said, his voice oddly thick. He cleared his throat. “But that’s not—I agree with Ned. I’m not going to ask you to sacrifice yourself the way Mac and Floyd did. Tom Baker went to jail for blackmail because that was the easier case to prosecute. I’m aware that they might throw out your DNA results as an alternative to letting Vinnie go entirely. But that will be up to a court to decide.”

Elizabeth exhaled and leaned back. “Scott—”

“What I’m worried about is Taggert going on the stand to talk about what happened in Pentonville,” Scott admitted.

“Because Jason went with him,” Elizabeth said, “I—I can understand how that might affect things, make his statement look coerced—”

“I okayed it,” Scott stressed. “I knew there was a chance it might come back to bite us, but we needed to find out what Baker knew. I could call Baker in rebuttal—he’s being released on parole next month—”

“Call Lucky,” Lois suggested. “He broke the case at the same time. You can save Taggert for the trial here, if it ends up coming to that. But Lucky came to the same results. Kelsey was on her way to get a warrant, wasn’t she?”

Scott scrubbed his hands over his face. “I can, but he’s a rookie, and Taggert led the case. There might be a suggestion that Baker was lying—that’s what I mean about falsifying evidence. Coercing a confession—”

“Then call Baker to testify about the conversation,” Elizabeth said, desperation clawing at her. “Scott—”

“It will still come up,” Ned told her. “And knowing Jason—” The corner of his mouth lifted. “It might not be the only trip he made to Pentonville.”

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said to Scott, tears stinging her eyes. “I should have—I should have thought about it—”

Lois shook her head. “No, no, sweetheart.” She put an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders. “Don’t you doubt yourself. Or Jason. Taggert came to you with this idea, not the other way around. And Scott said it himself—he wanted to get a lead. It was worth it—”

“Was it?” Elizabeth demanded. “If we can’t prove that Vinnie did it—if they throw out the DNA evidence—if Taggert can’t testify without getting him or Jason into trouble—”

Scott cleared his throat to get her attention. “Taggert doesn’t care about that,” he told her. “He said he’d take whatever came his way. And I’m sure we could figure out a way to downplay it. I just—” He shifted, uncomfortable. “If Vinnie’s lawyer subpoenas Jason, I might not be able to protect him.” His expression was slightly sour as he continued. “Here, in Port Charles, I could give him immunity—”

Elizabeth emitted a startled laugh, pressing her fingers to her lips. “I’m sorry. I just—I’m sorry. This is all just ridiculous.” She pressed her hands to her eyes, took a deep breath.

“Scott, what exactly is the end game here?” Ned asked. “You’re painting a pretty dark picture—”

“No, what I’m explaining is that—” Scott grimaced. “I’m not going to call Taggert. The defense will expect me to, and he’ll be on my list of witnesses. So will Jason and Mac. Just to cover my bases. I’ll give him a list that might keep him from issuing his own subpoenas.”

“And then you won’t call them,” Ned nodded, realization dawning.

“Because I’ll be testifying first,” Elizabeth said. “You’re—you’re telling me that’s the game plan. That—that my testimony will hopefully be enough to convince Vinnie’s attorney not to call anyone else other than maybe Mac and Floyd.”

“Yes,” Scott admitted. “I know that’s a lot of pressure to put on you, Elizabeth. Maybe too much. And believe me, Bobbie has made that very clear to me when we’ve talked about your testimony. I don’t want to do anything that might hurt you.”

Ned frowned, looked at Elizabeth. “Is everything okay? What’s—”

“No one said anything about you being sick,” Lois cut in. “Edward would have—”

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth assured them both. “I had an appointment last week, and the baby and I are fine. Scott’s just worried about my blood pressure because of blood clots and the embolism in my medical history. Thank you,” she told him. “I appreciate your concern. But you’re right. The best chance at keeping all of that out of the hearing is for my testimony to close the door. To preview what testimony I might give in a trial.”

“I have no doubt you’ll hit it out of the park, I just—I don’t like the situation it’s put you in.”

“I don’t either,” Elizabeth admitted. “But you still have the DNA evidence—and the lab tech can testify to that.” She smiled at him. “Let me take care of the rest. I won’t let you down.”

Kelly’s: Diner

 

“Good, you’re both already here.”

Maxie dumped her purse on the counter, climbed up on the stool, and looked at Lucas and Lulu intently. “We need to do some damage control.”

Lulu winced. She picked up a container of salt and refilled one of the shakers while Lucas just closed his eyes. “Oh, man,” Lucas muttered. “What did you do? Was it illegal? Because if we need to hide a body or something—”

Maxie glared at them. “How dare you suggest that when I say damage control, I mean about something I did! Why does everyone treat me like I’m a walking disaster?”

“Uh—” Lulu widened her eyes. “Life. Life is why. You remember when the Maximum Maxie thing hit the web? Deenie made a smart remark, and you tried to shove her off the porch—”

“It wasn’t that far off the ground,” Maxie said with a sniff.

“Oh, remember when you and Georgie snuck out of the Halloween Party last year?” Lucas asked. “You got kidnapped by Luis Alcazar—”

“Not my fault—”

“Oh, yeah, and then at my birthday party the year I turned twelve,” Lulu said, “you pulled Deenie’s hair, and when she told on you, you put laxatives in her milkshake—” She frowned. “Do you really not like Deenie or something?”

“Listen,” Maxie said testily. “This is—”

“Or that time she had a crush on your brother,” Lucas continued with his eyes sparkling. “And she flattened her own tire when she thought he’d be driving past that part of the road—”

Lulu squealed with laughter. “Oh my God! And she ended up stuck up at Vista Point overnight!”

“If you keep going,” Maxie said, tightly, “I am going to need to hide a body. Two of them—”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just once we start talking about your greatest hits, we get carried away,” Lulu said without an ounce of regret.

“We could talk about the time you thought you saw Paul Walker get on a bus, and you and Georgie accidentally ended up in St. Paul,” Maxie said with a lift of her brows. “Or how about the time you shoved Deenie’s little sister in the sandbox, and then rubbed sand in her face until she almost choked—”

“Their entire family had it coming,” Lulu muttered. “And thanks, by the way, for helping me and Lucas get home from St. Paul without Mom and Aunt Bobbie finding out. Okay, okay. What’s the damage control?”

“Georgie,” Maxie said. “Mom said she’s not doing great.”

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “This sounds like a girl thing—”

Maxie grabbed his elbow before he could dance away. “Uh — not so fast, buddy. You can help us. Look, what happened last summer—” She focused on Lucas. “It was rough on all of us. But Georgie really did like Brooke by the end of it. You and Georgie were closer to her—other than Dillon. And then Georgie did something we didn’t like, and we cut her off.”

She looked at Lulu, who sighed. “And I started dating her boyfriend,” Lulu said with a nod. “Yeah. I know. Look, if it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure it’s not true love—”

“What would make me feel better is if none of it ever happened,” Maxie cut in. “But that’s not an option. I guess—I mean, I can’t tell Dillon what to think about any of it. But the three of us—we can be nicer. And Felix and Kyle will do what we tell them to do,” she told Lucas.

“Now that the election is over and Vinnie is in jail…it does seem pointless to keep this going,” Lucas admitted. “Let’s just—the next time we see her—let’s just relax and maybe give her a chance to put it behind us. She’s working later, right?” he asked Lulu.

“Yeah, she’s taking over for Penny at four.”

“I’ll call Felix, ask him to come over after class. Maxie, you stick around. We’ll make it a point to be friendly. Let her know that we can just—we can move on. We might disagree on what happened, but it’s over. And she’s still my cousin,” Lucas said.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” She looked at Lulu. “And if Deenie does comes in here, do you know where Bobbie keeps the laxatives? I still really hate her.”

PCPD: Squad Room

“This is some Grade A bullshit,” Lucky declared, leaning forward at his desk. He scowled at Taggert, then at Mac. “How can the feds screw us like this?”

Across from him, Dante struggled to absorb the news the commissioner and his lieutenant had just given them—

And the sinking feeling that he might have a way out of this.

“I’m sorry,” Mac said, his face deeply lined in shame. “I never—I never thought what I did—that it would come back like this.”

“It shouldn’t, though,” Cruz said, wrinkling his nose in confusion. “We didn’t falsify evidence in her case—I mean, yeah, there’s that lab report, but it never got entered into evidence. And it wasn’t actually run by a lab. The dress wasn’t contaminated. And—” He hesitated. “Well, I’m sorry, Commissioner, but you’ve been fired and admitted to what you did. How can it be this bad?”

“Apparently, the brief isn’t just using what Mac did—” Taggert shot Mac an irritated look. “But also what happened over the summer. There’s a suggestion that because the PCPD screwed up the Lansing case so badly, that we reopened Elizabeth’s rape to get out of a lawsuit—”

“That we solved her rape case to keep her from suing us?” Lucky huffed. “That is the dumbest shit—”

“She wasn’t going to sue,” Dante said, finally. “Was she? I mean—was that a real threat?”

“While her lawyer might have advised it, I doubt Elizabeth ever seriously considered it. But it gives us motive. Because I’m not sure I’d be able to say honestly that it wasn’t fuel for me to push with this case once I knew hers was connected.”

“Not to mention Lucky working the case,” Mac said. “His connection to Elizabeth was invaluable, but it might also be given the flavor of bias—”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Cruz insisted. “There’s DNA evidence in all the other cases, too. Vinnie was literally arrested attacking Elizabeth—”

“His story was initially that she flipped out and attacked him—that she was jumpy with everything that had happened to her and the case being reopened,” Taggert said. “I’m not saying this isn’t all stupid and insane, I’m just telling you what Baldwin is telling me. The system doesn’t always work the way we want it to.”

“Yeah, like a court giving Lansing a say over her medical treatment for twelve freaking hours,” Dante muttered. He scrubbed his hand over face, sat up. “Baldwin is going to call Elizabeth. Just her?”

“With the DNA results in evidence, her testimony should be able to link the cases. His deal was only for Elizabeth’s charges—the attack five years ago and the more recent one. He remains charged with the others.”

“And there’s Buffalo behind us,” Mac reminded them. “They’re holding off on charging him until we conclude here. They can always go after him, and they don’t have the same problem as we do—”

“We,” Dante muttered, and Mac nodded, accepting the censure.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said slowly, “but it wasn’t. I should have done things differently, but Rodriguez is right. I’ve been fired, and the day of the hearing is my last day. We’re hoping that will help.”

“This just doesn’t seem fair,” Lucky said with a shake of his head. A few minutes later, their questions answered, Mac returned to his office, and Taggert and Cruz left on a follow-up interview for another case.

Lucky frowned at Dante across their desks. “You okay? You’ve been quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just—” Dante took a deep breath. “Just thinking of things we could do. I mean, this—he’s my family. My blood. I hate that he can keep putting Elizabeth Webber through this crap.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not wild about it either. She’s pregnant, you know,” Lucky told him. Dante raised his brows. “It’s mostly being kept in the family, but I’m not happy that she’s being pushed to do this with that going on, too.”

“Pregnant,” Dante repeated. “That’s—isn’t that awfully quick after everything this summer?”

“It wasn’t planned, but Elizabeth decided to keep the baby. Not surprising.” Lucky shrugged, reached for a file. “But Emily and Nikolas are still concerned. They’re going to hit the roof when they find out about this.” He looked at Dante. “You have any ideas to make it easier?”

“Not exactly.” Dante hesitated. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his partner about the visit he’d paid Vinnie—easily proved, he thought. His name was on the log, and there’d be a video of him.

And there was that audio recorder he’d had in his pocket—the audio he’d made of Vinnie confessing to all the rapes, particularly Brooke’s. His pride in himself for having done it. He’d made it, he’d told himself, in case of a situation like this. To protect the victims. To nail the coffin shut.

But he hadn’t expected to need it. And now—giving them that tape—he didn’t know if it was the right thing. Vinnie talked about Brooke’s sexuality, and he didn’t think Ned and Lois knew about that. And there were other details that weren’t fair—

His grandmother and aunt were already heartbroken, sure there was some mistake. Dante and his mother’s relationship with them had been strained since it had happened—Lois had fled Bensonhurst in the wake of it. If Dante helped convict his cousin—

He shook his head. “I have some thoughts, but I want—I want to think about them some more. We can’t let him get away with this.”

“We won’t,” Lucky promised him.

Corinthos Penthouse: Living Room

Elizabeth bounced Morgan lightly in her arms and looked over at Carly next to her on the sofa. “Thanks for letting me come over. I was hoping—” She sighed. “I was hoping that spending some time with a baby would get my mind off this morning.”

“I have him twenty-four seven, so have at it.” Carly leaned against the back of the sofa. “Are you okay? I mean—it’s bad enough Ric is—” She looked away.

“It’s hard,” Elizabeth said, slowly. “Last week—last week, I thought things were finally going right. The trial was going to start soon, and Vinnie had already made the deal—two of the worst things that ever happened to me—” She met Carly’s eyes. “And I was going to get justice in both of them.”

“And now, you might not have it in either.” Carly hesitated. “I’m surprised you came here,” she admitted. “I know you’re closer to Emily or Nikolas. Or even my mother—”

“Well, I wanted to see Morgan, but I also—” Elizabeth paused. “I thought maybe you’d understand.” She looked back at her. “I mean, you have your boys. Michael’s such a great kid, and look at this perfect little boy—” She sighed down at Morgan as the newborn’s eyes drifted close.

She stood up to place him in his bassinet. “I have Jason, and we’re—” Elizabeth rested her hand on her belly, over the slight curve. “We’re having a baby. Together. I can’t think of two things I want more. And I can’t—”

She looked back at Morgan, adjusted the edge of his sleeve, restless. “I can’t really be happy about it. Because Ric is out there. And now, my rapist—the man who brutalized so many other women after me—he might get away with it.”

“I try not to think about it,” Carly said slowly. She rose to her feet, crossed over to Elizabeth. “But, yeah, it’s always there. And the nightmares—they were mostly gone. I mean, I still have them from time to time—but I was really starting to think I was done with all of that. I haven’t had a panic attack in a few months.”

“And I’m wondering if I’d be a hypocrite—” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “If this hearing in Syracuse next month—if it goes wrong—”

“You’re thinking that maybe Jason could step in and get justice another way,” Carly finished.

“I asked him to leave Ric alone for the trial—to let him rot in prison.” Elizabeth brushed her hair out of her face, clenching her fingers in the strands briefly before letting her hand fall to her side. “But we had an agreement — if Ric weaseled out of trial—if he got acquitted or something—”

“Jason could do what he wants.” Carly tipped her head to the side. “You’re kind of casual about this. Last year—”

“I’ve always known who Jason is,” Elizabeth said. “Why do you think I had to ask Jason for the trial? You know it, too. You had to ask Sonny.”

“Ask.” Carly winced, looked away. “I didn’t bother asking him,” she admitted. “In fact, I was going to avoid the whole conversation. I knew he’d never give it to me in a million years.”

Elizabeth furrowed her brow. “But I thought—”

“The only reason Ric was alive to jump bail is because Jason promised you to leave him alive for trial,” Carly said, flatly. “And he extended that promise to me. Sonny never promised.”

“Oh. I guess—” Elizabeth bit her lip. “It’s different now. He jumped bail, and I guess that part of the agreement—I mean, I don’t expect a trial now.”

“Me either. But it would have been nice.” Carly rubbed her throat. “It would have been nice to look him in the eye and make sure he knew he hadn’t won. That I had my son and that no one could take him from me. That no one was going to lock me up again.”

“I wanted that moment, too,” Elizabeth admitted. “He thought I was weak, gullible—someone who could be controlled. But if I can’t have that—I guess I have to find a way to be okay with it.”

“How’s that going for you?” Carly asked.

“Not well.” Elizabeth flashed her a smile, then sat back on the sofa. “But maybe this hearing—maybe it can be the same thing. The whole thing is resting on me, so I get to—I get to tell the judge about what happened that day. All the things he said—” Her voice caught. “What he did.”

Carly sat next to her again. “Are you ready for that?”

“I have a month, so I guess I’ll have time to find out.” Elizabeth picked at the nail polish on her thumb. “Do you think Ric is in South America? Or planning to do something?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s going on.” Carly closed her eyes. “I asked Sonny this morning. And he said they didn’t know anything. That all I needed to know was that they haven’t found him.”

She opened her eyes to find Elizabeth looking at her. “And then I told him I’d just ask you what was going on because I’m sure Jason’s telling you everything.”

“Carly—” Elizabeth shook her head. “I—”

“And man, he really didn’t like being compared to Jason,” she muttered. “I guess it’s probably a sore spot. I just—I figured Jason—because he made you that promise—he doesn’t see this as business as usual. And Sonny does.”

“Oh. Well…Sonny’s not lying. They haven’t found him.” Elizabeth squinted. “He said something about using their network in South America—some of the other people they work with—so if Ric shows up somewhere, they’ll know. I think it’s still early—or that they’re still trying to find evidence of him getting out of the country.”

Carly nodded. “What does Jason think?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s been careful about telling me what he thinks,” Elizabeth replied. “He’s mostly in a wait-and-see frame of mind.”

“Okay. Okay.” Carly rubbed her hands back and forth on her thighs. “Thanks. I, uh, appreciate it. Um, if it’s okay—”

“I’ll pass on anything else Jason tells me,” Elizabeth told her before Carly could even ask. “Until Sonny changes his mind. I’m sure he’s trying, Carly—”

“He is. I just—” Carly shook her head. “Never mind.”

Elizabeth wanted to press her, but she and Carly weren’t really that close. Talking about Ric was one thing—prying into Carly’s marriage was another. “I should get home and grab some lunch. Thanks for letting me get some Morgan time in.”

“Well, you need to get ready,” Carly said as she followed Elizabeth to the door. “You’ll have one of your own in less than six months.”

Elizabeth grinned, her mood finally lifted. “That’s definitely something to look forward to.”

Kelly’s: Diner

Georgie pushed through the door and hesitated when she saw the group at the counter. Lulu was working that shift, and their usual crowd—Lulu’s usual crowd—was taking up all the stools. Dillon, Maxie, Lucas, and his boyfriend, Felix DuBois. The only one missing was Maxie’s boyfriend, Kyle Radcliffe, currently in his junior year at Princeton.

She took a deep breath and walked towards the back of the diner to grab her apron and get to work.

“Hey, Georgie,” Lulu said carefully as Georgie walked behind the counter, tying the ends of the green apron. “I forgot you were working today.”

“Yeah, I asked Bobbie for some extra shifts. Christmas and all.” Georgie bit her lip, picked up the order pad, scanned the restaurant—but the lunch rush had already ended, and it was the lull before dinner.

“How’s classes?” Felix asked, and she looked at him, his warm and friendly expression easing the ice in her veins.

“Oh, good. Interesting,” she said finally. “It’s, um, weird to get to just focus on things I like.”

“Yeah, but you like all of school,” Maxie told her. “You always made me look bad,” she said with a slurp of her milkshake.

“Yeah, but I don’t have to take any gen eds,” she reminded her. “I, uh, took a lot of that in high school. You know, AP and all that.”

“I knew there was a reason I hated you,” Lulu said, and Georgie looked at her, surprised by the lightness in her tone. “I hate college, and you’re like—halfway done.”

A smile played at her lips. “No, but I’ll have my BA a year early. Which is good, because it means I can get my Ph.D. sooner.”

“More school, ugh, where did I go wrong with you?” Maxie threw up her hands. “Lucas, fix her—”

“You’re appealing to Lucas, who’s signing up for medical school?” Dillon said, raising his brows. He shot Georgie a hesitant smile, and she wondered—

Would it be that easy? Could they just…move past the last few months?

“Don’t look at me,” Felix said as Maxie looked at him. “I’m in nursing school—and—” he leaned across Lucas, lowered his voice as if he were going to share a secret. “I like school, too.”

“Oh my God, I’m surrounded by nerds,” Maxie moaned.

“You’ve still got me,” Lulu said confidently. “I’m only going to college for a year to convince my parents it’s a terrible idea. Then I’m going to make my dad let me have the bar—”

“Or—” Dillon said. “You could take some business classes, so you don’t run it into the ground—” Lulu shot him a dirty look, and he put up his hands in mock surrender. “Just a thought.”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” Lulu said with a sniff. She put her nose in the air. “My shift is over, and I’m going home.”

She walked into the back, and Maxie raised her brows at Dillon. “Uh, do I need to smack someone? That almost looked like a real fight.”

“We’re not fighting,” Dillon muttered as he looked down at his burger.

“Uh huh,” Maxie drawled, clearly unconvinced. She turned to Georgie. “Guess what? Our cousin—” She paused to put her arm around Lucas. “Has lost his mind.”

“Hey, you’re dating Kyle, so you don’t get to have an opinion on the subject,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes.

“What’s going on?” Georgie asked. She smiled at him, hopeful that she was going to be included again. That they really could just move on. “Lucas?”

“We’re moving in together,” Lucas admitted with a sheepish grin. “Mom offered us one of the apartments at the Brownstone, so—” he shrugged and looked at Felix, who was grinning. “We’ve been together for a while, so it just seemed like a good time.”

“You were supposed to be my gay friend,” Maxie sighed. “We were going to scope out boys together—”

“You’re dating Kyle,” Georgie reminded her, and Maxie wrinkled her nose.

“Oh, right. Well, then I guess we both ruined my dreams.”

Lucas rolled his eyes at his melodramatic cousin, and they moved on to talk about something else.

Morgan Penthouse: Master Bedroom

 

Jason was not happy to hear that his visit to Pentonville was part of the reason Scott wasn’t calling Taggert to testify at the hearing.

She waited until they were getting ready for bed to tell him, hoping that she could make the whole thing sound routine—Elizabeth didn’t want him to worry about something he couldn’t control.

But his mouth tightened as he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her as she sat at her vanity table, her brush clutched in her hand. “I shouldn’t have gone—”

“And Baker might not have told Taggert what he needed to know,” Elizabeth told him. “Scott didn’t think it would be an issue. He always figured if Taggert needed to testify about it, he could just give you immunity or something. He wasn’t wild about that either,” she added when Jason grimaced. “But it’s different now that it’s a federal case. I don’t want you called to testify either, Jason.”

“I don’t care about me,” he insisted. “I’ll testify—”

“And Scott knows that.” She bit her lip, set the brush down, and sat next to him on the bed. “He knows it’s not a question if you’d do it—and if it were just you, he might not be worried. He’s interrogated you,” she teased him, reminding him of his murder trial earlier that year for Alcazar’s murder. “He knows you can take care of yourself.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why is he putting all this pressure on you?” Jason demanded.

“Because it’s not just the visit to Pentonville. Taggert asked you go there to intimidate Baker and could probably be explained away, which is one thing on its own. But when you add it to what Mac did with my rape kit, what Vinnie got away with—and even what Capelli did this summer—” Elizabeth sighed. “It makes it look like the PCPD has a pattern of corruption.”

“They do—” Jason exhaled slowly. “Which is the point.”

“I know you hate this,” she told him. She leaned against him, resting her chin on his shoulder, taking his hand in hers. “I offered to make Scott’s life easier by dropping my case entirely. They could go forward on Brooke’s charges. Or any of the other women who had a DNA match.”

Jason scowled. “That’s not—”

“Ned felt the same way,” Elizabeth cut in as Jason shoved off the bed to stalk across the room, towards the fireplace. “Scott told me no. It was never on the table. He thinks my testimony alone will sway the judge.”

“I just—” Jason looked at her. “I hate this. I hate that they’re asking you to do more for them, after everything—”

“I’m not doing it for them,” she corrected. “I mean, yes, technically. But I’m doing it for me. I probably won’t get what I need by testifying against Ric. Thank you for that promise, but I’m not holding you to it—”

“I’m trying—”

She crossed to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, looking up at him. “I know you are. But I know it might not happen. I didn’t know if I’d even get to make an impact statement, you know? With Vinnie pleading guilty and all, they might not have allowed it. I can’t stand up to Ric. But I could—” She searched his eyes. “I can do this. It’s not enough that I bashed his knees with a bat—I want him to see me. To know that what he’s been deluding himself was special was nothing more than a nightmare to me. A nightmare that I am never going to have again. Because it’s over. And I get to end it.”

Jason sighed, then dropped his forehead against hers. “My life might be easier if you were less brave,” he admitted. “But I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She took his face in her hands, lifted it slightly so their lips could meet. “This is going to be over soon. And we’ll be able to get on with the rest of our lives, okay?”

“Okay.” Jason brushed her hair out of her face, letting the backs of his fingers trail down her cheek.

“By the way,” she murmured as he tugged her towards the bed. “We should probably keep our eye on Sonny and Carly.”

Jason groaned slightly, with one knee pressed into the mattress as he pulled her against him. “Why?” he asked. “What happened?”

Elizabeth winced, sliding her fingers through his hair, letting her fingertips dance over the smooth, bare skin of his neck and shoulders. “Nothing. But Sonny isn’t really telling Carly much about the search for Ric, and I just—” She hesitated. “There’s something about the way she told me—it irked me.”

“It irked you,” Jason repeated, frowning slightly at her.

“Yes,” she insisted. Elizabeth arched a brow. “You don’t think I can tell when something is wrong with her? I don’t know her as well as you do, but—”

“No, I’m just—” Jason grimaced. “I’m really not in the mood for another round with Sonny and Carly,” he admitted.

“No, me either. But that doesn’t change reality.” She grinned at him. “But I can tell you’re in the mood for something, so—um—” She kissed him lightly, nipping at his lips. He tightened his arms at her waist. “Let’s change the subject.” Elizabeth lightly pushed at his shoulders, and he fell back on the bed. She climbed on top of him, giggling when he gently pulled her down to him.

“Let’s stop talking at all,” he murmured as he rolled her beneath him.

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