Written in 65 minutes.

Recovery Room: Bar

Though the bar wouldn’t open for several more hours, the front door was unlocked when Jason checked it. Worried that there’d been a break-in, he pushed it open. The main part of the bar was dim, only sunlight peeking around the edges of the windows offered any illumination.

At first glance, the room appeared empty and there was were no obvious signs of trespass — the chairs had been neatly stacked on the tables, the floors were clean. It looked like it always did after closing though it had been some time since Jason had been to the bar as a patron, and Mike spent more time at Kelly’s these days.

One table in the corner by the doors to the kitchen was disturbed, its chairs settled in their usual places, and it was there that Jason found Mike. There were papers on the table, a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass by his side. The bottle hadn’t been open—the paper wrapped around the top still intact.

Jason approached the table almost reluctantly, and the fall of his steps stirred Mike. The older man looked up, blinked at the intrusion, then let out a slow breath. “You here with more bad news?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said. He stepped behind a chair, resting his hands on the back of it, but not taking a seat. He wasn’t sure of its welcome, wasn’t entirely sure that with some time and space, Mike was regretting his support of Jason in the wake of the shooting. Had Courtney felt abandoned, Jason wondered, and had that led her to the hotel, to the bullet that claimed her life?

Mike gestured at the papers on the table. “Arrangements,” he said, then dragged a hand down his face. “Have to pick a funeral home for my daughter.”

“If there’s anything I can—”

“You’ve—you’ve done enough.” Mike lifted his eyes to Jason again, then closed them, some of the stiffness easing. “That—I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t—I don’t blame you.” He chuckled lightly, though the sound was bitter. “I don’t want to blame you. It’s not your fault. None of this is. Not really. It’s mine.”

Jason pulled out the chair, sat down, clasped his hands on the table. “Mike, that’s not true—”

“Yeah? Tell me, Jason. How much of the darkness in Michael—how much is it from that piece of shit I left him with?” Mike demanded, and Jason looked down. “Maybe Michael would have always been a bit brooding, but what he turned into? Those seeds were planted by Deke, and if I had been any kind of man, well, that wouldn’t have happened. So Michael, that’s on me.”

Mike reached for the bottle of whiskey, twisted off the cap, tearing the paper that sealed it shut. “Courtney. Courtney. She was a little bright beam of sunshine from the moment she was born. Looked just like her mother. I told myself it’d be different. That I was different. That little girl just smiled and laughed all the time, looked at me like I hung the moon.” He turned away, the grief so stark on his face that Jason’s throat felt tight. “I couldn’t live up to that. Could never be the man that she thought I was, so I left. I left her alone with her mother, and she came looking for me here. She came to Port Charles, and if I weren’t here—”

He dipped his head. “I keep trying to tell myself I’m doing better. That I’ve been there for my kids these last few years, and maybe that’s true. But you never get that time back. You never get the trust back. There’s something that gets built in those early years, and when you don’t have it anymore—you can’t ever fix it.”

“Mike, Courtney was here because of you, but that’s — it’s not why she’s gone.”

“No. It’s not. Someone killed her. Someone she must have known a little bit, because she opened the door. She must have let them in, Mac told me.” He poured the whiskey, the bottle clicking against the top of the glass, his hand trembling. “D-do you think she was scared? Do you think she knew? Did she have time to know what was going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want it to be your fault. I want to rage at you and even at Elizabeth for having an affair. For breaking my little girl’s heart.” His voice was thick now, his dull blue eyes glazed with a sheen of tears. “Because if you hadn’t done that, she’d have been at home. She wouldn’t be dead.”

Jason dropped his eyes to the table, to the dark, scarred wood texture rough under his hands. “I know that. I’m sorry—”

“But it’s not your fault. And it’s not mine. Maybe you and me, we put the pieces in place. That’s on us. I brought her here, and you put her in that hotel.” Mike’s breathing was a bit ragged and he stared down at the whiskey, but didn’t drink. “But I didn’t lift that gun, and you didn’t pull the trigger. That—that’s not on us.”

He set the glass down, pushed it to the middle of the table. Put the cap back on the bottle. “I’ll feel guilty every day for the rest of my life for not being the father my kids deserved. And I expect you’ll carry a measure of guilt for what happened between you and Courtney. That’s right. That’s fair. You make a mistake, you carry the weight of it.” He exhaled in a long, low, shaky breath. “But I’ll be damned if I carry her death on my shoulders. And you aren’t going to either.”

His eyes found Jason’s now. “I’m going to arrange for my daughter’s funeral because it’s the last thing I ever get to do as her father. But Michael is still here, and I can still do right by him.”

Jason flexed his hands. “I went to see Sonny yesterday like we talked about. He was…he was clear. Lucid.”

Mike lifted his brows. “That’s—that’s good. Did he talk about that night?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Then I called the doctor at Rose Lawn. Sonny signed the papers. A seventy-two hour hold for evaluation. He went last night.”

“That’s good. It’s good. He’ll talk to someone who knows better than any of us, and we’ll sort out what’s going on.” Sonny’s father dragged a hand down his face. “But he talked about that night.”

“Yeah. He remembers it in bits and pieces. He—he says it was him. That night.” Jason paused. “He saw Ric with Elizabeth and Carly in the courtyard, thought he saw Ric lunge for Carly, and he just—he shot at him.”

Mike was quiet for a long moment, then pressed his lips together, looked away. “He remembers being the shooter.”

“I think—I think he thinks so. He says he threw the gun away on the way back to the Towers. Maybe he is. I have some guys looking for it. The timeline is tight, I know, but the only reason we thought it wasn’t him—”

“We thought the PCPD had the gun, and he didn’t have it when he came back. And what happened to Courtney—that doesn’t fit.” Mike shook his head. “I don’t understand how any of this works, Jason. What happened that night is a terrible, terrible tragedy, but almost inevitable if Michael is the one holding the gun. But—”

“But everything that’s happened since then feels like someone trying to clean up after him. To hide his identity as the shooter,” Jason acknowledged. “I don’t know—I don’t know if you heard but Ric went missing from the hospital yesterday. A false transfer,” he added when Mike scowled. “I thought it might be Lorenzo Alcazar pulling the strings. Maybe he liked that I was being accused of it, and knew Ric and Courtney’s stories would fall apart eventually. But there are still a lot of questions even that’s happening.”

“Maybe. If I had known Courtney was the other so-called witness, I would have tried harder to talk to her. To track her down, but—”

“Justus wanted to hold on to that information,” Jason admitted with some reluctance. “He—he was worried I might be accused of witness tampering.”

“I get it. I do. It just…” Mike shook his head. “It just means we have to work harder. But one way or another, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

PCPD: Commissioner’s Office

Lorenzo Alcazar was on a lot of minds that day, including Mac Scorpio’s. He skimmed the case file on the only other Alcazar he’d come into contact with — Luis.

“Twins creep me out,” Scott muttered, looking at a newspaper clipping with a photo of the Alcazar brothers. “Someone just walking around with your face—” He hesitated, looked at Mac. “Sorry—”

“At least James Meadows wasn’t related to me,” Mac muttered, rolling his shoulders. “But yeah, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking into Luis Alcazar’s background last year. We had more than enough to keep us occupied.”

“True enough. Plenty of suspects right here in Port Charles.” Scott looked back at Mac. “But Morgan seemed to think this was the only possibility—unless he’s just screwing with us so he can go after the real bad guy—”

“No. No. We’re not doing this again, Scott,” Mac interrupted, and Scott made a face. “You wanted to play games the last time, and look what happened. We’re doing this my way which means the right way. I’ll get a full background check on Luis and Lorenzo Alcazar—”

“We might not have time for that—”

“If you have any ideas that don’t include screwing with Jason Morgan, by all means, lay them out. But right now, the guy is dealing with enough. And if you step one more foot wrong, Bobbie’s going to throw you out the window, and I’m going to let her, do you understand?” he demanded.

“Since you’re only half-kidding about the window, yeah, I get it. Let’s start at the beginning.”

Hardy House: Living Room

Elizabeth carefully lifted the black strap of the slung over her head, then tossed the contraption on the sofa behind her. She stretched out her arm, wincing at the pain her shoulder and at her elbow. Then she tried to flex her hand, spreading out her fingers. Her index finger wobbled, and her thumb bent—

But when she tried to curl it into a fist, her fingers only loosely curled over. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she wasn’t ready to give up. She went over to the desk by the stairs, picked up a pencil with her left hand and put it in the right, manually curling the fingers to force it to stay in position.

Then she tried to write her name on the edge of a piece of paper, tried to force her hand into a position and action that she’d taken for granted only a week ago—

But the tip of the pencil barely made any change in the paper, only the faintest of gray scribbles. She couldn’t really press down—the pencil shifted position, and she couldn’t hold it any tighter.

Her lips trembled as she took the pencil in her other hand—tried to write her name that way, but her hand didn’t know what to do, the muscles didn’t have any memory of moving in those ways, and while she was able to write her name, it was scrawled across the paper with awkward lines and angles—

Like the way a child might draw.

A tear dropped on the paper, right over the jumble of lines that should have been the ‘b’ in her first name. Elizabeth tossed the pencil side, went away from the desk, then used her good hand to massage her left as if she could reconnect the nerves and muscles through sheer will power.

A knock at the door broke her concentration. When she peered through the peephole and saw Jason, she pulled the door open. “I told you that you didn’t have to knock—” she started.

“What’s wrong?” he interrupted. He stepped inside, reached over to close the door. “Are you—are you in pain?”

“It’s nice to see you, too,” she muttered, leaving him at the door. She retrieved her sling, started to twist it over her head. “How was Mike?”

“Managing,” Jason said. “I’m sorry. I just—you were crying—”

She heard the steps behind her pause, and when she twisted to look, she saw him at the desk. He must have seen the pencil, noticed the paper sticking out. He looked down at it for a long moment, then at her, and the swirl of emotion in his expression, the way his mouth dipped at the corners had the tears crawling up her throat again. Elizabeth had to look away, to close her eyes.

She heard him drawing closer, then he was next to her, curling her into his side, careful not to jar her injury. He dropped a kiss in her hair, and she pressed her face into his shirt, wishing she could hide here forever.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard to hold it together b-because t-there’s so much more going on, and a-nd I’m alive and w-walking around and Carly isn’t and Courtney never will, and Sonny’s so sick, and I still have the baby—it could have b-been so much worse, I got lucky—”

“Hey. Hey—” Jason stroked her back. “You don’t have to pretend anything with me.”

“It’s just—when things get h-ard or I c-can’t cope, I pick up a p-pencil and make it go away, and I c-can’t do that anymore.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I can’t make any of it stop.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t reassure her that they’d be able to make it stop, or that they’d be able to make any of this over. It wasn’t a promise he could keep, and he didn’t make those kinds of promises.

But he held her as she cried, and that was enough. For now.

General Hospital: Carly’s Room

It was times like these that Bobbie wished she’d taken up knitting. Or crocheting. Or any of those hobbies that gave you something to do with your hands, that kept your attention focused on anything other than what was going on.

She’d been in this room off and on for nearly five days now, listening to the sounds of machines beep and buzz, sounds that had provided the soundtrack for most of her adult life. She practically lived in the hospital, the only stable piece of her life for more than two decades.

And the sounds should be comforting now. They were signs that her daughter was alive, that the child she carried was still in good health. But beeps and buzzes and even the squeak of shoes in the hallway couldn’t comfort her anymore.

Bobbie wanted the sound of her daughter’s voice, from the way she held laughter in her words to the high-pitch whine when she wasn’t getting her way, even the jagged edges of her anger —

So used to the sounds of beeps and buzzes and squeaks that Bobbie didn’t register the way some of those beeps began to change. They were closer together, the heartbeat monitor picking up pace—

But Bobbie certainly knew the sound that her daughter made when a low moan emerged from her lips. Bobbie’s head snapped up, and she was just in time to see Carly turn her heard towards her mother, to see the lids lift to reveal just the brown eyes beneath.

“Mama?” the word was breathed more than spoken, but it was music to Bobbie’s ears. She leaned forward.

“There you are. There’s my girl. We missed you.”

+38

Written in 66 minutes.

Corinthos Penthouse: Living Room

The inside of Sonny’s home looked mostly the same, and Jason realized now that he’d been expecting to find furniture turned over, chairs broken, the mini bar shattered—he’d expected to find destruction. But other than the thin layer of dust that suggested no one had been in to clean, the room was unchanged.

Other than the man sprawled out in the armchair in front of the fireplace, the hearth cold and dark. Sonny was slumped over, one arm stretched along the chair, the other holding his forehead. Jason hesitated, not prepared to find his friend downstairs at all.

At his entrance, Sonny glanced over briefly, his disheveled hair falling across his forehead in curls. “I wondered when you’d get to me.”

Jason didn’t draw any closer. “What do you mean?”

“I woke up this morning,” Sonny said in a strangely even, but lifeless tone, “and I knew were I was. Who I was. When I was.” He finally turned his full gaze on Jason, and there was clarity in his expression. Lucidity. Something Jason hadn’t been expecting. “I’ve been drugged. I know what it feels like after it’s done.”

“We had no choice,” Jason said slowly, taking one step closer. “You were out of control. In the middle of some kind of break.”  He cleared his throat. “What—what do you remember?”

“Not as much as I should, more than I want to. I—” Sonny’s hand fell away from his forehead, into his lap but he still didn’t stir from the chair. Jason came over to the area now, sat on the edge of the sofa. “I remember being here. Needing to talk to you. Looking for Carly. I went out. I don’t—” He furrowed his brow. “I don’t know why I was at Kelly’s.”

Jason stilled. “Kelly’s.”

“Maybe I thought—you were the night before. I thought maybe you’d be there again. Maybe that’s why. All I know—” Sonny rubbed his mouth, looked at Jason again. “I remember Ric. I remember Carly. And—and Elizabeth. And he was hurting them.” He squinted. “I thought he was hurting them. Scaring. So I—” He made a gesture with his hand, and Jason’s stomach rolled. “I don’t remember deciding to shoot — I—there was screaming. And blood.”

“What did you do then?” Jason said, his mind racing. Sonny had been the shooter, but then— “What did you do with the gun?”

“Threw it away somewhere,” Sonny murmured. “Couldn’t look at it anymore. Blood on my hands.” He stared at his clean hands. “Blood everywhere. All I do. All I am. It’s all I bring. Blood. Death. I killed them.” He focused on Jason again. “And now you’re here to kill me. Good. Good. I deserve it. Make it quick. Make it over.”

Morgan Penthouse: Living Room

Elizabeth was too restless to sit or lay down, so she paced the room, taking in the changes made since she’d left—almost exactly a year ago, she realized. The furniture was different, she thought, sliding her finger across the fabric sofa. There was more of it, too. Knick knacks. Dust collectors, her mother had always called them.

Evidence of Courtney was everywhere, Elizabeth thought. There were photos on the mantel of Carly and Courtney, of Jason and Courtney. Courtney with the boys. She traced the smile on Jason’s face in his. He really had been happy with her, she thought, and wondered how he was feeling now. She didn’t doubt his decision to break up with Courtney or to come back to Elizabeth — but that didn’t mean his emotions had been erased.

Something caught her eye, a glint, and she turned to see something shining, wedged beneath the pool table. She crouched down, picked it up. A diamond ring. The same one Courtney had flashed over and over again during those long weeks. She must have thrown it across the room at some point, Elizabeth thought. She grimaced, climbing back to her feet.

She looked around again, seeing the penthouse with new eyes. The remnants of a life cut short. Of a woman who hadn’t been perfect or maybe even good, but one who’d been loved. Would Sonny be clear enough to find out about his sister? Carly, who had felt so betrayed — there’d never be a chance to resolve any of it. Mike, who’d already lost so much time—

And Jason, who had planned a life with her.

Elizabeth set the engagement ring on the mantel by the photo of Jason and Courtney in happier days. Courtney had chosen a terrible path as her relationship with Jason faltered, choosing to ally herself with an evil man, likely thinking the ends would justify the means, the betrayal. Or maybe hoping no one would ever find out. But did those final few weeks erase a lifetime? They’d been friendly once, maybe on the verge of something deeper.

That fledgling friendship had disappeared when Courtney had moved on with Jason, and the bitterness had spread between them, poisoning any chance for something else. Now Courtney was dead, a casualty of whatever war was being waged against Jason, and her murderer was still out there, likely planning another attack.

Elizabeth looked back towards the door, wondering what was happening across the hall, and hoping she had the strength to face whatever happened next.

Corinthos Penthouse: Living Room

Jason exhaled slowly, then shook his head. “I’m not here to do anything but help you,” he told his friend. Sonny scowled, lunged to his feet. Jason rose quickly in response, then was startled when Sonny gripped Jason by the shirt, dragged him close, his dark eyes burning.

“I am nothing but death and destruction,” Sonny growled. “Blood and pain and misery. I kill everything and everyone I touch—”

Jason covered Sonny’s hands with his own, gently pushing him back. “Elizabeth and Carly are alive.”

“W-What—” His hand trembling, Sonny dragged it through his hair. “But—”

“Elizabeth—she was—” Jason touched his shoulder. “She had surgery, and she’s been discharged. She’s across the hall, safe. I promise. And Carly—she’s still in the hospital,” he said, “but you didn’t kill her. The baby is safe.”

“I thought—” Sonny staggered back, looked away from, staring unseeing at the cold, dark fireplace. “I woke up, and I remembered blood.”

“They were hurt, yes. You need help, Sonny. You need more than I can give you. You know that.”

“Not dead. But hurt. Injured. Blood—” Sonny spread his hands out again. “On my hands. Always on my hands. You can’t see it—” He turned to Jason, holding them out. “Since I was fourteen. My mother. I killed her.”

“You didn’t do that, your stepfather—”

“If I stayed around, if I gave Deke someone to beat on—” Sonny wiped his mouth, shaking. “He never would have touched her. It starts with her. It always starts with her. I see her sometimes—” He closed his eyes, dropped back on the chair. “I see her and I see Lily and I see the son I could have had and the—” He licked his lips. “My mother. My mother was—I see the baby. It should have been hers, but I stole it from her.”

Jason grimaced. He was losing Sonny again, had to pull him back. “Hey. Sonny. Sonny—” He crouched in front of his friend. “You need to stay with me. Here and now. Lily has been gone for a long time. Your mother even longer.”

“I’m not—” Sonny closed his eyes. “I never told you, did I? Couldn’t. Couldn’t bring myself to say it. To admit just what I’ve done—my mother. When I see her, it’s always with the baby. I never—she never told us if it was a boy or girl—”

Mixing up Adela’s pregnancy with Ric, Jason thought, and sighed. “Okay, I need to make a call—”

“The doctor said they couldn’t save her. Couldn’t save the baby, couldn’t save my mother. And Deke—you know—he just smiled.” Sonny closed his eyes. “I couldn’t let him get away it. It was the smile that did it. I had to get rid of him. Had to make him pay for what he’d done.”

Jason frowned, tipped his head slightly. “Your mother was pregnant when she was died?” Sonny had blamed himself for not doing more to get his mother away from his stepfather for years—but if his mother had been pregnant—

“Yeah. Yeah.” Sonny closed his eyes. “I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Okay.” Jason got to his feet. He’d sort out what all of this meant later. One step at a time. “I’m going to make a call. You need more than I can give you, Sonny. Will you let me help you? Will you let me make this okay?”

“Is that even possible?” Sonny asked dully.

“I don’t know,” Jason admitted. “But we’re going to try.”

General Hospital: Carly’s Room

Bobbie tucked the blanket more tightly around Carly, then settled back to watch her daughter’s face, looking for any evidence that she was regaining consciousness. If she could tell them what happened — who had done this—

The door squeaked behind her, and she turned to find Scott creeping in. With disdain, Bobbie faced Carly again. “You’re not welcome here.”

“I get that. I just—”

She heard his footsteps come closer, but wouldn’t look at him.

“I came to update you—”

“Jason already told me about Courtney. Tell me, Scotty—” She twisted now, coming to her feet as she did so. “Would Courtney be dead if you’d never paid her a damn bit of attention? If you’d ignored her bullshit story? Would she still be alive now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just—”

“Jason didn’t do this to my daughter. To Elizabeth. He was with me the entire time. You’re calling me a liar, and I can’t—I can’t understand—” Her eyes burned. “I know you never loved me, but you were my friend! How could  you hurt me, my family like this? Did I never matter at all?”

“I was trying to fix it, okay! I was trying to make up for what happened this summer—I thought if I could make Ric and Courtney tell me why they were lying, I could trap him somehow, and I could give you all of it—”

“You were playing us?” Bobbie shoved Scott, and he fell back a few steps. “You arrested Jason like that, put him out in the public as the shooter, to what? Force the real shooter to act? Well, he did, Scott! He did! He murdered another woman in a cold blood. Is that what you wanted?”

“No. No—”

“This is on you. You and Mac and anyone else who let their personal grudges blind themselves to reality, to justice. You might as well as have put the bullet in that girl by letting the world think you believed her! I am ashamed to know you, to ever thought I loved you!”

Scott dipped his head, took a deep breath, then lifted his gaze back to hers. “Well then I’ve got nothing to lose by telling you that Ric Lansing is missing. And we don’t know where he is or who took him.”

Morgan Penthouse: Living Room

Elizabeth was on the sofa, a remote in her hand, and something making noise on the television screen against the wall. She flicked it off quickly when Jason came in, closed the door.

“Don’t get up,” he cautioned her quickly, coming over to stop her before she started to stand. “We need—I need to stay here a little longer. To—wait for the doctor.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth winced, rubbed her shoulder. “He agreed.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I called the doctor. He’s coming with the paperwork and we’ll take Sonny to Rose Lawn. It’s—” Jason shook his head. “He was clear. Lucid. Whatever break from reality he was going through, it ended when he woke this morning.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief. It’ll be easier for him to accept help—” Elizabeth stopped, pressed her lips together. “But you don’t look relieved.”

“No. I’m not.” Jason dragged a hand down his face, then his expression fell on the mantel, on the photos. He swallowed hard, looked at Elizabeth. “Sonny was the shooter. It happened the way we thought.”

“But—” She faltered. “I don’t understand.”

“The time was so tight, and he didn’t have the gun when he came back. That’s—I clung to it. I didn’t want to be him,” Jason admitted. “But then Courtney—we found out about her—and I don’t understand why someone would go after her unless they were covering their tracks. But Sonny didn’t—he wouldn’t.”

“No, of course not.” Elizabeth managed to get to her feet, touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Jason. And I’m sorry for what happened to Courtney. I was looking around, and I just—I just—I want you to know that you don’t have to hide how you felt about her. Not with me.”

Jason looked at her for a long moment, then leaned his forehead against hers, cupping her face with his hands. “I don’t know what I’m feeling,” he admitted. “I just don’t know what to do about any of this. How to—Sonny just told me that he sees his mother. Hallucinates her holding the baby she was pregnant with when Deke Woods beat her to death,” he bit out.

Elizabeth’s lips parted. “What?”

“Pregnant women,” Jason murmured. “I thought it was about Lily, and maybe it was. Maybe that stirred some of it. But losing Lily and the baby, then he and Carly lost their first child—the kidnapping and thinking he’d killed Carly—I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he knew you were pregnant, too. But to find out that his mother died while pregnant? It just—it explains a lot of things,” he admitted. “I just—Sonny blames himself, and he sees his mother. He sees her holding the baby. He sees Lily and their son—”

“How terrible for him, for his mind to wage war like that when he’s not well.” Elizabeth curled into his side, and he pulled her against him, pressing his lips to his air. “I’m so sorry, Jason. But Sonny’s going to get help. You said the doctor is coming. A-and I believe Carly will wake up, and she’ll be okay.” She met his eyes. “We’ll find out what happened, and we’ll get through this. I’m not going anywhere.”

+38

I couldn’t get the last line exactly the way I wanted it, but I’m way over time, lol. Happy Friday! Written in 72 minutes.

Hardy House: Elizabeth’s Bedroom

Elizabeth murmured something, then shifted, trying to roll on her side, then wincing when she bumped her injured shoulder. She clutched her shoulder with her left hand, starting to sit up—and then she felt an arm at her back, a warmth at her side.

“Careful, don’t sit up too fast—” Jason said, sitting on the edge of her bed, bracing her against his chest. She leaned back for just a moment, resting her head against his jaw, closing her eyes.

“Hey.” She set her hand along the one he’d wrapped around her waist, the button down shirt he’d worn to court cool against her fingers. “You’re here. What time is it?”

“I don’t—almost six.” Jason brushed his lips against her temple. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore. Still tired.” Elizabeth opened her eyes, shifted to set her feet on the ground, her toes curling into the carpet. She touched his jaw. “Have you eaten or—”

“Not yet. I will.”

She exhaled slowly, then rubbed the side of her face. “You went to the Towers. How—how did that go?” When Jason didn’t say anything right away, Elizabeth frowned, focused on him. “Jason?”

“I didn’t get upstairs to talk to Sonny. I wanted to check the security footage first, and then—” He leaned over, switched on the lamp next to her bed, flooding the room with soft light. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Why did you want the security footage?”

“I wanted to know if it was Sonny. If—” Jason grimaced, looked away. He leaned forward, bracing his elbow on his knee, then dragged his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted information. When, where, how, who—I don’t know if Sonny did this. I can’t see how he could have made it back in time, and the gun the court said they have—it’s not with him. So—”

“So how did Courtney get it to turn in?” Elizabeth finished. “I guess that’s a question for her—” As she spoke, Jason looked at her, and there was something in his eyes, something that sent a chill down her spine. “What happened?”

“She’s dead.”

The words hung in the air, suspended between them, and Elizabeth couldn’t wrap her head around them. Couldn’t make sense of it. “I don’t—what do you mean, dead? What are you talking about?”

Jason sat up, then pushed himself to his feet. He went to the window, pushed aside the sheer curtain and looked out over the front lawn. Then he finally looked at her. “After I made bail, someone went to the hotel and shot her. She’s dead.”

“Oh my—” Elizabeth pressed her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God. What is going on?”

“I don’t—” He faltered, shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Elizabeth rose slowly, putting her free hand on the sling to brace herself, then went to him. “Jason.”

“I thought I knew what was happening. What was going on. The idea that Sonny did this—” Jason looked at her, and she saw the anguish now, the uncertainty. “That was hard enough, but I could make that work in my head. He’d never have hurt you or Carly. But—I don’t know what’s going on with the gun. And Courtney—was she just another way to frame me? Why?”

He looked back out over the street, and Elizabeth wrapped her one arm around his chest, rested her forehead against his back, wished with everything she had that she could wrap both arms around him. To give some comfort. Until a week ago, he’d been trying to make things work with Courtney. She’d been his fiancee. And then she’d tried to frame him for attempted murder, working with his enemy to do so—and now she was dead.

“It seems impossible that all of this has happened in the space of a week.” He turned and her hand slid down to rest on his chest. She lifted her gaze to his. “A week ago, I was standing in the alley at Kelly’s, telling you I was pregnant. And for just a moment, just one single moment, everything was perfect. The world and its complications—none of that it existed. It was just you and me, and this amazing secret we shared.” She took his hand, brought it to her abdomen, his fingers curling slightly. “I know it’s all gone to hell since then. Somehow it all got so much worse, but I just—I think if we both just take a breath, and let that moment back in—we can get through this. Whatever this is. Because it hasn’t changed. Our baby—you and me? That’s all still okay. We’re all still here.”

She felt the tension melt from his body and he lifted her chin up, captured her mouth for a brief caress with his lips. Just long enough to bring that memory back, that sense of peace. Then he pulled her against him, and they stood there, letting the world settle around them.

“I’m sorry about Courtney. Whatever her faults, whatever her plans, she didn’t deserve this.” She lightly stroked his back, then stepped away so that their eyes could meet. “What happens next?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Scott and Mac—I told them about Sonny. What we thought had happened. They’re going to confront Ric, I guess. If someone is eliminating witnesses, he’s next. Bobbie’s with Carly, and I sent over some extra guards. I put more people here.” Jason paused. “I have to go back to the Towers. I have a doctor who can see Sonny, but I have to—I have to talk to Sonny.”

“Okay. Then I’m going with you—” Elizabeth said, and when he opened his mouth, she raised one single finger. “I can rest across the hall and wait for you. But I don’t want you to do this alone. Let me be here for you in any way I can. Please.”

“All right,” Jason agreed. He kissed her forehead. “All right. Let’s go.”

General Hospital: Hallway

Scott stopped after rounding the corner, and Capelli bumped into his back. “Oh, that can’t be good,” he said.

“What—” Capelli focused on the hospital room a few steps away, grimaced. There were no officers—and they could see from here with the door partially open, that the room was empty. “Oh, hell.”

The detective spun on his heel and headed for the front desk, Scott just behind him. “Hey. Hey. What happened to the Patient in 1303?” Capelli demanded, smacking his palm against the counter.

A harried nurse came over, rolled her eyes. “Don’t you guys ever talk to each other? He’s been transferred to Mercy just like the order said—”

“What order?” Scott demanded. “He was under guard—”

The nurse hesitated, sensing the tension. “Two cops came. They showed the order to me and the doctor, and then to the cops on duty. They left, and the patient was transported in the police car. We had all the paperwork—”

“Damn it. Damn it.” Scott grimaced. “Where the hell is that son of a bitch?”

General Hospital: Morgue

A few floors down, Mac watched as Mike prepared himself to go inside the main room of the morgue. The older man stood very still at the door, waiting for the pathologist to open the door and indicate they were ready to start.

“An identification isn’t necessary, Mike—”

“It is to me,” Mike interrupted. He looked at Mac. “You need it done. And there’s no one else. No one who loves her the way I do. Except maybe her mother, and I can’t call her to do this. I can’t make her do it. For all the times I wasn’t there, I need to be here now.”

Mac decided not to argue. Sometimes family members needed to see the body to be sure, to make it real, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone how to grieve. He followed Mike into the colder room, standing a respectful distance from the row of drawers.

The pathologist tugged on a handle, and the drawer slid open. The body was covered in a white sheet that the pathologist gently folded down to reveal the pale, still, body of Courtney Matthews. Her eyes were closed, and if not for the bluish tint to her skin and the small, neat hole in her forehead, she might have been sleeping. Even the blood had been rinsed from her hair, and had been laid out to disguise the damage the exit would had done to her.

Mike stood there for a long moment, then raised one trembling hand to Courtney’s forehead, stroked the hair. “My little girl. I threw away so much time with my children. Arrogantly, I thought I could make up for it, but you really can’t turn back the clock, can you?” He raised his eyes to Mac. “You’ll find who did this, won’t you? You won’t let Scott get sidetracked going after Michael or Jason. You’ll—” His voice quavered. “Whatever mistakes she made, whatever she tried to do in those last few days or weeks, she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t—”

“I promise, Mike.” Mac stepped up to the older man, put an arm around his shoulder, gently pulling him away. “I’m going to find out what happened. Whatever I have to do.”

After finishing the identification, Mike went to the restroom, to take a minute, maybe splash some water on his face. While he waited, Mac looked through his phone and saw a missed call from the crime scene tech.

“Stevie? Yeah, I just got the call. What do you have?” Mac paused, listened to the response, took a deep breath. “You’re sure? There’s no mistake? Okay. Okay. Get me that in writing as soon as possible.” As soon as he hung up with the tech, the phone rang again. “Capelli—what?”

When Mike emerged from the restroom, Mac was at the elevators, jabbing at the button. “We have to go,” he said, sharply. “Now.”

“What happened?” Mike demanded, following Mac onto the elevator. “What do you know?”

“The gun doesn’t match. It’s Jason’s, but it wasn’t used in the shooting. The bullets didn’t match.” Mac’s mouth pinched. “And Lansing has disappeared.”

Harborview Towers: Hallway

Jason hesitated after stepping off the elevator. He looked towards the penthouse where Sonny had been kept for the better part of the week, mostly against his will. Then back at Elizabeth who had stepped out after him.

“Let me get you across the hall—”

“Just give me the key—” Elizabeth said, holding out her hand. “And I’ll wait for you. I can unlock a door, Jason.” But her tone was gentle, and he knew she wasn’t irritated with him—knew that Jason was just stalling from what he had to do.

He had to talk to Sonny for the first time since that night, still half-worried that despite the evidence, Sonny had done this. And if he wasn’t, what to do with a mentally ill man whose pregnant wife was lying in a coma? What would that do to Sonny’s fragile psyche?

“If you hear anything, you close the door and lock it. Deadbolt,” Jason said, dropping the key in her palm, closing it and holding it in his own hand. “Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

“I understand.”

Jason waited for her to go around the corner, to open the door and let herself in. Only when he heard the tumbler click, indicating that she had, at the very least, engaged the basic door lock—only then did he round the opposite corner and head for Sonny’s.

It was time to deal with Sonny, something he should have done weeks ago. Months. And maybe years.

A Bedroom

Ric winced as he twisted in the bed, rolling onto his side, trying to avoid putting pressure on the bullet wound in his back. Of all the times he’d taken a bullet, this had to be one of the worst places, he thought.

He’d woken in this room with no idea where he was until it had bobbed slightly, and he’d heard the sound of water. Only then did Ric realize he was on a boat.

And that was a mildly terrifying piece of knowledge because if he’d been taken from the hospital and put on a boat, that only meant one thing—and one person—

The door opened then, and Lorenzo Alcazar came in, the corner of his mouth curled up in a half smile. “Well, well, the prodigal wakes.”

“What the hell is going on—” Ric started to lift his hand, then scowled, realizing he’d been cuffed to the bed. “What the hell? Why would you take me from the hospital—”

“I was very disappointed in you this past summer,” Lorenzo said, removing a cigar from the inside of his jacket pocket. He lit it, then brought it to his mouth. “I thought you would recognize me.”

Ric leaned back against the pillows, grimacing. “Why? I never knew Luis had a brother, much less a twin—”

“Ah, Ricardo—” The lilt of Lorenzo’s words changed, and the way the Spanish name rolled off his tongue — Ric went very still. “Ricardo, I thought one estafador would recognize the other.”

“I’m not a conman—”

“Nor are you Sonny’s brother, but you did an excellent job preserving your own life with that little tale.” Lorenzo tipped the ash from the cigar onto the ground. “And that told me everything I needed to know. Not even bothering to confirm the existence of a sibling? No demanding DNA? You could have done so much with that information, my dear Ricardo. But perhaps you, like myself, have the same fatal flaw.”

Ric exhaled slowly. “And what’s that?”

“The lure of a woman. For me—” He pressed a hand to his chest. “Brenda. There can be no other. And for you, well, I suppose that’s obvious. Tell me, Ricardo, did you enjoy when Sonny’s sister came to you with her little lie? With her plan to frame Jason Morgan?”

Ric tilted his head back for a long moment, then took a deep breath, then met the other man’s amused eyes. “I will admit, Luis, I couldn’t resist the chance to see Jason behind bars even if it was a silly story that won’t hold long. I’ve always had trouble with my impulses.”

“No, I certainly understand that. Well, I’ve done you a favor, mi amigo, and snipped off a loose end, but I have one very important question.” Luis tilted his head. “How do you plan to tell Sonny that not only did he shoot his pregnant wife, but he also nearly killed his other little sister?”

+36

Written in 68 minutes. The cat and I had a disagreement about napping with her head on my number keys, lol, so it took a minute.

Harborview Towers: Security Suite

Jason watched the video again,  studying every line of the image on the screen, looking for anywhere on Sonny’s body he could be hiding the gun—

But there was no bulge at his back where he might have tucked it, the trousers he wore had no strangely shaped pockets, and nothing was in his hands.

“I need to talk to Courtney,” Jason said. When Justus started shaking his head, Jason scowled. “Okay, then you need to talk to her. She was the first person to see him directly after he came back—she comes through the lobby maybe ten minutes after he gets here. She knows where she got the damned gun—”

“Why can’t Jason talk to Courtney?” Mike asked, his brows drawn together. “What’s—” He stopped. “Wait. What do you mean she had the gun? I thought the police had it.” Realization rippled across his expression. “Oh, hell—”

“Courtney is one of the witnesses,” Justus confirmed, and Courtney’s father just closed his eyes. “The other is Ric.”

“Ric—No, no, that’s not—” Mike shook his head. “There must be some mistake. Because if Courtney and Ric are both pointing the finger at Jason, then they’d need to be working together, and that’s just not—Christ.” He turned away, dragged a hand through his hair.

A phone rang on the other side of the suite, and Max went to answer it. Jason focused on Mike. “I know this is a lot to take in. I’m sorry—but Ric and Courtney were in contact before that night. She was giving him Elizabeth’s schedule.”

“She—” Mike faced Jason, stricken. “She gave Elizabeth’s schedule to that monster? That’s how he knew when to show up to bother her? Christ. Nikolas said something about that—why would she go to him? Over you? Over the affair?” he demanded.

Jason nodded grimly. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize—don’t—if she’d—” Mike fisted his hand in front of him. “She had a right to be angry with you, to maybe even want some revenge. But Ric Lansing—that’s—no, there’s a mistake.”

“Well, we won’t know anything until we talk to Courtney,” Justus said. “And Mike, you’d be a lot of help in that area.”

“Whatever you need, sure.”

Max came back to Jason, holding the cordless phone in his hand. “Jase, Wally at the front desk—he says the Baldwin and the commissioner  need to talk to you.”

Jason opened his mouth to send him away, but stopped. Remembered the call Mac had received at the courthouse, Scott’s expression when he’d learned whatever Mac knew. He nodded. “Send them back here.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Justus warned, but Max was already lifting the phone to his ear. “Jason—”

“Something happened at the courthouse. Before they left, Mac got a call, and he looked surprised. Not just surprised. Flattened. He hurried Scott out of there. And now, half an hour later, they’re here? I want to know what they want,” Jason said.

“Okay, but they do all the talking,” Justus said.

“Should I go?” Mike wanted to know. “I can go track down Courtney—”

Before Jason could agree, there was a knock on the door, and Max twisted the knob. Mac came in, followed by Scott. The two of them looked around at the group in the security office, and Jason saw Mac’s eyes focus on the image on the screen. On the image of Courtney in the lobby.

“That the night of the shooting?” Mac asked gesturing.

“Yeah.” Jason folded his arms. “What do you want?”

“Actually—” Scott scratched his cheek. “It’s a good thing Mike is here. We—we were going to see you next.”

“Is this about Kelly’s? Do you need to get more time in the courtyard?” Mike asked, coming forward.

Jason saw the way Mac and Scott looked at each other, and his stomach dipped. “What happened? You got called away from the courthouse. Why?”

“Yeah, I did. By the manager at the Port Charles Hotel. Courtney checked in there a few days ago,” Mac said. He looked at Mike, angled his body towards him, and Jason knew—he knew what was coming next.

And it still hit like a ton of bricks when the words were spoken. “I’m sorry, Mike. We were called there to report a murder. Courtney. She’s gone.”

Hardy House: Living Room

“I was going crazy at the mansion,” Emily said, accepting the cup of tea Audrey handed her. “We can’t move into the cottage yet, but they refused to let Zander stay in the house. And don’t make that look.”

“I’m not.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “You should still be in isolation—”

“I can’t go to the hospital, no. But I can get in a car and come here where there’s only you and your grandmother. I just needed to see you. To see for myself that you were okay. And I thought Jason would be here—I thought he was bailed out.”

“He went to handle a few things.” Elizabeth picked up the glass of water, a bit awkwardly. It was difficult to handle things with her left hand. “The first priority is finding out what happened that night so that he can get these ridiculous charges dismissed.”

“Grandfather was the on the phone as soon as we got home, I left him yelling at the phone at some congressman.”

“Representative Boehlert,” Audrey said, taking a seat in the arm chair. “I have a call of my own into that office,” she told a surprised Elizabeth. “Your grandfather had a lot of friends, darling. And I’m not above using my own network. You’ve been through something so terrible, and you should have Jason at your side, not off fighting for his freedom.”

Emily furrowed her brow. “Wait. I missed something.”

“Gram has turned over a new leaf and is now Jason is her favorite person,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile. “Mostly because he keeps telling me to rest—”

“And he’s the only person you’ll listen to,” Audrey said, lifting her chin. “Speaking of that, Emily, you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like, but—”

“I know, I know, I promised I’d lay down and nap.” Elizabeth offered Emily a smile. “I’m sorry—”

“No, no, you need to take care of my future nibling.” Emily leaned forward, kissed her cheek and hugged her lightly. “I have a leash of my own, but we won’t be down for long. Trust Jason to get this sorted out. I know it sucks to let him deal with it, but there’s a reason I should have called Jason all the times I got into trouble. Can you imagine how much trouble it would have saved us both?”

Harborview Towers: Security Suite

Mike took a step back, reached out with his hand, braced himself against the wall. “What? What are you saying right now?”

“Courtney was shot sometime between two and two-thirty this afternoon,” Mac said. “I’m sorry, Mike. I don’t know if it helps, it probably doesn’t. But she—it was quick. She didn’t suffer.”

“Christ. Christ. My baby? My baby is dead—” Mike’s knees started to buckle, and both Jason and Justus came forward, helped him to sit down.

Courtney was dead. Murdered. Jason found his hand trembling slightly as he put it on Mike’s shoulder, looked back at Mac and Scott. No wonder they’d looked so damned upset at the courthouse. “That’s only an hour ago.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Around twenty minutes after the judge set bail.” Scott cleared his throat and put up a hand when Justus opened his mouth. “That’s not me saying anything about—obviously, we know where you were, Morgan.”

“The thing is—” Mac rested his hands on the back of the chair that sat in front of the row of cameras. “Scott told you that arresting you was just a ploy to make Ric and Courtney think we believed them. I thought it was a stupid plan,” he added, shooting Scott a dirty look. “But he meant it when he said we know what happened at Kelly’s wasn’t you.”

“We thought it was Sonny,” Scott forced him. “We heard some rumors that he wasn’t altogether in his right head. With Lansing being the obvious target—” He scrubbed both hands on his face. “But we don’t know what the hell is happening. Because I’d say a lot about Corinthos, but this? No. No. This wasn’t him.”

No, it wasn’t, Jason thought, and that realization had him taking a seat of his own, his mind racing. It wasn’t Sonny that night in the courtyard, and it hadn’t been Sonny killing his own sister. That only left one obvious suspect, but why would Lorenzo Alcazar go to any of this kind of trouble? What was the point? How did it help—and why would he leave witnesses—

Witnesses he might now be eliminating.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Jason said, almost more to himself. He lifted his gaze to Mac’s. “Courtney and Ric’s story didn’t make sense. And it wouldn’t have matched the evidence. Elizabeth doesn’t remember who shot her, but she sure as hell knew Courtney wasn’t there—”

“But killing her eliminates that problem. Now she’s just a dead witness.” Justus winced. “I’m sorry, that’s—”

“It’s accurate,” Mike managed. “She got herself in trouble somehow. Got twisted up with that monster, lied to get revenge on Jason. So stupid,” he bit out. “So stupid to tell such an obvious lie. So why do this? Why—”

“Because you believed her,” Jason said, and Mac frowned, looked at him. “That’s what the world thinks. No one knows that you kept investigating. I just don’t understand—if killing her was supposed to frame me further, why didn’t they wait?”

“She was found almost two hours before she would have been,” Scott said.  “The maid reversed her schedule. Time of death would have been harder to pinpoint.” He looked at Mac. “And the crime scene tech said something—”

“They put the air on,” Mac murmured. “It would have messed with—it would have made it harder. Jason—arresting you to get to Sonny—that was stupid. But—”

“I thought it was him,” Jason said softly.

“Jason—” Justus began, but Jason shook his head.

“We can’t keep doing this. I can’t—someone is eliminating witnesses. They went for Courtney first because she was alone. You should put people on Ric in the hospital because he’ll be next. And—Carly, she’s in a coma. Elizabeth—” He looked at Max. “The house—”

“We got people on it. As soon as we found out Miss Webber was being discharged, Jase. I knew you’d want her to be top priority,” Max assured him.

But Jason wanted to be there, wanted to see for himself. But first—he got to his feet. “I thought it was Sonny,” he repeated. “Just like you did. He’s been having hallucinations. Struggling with staying in the current time and place. And he went missing during the time period we knew the shooting happened.”

“It might still be Sonny,” Scott said. “But—”

“You said Courtney gave you a gun registered to me. I don’t know where she got it. I don’t know anything about it. But Sonny—” Jason went over to the keyboard by the cameras, pressed a few keys to rewind the footage. “He was back here less than ten minutes after the 911 call. And he doesn’t have a gun on him. So where did Courtney get it?”

“Ten minutes from the pier to the Towers is…a very tight schedule. Was he on foot?” Mac wanted to know.

“I think so. We were just realizing it ourselves that it couldn’t be him. I wanted to talk to Courtney. She comes in just a little while later. Max—”

“She was upset. I think Mr. C was rough on her. She ran out of here, crying. But she came back later. Twice,” Max added. “Wally could confirm it. The first time, he told her about the cops coming by, and she left. Then she came back.”

“To get the gun?” Scott asked Mac who nodded. “Okay. Okay. Well, we can’t ask her whatever she might have known. So—” He looked at Jason. “Who else might have done this? You have to have a name in mind.”

Jason hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I do. But I don’t understand how or why he’d have done this.” He waited another beat. “Lorenzo Alcazar.”

General Hospital: Carly’s Room

Bobbie sighed in relief. “The swelling has gone done?”

Tony nodded, looked down at the chart again, flipped through a page. “The edema has almost entirely resolved itself. I expect that to continue to subside throughout today. She’s scoring a six on the Glascow Scale—that’s up from a 4 when she first came in,” he reminded her. “She’s responsive to pain, and her eyelids are starting to flutter.”

She looked back at her daughter, still quiet and still, before facing Tony again. “When she wakes up, do we know—”

“We won’t know anything until we can speak with her, Bobbie. But this is a good sign. An excellent,” he corrected.

“Thank you. Thank you.” She pressed trembling fingers to her lips. “I know how hard this is for you—”

“She’s just a patient, Bobbie. Your daughter. That’s all that matters to me right.” Tony touched her elbow. “I wouldn’t wish losing another child on anyone. I’m relieved to be delivering good news.”

“Thank you, I—” Bobbie paused, reached for the cell phone vibrating in her phone. “Hello?”

“Bobbie,” Jason began. “We have a problem.”

When she closed the phone, she looked back at Tony. “Can you keep this to yourself?”

“Keep what?” Tony asked, frowning. “Is everything all right—”

“It will be. But Carly’s improvement, the odds of her waking up—can you keep that quiet? Because something has just happened, and I don’t want anyone to know Carly might wake up and tell anyone what happened. It’s life or death, Tony. Promise me.”

“I promise, but I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

“I will, I just—” Bobbie took a seat, took a breath. “Everything I thought I knew only an hour ago has turned upside down, and I don’t know if I can make sense of any of it.”

Hardy House: Living Room

“Oh, Jason, Elizabeth will be so pleased you’re here.” Audrey stepped back, allowed Jason to enter the house. “You missed a visit from your sister, but it was definitely a boost to Elizabeth’s mood.”

“Emily has that way about her,” Jason said. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, still unsure what to do with Elizabeth’s grandmother being supportive or kind to him. “Is—Elizabeth in the kitchen or—”

“Of course, you must be worried about her. She went upstairs to rest, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you went up. Let her know I’ll have dinner ready soon, but not to hurry herself.” She patted Jason’s arm. “Upstairs, third door on the left. Her room overlooks the front of the house, if that helps.”

Jason climbed the steps, and found the right door. He knocked first, and when there was no answer, he went inside, exhaling a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding in. Maybe some part of him had expected something else when he opened the door — maybe to find Elizabeth on the floor or worse, not in the room.

But she was laying on her back, her right arm still set in the sling. She’d changed after court, into a pair of long gray pants and blue shirt. Her eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling in a regular pattern.

She was safe. Sleeping.

He pulled out the chair that was tucked beneath a desk just at the end of the bed, and sat down. He might have a thousand things to do, but right now, in this moment, all he wanted to do was be alone, in the quiet, watching Elizabeth breathe.

Port Charles Harbor

The sleek white yacht had been anchored in the harbor for a few weeks now, and it reminded many of the dock workers of a similiar ship that had been docked a year earlier. That had been named La Venganza — and most had wondered at anyone who’d name their vessel revenge.

This yacht did not have such an ominous name—it was more innocuous, more optimistic, more common. Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

A man strolled outside one of the decks, a cigar in his hand. His dark eyes scanned the shoreline, wondering if his present had been located yet. If his quarry knew that game had changed.

Of course, they wouldn’t know the true purpose of any of this. How could they? They thought had all the answers. All the necessary facts—and they did.

He was here for revenge. He did wish to avenge his brother. That poor bastard.

There was just one problem with that theory.

“Señor?”

When the first call didn’t work, the woman tried again. “Señor Alcazar? Will you want dinner?”

“Yes, Marta.” He turned to smile at her, his teeth bared. “I find myself starving.”

And this that, Luis Alcazar tossed his cigar overboard and went inside.

+29

Written in 65 minutes.

Port Charles Courthouse: Hallway

When Elizabeth flinched, slid back on the bench slightly, Jason winced. “That’s not—I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you everything, but I can’t. I shouldn’t.”

“I don’t understand—I don’t understand any of this!” Elizabeth took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “Why do they think you did this? What witnesses—”

“I can’t tell you anything until you give a statement to the PCPD. Justus told me there’s nothing on record yet,” Jason said, and Elizabeth closed her mouth, furrowed her brow. “Have they talked to you since I—since the arrest?”

“No. No. Justus doesn’t—because you might be accused of tampering with a witness—okay, that makes sense—and no. No, they haven’t. That’s strange, isn’t it?”

Not where he was sitting, but Jason didn’t want to give Elizabeth a reason to ask anything else. He didn’t want her to find out just yet what Scott said he was planning with the arrest—though the performance in the courtroom had Jason leaning a little bit more towards believing the idiot district attorney that this was all a ploy.

“Maybe. So let me just get you home, and then—”

The doors to the court room opened, and Scott strode out, with Mac on his heels. Before Jason could stop her, Elizabeth was on her feet and closing the distance between them.

“Elizabeth, should you be on your feet?” Mac wanted to know. He reached out, as if to take her arm—but when he caught Jason’s hostile glare, his hand dropped to his side. “Surely the doctors didn’t release you already—”

“Take my statement. Right now,” Elizabeth interrupted. “So I can tell you this is all bullshit and Jason can tell me how you’re framing him.”

Scott tipped his head. “You don’t know yet?” He looked at Jason. “You didn’t tell her?”

“And have you accuse me of tampering with a witness? No. Elizabeth, we should get home—”

“No—” Elizabeth stepped away, raising her free hand up in a fist. “No. This happened to me, and it happened to Carly, but she can’t tell you anything. Okay? And because of whatever ridiculous evidence you’ve cooked up this time, Jason can’t be where he needs to be. There’s a scared little boy who keeps asking for Uncle Jason—”

“And where is that boy’s father?” Scott asked. Jason kept his expression even, was relieved when Elizabeth just turned that angry gaze from Mac to Scott and didn’t even flinch.

“Jason didn’t shoot me. I can’t believe I have to explain this to you—”

“Elizabeth—” Mac began, then shook his head. He rubbed his temple. “Okay. Okay. You want to give a statement? Let’s go down to the station—”

“No. No. I want to do it right here so I can go home. It won’t take long. I was unconscious for most of it,” she bit out. “So ask me the questions already.”

Scott glanced at Mac. “We can get the basics here. At least enough so that Morgan here can fill her in on the charges against him.”

“Fine. Elizabeth, do you know who shot you?” Mac said, and he held up a hand before she began to speak. “And don’t tell me who it wasn’t. That’s not a lot of help.”

She pressed her lips together, then took a deep breath. “I don’t remember much. It’s all in pieces and flashes. Carly and I were in the courtyard arguing. I wanted her to wait for Jason, and she wanted to leave. She knew he’d be upset she’d come to Kelly’s without a driver or a guard.”

Scott lifted his brows. “Just you and Carly?”

“Yes. She called me earlier that day. Said she wanted to talk to me alone. I was already at work, and I told her to come just before closing. Otherwise it would have to wait. I thought she’d found out—I thought she was going to yell at me, and I figured—” Elizabeth looked at him. “Well, she might as well show up when you’d be there and get it all over with.”

“So she was  going to confront you about the, uh—” Mac paused. “Relationship between you and Jason,” he said finally.

“I thought so, but when she came in, I realized she was upset. Not angry.” Elizabeth rubbed her fist against her chest. “She wanted to tell me that she’d overheard Ric and Courtney in the park. Talking about working together to get rid of me.”

“Get…” Scott set his briefcase down. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Courtney gave him my schedule so he could harass me. I don’t know what she thought would happen. I don’t particularly care. But Carly was upset. She wanted to tell me things that happened while she was in the panic room this summer.”

“You said you and Carly were fighting,” Mac reminded her. “It was just about the guards?”

“I want to go back to this summer,” Scott said, but Mac shot him a dirty look. “We can do that later.”

“Yes. Yes. We were standing there, and then Ric showed up. We wanted him to leave.” She pressed her fist to her lips now. “It—it’s not clear after that. There’s just screaming. And pain—”

“That’s enough,” Jason said, stepping in finally. “You have what you need—”

“Almost,” Mac said, putting up a hand. “Just one or two questions to clarify something, Elizabeth. If you remember. It’s okay if you don’t.”

Jason grimaced, but Elizabeth nodded. “If it helps you find out what really happened, then ask.”

“You said Ric showed up. What entrance?”

Elizabeth frowned, and Jason looked at the commissioner with some confusion. Why would that matter?

“The…street. Not the parking lot.”

“So through the arch?” Mac continued. “What about the gun shots? Where did they come from?”

“I don’t—” She closed her eyes, some of the color having leeched from her skin during the interrogation. “I don’t—I don’t know for sure. Carly and I were facing Ric, but we were—we were arguing. I kept trying to get in front of her, because she was so far along, and she kept shoving me behind her because Ric was there to talk to me—” Her voice wavered, and Jason put an arm around her shoulders.

“That’s enough,” he repeated. “You have what you need.”

The phone at Mac’s side vibrated, and he stepped away, pulling the phone from his belt to answer the call.

“Yeah,” Scott said. “We have what we need. For what it’s worth, Morgan, I’m sorry for what happened in there—”

“You know he couldn’t have done this. He wouldn’t hurt me or Carly. Not for anything in the world. So if you’re sorry, then let him go.”

“I—” Scott opened his mouth, but then Mac came up, took the district attorney by the arm.

“We have to go.”

“What—”

“We have to go,” Mac repeated. “Jason, you tell Elizabeth whatever you want. We need to go right now.”

Jason frowned, watching the two of them head for the elevator. He continued to watch as they waited for the doors to open—Mac whispering something in Scott’s ear, and the attorney whipping his head around to stare at Mac in surprise.

“Something’s happening,” Elizabeth murmured.

“I want to get you back to Audrey’s,” Jason said. “Come on—”

“And then you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that now.” He waited for the elevator doors to close on Scott and Mac before leading Elizabeth over and pressing the button. “I’m glad I waited. That they know you didn’t have any information from me.”

“Why?” Elizabeth asked, her brows drawn together, the question in her eyes. “What does it matter? I don’t know anything.”

“Because Ric and Courtney are the witnesses against me, and you just told them independently that they were already working together before this happened.”

Forest Hill House: Kitchen

“It’s a blessing, really,” Leticia said, closing the door to the living room where Michael could still be heard playing video games. She looked at Bobbie. “When I told him his mother was sick and couldn’t see him, he didn’t even question it.”

“No, not after this summer. I suppose he wouldn’t.” Bobbie sank into a seat at the table, put her head in her hands, combing her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing, keeping it from him.” She looked at the nanny. “You know Sonny and Carly were having problems.”

“I know that I often heard yelling,” Leticia said carefully. She sat across from Bobbie, her dark eyes guarded. “That Mrs. Corinthos was very upset when we left. And that Mr. Corinthos was not doing well. That he has not been here.”

“We don’t know anything yet. And before we could find it out, Jason was arrested.” Her mouth pinched, Bobbie looked towards the window. “Until that’s settled, until I know what we’re doing with Sonny, I need you to keep Michael happy. Keep him out of school. Away from the news. It won’t be more than a few days. Jason’s out on bail now, so we can start sorting this all out.”

“Of course. Anything for Michael. I hope Mr. Morgan is exonerated quickly. And that Mrs. Corinthos wakes up and makes a full recovery.”

“So do I,” Bobbie murmured. Because any other outcome would be unthinkable.

Port Charles Courthouse: Parking Garage

Elizabeth saw her grandmother standing by their cars, talking with Mike and Justus. Her mind still whirling from everything Jason had told her on the elevator. He was being framed by Ric and Courtney—

“You can’t trust Scott,” Elizabeth said, catching Jason by the arm before he started towards the cars. “Maybe Mac. But not Scott. He let Ric go this summer.”

“He says that’s why he’s doing this. To make up for that.” Jason laced their fingers together. “But Justus agrees with you. So for now I’m staying silent.”

Elizabeth chewed on her bottom lip, looked down at the cement floor before lifting her gaze back to his. “Sonny wasn’t there today. And I haven’t seen him. That’s not the Sonny I know, so I guess I have to ask—and I understand if you can’t answer—” Her voice trembled as she continued, “Was it him? Did he think Ric was trying to hurt us? A-And we got caught up by accident?”

“I don’t—” Jason exhaled on a low shaky breath. “I know what I suspect. But I don’t know anything for sure.”

“Right. Right. You got arrested that same day.” Elizabeth bit her lip. “I can go home with my grandmother. You should go find out.”

“Elizabeth—”

“This is putting me first,” Elizabeth said, and he closed his mouth. “Finding out who did this to me, to Carly? That has to come before the rest of it. I can’t help you there. I don’t remember anything. I can be there for you, I can offer advice, but we both know there’s nothing I can actually do.”

“I don’t—” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, but—”

“And Gram will watch over me. You know that. She’s already giving me the evil eye because this is longer than I was supposed to be up and on my feet. I’ll probably sleep for a week. She’s monitoring me,” Elizabeth added. “Taking all my vitals. She was a trauma nurse, you know. You can trust her and me to do this part. So you should go with Mike and Justus and find out what happened with Sonny.”

“All right. All right.” Jason brought her hand to his mouth, kissed the inside of her palm, then he leaned forward to brush his lips against her forehead, lingering for a minute. “I’ll come by later. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Port Charles Hotel: Suite

Mac pressed his lips together, then looked at Scott. “So what next, counselor? You want me to pin another crime on Morgan that we know he didn’t do?”

They both looked down at the body between them, sprawled out on the creme colored carpet. Blue eyes were open and pointed towards the ceiling but the slight glaze of death had already descended. A small round hole could be seen between those eyes, just slightly above the brows. The entry wound was neat and tidy, but the exit wound hadn’t been judging from the blood that soaked the wheat-blonde hair and the carpet beneath her.

Courtney Matthews was dead. Freshly dead.

“Well, he’s got one hell of an alibi, doesn’t he?” Scott murmured. “How long—”

“They think maybe half an hour. Housekeeping found her. And a half hour ago—”

“Jason was standing in the hallway of the court house with us,” Scott said. “This can’t be someone trying to frame him—it’s too close—”

“Let’s step out in the hallway. I can’t—” Mac gestured towards the door and Scott followed him. Outside, they discarded their gloves and the protection they’d worn over their feet. “The maid told the officer who responded to the call that she doesn’t usually work this floor first.”

Scott lifted his brows, interest engaged. “Really?”

“There’s a VIP checking in—well, supposed to have,” Mac said, moving further towards the wall to let more crime scene technicians through. “So she decided to switch. This is nearly two hours before she would have come through.”

“Two more hours would have made time of death a little bit harder to pin.  Some wiggle room if you know Morgan’s out on bond.” Scott stroked his chin. “Yeah, okay, I can see that. But that still leaves us with a problem.”

“Someone’s eliminating the witnesses, and it’s not Jason Morgan. And I gotta tell you, Scott—I don’t see Sonny Corinthos executing his little sister in cold blood. I bought that he took out his wife and Elizabeth by accident going after Ric, but this—this is an execution. Textbook.”

“Cameras?” Scott asked.

“Checking on them. They’re only at the elevators, not the hallways. Not on this floor. For privacy,” Mac added. “And something tells me we’re not going to have a lot of luck there.”

“Christ. We need to start at the beginning. Start with throwing out everything we think we know.”

“You mean investigate like a real cop?” Mac said dryly. “Sure. But I think we should start with the notification. If Jason is holding back, he’s going to want to know someone just raised the stakes. ”

Harborview Towers: Security Suite

Jason shook his head. “Run it again,” he ordered the security guard sitting by the strip of televisions. He needed to see the footage again, to see the timestamps—because this didn’t make any sense.

It couldn’t.

“I don’t understand,” Mike said, coming away from the wall, mystified. “I don’t understand what this is showing us—”

“911 call came in at 11:54 PM. Six minutes before midnight. Jason and Bobbie were in the parking lot. How many minutes between the shots and the call?” Justus asked looking at Jason.

“Two. Three at the most.”

Jason reached over the guard’s head and pressed the rewind key again. Watched as Sonny returned to the building at 12:02 AM, passing through the lobby doors, his hair disheveled. A guard approached him. “Is that enough time to get to Kelly’s and back?” he wanted to know.

“I mean, maybe. Ten minutes is tight—” Max furrowed his brow. “But not impossible.”

“But he’s already hid the gun?” Mike asked, and Jason looked at Sonny’s father. “Ten minutes. He ditched the gun along the way, maybe. But Scott said they had it—”

“Scott said they had a gun registered to me they thought was used,” Jason murmured. “It was handed over to them.”

“By who?” Mike demanded.

It didn’t fit. It couldn’t be this way. Sonny had no weapon when he’d returned to the building, so how had Courtney found it? And how had Sonny gotten his hands on one of Jason’s guns when they were locked in the closet—

Jason sat down, dragged a hand down his face. “I think maybe we need to start at the beginning. Because I don’t think Sonny—” he looked at Sonny’s father. “I don’t know if Sonny did this. But if he didn’t do it—”

Max grimaced. “Oh, this just got really bad, didn’t it?”

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