August 20, 2003

Harborview Towers: Hallway

Carly stepped off the elevator and moved towards Jason’s penthouse. As soon as she told her best friend that Elizabeth’s guard hadn’t shown up, there’d be hell to pay and she quite frankly preferred Jason spend his evening dealing with it while Sonny made her dinner.

Besides, Jason was still Elizabeth’s husband—therefore this was his area.

She opened the door—not caring what she walked in on. “Jase!” she called.

Jason stepped in from the balcony. “Hey—what’s up?”

“Marco wasn’t on Elizabeth’s door when we got back—did she call up here yet to ask you about it?”

He frowned and stepped towards the phone. “No—and he’s supposed to be there by now. Andrew’s shift is over.” He picked up the receiver and started dialing. “Is he still with her?”

“Well—no—he went home already.”

Jason’s frown deepened. “She’s down there alone?” Someone on the other end picked up. “It’s Morgan—anything odd showing up on the security tapes for my wife’s apartment?” he said briskly.

The blood drained from his face and he dropped the receiver—bolting for the door.

Alarmed, Carly put the phone to her ear. “This is Mrs. Corinthos—repeat to me what you just told Jason.”

“Mrs. Morgan is struggling in her apartment with someone,” the man repeated. “Wait—Oh, Jesus—the door just shot open and Mrs. Morgan has run out—he’s following her!”

“Get men to that floor now!” Carly ordered. She dropped the phone and rushed out of the apartment. “Sonny!” she bellowed. “Sonny!”

Her husband was in the hallway a split second later. “What? Is it the baby?”

“No—Elizabeth—someone was in her apartment—she’s running from them—”

The door to the stairs flew open and Elizabeth stumbled out. She went sprawling and would have ended up on her face but Sonny acted quickly and kept her on her feet. “What’s going on?”

“Ric!” she choked out. “He was in my apartment!”

“What?” Sonny asked, incredulously. “Are you sure?”

“He—he said Hello Beautiful in my ear,” Elizabeth cried, nearly hysterical. Her eyes darted to Jason’s open door. “W-Where’s Jason?”

“He was told that your apartment was black—he went to check on you.”

“No—” Elizabeth gripped Sonny’s shirt. “Ric will kill him—he had a gun—a-and a knife. You have to get him—”

The door to the stairwell swung open again and Jason stepped out, tucking his gun into his back pocket. “Whoever it was—I couldn’t catch up with them. Men are searching the building and Petersen’s sending up the security tapes.” He turned to Elizabeth who was still breathing heavily from her flight up the stairs. “You need to sit down—catch your breath.”

She shook her head. “Jason—it was Ric.”

“Ric?” Jason repeated. “Are you sure?”

“I saw him—I talked to him,” Elizabeth said. She gripped Sonny’s shirt tightly. “I need—I need some water.”

Jason moved to her side and wrapped an arm her waist. “Okay, okay, let’s get you inside. Sonny—maybe Carly should get back in the other penthouse.”

Carly narrowed her eyes. “Listen here—”

“Go, Carly,” Elizabeth said softly. “You need to take care of yourself and make sure Michael doesn’t hear anything that’s going on.”

Carly hesitated and nodded. “Fine. But—I think I deserve to know what’s going on when you know.”

“Yeah, yeah—just go.”

Morgan Penthouse

It took twenty minutes and a glass of water before Elizabeth’s breathing had returned to normal and the color had returned to her face.

“Carly and I came back and noticed that Marco wasn’t by the door,” Elizabeth began. “We thought it was odd since Andrew had called him right before we came up on the elevator to be sure he was at the door. When he got confirmation of that fact, he went home for the night.”

“So when you saw he wasn’t outside, what did you do?”

“I told Carly to go home—that I’d call Jason when I got into the apartment and see what was up,” Elizabeth said. “I went in and tried to turn on the light—but it didn’t turn on—a-and then he grabbed me.”

“Did he saying anything?” Sonny asked.

“He—he held a knife to my stomach.” Elizabeth’s hands curled protectively over her baby. “And he said if I struggled…he’d kill my baby.”

Jason covered her hands with his own—not surprised to find them icy to the touch. “Laura’s safe,” he told her quietly. “She’s safe.”

“He wrapped his around my neck and kept the other hand on the knife—” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “He said some things—but the important things were that they’d faked their deaths. They’d had help from the inside.”

Sonny pressed his lips together and looked away. “What else?” he said quietly.

“He was only going to keep me alive until he had the baby.” Elizabeth looked from Jason to Sonny. “He only wants the baby.”

“He’s not going to get her,” Jason promised. “He won’t.”

“How’d you get away?” Sonny asked.

“I kneed him,” she admitted. “And when he was caught off guard, I smashed a vase over his head. I ran into the stairwell a-and he followed me. He nearly tripped me but I kept my balance. The next thing I knew, I was up here,” Elizabeth finished.

There was a knock on the door then and a man walked in, carrying some video tapes. “Here are the tapes from the security room,” he said. “We found Marco unconscious in Mrs. Morgan’s apartment. He’d been hit over the head, tied and gagged.”

“Then he didn’t let Ric in.” Sonny nodded. “Thanks, Petersen. Get back to the security room. Are the men finished searching the building?”

“Not yet, sir. You’ll be the first to know.” He handed the tapes to Sonny and left.

Sonny opened one and stood to fiddle with the VCR. “We’ll watch them in order,” he murmured. “Hallway, apartment, stairwell.”

“Apartment?” Elizabeth repeated. Her eyes widened. “There’s a camera in there?”

“Security reasons. It’s only in the living room,” Jason told her. “We didn’t want to take any chances.”

Sonny grabbed the remote and stood next to the couch. He pressed play and the tape began playing.

Elizabeth watched as Marco stepped off the elevators—he was on his cell phone. He stood in front of the apartment door. A few moments later, the door opened and before Marco could pull his weapon, a baseball cracked into his head.

“He was already in the apartment,” Jason remarked. “How long were you and Carly gone?”

“An hour. He wasn’t there before—I know it. Carly was helping me unpack and we were in and out of all the rooms. We would have seen something,” Elizabeth informed him.

Sonny rewound the tape until he found the part where Ric walked off the elevator and picked the lock on the apartment door. He’d entered the apartment ten minutes after Carly and Elizabeth had left.

“He just waltzed right the fuck in,” Sonny snarled. He shut the tape off and moved to put the next one in. “Son of bitch.”

“S-Sonny, do we have to watch this?” Elizabeth asked softly.

Sonny slid the tape in. “I want to make sure we’ve got it all. Are you okay?”

Her cheeks were flushed and she stared at the floor. “Yeah…yeah, I’m fine.”

He pressed play.

Elizabeth walked into the dark apartment. Her arm fumbled for the light switch. Something in the shadows moved and an arm shot out, covering her startled cry.

Ric pressed his mouth to his ear—they could see it moving but did not hear the words.

“He said Hello Beautiful,” Elizabeth whispered. “He used—he used to call me that.”

Ric pressed the dull edge of the knife into her abdomen. “One move and you have a miscarriage,” he snarled.

“Ric—please let me go—” his other hand clamped around her neck.

“You know—if you’d just listened that day in my apartment…” Ric shook his head, his tone almost amused. “We wouldn’t be in this situation, would we Elizabeth? No—you have to go running to my brother and your ever-present white knight.” He snorted. “You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fool those idiots. A couple of bodies and a few insiders to help…almost too easy.”

“Just go—I won’t tell anyone you were here,” Elizabeth choked out.

“Right, sweetheart. No, you’ll go running to Jason just like you always do.” He pressed the knife a little harder. “I could almost forgive that, Beautiful. Almost forgive you for marrying him, letting him claim what’s mine—”

“The adoption’s not final,” Elizabeth lied desperately.

“I’m not talking about the baby,” Ric snarled. “You’re mine, you little bitch. And you let him put his hands on you.”

“No—”

“Well—maybe not now. You’re packing on a little extra weight, there aren’t you?” He stepped closer to her and the let the knife slide up her torso, shifting his grip on it so he could cup her right breast.. “No man’s going to want to touch that, not even your precious Jason.” Ric leaned even closer and pressed his lips against his ear. But he did not whisper. “When I’m through with you, you’re going to wish you’d stayed in those bushes that night. But that’ll have to wait until you deliver the child—you see, that’s all I want from you now. And after that—you’ll hold no use for me.”

That’s when she kneed him. Startled, Ric moved away from her enough that she grabbed a coral vase from the table and smashed it over his head. Then she ran.

Sonny switched off the video and set the remote down, not surprised to find his hands shaking. “Elizabeth…if I’d known what was on that tape—”

“It d-doesn’t matter.” She closed her eyes. “It’s over. I got away and Laura’s safe.”

He nodded and moved to put in the last tape. This one was the stairwell. They watched as Elizabeth stumbled into the stairwell and screamed Jason’s name. Then Sonny’s. She moved towards the steps and was halfway up them when Ric barreled after her. She screamed when he caught her foot and kicked at him—knocking him right in the head.

She screamed Jason’s name again and continued up the stairs. Ric took off towards the bottom levels.

“I’m sorry—I took the elevator.” Jason sighed and rubbed his eyes. “When the doors opened on your floor, the door to the stairwell was swinging open. I didn’t know what was going on but I heard the door upstairs open and went after that.”

“If I’d taken the stairs, I could have gotten him.” He exhaled slowly. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”

She shook her head. “I’m okay. We couldn’t have known—we thought they were dead.”

“This inside help had to be close,” Sonny murmured. “Your security is top priority, Elizabeth. Not everyone knows your apartment, that Andrew is your guard. Ric had to know you were out of the building and your door was unguarded. This person had to know your schedule. The truth is, almost no one in this organization knows we’ve filed the annulment papers.”

“We’ll have to stop the annulment,” Jason said. “And inform the Families that Ric and Faith are still alive. We need to do the first one before the second though. I don’t want them thinking for one second Elizabeth’s open for attack.”

“I’ll call Dara in the morning and get it started. Elizabeth, you’ll have to move back in here.”

“I don’t want to ever go back to that apartment again,” she murmured. “I’d—I’d like to go to sleep now, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. Jason—I’ll take care of things from this end. Ric’s out of the building or we would have found him already.”

Sonny kissed Elizabeth’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“I don’t blame you.”

Sonny sighed and left the penthouse. Elizabeth glanced at Jason before fixing her gaze on her hands.

“I’ll get you something to sleep in,” Jason told her. He stood from the couch and held out his hand.

She let him pull her to her feet and noticed he, too, still wore his wedding ring. “You still have this on.”

He looked down at the gold band and shrugged a little. “Didn’t feel right to take it off—we are still married after all.”

“Right.”

He put an arm around her waist to support her to the stairs. She might have shaken it off under other circumstances—but tonight she did not pretend she didn’t need his support.

“I’m going to have someone come by and see you tomorrow,” Jason told her. “Just a doctor who works for Sonny. To take your blood pressure—and just make sure the baby’s okay.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t know how I’d explain tonight to Dr. Meadows anyway.” She closed her eyes. “We should have known it was too easy—that they couldn’t be dead.”

“We wanted it to be over. But now that we know it’s not—security will be tripled. He won’t get to you again, Elizabeth,” Jason vowed.

“I really wish I could believe that,” she sighed.

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