Written in 59 minutes.
Tuesday, October 7, 2024
Molly & TJ’s Apartment
“Oh, no, don’t—” Alexis laid her hand on the door frame, banking that Molly wouldn’t want to break her mother’s fingers and slam the door anyway.
Molly scowled, but stopped the door halfway, gripping the edge so tightly her knuckles were white. “You have two minutes. I have to go to work.”
“Then I’ll get right to the point. I filed paperwork to withdraw from Kristina’s case yesterday.”
Molly inhaled sharply, her other hand curling tightly into a fist at her side. She hadn’t expected that — she really hadn’t. She’d been watching her sister’s case docket like a hawk, and when Alexis had filed her notice of appearance last Friday, it hadn’t even hurt. Molly had nothing left that could be touched, no sense of any feeling toward her family — toward the sister that had put Molly’s daughter and oldest sister in the ground, or toward the mother who’d let it happen.
Molly took a deep breath. “Not defending her isn’t enough. There are other ways you could let her off the hook, and I don’t trust you not to do them—”
“Molly—”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Mom. I really don’t. You had chance after chance to take someone else’s side, to tell Kristina she was wrong. You think you’re going to get credit for getting off the train? It’s already crashed. It’s over. Sam is dead.”
Alexis flinched, and there was a small twinge of regret deep within. Molly wouldn’t turn into her sister, wouldn’t become a callous creature who only cared about herself.
She deliberately softened her tone. “You know that Sam made me the executor of her estate when you were…” She bit her lip. Indisposed. Drunk. “And she never changed it. I’m not going to stop you from being part of her services. Or at the will reading. Or anything else. That’s not what this is. I’m not even telling you that we won’t be able to grieve together. I just—” She shook her head, stared at the hand still gripping the door. “I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit by Kristina’s side and let her get away with destroying others.” Tears stung her eyes, and she scowled, angry that her body was betraying her, forcing tears on her when she was so angry. “It’s been too much, Mom. Six weeks ago, I buried my daughter. And now I’m going to bury my sister. I have nothing left to give any of you.”
This time, when Molly tried to close the door, Alexis stepped back, and let her.
Penthouse: Hallway
Jake jingled the keys in his hand as they stepped off the elevator. The top floor of the penthouse was eerily silent. He hadn’t been here since his father had gone to Greece, and he’d rarely spent the nights here anyway even when his father had lived here. It had always been Sam’s place, where Danny lived.
His brother stood next to him, staring at the closed door. “The last time I was here,” Danny said slowly, “was the day Mom got into a fight with your mom.”
“We don’t have to do this—”
“It’s—” Danny looked at his brother. “I have to do this. I—I wake up every day and I think it’s not real. It doesn’t feel real. And I think about Dad. He came back, didn’t he? Twice.”
Because they’d never had a body to bury, but Jake understood. After he had died, too, hadn’t he? With a body to bury and everything.
“Coming here won’t change that—”
“They’re not gonna let me see Mom. I don’t even have to ask.” Danny fisted his hands. “They’re not going to let me see her until they make her look like herself, like she’s just sleeping, but I just—” He looked at his brother. “If I don’t go inside, maybe it’s not real. Maybe she’s in there. I don’t know. I just—I don’t feel anything.”
“Danny.”
“Nothing. I just sit in Cam’s room, all empty and tired, just staring at the floor. Or I—” Danny’s voice faltered. “I wake up everyday and I have to remember it. And I don’t feel it. Shouldn’t I feel worse? Shouldn’t I feel broken? Shouldn’t I be crying? Or screaming? Something. My mom—” He stopped, swallowed. “My mom is dead. Isn’t she?”
Maybe he was right, Jake thought. Maybe there was a piece of Danny that still didn’t believe. He didn’t know what going into the penthouse, into Sam’s domain, would help. But this was his brother, and Jake was going to help him.
“Then let’s go in and see what’s up.”
Danny twisted the key in the lock, pushing the door open, then stood in the doorway, staring at the sofa angled in front of the fire place, the dining table tucked between the stairs and the terrace. There was a blanket and a pillow on the sofa, shoes near the coffee table. A few glasses sat on top the surface, an empty bowl.
Danny went forward, slowly, staring at the blanket, at the pillow. “Do you think she was sleeping down here?”
“Maybe,” Jake said, shoving his hands into his pockets, uncomfortable with the well of pity he had for a woman he’d disliked, even hated. But it was sad to think that Danny’s mother, in her final days, had felt so lonely, she’d been sleeping on her own sofa. There was a laundry basket behind the sofa, with a pair of jeans half in, a pair of sweat pants slung over a nearby table.
Had she been avoiding the entire second floor? Jake wondered. Living, eating, sleeping, changing downstairs to stay away from her children’s empty bedrooms?
Danny lowered himself slowly onto the sofa, staring at the bowl, with bits of cereal flakes stuck to the side, long since dried. It had been nearly a week since his mother had been here, not quite long enough to build up layers of dust, but enough to for the air to feel stifled. Trapped.
“I didn’t know…” Danny didn’t look up, didn’t meet Jake’s eyes. “I didn’t know that it would be the last time I’d be here. We came down stairs. Rocco and me. And Mom and Dante were on the sofa.” He looked at Jake, his eyes glittering. “We wanted to trick them into letting us go to Aiden’s, so I…used your mom. I knew it would work. I knew…I knew just how to push her buttons.”
“She didn’t make it hard,” Jake said, then winced. “Look, that’s the job of a kid to know how to get what they want. I figured out pretty quick that the thing my mom wanted most was for me and Dad to have a good relationship. So if I wanted to go to a baseball game, I’d just bring up asking Dad, and she’d jump on it. And I also knew the quickest way to tick her off was to insult Dad. Or one of my brothers. You’re not an asshole because you knew how to play your mom.”
“If we’d stayed home, it’d all be different. No one would know…” Danny folded his arms around himself. “No one would know about me and Rocco. No one would take Scout away. Mom and Liz wouldn’t have gotten so mad—”
“That’s not why your mom is gone, Danny,” Jake said flatly, and Danny looked at him, startled. “Kristina had already framed my mom, remember? That was over and done, and had nothing to do with your mom. And Kristina tried to get my mom’s bail taken away. She was always going keep trying to hurt my mom. You, me, Rocco, Aiden — none of us mattered. And your mom was probably pissed. I read in the papers that your mom suspected Kristina of the murder, too. It was some sort of recording. You want someone to blame? Don’t look in the mirror. Look somewhere else on the family tree.”
“But she only had me as a weapon because—”
“So what? Dude. You might have given her ammunition by being an asshole, but your aunt pulled the trigger. Literally and figuratively. And the way I hear it, everyone else blaming themselves is why she got away with it for so long. You know what I think? Maybe we make it our business to show up at every single one of her hearings and court things so she has to look at you every time she tries to pretend she’s not an evil bitch.”
Danny stared for another long moment at the cereal bowl, then got to his feet. “Yeah, okay. Okay.” He swiped awkwardly at his eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s go.”
District Attorney’s Suite: Robert’s Office
Robert heard the voices before his door opened — the muffled voice of his assistant and the unmistakable tone of his ex-wife, raising above it. Then she was in his face, her cheeks flushed, eyes glittering. “What is this supposed to mean?” she demanded, striding towards him, slapping a paper on his desk.
“Ah.” He slid on his reading glasses, though he knew precisely what it was. He’d written it after all. “Informing you that I’ve appointed a special prosecutor to work with a grand jury to investigate the Pikeman incident.”
“The Pikeman incident,” Anna repeated. “What, precisely, does that mean?”
“I thought it was rather clear—” Robert looked again. “An audit of the investigation, inquiring precisely how Valentin Cassadine was able to abscond from justice under the PCPD’s noses.” He lifted his brows. “Is there some clarification you’d like me to make?”
“You have a lot of nerve coming after me like that. You’re not particularly innocent, now are you?” Anna demanded. “Or do I have to remind you what we’ve done while working for the WSB? Or what we did to Faison? We locked him away to rot on Spoon Island—”
Robert slowly got to his feet, and Anna stopped, her lips pressed firmly together. “First of all, when we were conducting investigations for the WSB, I generally stayed within the limits. And Faison? Anna, that was about protecting our daughter. Or had you forgotten Faison stole her away from us? Faked her death? Masqueraded as Duke Lavery for months, once again, under your nose?” he demanded. “Whom precisely were you protecting when you warned Valentin that the FBI was coming after him?”
“You have no evidence that I did any such thing,” Anna said, lifting her chin.
“Really?” Robert tipped his head. “You swore an oath to the PCPD, to your officers. Valentin, as the head of Pikeman was responsible for the shooting of Curtis Ashford, for Dante Falconieri, and those are just the two incidents we can tie him to in our jurisdiction. He nearly killed one of your men, Anna.”
“That—” Anna stopped shook her head.
“Was an accident? He was aiming for someone else? His mercenaries were willing to kill to get away. He sent them here.”
Anna folded her arms. “You won’t be able to prove anything. There’s no evidence, no reason for anyone to tell you anything—”
“You mean, no reason for Jason Morgan to tell me anything,” Robert finished. “He might have to get these charges dropped against Elizabeth. I’m willing to bet that I can convince him to cooperate. It’s the right thing to do. He gave up two years of his life to find that name, after all.”
Anna shook her head. “It won’t happen.”
“Well, maybe my special prosecutor has some thoughts.” He pressed a button on his desk. “Judy, can you send in Ms. Campbell?”
“Ms. Campbell—” Anna turned, looked at the doorway. “You work for the U.S. Attorney—”
“Oh—” Gia leaned against the door frame. “I’ve decided to return to my roots. To the place where I fell in love with the law. And reunite with some old friends since I was helped exonerate her.” Her lips curved into a smile. “And Commissioner Devane, I’m particularly looking forward to getting to know you.”
Webber House: Living Room
“Maybe we should have gone with them,” Elizabeth said, pacing in front of the windows, peering through them to the street, hoping to see Jake’s car pulling up. She looked back at Jason, sitting on the sofa, reviewing some paperwork from the warehouse. “I’m such a hypocrite. Yesterday, I was on board with letting him figure it out for himself—”
Jason got to his feet, crossed to her, and took her hands. “It’s hard to sit back and do nothing. Diane told me to let the system work for you, and I wasn’t allowed to punch anyone for answers. That was good advice.”
“Annoying advice,” Elizabeth muttered, but forced herself to smile. “It’s just—going home for the first time—” At the sound of a car, she whirled back to the windows, then made a face. “It’s not them. It’s—” She straightened. “It’s Alexis.”
Jason grimaced. “If she’s here about Kristina—”
“What would she even ask us?” Elizabeth wanted to know. “I’m sure the Feds are already trying to figure out how to throw more charges at her about what she did to me. Or pressuring her to turn on her father.” She bit her lip. “You don’t think that she’s going to do that, do you?”
“I don’t think she knows anything that would matter, but—” Jason pulled open the door at Alexis’s knock. “You should be talking to Diane.”
“I come in peace.” Alexis put up her hands. “It’s not—It’s not about any of that. It’s about Danny.”
Jason relaxed, but only slightly, stepping back enough to allow Alexis entry into the house. “He’s not here. He went with Jake to the penthouse.”
“The penthouse? Oh. That—I haven’t gone there yet. I don’t—” Alexis closed her eyes, took a deep bracing, breath. “There’s nothing I can say to either of you that encompasses how I feel. I could tell you that I’m sorry, that I feel responsible for all of it, and I do. But it wouldn’t be enough. It won’t ever be enough.”
“There’s nothing any of us can do to change the past,” Elizabeth said. “And yours isn’t the apology we want.”
“I don’t want or need an apology. It wouldn’t change anything,” Jason said, and Alexis nodded.
“Of course. And I told you I’m not here about Kristina. I’ve withdrawn from her case. I need to focus on my grandchildren. And what’s best for them. I wanted to talk to you about Danny. And Scout.”
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