Written in 65 minutes.

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Friday, September 12, 2024

General Hospital: Nurse’s Station

Amy Driscoll had dodged and evaded every attempt Dante and Chase had made to talk to her for nearly twenty-four hours, not returning voicemails, always just being called away to a patient when they’d come to the hospital the day before —

“Starting to think maybe she did leave the tip,” Chase said with a wrinkle of his nose as he and Dante exited the elevator. “Why would she avoid us otherwise?”

“I’d agree with you, except I survived the Man Landers debacle, and I’m telling you — Amy isn’t involved. She probably thinks we’re calling about a parking ticket.”

“Man Landers?” Chase asked, furrowing his brow. “Do I want to know?”

“No,” Dante said shortly, then sighed when Amy, standing behind the computer terminal, met his gaze, actually did a double take and started to hurry in the opposite direction. “That’s it, I’m tackling her.” He sprinted after her, then skidded to a stop in front of a patient’s room. “No. Today, we’re talking—”

“Oh, but I just have to—”

“No.” Dante spied Felix DuBois passing and snagged his arm. “Felix, finish whatever Amy’s supposed to do. She needs to have a conversation with us.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Interest gleamed in Felix’s brown eyes, always looking for some gossip. “Is she under arrest?”

A sound emitted from Amy that sounded suspiciously like a squeak, but Dante scowled. “No, but if she keeps finding reasons not to talk to us, I might change my mind. Amy—let’s go.”

“Oh, but—”  she sighed, then followed him around the corner to a conference room. “I should have known you’d hunt me down like a dog. Oh, God, that’s a horrible joke. I’m so sorry. I am. I called the number on the tag, I took the dog to the vet, they said he’d be okay—”

“Amy, for the love of God—” Dante held up a hand. “What are you talking about?”

Amy’s blue eyes rounded with surprise. “The dog I hit last week on Elm Street. It was an accident! I paid for it and everything! Please don’t arrest me.”

“The fact that you passed organic chemistry and still zero common—” Dante stopped, took a deep breath. “I don’t know anything about a damn dog. I’m calling you about this.” He nodded to Chase who held out his phone, and the recording played.

“Hello. I have a tip about the murder of that FBI guy. The one on Labor Day. I’m a nurse at GH, and I overheard my supervisor, Elizabeth Webber, talking with that mob guy she’s always with. Jason Morgan. She said that he didn’t need to worry. No one was ever gonna look in her trunk, and when the smoke died down, he could get rid of the gun.”

Amy frowned. “That’s my voice.”

“I know,” said Dante. “Now explain what the hell this message is.”

“That’s my voice,” Amy repeated, “but I never—I never said any of that, and that did not happen, and I’m not just saying that because Morgan could break me in half with, like, a flick of his wrist. I would never snitch on Elizabeth, she’s way too nice to me—I mean, I probably would if I overheard her talking about a murder weapon—”

“Amy—” Dante held up a hand, and she stopped. “You’re telling me you didn’t make this call.”

“No.”

“And the contents of this message — you never heard Elizabeth and Jason having this conversation?”

“No.” Amy shook her head. “Liz and I don’t even work the same shifts — and I haven’t seen her in ages. Well, I guess that’s because she was in jail, which is insane. Can you imagine believing she shot a man in cold blood? I mean, not that she’s not capable of murder. I bet if you threatened one of her boys, she’d be able to do it, but—right, I’ll shut up,” she said before Dante could get the words out.

“Last question. Did you work last Wednesday at all?”

“No. I went to the movies with my brother Yuri. Am I under suspicion or something?”

“Not anymore. You can go, and uh, nice job paying for that dog,” Dante said as she scooted to the door. “I’m glad it’ll be okay.”

“Me, too.”

When she left, Dante looked at Chase with lifted brows. “Well?”

Chase sat on the edge of the conference table, folded his arms. “We have two audio files in this case. Both of which are very incriminating. So incriminating, I can hardly believe that someone with Jason Morgan’s criminal history would ever make these kinds of mistakes. Especially when he’s on scene when the murder is reported. But I’m supposed to believe he left a voicemail telling Cates the time and location of the meeting, and dropped information about a deal that no one else has heard about. Then he set up an alibi, using his teenaged sons so that his nephew and ex-girlfriend could carry out the murder of an FBI agent. And then he’s stupid enough to talk about the murder, the location of the murder weapon with the ex the next day at her very public work place.”

“Do we think that’s the FBI’s theory?” Dante asked.

“I don’t know. That’s the case they’re giving the court, especially now that the first voicemail has been turned over to us and to Diane Miller. Otherwise, you can’t tie Elizabeth to the murder other than an accessory after the fact.” Chase exhaled slowly. “But let’s forget about the FBI. Their case is awful, and Diane is going to murder them. What we have is someone making sure the FBI or the investigation focuses on Jason. First by making it clear Jason lured Cates to the crime scene, and then tying him to the murder weapon through Elizabeth’s car. Someone is setting Jason up for the murder. They either didn’t figure Elizabeth would get the murder charge, or they did — and they’re expecting Jason to do something about it.”

“Now that’s interesting—” Dante lifted his brows. “Because Jason has plead guilty to a crime before — when Michael did a short stint in prison back in 2010. And then playing FBI informant for two years to protect Carly from RICO charges.”

“So whoever is setting Jason up expects him to eventually fall on the sword for Elizabeth.” Chase got to his feet. “So we need to focus on someone who hated John Cates enough to kill him, and who hated Jason enough not to care who else got hurt.”

ELQ: Michael’s Office

“Knock, knock—” Kristina rapped on Michael’s ajar door, smiling when her brother got up from his desk, and came around to hug her. “Hey. I came to see if you wanted to do something this weekend. I feel like we haven’t hung out one on one in forever.”

Michael squeezed her hard, then stepped back. “I’ll check with Willow. Her work schedule has been a little rough this week — she’s picking up a few shifts from Elizabeth.”

“Oh. I didn’t—” Kristina hesitated. “I guess I didn’t think about how that would work. I mean, she’s out on bail, right? Is she on house arrest, or—”

“City limits, so she can go back to work. But I think they wanted to give her a few days. I didn’t get to see her,” Michael said, heading to mini fridge. “You want a water, or something?”

“Yeah, sure.” She caught the bottle he tossed at her. “I thought you went to court.”

“Yeah, but she was on a screen. It wasn’t really the same, and I wanted to give her and Jason some time with the boys. They’ve been through hell this week, with the FBI coming down hard on Jake and Danny.” Michael twisted off the cap, took a drink. “I think she’s going back on Monday.”

“Good. Good. Normalcy, that will help. And of course, Diane and Spinelli will work their magic.” Kristina sat down on the sofa in seating area. “I wanted to talk to you about Molly.”

Michael grimaced. “I don’t want to get in the middle of that—” He sat next to her.

“And I wouldn’t ask you to. I wouldn’t. You—you’ve got so much on your plate.” She reached out, squeezed his hand. “Molly and I will—we’ll figure out a way to get around this—”

“Krissy—” Michael paused, then shook his head. “Never mind.”

“No, say it. What did you want to say?” She tensed.

“You and Molly aren’t going to get around this. Not until you find a way to make peace with the fact that Irene wasn’t your daughter.”

Kristina bit back the correction, took a deep breath. “She was. She was created from me, Michael. My egg, my body—”

“And you promised to donate both the egg and your body to Molly and TJ. I’m not saying your grief isn’t complicated, or that you don’t have a right to feel like you’ve lost a child. I would never take that away from you. But you don’t seem to want to make room for Molly’s grief—”

“Molly’s not grieving at all, though, is she?” Kristina snapped. She got to her feet. “She’s taking over FBI cases and living like nothing happened at all—”

“Normalcy,” Michael echoed, slowly rising. “Isn’t that what you said would help? Going about her daily life. Doing her job. Molly’s always championed what’s right. The principles of it. And since she’s trying to find Cates’ real killer, I’m glad she’s doing it. You’re back to work at Charlie’s, aren’t you? Alexis is back to work, trying to get you out of these ridiculous charges.”

“That’s different—”

“No. It’s not. You can be mad at me all you want, Krissy, I can take it. But Molly doesn’t have to perform her grief to your satisfaction. You don’t have the right to demand that. TJ and Molly lost their daughter that day. You lost a niece that you were generously bringing into the world to build their family. No one expects you not to grieve.”

“No, you just expect me to act like Adela wasn’t my daughter, and she was. She was.” Kristina looked at him. “I was going to keep her.”

Michael exhaled, looked away and scrubbed his hand down his face. “Christ. You were going to drag Molly and TJ into a custody battle? That would have destroyed your entire family. You can’t be serious.”

“We would have worked out something—”

“Well, then I guess you should have stayed out of Dad’s custody battle,” Michael said flatly. “But that’s you, Krissy. You never know when to quit—” His head whipped to the side as she slapped him. “Right. You can go.”

“With pleasure,” she spat.

Port Charles Airport: Parking Lot

Jason navigated the SUV down the lines of cars, searching for an empty spot and coming up empty on their third pass. “Maybe I should drop you at the entrance hall and come back and pick you guys up.”

“We still have time,” Elizabeth said, scanning her side. “Cameron’s plan just landed. They’re probably not even in the terminal yet.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “So there’s something I should have told you when you picked me up five hours ago.”

The SUV braked, waiting for a car with its rear headlights on, signaling that maybe they were going to back up and leave. “Should I be scared?” Jason asked dryly. He clicked on the blinker.

“I just too nervous for the meeting on the way down and didn’t want to open that can of worms, and then when we were done, I didn’t want to talk about anything depressing, but now I realize we’re picking up Cameron, and I won’t want to talk about it this weekend at all—”

“Elizabeth.”

“Sam came to see me this morning,” she said in a rush of words.

He said nothing at first, easing the vehicle into the parking space, and putting it in park. He left the ignition on so that the air conditioner would keep running, then looked at her. “I wondered  how long she’d wait.”

“Why didn’t you tell me she was coming?” Elizabeth wanted to know. She folded her arms. “I felt a little blindsided.”

“Sorry. I didn’t—” Jason paused. “I didn’t want to talk about her either,” he said, and she made a face. “Sam’s not a fun topic. But I’m sorry. I should have. What did she say?”

“I don’t know if what she said matters as much as why she said it. You know what Sam does when she wants something. She figures out how to get it. I believe her when she says helping on my case is supposed to impress Danny.”

“I don’t know if she’s right about that, and I also don’t know if I care. That’s why I told her no at first — and that you’d need to sign off on it if the answer was going to change.” He looked at her. “Your case is too important for it to be something Sam tries to use for her own motives.”

Elizabeth considered that, then nodded. “That’s mostly where I am on it. And I think some of what she said could be true — Danny was getting into a lot of trouble last year. Jake found a vape pen on him. Bad grades, trouble at school, I knew all of that. So I know she was already having problems with him. What I didn’t know is that you asked Danny to keep your presence at the boat house a secret when the PCPD, FBI and every other government agency was looking for you.”

Jason sighed, leaned back against the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield. “Not my finest moment, but yeah. I did that. I—” He paused. “I can tell you I didn’t realize how badly my cover was blown and that I thought if people knew I was alive, Cates would call off the deal. Carly gets arrested, and then the last two years — it’s for nothing. I already—” He fisted his hand against the wheel. “I already hated every minute I was gone. I already regretted doing it, but damn it, I didn’t want to lose everything I’d tried to do and make it all for nothing. That time away from Danny, from Jake, from Monica—from everyone who mattered—I had tunnel vision, and I wasn’t—” His voice shifted slightly, thickened. “I didn’t see him as Danny, my son in that moment, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

“Jason—” Elizabeth reached out, touched his arm, and he finally looked at her, thought it was difficult to get a good read on him in the dim shadows. “I’m not blaming you. You came forward, you got to keep your deal, and we got to have you back. You made a mistake as a father. Every parent does—”

“Mine implicated Danny in a federal crime,” Jason bit out.

“Okay, and I helped Nikolas hold his pregnant mistress hostage in Wyndemere because we thought she was a serial killer,” Elizabeth said, “at a time when I thought you were dead, and I was the only parent in my sons’ lives.”

“You—” Jason looked at her, furrowed his brow. “The immunity charge?”

“Yeah. Not my finest moment as a mother. I could have gone to jail for the rest of my life. Instead, I threw Nikolas under the bus, and now he’s in jail instead.” She bit her lip. “In my defense, he kidnapped her first, and I just helped with prenatal care. Anyway. I didn’t bring that up to judge you. But that I do understand how Sam might have seen that act, combined it with Danny getting into trouble, and thinking — he might be happy to follow in your footsteps. Like Morgan, who got himself involved in Sonny’s business for a little while. The first time you were dead,” she added when he just looked at her. “I’m not saying Sam handled it well. Or that I believe she’s sorry.  But I believe her when she says she resents me and Jake. And she very deliberately shoved the boys in the middle of this feud that I never asked to be a part of in the first place. She’s always treated me like I fired the first shot, when all I did was go to you the night she slept with her stepfather.”

Jason sighed, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s—I could pretend for long periods of time she didn’t resent Jake, or outright hate him. But sometimes…she’d get a look—I never should have forgiven her. I love Danny, and I’ll never regret that he’s here, but all the same—”

“I get it, Jason. I married Franco, didn’t I?”

He made a face, and she smiled. “See, I told. Neither of us are stellar in the choice-making department. Relationships, crimes, we’re more alike than you give us credit for.”

Jason reached for her hand, squeezed it. “So what do you want to do about Sam?”

“I’m going to let it sit for a while. I want to say no, but I want her to feel like I thought about it first.” Her phone lit up with a text message, and she reached for it with her free hand. “Cameron just got off the plane.”

“We’d better get going.”

He met her at the back of the car, and took her hand again, lacing their fingers together, and she leaned against his shoulder as they crossed the parking lot towards the domestic arrivals terminal.

“My next day off is Thursday,” Elizabeth said just before they went inside. He turned to look at her, lifting his brows in question. “I work Monday to Wednesday. But Thursday, you know. I’m not planning to get arrested, and the boys will be gone all day. If you don’t have plans.”

“I will definitely not have plans.” He leaned down to brush his lips against hers, intending it to be a brief kiss, but she twisted her fingers in his shirt to hold him close for another minute before separating and heading inside.

The wait was brief, and thanks to Jason’s height, he was able to see Cameron striding out of baggage claim before Elizabeth could. He waved his hand to capture her son’s attention and Cameron waved back, grinning.

Cameron jogged the last few steps, dropping his duffel bag and backpack just before he reached them, then sweeping his mother off her feet, and swinging her in a circle. “It is so good to see you,” he managed, his voice a little wobbly.

He set her on her feet, and she framed his face with her hands. “My baby,” she murmured with shining eyes. “I missed you so much. I’m so glad you’re home.”

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