Written in 60 minutes.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2000

Luke’s: Main Bar

It was still a few hours before the club would be in full swing, packed with the dock workers after their shift or corporate types enjoying the happy hour promotions, but Luke still had his hands full, filling in for the bartender who’d no-showed.

“This is the last time I put you in charge of hiring,” he told Claude, snatching up a bottle of vodka to finish off a screw driver. He set it in front of the patron who tossed down some money and slid off the stool, melting into the crowd.

Lucky took the empty spot, folding his arms on the bar. “You must  be desperate if you’re out working the bar,” he told his father.

Luke arched his brow, grabbed a pint glass and filled it with a pale ale, then set it in front of his son. “And you must be looking for something if you’re finally showing up here. I’ve been calling you. So has your mother.”

Lucky’s mouth tightened.  He picked up the beer. “I need some advice.”

Luke looked over at Claude, then the crowd around them. “I can give you maybe ten minutes right now, but if you hold off an hour, Nance will be here to take over. Your choice.”

“I’ll wait.” Lucky took the beer, slid off the stool, and disappeared in the crowd.

Jake’s: Bar

Emily sat across  from her brother, and eyed his burger with some suspicion. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually eat Jake’s food before.”

“I wouldn’t eat the calamari,” Jason told her. He pushed his plate aside slightly, folded his arms, leaning in. “You want something? I can get Jake.”

“No, I ate on campus.” Emily twisted her  fingers in her lap. “Um, you’re not mad that I sent Liz to talk to you, right? You just seem to take  bad news from her so much better, and I figured I could handle Lucky and Nikolas for her—”

“I’d only be angry if you didn’t come to me,” Jason interrupted, and Emily let out a sigh of relief. “I’ve been making some calls, trying to find out how serious this is — if Dara’s playing with you or if we should be worried.”

“And?”

“It’s not likely they’re dismissing the charges,” Jason told her. “Maybe if it were another drug dealer, but it’s a dead cop. They’re looking to get the max. Death penalty,” he added when Emily frowned.

“I didn’t even think New York had that anymore.”

“No one’s been executed since the sixties, but, yeah, Death Row is still a thing. Dara’s counting on a cop killer not getting much public support.”

“So it won’t just be my word against his,” Emily said. “She was lying.”

“Not—” Jason paused, considered his response carefully. “She’s not wrong. Charges are probably going to stand, but a jury’s unpredictable. Maybe they convict, maybe they don’t. The only thing connecting Zander Smith to Ted Wilson is that body in the trunk.” He lifted his brows. “Gia Campbell could link them.”

“She could. But then she’d have to leave me out of it. She saw us both that night,” Emily told him.

“Right. And even if she was willing to leave you out of it, if Zander’s pointing at you guys for the frame job — they’ll ask about you. Or the others. I don’t know that we want to put any of this in Gia’s hands.”

“No, I don’t trust her. Nikolas might, but—” Emily sighed, sat back. “It’s a mess, isn’t it? We created a giant mess that first day, and there’s no way out.”

“It’s a mess,” Jason agreed, and she made a face. “I’m not going to lie to you. We don’t have a lot of options here. We need to stop this from going to trial or even to this hearing she’s talking about. Find a way to make Smith plead guilty or tie him to the whole thing.” He tipped his head. “When we found you, you weren’t so sure he was guilty. But now you are. What changed? Maybe there’s something in there.”

Emily stiffened, fisted her hands in her lap again. “I was stupid before. Okay? He seemed…he seemed lost. Confused. Scared. He told me that…that it wasn’t him that night. That it was someone else who worked for Sorel. That he stopped them from killing me, too.”

Jason sat back in his chair, considered her for a long moment. “He was lying to you.”

“I—” Emily frowned. “I know that. But how do you?”

“Because you don’t kill a cop and leave a witness. Especially a witness like you. They know who you are, Emily. Not just to me. But to the Quartermaines. High profile witness. No. That’s not how it went down.”

“I—I know. I—” Emily stopped. “I don’t remember anything about that night. Not really. But I woke up…without clothes on,” she said, dropping her eyes to the table. “And I wasn’t…nothing—I know nothing happened. I…” Her cheeks heated. “I just know. Trust me.”

He clenched his jaw. “Okay.”

“When we got home, when it was all over, after he’d been arrested, I—I just…I had this dream. This…” Her throat felt tight. “I think I remember someone taking off my clothes. I’d been having those flashes for weeks, but nothing that I could stitch together, and maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe I’m just thinking I remember it, but I think I remember it….being him.” A tear slid down Emily’s cheek, and she swiped at it. “Don’t—don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s…it’s not a big deal. Nothing even happened. But it made me think twice about his story. And now I think he was playing me. I think he wanted me to tell him about what we did. And—it worked.” She finally looked at him again, her eyes swimming. “I told him everything. Because I’m stupid, and I believed him.”

Hardy House: Living Room

“Hey, Gram.” Elizabeth set down the bags she’d brought home from work and crossed the room to greet her grandmother with a kiss on the cheek. “I thought you had plans with Bobbie, or I would have been home sooner.”

“Oh, well, I rescheduled them, darling.” Audrey sat on the sofa, patted the cushion next to her. “I wanted to hear about your day at work, and, well—I thought perhaps we might discuss something Bobbie shared with me when she called earlier.”

Elizabeth slowly lowered herself onto the sofa. “You heard about Kelly’s,” she said. She bit her lip, shook her head. “Silly to think it wouldn’t have gotten around. It happened in front of the whole diner, and now everyone knows, don’t they?”

“I can’t speak for everyone,” Audrey said, “but all I know right now is that you nearly fell down the stairs, and that Lucky seemed to cause the fall.” She reached for Elizabeth’s hand. “I won’t pry, darling, I promise. It’s just…you seemed so upset when you came here on Sunday, and I knew you’d quarreled with Lucky. I didn’t realize how badly it had gone. If you don’t want to speak about it, I’ll respect your wishes. I just…I thought you should know that I know. And that I’m here.”

Her eyes burned, and she looked away, squeezing her eyes closed. “I don’t really know what to say. I’m still not…” Elizabeth looked back at her grandmother. “Lucky and I had an argument on Sunday. About the job. Or it started that way. I was trying to tell him that I thought maybe this could be a way to get back something I lost after the rape, and…” She looked down at their intertwined hands, at her grandmother’s fingers, the wedding ring she still wore more than six years after losing her husband. “Lucky didn’t like me very much before. He liked me better after. He loved me,” she said softly. “And I was so amazed that someone would — no one  had. Not really. And Lucky was the first, I thought, to see me. The real me.”

She looked up towards the ceiling, trying to gather herself, to organize her thoughts. “But it wasn’t me. It was pieces of me, broken into jagged little pieces that I was desperately trying fit back together, you know? I… didn’t want to be around people. I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I wanted to disappear into a crowd.” Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “That’s who Lucky thought I was. Shy. Quiet. Submissive,” she added softly. “We never argued, because I just assumed he knew best. He’d taken such good care of me, Gram. He knew just what to do that night, even if I didn’t do it. He—he knew to get his aunt. A-and that I needed to feel safe, and that I needed to find out who did it—and he liked being my hero.”

“Oh, my darling.” Audrey touched her cheek, gently swiping away the tears that had continued to fall. “Do you think he doesn’t love you now?”

“I don’t think he knows me,” Elizabeth told her. “Or that he wants to see that I’ve changed. I’m more myself, again, you know? Not…not all the way. I think I’ve learned to be a little less reckless with people’s feelings. But I was so scared all the time, Gram. And now I’m not. Now I give into impulse, like agreeing to Chloe’s job when she asked me. A-and I spent all afternoon talking about fabric and materials and clothing, and it was so much fun. There were people everywhere, and it was crowded, and I didn’t feel scared, not even a little. This is the first time since that night that I’ve been on my own. Really on my own. And I love it.”

“I can tell. Your whole face lights up when you talk about it.” Audrey tipped her head. “What happened on Monday?” she asked gently.

“I just wanted to get away, to give us some more time, I needed more time. I packed my  things, and he was arguing with me the whole time, trying to stop me. A-and then when I was trying to go down the steps — he grabbed the strap of my bag. I lost my balance.” Elizabeth sighed. “I would have fallen all the way down, but Jason and Emily were at the diner, and they’d heard the yelling. They were already at the bottom of the stairs, and Jason—he caught me.”

“Well, then I suppose I owe Jason a thank you for his quick reflexes,” Audrey said, and Elizabeth laughed. “What?”

“That must have hurt to admit.”

“I can acknowledge when Jason’s done something useful,” Audrey said with a sniff, then smiled. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Bobbie’s description made me worried you were hiding broken bones or something.”

“I…was shaken up,” Elizabeth admitted, and Audrey’s smile faded slightly. “I know Lucky didn’t mean to hurt me. But he grabbed my bag to stop me. He didn’t care that I was on the steps, or that I told him—I told him no,” she said softly. “And he didn’t care, Gram. He didn’t care. He doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong. Or if he does, he doesn’t think it’s so terrible. But it is, Gram. How can I be with someone who only saw value in me after I’d been broken into pieces?”

Luke’s: Office

“Are you here about that business at Kelly’s the other day?” Luke asked, closing the office door behind him. Lucky turned at the desk, faced his father and scowled. “Because I didn’t think I’d have to tell you about putting your hands on a woman—”

“I’m not sure you have the right to tell me anything about treating a woman right,” Lucky said caustically. “I can handle my relationship, Dad. Elizabeth—she’s taking this job, and it’s fine. She wants it, whatever. I can support that. And I know how to fix it. She needs to see that she still needs me, that I can still be the guy she fell in love with.”

Luke folded his arms. “If you got all the answers, what do you need me for?”

“I said I know how to fix it, but what I mean is, I know what has to be done. I just…” Lucky shrugged. “I don’t know how to do it. But if I can make all this go away, if I can just save us all, I just know Elizabeth will forgive me.”

“Make all what go away?” Luke demanded. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“That guy who kidnapped Emily? Zander Smith?” Lucky said. “I didn’t tell you the whole story. But he’s trying to say we put the dead cop in his trunk—and we did. Because  Zander killed him and left in a bed next to Emily, after he drugged her. We all tried to cover it, but it’s gone wrong. I messed it up, and now we’re all screwed. Unless I can make this go away.”

“You—” Luke exhaled slowly. “You played hide and seek with the body of a dead cop. Okay. I need a drink. Or ten. Then we’ll talk about how the hell to fix this.”

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