She thanked God for the lights, the bright lights of the news media which made it impossible for her to make eye contact with any of the reporters gathered in front of her. She gripped tightly the cup of coffee Reginald had thoughtfully put in front of her and sipped it nervously as she waited for the room to quiet so that she could make her statement.

They were in the conservatory, a room Emily had always liked for its quiet elegance. Now she would always associate it with the most painful night of her life. She catches a glimpse of Lucky standing in the back of the room and mentally amends that statement. Second most painful.

She looks at AJ sitting next to her and smiles at him and his support. She looks around and feels a deep disappointment that Ned is not there.

She checks her watch. 11 p.m. It had been two hours since she had walked into the mansion to help her family began to cope with the loss of a grandfather who had meant the world to her. She wanted this news conference over. She wanted to be upstairs with her parents, Lila, and Michael. She didn’t want to be down here dealing with this mess. No, to be painfully honest what she wanted was to be in town sleeping in her own condominium with nothing more urgent on her mind than the acquisition of Buchanan Enterprises scheduled for the next two weeks. The hostile takeover, designed to give ELQ a stronger foothold in the growing multimedia market would at least give her something to think about other than what happened tonight and the mess in Bolivia. Somehow though she knows that her life is only going to get more complicated.

Just to make this statement and answer a few questions, she had been forced to allow Lucky and Frisco to make several sweeps of the room, run every media official through both background checks and metal detectors, and in general make her feel like a prisoner in her own house. Or her parents’ house.

She would have protested, but she was too tired to protest. All she wanted was this evening to be over so that she could find some quiet corner and break down and cry. Instead she had to be strong to make it through this press conference, take care of the family, and make arrangements for a memorial service and burial. She looked at AJ, maybe she didn’t have to do all of that alone.

“Where’s Lark?” AJ asked. “I would have thought she’d be here to help with this.”

Emily shrugged. “I couldn’t reach her.” She smiled faintly. “I hope she’s out having more fun with her evening than I’ve had with mine.” She looked around the small crowd of reporters. “Time to get the show on the road.”

She motions the crowd for silence and a hushed silence falls over the reporters. Lucky, standing to the side and trying to watch the crowd carefully, finds himself watching Emily instead. She is grace personified, but there is not a person in the room who isn’t aware of the steel underneath the polished surface. He can see immediately why Edward was pushing her as CEO, at 19 she has clear command of the room. With a few years of experience, she would have them eating out of her hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I would like to begin with thanking you for your presence tonight and with your patience as matters of security were dealt with. All of ELQ appreciates your cooperation. I will read a short statement from the family and then answer a few questions.”

“Tonight marks a tragic occasion for every member of the Quartermaine family. Edward Quartermaine was not only the driving force behind the founding and the success of ELQ Enterprises, he was also a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. My grandfather was also deeply aware of his responsibilities to the community of Port Charles and to the people who were his neighbors and his friends. His generosity reached from the classroom to the operating room to the green room as he supported programs that funded education, the arts, medical research, and other humanitarian efforts throughout the city. His loss is a loss to all whose lives he touched. Quite simply he will be missed,” Emily pauses and takes a deep breath for control. “By all of us.”

“As a family, we also have a message for the individual or individuals responsible for this cowardly act tonight as well as the act of terrorism at the Outback that resulted in the loss of innocent lives. ELQ has not and will not be dictated to by those who use terror as a tool of negotiation. My grandfather would not give in to such cowardice and blackmail, neither will the company he founded. ELQ fully intends to continue operating tomorrow under the same guiding principles that it did yesterday. We are committed heart and soul to not only the project in Bolivia but to other ELQ projects throughout the world. My grandfather believed that economic marketplace of the next millennium would be a global one and we will carry on with that belief.

ELQ is and always has been a family operated company and it will continue to be so.” Emily sits down and looks at AJ, who stands up. “We will answer a few questions but I am sure you will understand if we limit the questioning. This has been a long and tiring evening for all involved.”

“Do the police have any leads on who is responsible for Mr. Quartermaine’s murder?”

AJ smiles politely. “The investigation is a police matter and I am not allowed to comment. My understanding is that Commissioner Scorpio will be making a statement in a few minutes. You may want to save your questions for him.”

“Will you continue on as CEO or will there be yet another reshuffling at the top?”

AJ’s smile is a little more forced. “There will be no changes in the leadership at ELQ. I will continue to serve as CEO, my sister and our cousin will both have prominent positions in the company and on the ELQ board.”

“Is it true that Miss. Quartermaine now has controlling stock in ELQ?”

Emily answers that question with a shrug to AJ. “The shares in the company my grandfather left me plus my own stock do give me a slight majority of stock. However as has been said ELQ is a family business and we will work together as a family to run it.”

“What happens to ELQ’s Bolivian plant?”

Emily and AJ exchange glances, they have already discussed this issue earlier. Emily grimaces as she answers the reporter. “ELQ stands behind its commitment to fulfill its plans for Bolivia. As a sign of our faith in that project and in the Bolivian government and its people, I will be personally flying down at the end of the month to take over supervision of the plant.”

Emily paused and waited for the storm.

It came sooner than she thought it would.

“Like hell you will,” Lucky Spencer yelled angrily from the back of the room. “You’re an idiot if you think I’m going to let you go off and get yourself killed in some god forsaken foreign country.”

The room sat in stunned silence, until Frisco walked up quietly to Lucky and put his hand on his shoulder. “WSB rule number one, we try to keep a low profile.”

Realizing that he was the center of attention and likely to be on the cover of at least the local newspaper tomorrow morning, Lucky swore softly and stormed out of the room.

Emily looked around the crowd of reporters and attempted a smile. “Any more questions?” she asked smiling gamely.

Someplace

Robin opened her eyes and a second later wondered why she bothered as the room she was in was completely dark and she couldn’t see anything anyway.

Her head ached and the pain overwhelmed her when she tried to move.

She was lying back on some kind of bed, a twin bed she guessed from the way it sagged around her. Her legs were bound as were her hands.

She was wrong about the dark, her eyes began to slowly adjust and she could just make out the shapes of the furniture in the room. A dresser. A night stand. A window that had been covered with black cloth. She had a feeling that the black cloth didn’t completely block out the light. She looked at her watch and realized that she hadn’t been out of it that long.

Which meant two things. One she had to be relatively close to Port Charles if not in Port Charles itself. Two, she could not realistically expect Frisco to come charging in any minute. She could always fantasize about it, but realistically he probably didn’t even know she was missing. And considering he had his hands full at the murder scene, he might not even notice she was missing until daylight. She supposed if she was a typical damsel in distress that she could just lie back and relax for the next few hours until the man of her dreams rescued her.

But Robin Scorpio was as far from typical as night was from day.

Why wait to be rescued when you were perfectly capable of rescuing yourself?

Grimly, she ignored the pain in her head and looked at the watch on her hand. Carefully, she maneuvered her bound hands until the button on the side of the watch pressed against the wall. A second later, a small and thin blade extended itself from the casing of the watch. With one more push, it unfolded giving her a blade about half a centimeter wide, three inches long, and razor sharp.

“Thank you Frisco for the Christmas present. Even if I did have my eye on that diamond tennis bracelet.” She looked at the watch again, twisted her wrist around, and began to cut.

A coffee shop near the airport

Taggert watched Lark sip the iced tea he had ordered her. He still couldn’t figure out why they were here and not at the police station. She had been under a court order not to leave town and he had caught her boarding an airplane. It was an open and shut case and he was a damned idiot for not locking her up and throwing away the key.

What were they doing here?

He looked at her face and could still catch glimpses of the black and swollen eye behind the dark sunglasses. That was why. Taggert had never been able to resist a damsel in distress. And right now at this moment Lark Madison fit that description better than anybody.

She played nervously with her straw as she lowered her gaze under the police detective’s intense gaze.

“You want to tell me again about how you got that shiner and what exactly it is you are running away from?”

How can I tell you again when I haven’t told you the first time?” Lark quipped and then winced. “Sorry. That was a bad one even for me. It’s an automatic self-defense mechanism...I get nervous I make sarcastic remarks that most people laugh at.”

‘I’m not laughing.”

“I think I figured that out for myself,” Lark grumbled. “All right. I should probably get an attorney or something but I’m tired of running and god knows I’m tired of being afraid.” Lark’s dark eyes meet Taggert’s darker ones. “I was the one who told those people where Emily would be. It’s my fault those people at the Outback got shot.” Lark ran a hand through her dark hair. “But God help me I didn’t know that they meant to hurt Emily. I didn’t think that he would hurt her.”

“He?” Taggert’s ears pick up as his notebook comes out. Please let her say Jason or Sonny. Please. Pretty Please. H*ll, I’ll be polite to every two bit criminal in town for at least a month if you just let me arrest Sonny or Jason for this one. Please......

Lark sighed. Her imagination, never a dull thing, is beginning to work overtime. Cement shoes. River bottoms. Every bad Mafia movie she has ever scene crosses her mind. “It was Johnny.”

Taggert hid his disappointment. “Johnny? Jason Morgan’s bodyguard? Not Jason himself?” All right, so he couldn’t keep the note of hopefulness out of his voice.

Lark shook her head. “I only ever dealt with Johnny.”

“So you betrayed Emily’s trust and sold her out to someone who wanted to kill her...”

“No! Or at least not the way you make it sound. I had no choice. Do you think I wanted this to happen?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I didn’t!” Lark asserts angrily, glaring at Taggert. “Like I said I had no choice. Johnny knew stuff about me, stuff that I’ve worked really hard to put behind me. When he first approached me, I wasn’t even working at ELQ. All I knew about Emily was that she was the rich b*tch at high school who had everything she could ever want. Emily never had to worry about her future. She never had to plan where her next meal was coming from. She never had to spend the night on a bench in the park because she was too scared to go home. So when Johnny ordered me to get close to Emily, I did it okay? I went to her, played on old school ties, and she hired me as her assistant. I think she kind of wanted an assistant who didn’t know more about her because at the time she was just beginning her career at ELQ after spending some time Europe. So she hired me and we became friends.”

“With friends like you..”

“Don’t bother,” Lark interrupts. “Whatever you say to me is nothing that I haven’t said to myself. At firs the information was harmless. Who was she dating? When would she be out of town? Did she have plans for the evening? It was Johnny you know, her brother’s bodyguard. I thought, I really thought it was just Jason’s way of keeping an eye on her. It wasn’t until I heard about the shooting and the police picked me up for questioning that I figured it all out. When I saw Johnny next I told him I was finished and that’s when he gave me this going away present.” Lark indicated her eye. “I’ve never met Jason Morgan and all I know about him is what I read, but Johnny.....Johnny is just trouble. He’s abusive to women. He’s just...real cold you know. Soulless. I guess it makes him a good bodyguard. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone. Not for a second.”

Taggert looks at her for a long moment. “What did he have on you?”

Lark looks down. “I don’t know how much you know about me, but before I was adopted by Frank Scanlon, I lived with my mother. My mother is not well.” Lark says flatly. “Or maybe that’s too much of an understatement. She’s crazy. The older I got the worse it got. She couldn’t hold down a job for more than a week or so. Her disability paid for the rent but nothing else.” Lark looks Taggert straight in the eye. “There aren’t many ways for a 13 year old girl to make money.”

“You turned tricks.” Taggert says bluntly.

Lark flinches but doesn’t look away. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

“And Johnny?”

“A customer.” Lark hesitates. “Let’s just say that he wasn’t the nicest one I had.”

Taggert is silent a while. Damsels in distress. They get to him every time.

“You willing to testify to all of this in a court of law.”

Lark doesn’t hesitate, even while visions of cement mixers dance in her head. “Whatever it takes.”

Taggert nods.

Lucky takes the long way back from doing a perimeter check and finds himself down at the lake. He is still yelling at himself for losing control like that during Emily’s press conference. Rookie move, Spencer he whispered as he picked up a rock and through it into the water, watching the ripples it creates carry across the lake.

So Emily wants to get herself killed. So she feels this suicidal need to carry out the wishes of her grandfather. When did they become so damned close anyway? When he had left Port Charles the first time, Emily and Edward were barely on speaking terms. Now she was willing to die because she thought it was what he wanted.

And why did the thought of her getting hurt cause him to go crazy.

She was just a friend. Just Emily. He wasn’t in love with her. His heart belonged to just Elizabeth. Always would. He’d sworn that right, way back when before his life was torn away from him.

Then what the hell was wrong with him?

He cursed softly and then stopped as he heard a soft noise. His eyes followed the line of the dock to the edge of the lake by the shore. His heart fell when he saw a silent figure sitting alone.

His first thought, was what was she doing out here by herself? His second thought was, he had to do something to stop her pain. He moved quietly till he stood above her, she was so caught up in her own grief that she didn’t hear him approach.

“Em?” His voice is soft and quiet.

Emily looks up, her doe like eyes huge with pain. He reaches out for her without thinking and pulls her into his embrace. ‘I’m sorry, Em. I know how much you loved him.”

“He saved me, you know? When you were....gone and I was all alone. Monica and Alan were too busy fighting to notice me. AJ was dealing with Carly and the custody mess. Jason....” Emily lets the last trail off, somehow three years later the revelations about Jason she learned on that fateful day are still to painfully disillusioning to discuss. “I was hurting so much. I stopped going to school. I stopped hanging out with my friends. I was so close, so damned close to using again and I didn’t care. All the warning bells were going off in my head but I didn’t care because I thought no one else did. But I was wrong. He cared. He took care of me. He let me start to hang out at ELQ and I loved it, from the beginning you know. I would go to school in the morning and spend my afternoons at ELQ. I worked the mailroom, tempted, answered phones, anything. Edward was, “ Emily smiles up at Lucky, “I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but Edward was kind you know. He let me talk or not talk. He’d tell me stories. He asked me how I was doing. He helped me pull it together when I thought it was all falling apart. What do I do now Lucky? Everyone looks at me like I’m suddenly the sane and strong Quartermaine. Mom and Dad are too worried about Lila to make any decisions. AJ has Michael to worry about. Ned....I can’t talk to Ned since he and Alexis broke up. He is so bitter. There’s just me. I can’t do it.” Emily shakes her head.

Lucky watches the moon cast a glow around her. “Yes you can,” he reaches out and gently wipes a tear with his thumb. “You are an incredible person Emily Quartermaine.”

Lucky can’t look away from her. There’s a warmth in her eyes that kindles a warmth in him as he gently pulls her closer and lowers his head. It’s just like that night a year ago when nothing exists except her and his need to touch her.

There’s a voice in Emily’s mind that tells her this wrong, but its a voice she manages to stifle until his lips move to nuzzle her ear and she hears his moan. Something, she’s never really sure what, triggers a return to sanity and she pushes against him and pushes him away.

“What?” Lucky protests, still caught up in his feelings.

“I didn’t want that to happen.”

“You?....I didn’t exactly see you try to stop me.”

“It shouldn’t have happened.” Emily protests shakily. “I’m dating Sonny.”

“Excuse me,” Lucky mutters sarcastically. “I forget all about your beloved mobster who’s twice your age.”

“He’s not a mobster. And he’s not twice my age.”

“Whatever. The guy’s too old and too dangerous for you. He’s only going to hurt you.”

Emily laughs, a cold bitter laugh that hurts his ears. “HE’s going to hurt me? Maybe. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. But at least Sonny looks at me and sees me and not some substitute for his lost love.” Emily looks at him coldly, turns away and angrily walks back to the mansion.

Lucky stands there, completely befuddled and lost. What happened to his nice orderly life? Computers were a hell of a lot easier to understand than people. Then it hits and he groans outloud. “Substitute.” He says the words with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as they conjure up a conversation he’d been trying hard to forget. “Oh my god. She heard me. Oh h*ll. Emily.” He races to catch up with her and she ignores him as they head back to the mansion.


Somewhere unknown.

Robin has just finished cutting through the ropes when she hears a scuffling noise outside the door. Holding the knife in an assault position, she stands to the side of the door and waits for it to open. Focusing her energies, she patiently waits as a tall figure, shadowed in the dark, enters the room.

As soon as he’s close enough, Robin grabs him in a tight choke hold and drags him back away from the door, the razor sharp knife touching the skin of her captor’s neck.

“Make one sound and I will kill you,” Robin whispers. “Come to think of it, maybe I’ll kill you anyway. I don’t particularly like getting my head bashed in and being kidnapped. You have one shot at living, tell me who hired you. My money’s on Jason but then again Carly and I have never really gotten along either.” Robin presses the knife closer.

“Ouch,” Her captive hollered in a strangely familiar voice that made Robin’s mind whirl.

“You? They hired you to kidnap me? You tried to kill Emily? You tried to kill Edward? My god, I’d heard rumors that you were high up in Jason’s organization but I never thought...I never considered...You tried to kill your own son Luke Spencer?”

In her shock, Robin lets her grip slip and Luke steps away.

“No. H*ll no. Of course I didn’t. Cowboy might be one of yours but I didn’t shoot at him. I didn’t shoot at Miss. Emily. I didn’t kill the old man, although that one’s pretty tempting. And I sure didn’t kidnap you. If I even thought about it, I have a feeling your mom and dad’s ghosts would haunt me and I think I was haunted enough by Robert Scorpio while he was still living, thank you very much.” Luke grinned. “I’m here to rescue you .”

Before Robin can respond, a cold voice interrupts them and they both hear the click of a gun as the light goes on.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be rescuing anyone.” A voice mocks from behind them as Johnny steps into the light, a malicious gleam in his eye. “And before you even ask Agent Scorpio, no I’m not going to tell you who hired me.”

“You don’t have to,” Robin says calmly as she lowers the knife. “I already know.”

P.C. Hotel

Emily and Lucky follow Frisco onto the elevator leading up to their rooms. “I still don’t see why I have to spend the night here. My family needs me at the mansion.”

Frisco turns to Emily. “You might feel in the mood to walk around with a target hanging around your neck but that doesn’t mean I have to put you up for display in a shooting gallery. After your little press conference, all bets are off.”

“It had to be done.”

“Right. It had to be done. You had to reassure your stockholders. I get that. H*ll I think one of my mutual funds has ELQ stock so I thank you. But you as good as called our murderer a coward. You pretty much dared them to come after you. Then you gave them a timeline just in case they were thinking of waiting until after the Christmas rush on paid assassins was over. This case is like quicksand, every step you take you get more caught up in the sh....” The elevator stops at their floor, interrupting Frisco’s tirade. At least for a moment as he shifts his attention to Lucky. “As for you, Spencer you are one of the best agents I’ve seen come join the WSB since I started. Someday you might even be as good as me. We’ll probably not but you might just come real damned close. So grow up and start acting like it. You’re behavior tonight was unprofessional. First your outburst at the news conference when little Miss. Terrorist Target over here delivered her little bomb and then when you stormed off. What’s your primary function on this mission Spencer?”

Lucky looks down, more hurt by the use of the name Spencer instead of Junior than he is by the words or the tones. He deserves the dressing down. He hates to think that he’s lost Frisco’s trust. “To safeguard Emily Quartermaine at any cost.”

“So explain to me how storming off and sulking manages to accomplish that?”

“It doesn’t.” Lucky says softly.

Frisco looks at the two young people. They’re just kids, he thinks to himself suddenly. He has a vivid memory of what he was like at at 19 and 21. He has a strange feeling that the lecture he just gave them sounds a lot like the ones Tony used to deliver to him.

“Forget it,” Frisco says suddenly. It’s almost two in the morning and we’re all tired. It’s been an awful day all around and a long one. Robin’s probably already crashed. We’ll get some much needed sleep and regroup in the morning. As bad as its been today, at least we’ve managed to narrow down our list of suspects. And with any luck, Robin will have narrowed it down further. Maybe by this time tomorrow all of this will be over.”

Emily and Lucky nod, looking uneasily at each other.

“Get some sleep. The rooms were swept and there will be a guard stationed outside the room all night. We’ll be right across the hallway.” Frisco pauses. “I’m really sorry about your grandfather, Miss. Quartermaine. He was truly a one of a kind individual. You were right when you said he would be missed.”

“Thank you,” Emily says softly. “I’m sorry I made your job harder.”

“It’s why I get the big bucks.” Frisco grins.

:Lucky stares at him. “Big bucks? You get big bucks?” Lucky mutters under his breath as he leads Emily to their room. “I don’t get big bucks. I’ve got to have a talk with the brass when we get back to LA...”

Frisco grins as he opens the door to his and Robin’s hotel room. The lights are off so he flips them on.

“Robin? Love?” He calls out, expecting her to answer even before the light has fully illuminated the room.

His eyes widen with shock and his heart begins to pound when he sees the room. ‘Spencer!” He yells down the hallway.

Telling Emily to stay with the guard, Lucky draws his weapon and carefully enters the other hotel room. He lowers his weapon and looks around.

The room is as torn up as if a heavy metal rock band had a party. Lucky swears softly when he sees his computer with the screen smashed in.

Frisco steps in from the bedroom, his face pale and his eyes bleak. “She’s not here. The bastards have her.”

“What?” The shocked voice of Mac Scorpio sounds from the doorway where he stands, clutching a videotape in his hand.

“What are you doing here?” Frisco asks automatically, his mind still struggling to deal with the fact that Robin, his Robin, is in trouble.

“The security cameras at the estate picked up something. Your agents found it after you left. I told them I’d drop it by on my way home.” Mac answers the question as automatically as Frisco asked it. “Now tell me what happened to my niece.”

“I don’t know,” Frisco’s voice is cold and deadly without a trace of humor. “But I will find her and if they have hurt her they will pay.”

Lucky nods. Emily. Robin. Whoever is behind this will pay and pay dearly. His eyes meet Frisco’s with a sudden communication between the two WSB agents. If this ever was just a case, it’s not any longer. Now it’s personal.

Mac watches the look between the two agents and he realizes that these two men have a unique and special bond with the niece he loves. They are truly partners. He nods. “Tell me what you want me to do.”