“Are you planning on ignoring me forever or can I expect this silent treatment to end any time soon?” Lucky stood in the doorway of Emily’s office.
“Is there some way that I’m failing to cooperate with your investigation Agent Spencer?” Emily paused to look up momentarily from the stack of papers that she was looking through and signing off on.
“No..Hell..Yes...” Lucky found himself stammering for the first time in two years. He should never have given in to Frisco’s “we make a great team speech” and agreed to come back to Port Charles. As he often did these days, he fell back into the professionalism of his job.“I wanted to discuss the arrangements of your security with you. I’ll be the primary agent responsible for your safety. Which means until this case is figured out, I go where you go. If I can’t be there, Mac Scorpio has agreed to lend me one of their finest officers.” He adds softly. “You will be safe Em”
“Thank you,” Emily’s voice is remote and distant. “Is there anything else I can do for you Agent Spencer? I believe that Lark has already shown you where the information you need is and where you can set up your equipment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”
Emily turns back to her work, effectively dismissing Lucky much to his frustration.. When he has gone and closed the door, Emily pushes the button on her intercom and asks Lark to hold her calls for an hour.
Quietly, Emily withdraws a picture from her bottom drawer. It is a picture of the four of them- herself, Lucky, Liz, and Nikolas. Taken before Lucky’s “death”. Before everything had fallen apart.
It had been quiet simply the worst year of her life.
It had started with Lucky’s “death” in the fire. She had been reeling from the loss of her best friend, trying to figure out how to live her life without his presence in it. She had taken to cutting school, to hanging out alone in the park or on the docks, and began withdrawing from friends and family. Gradually, her natural spirits and a belief that Lucky would not have wanted her to be so sad had brought her around. But she still did not feel comfortable at school and cut more often than she attended.
Which was why she had been home when blow number two hit. It had been three months after Lucky’s death. She had been wandering the Quartermaine mansion when she had spotted Jason and Carly in the library. Before she could tell them she was there, she heard them talking. Heard them plotting. They had been plotting to destroy AJ by playing on his alcoholism to get him to start drinking again. Emily had been horrified. She may have thought that Jason was a better father to Michael, but that didn’t mean she wanted anything bad to happen to AJ. And after watching AJ struggle to stay sober and knowing, as an addict herself, how hard that effort was Emily had been appalled that the brother she idolized would do something so morally wrong. Emily had felt her heart break as she realized that all of these years she had been wrong about Jason. He was cold and ruthless.
She must have said something or made some sound, because they had both turned and looked at her. Emily had ignored Jason’s cries and ran to her room and locked it. She stayed in it for 72 hours. When she emerged, she had dropped a word of warning in AJ’s ear and then never spoken to Jason or Carly since.
And then the third blow had happened. Somehow, without her realizing quite how, Nikolas and Liz became a couple. Emily had been devastated. The idea of the young man she had been in love with for so long and her best friend together romantically had hurt in a way that she had not been prepared for. When Lucky had returned from the “dead” that summer things had only gotten even crazier. It was a time she tried desperately to forget.
Thank God for the world of business. Thank God for her Grandfather. He had been her savior. At first she had been leery of the old man, relations between them had been strained after Michael’s custody battle. But when the high school had finally gotten tired of her cutting class and called home, it had been her grandfather who had intercepted the call and offered a compromise. She would spend her mornings taking accelerated classes that would help her graduate faster and her afternoons working at ELQ. Emily had jumped at it. And to her surprise she found that she liked the world of business almost as much as it liked her. She had, at her grandfather’s insistence, spent the first two years rotating around the company learning every bit of the ELQ operation from every angle. Then when she had turned 19 he had given her an office and a seat on the board as well as making her in charge of the new projects division.
She had even moved out of the mansion and into a loft conversion near the docks and bought herself a red Mustang Convertible. On the surface, she had all the trappings of a successful life at a very early age.
She picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number and smiled when a husky male voice answered.
“Hi! I was wondering if I could talk you into dinner?”
“You? Babe you could talk me into just about anything.”
She grinned. “How about the Outback? Shall we say seven?”
“I’ll be there.”
Smiling as she hung up, Emily was already figuring out a way to lose her “shadow”
before she went to dinner.
The hallway outside of Jason Morgan’s apartment
Frisco looked at Taggert. “Man, you are enjoying this way too much. I should have charged for the pleasure.”
Taggert grinned devilishly. “Probably would have paid.. You have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment? A search warrant on Jason Morgan that he can’t get out of. The opportunity to drag him on his butt down to headquarters .....”
“Earth to Taggert. All we want to do is search the place to see if we can find anything linking Morgan to the threats against Edward Quartermaine. We’re not dragging him down to PCPD. And we’re not interested in using anything we find connecting him to the Mafia business. Robin’s instructions were very specific and very clear. This is only about Edward Quartermaine.”
Taggert grinned innocently. “If I happen to see something that I remember later on.......”
“It’s a little hard to carry out a search warrant without looking,” Frisco agreed .
“And if Morgan resists or gives us any trouble, then we get to harass him a little right.?”
A hard look crosses Frisco’s face as he remembers the countless nights spent
holding Robin as she cried herself to sleep after they met again in Paris. This is not the
time or the place to really get even with Morgan for the way he treated Robin, but it
doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun. Or maybe a lot of fun.
Jason opens the door on the fourth knock.
“Afternoon Anger boy,” Taggert says, pushing the door open. “This here is a warrant to search your premises.”
Justus walks into the room. “Doesn’t this get old Taggert? You get the warrant. I call a judge and get an injunction. The search gets called illegal.” To Jason. “Give me a moment to deal with this.”
“I don’t think so,” Frisco entered. “Not this time. Not this search warrant.” He motions to the uniformed officers accompanying them. “Please make sure that Mr. Morgan and his attorney do not move from this location while Detective Taggert and I search these premises for evidence.”
“Evidence of what and who the hell are you?” Jason demands.
Frisco displays his badge. “My name is Jones. Frisco Jones. I’d say I was your worst nightmare, but I think you married your worst nightmare. This is a warrant signed by the Attorney General of the United States and authorized by the President of the United States.” He handed the document to Justus. “It authorizes the WSB and its agents, that would be me, full authority to take any action necessary to fully investigate a matter that has been deemed of extreme interest to the national security of the United States.”
“You can’t do this,” Jason protests.
“That warrant says any action necessary doesn’t it Detective Taggert?” Frisco approaches Jason with a dangerous smile. He can’t figure out why Robin spent so many years of her life with this guy. He had no sense of humor and absolutely zero charm.
“I do believe it does, Agent Jones.”
“Good,” Frisco turns to the two officers. “If either of them dares to move, shoot to kill.”
Frisco smiles as he and Taggert begin their search of the penthouse.
Next Chapter:
The Dinner Hour Begins
