Previously...

Alex kept James under the delusion that they were still married.  Meanwhile, James's headaches grew more severe. Lauren rebuffed Brett's attempt at being friendly.  Brett grew more suspicious of Stormy and Lauren's relationship.  Stormy and Lauren made love.  Miranda told Brett that she believed he was innocent.  Winter cried on Miranda's shoulder after learning of Ethan's death.  Alex told Will that she no longer wants a part in their attempt to bring James down.   Brooke located James and Alex in the cabana on the beach and saw them in an intimate embrace.  Devestated, she drove off in tears.  

Episode 15

"Escape to L.A."

The blazing morning sun permeated Brooke’s skin as she threw her suitcase into the cab outside the Del Mar hotel in Santo Domingo.  She was on her way to the airport to finally get off the island and go back home.    Home meaning her apartment in the Valley.   Her marriage to James was a sham, her relationship with Ethan ended with his death, and now she was back to where she started.  Alone.    The fact that James and Alex were back together came as a shock, but after spending a restless night in her hotel room, she realized she was only getting what she deserved.   Why should James take her back after everything she’d done?   Lying about her previous marriage and then sleeping with his own nephew?  She was beyond contempt.

Before she could get into the cab, Jordan came running up from the hotel, waving his hands in the air to stop her.  She sighed with exasperation and turned to him.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home,” she replied flatly, starting to get into the car.

“Wait,” Jordan stopped her.  “Where were you running off to last night?  Did you find James and Alex?”

Brooke nodded and pushed her hair from her eyes.  “Yes.”

“Well where are they?  What did they say?”

“I didn’t talk to them,” she replied.  “I got the feeling they wanted to be alone.”

Jordan frowned at her enigmatic response.   “I have to find Alex.  Can you at least tell me where they are?”

She reached into her pocket and removed the directions to the beach house the private investigator had given her.  She handed it to him and got into the cab.   “You might be wasting your time, but if you think you need to go, then go,” she said through the open window.

The cab started off toward the airport and Jordan stood behind, perplexed by the strange circumstances in which Brooke was leaving.  He looked at the piece of paper and ran to his jeep, intent on going to Alex and finding out what was going on.

At the cabana, Alex was standing on the veranda sipping a cup of coffee as she stared out at the ocean in a daze.   She thought about the last couple of days and how perfect it had been.   So much had happened.  She’d learned that her love for James wasn’t gone.   She’d simply spent the last year lashing out as a reaction to the way he treated her.

She realized that things couldn’t remain as they were.  Sooner or later James would regain his memory and the charade she’d created would be over.  He’d throw her out of his life just as he did the last time.  Unless she could do something to win him back.    She could prove her love for him and make him realize that she was worthy of being his wife again.  A gut feeling told her what that something was.

She had to stop Will from taking James’s studio from him.   If she could stop that from happening then she would have a chance at being with him again.  He would be grateful to her.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” James asked as he approached her from behind. 

Alex turned around, her eyes watering and forcing a smile on her face.  “I was just thinking,” she replied.  “How did you sleep?”

“Very well,” James replied then kissed her.  He looked at her and noted the sad, distant look in her eyes.  “Darling, what is it?  What’s bothering you?”

A tear trickled down her face as she swept back her long, auburn hair.  “I have to tell you something,” she began with some difficulty.  “Something’s about to happen with your studio and I think you should know what it is.”

Suddenly James brought his hands to his head and doubled over in pain, crying out in agony.   Alex shrieked and bent down, trying to comfort him with her arm around him.

“James, what is it?” she asked.  “Are you alright?”

He shut his eyes tightly, trying to will the pain away.  “It’s my head.”

Tears ran down Alex’s cheeks as she helped him into a chair.  “Darling, it’ll pass,” she said.  The words came out of her mouth and she hated herself for saying it.   It was so selfish.   She knew he needed to see a doctor but it didn’t fit into her own agenda. 

“The pain….it’s too much,” James groaned, holding his head in his hands.

Alex wept, holding him in her arms and trying to decide what to do. 

Jordan’s jeep came to a screeching halt just outside the cabana.  He pulled himself out and ran to the door.  Finding it locked, he raced around to the back of the house and came face to face with Alex and James on the veranda. 

“Alex!” he said, seeing her with her arms around James as he held his head in pain.

She looked up at Jordan and bit down on her lip, realizing that everything was coming crashing down around her.

“What’s going on?” Jordan continued.  “I’ve been looking all over the island for you.”

Alex stood up and shot him a look full of warning.  “You have to leave, Jordan.  You can’t be here.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking at James and realizing that he was in pain.  “You have to get him to a doctor.  Can’t you see he’s in agony?”

Alex looked back at James and reached her trembling hand to him.   “He’ll be fine,” she insisted.  “It’ll pass just like the others did.”

Thinking that Alex had completely lost it, Jordan pulled her to him.  “What are you doing, Alex?  This isn’t healthy.  You can’t go back, you know.  You can’t change the past.”

“Yes I can,” she said adamantly.  “James and I have another chance and I’m not going to let you or anyone else ruin that.”

“Alex, please-“ James moaned, his head hanging low as he closed his eyes to block out the pain.  “It hurts.”

Jordan looked at James and then back at Alex.  “He could be dying and you aren’t doing anything because you’re trying to live some kind of fantasy!  What’s wrong with you?”

“He’s not dying,” Alex said, rushing back to James and kneeling down beside him.  “I can take care of him myself.  We don’t need anyone else.  Now please just leave, Jordan.”

“I just saw Brooke,” Jordan began, folding his arms as he stared at her.  “She was here last night.  She must have seen you together.  She’s on her way back to L.A. now.”

James lifted his head.  “Brooke?” he asked groggily.  The pain began to subside and he tried desperately to make the connection.  Somehow he’d heard that name before.   He stood up and looked at Jordan, then at Alex.  He felt like he was experiencing some kind of déjà vu.  “Wait, I-“

Alex silently cursed to herself.   She knew that Jordan would ruin everything by being there.  One mention of Brooke’s name and James was already beginning to remember something.  

“Shhhh,” Alex soothed him, trying to get him back into the chair.  “Don’t strain yourself, Darling.  Just sit down and relax.”

James shook his head, growing into a daze as he struggled with a memory that wouldn’t come.   “Brooke,” he said.  “I know her, don’t I?”

“Yes-“ Jordan began.  He had to put a stop to this.  He wasn’t going to stand back and let Alex carry on with her charade.   She was supposed to be with him, not James.  He would do anything he could to stop her from carrying on with him.

“No!” Alex insisted.  “She’s nobody, James.  Just come inside the house and let me take care of you.  I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

James resisted, pulling his arm from her as he saw flashes of a young blond woman in his head.   He frowned, trying to grasp the memory.  He saw an altar with flowers on pillars, rows of people seated before them, and a beautiful white wedding dress.

“Brooke…” he murmured to himself.

Alex shook her head in desperation.  “James, no…”

James held his hand up, staring at the ground in a daze.  “She was my wife,” he said softly, then looked up at Alex.  “Not you.”

“No, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Alex cried, running toward him but Jordan held her back.   She struggled in his arms, trying to get free so she could go to James and stop this from happening.

Memories came flooding back and suddenly James realized that he had been living in the past for the last few days.    He took a deep breath and turned away from Alex.  “I have to go,” he said.  “I have to go find Brooke and make her understand.”

“James, don’t go!” Alex lamented, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back.

He pulled away from her and sent her sailing back into Jordan’s arms.   “No, I have to go find her!” he exclaimed, running off the veranda.

Alex sobbed uncontrollably, watching him disappear from sight.  Her head sunk down with regret as Jordan put his arms around her and tried to console her.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, turning around and glaring at him.  “You ruined everything!”  She began hitting him in the chest with her fits.  “Everything!  Do you hear me?"

Jordan grabbed for her wrists, trying to stop her from attacking him as she cried hysterically.

Miranda knocked on the door at the Sunset Strip Motel and slid her fingers in the back pockets of her jeans while she waited for an answer.   A minute later Devon Graham came to the door.

“Oh great, just what I need this early in the morning,” Devon said angrily, quickly trying to shut the door.

Miranda forced the door open again and pushed her way inside.  “I have to talk to you and I’m not leaving until I do,” she said, looking around the rundown motel room.  She shivered with disgust and then turned to the contemptible woman.   “Just what the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?”

“Excuse me?”  Devon took a threatening pose and rolled her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Miranda asked.  “You blow into town, break into my bedroom, get my husband charged with murder, and all for what?   So you can get back at him for leaving you?”

Devon folded her arms and snarled at her.  “I just want to see that Rick…oh excuse me, Brett gets what’s coming to him.”

Miranda took a step forward, her eyes challenging her.  “You’re pathetic,” she said.  “This isn't the 1950's.  Women don’t need a man to make them complete in this day and age.   Now here you are going after someone that doesn’t want you anymore.  I hope you realize you just set the women’s movement back about thirty years.”

“I don’t need a man to make me complete,” Devon replied.  “As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t take Rick back if he begged me on his hands and knees.   See, I don’t sleep with murderers.”

Miranda rolled her eyes.  “How do you even know he killed that guy anyway?  All that maid from the hotel said was that she saw a man leaving the room.  That could have been anybody.”

“You wish it was anybody else.”

“Why don’t you just go away?” Miranda asked.  “Leave L.A. and go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

Devon took a step closer.  “Because I want to stick around and make sure that he pays for everything he’s done.”

“He didn’t kill anybody!” Miranda shouted in a rage.

“Yes he did!”

“Prove it!”   Miranda felt like she was in a shouting match with a five year old.   This was getting ridiculous.

“I was there!  I saw him push Bailey out of the window!”

Miranda’s eyes widened and she took a step back.  “What?” she asked through squinted eyes.   “You saw him push him?  What are you talking about?”

Devon looked around the room nervously, her eyes darting everywhere but at Miranda.  “Forget it.”

“What do you mean?  Tell me!”

“I was hiding in the closet,” Devon said.  “I got there before Brett did.  He didn’t know I was there.  I saw everything!  I saw them struggling over the money, and I saw Brett push Bailey out of the window!”

Miranda shook her head, refusing to believe what the spiteful woman was saying.

“She’s lying,” Brett said to Miranda a while later at the mansion.  They were sitting in the library with Stormy discussing the confrontation she’d just had with Devon.

“How do you know she wasn’t hiding in the closet?” Stormy asked, his arms folded across his chest.

“She might have been in the closet, but she didn’t see me push him out of the window because I didn’t!” Brett insisted, getting up from the sofa and beginning to pace the room.  He ran his fingers through his thick blonde hair and let out a deep breath.  This was getting way too complicated.

“Stormy, I thought you were on Brett’s side,” Miranda said, glaring at her brother.  “I mean, you posted his bail.   Why would you have done that if you thought he was guilty?”

“It’s okay, Miranda,” Brett interrupted.  He thought about the conversation he had with Stormy the other day.   Stormy had all but come out and accused him of being a murderer.  “I don’t expect Stormy to believe me.  I mean, I’ve lied about everything else, right?”

“You said it, not me,” Stormy said with a chuckle.   He didn’t want to believe that Brett was guilty, but the facts weighed against him.  A phony identity, a string of illegal money making schemes, and now this.  It was all too suspicious.

Miranda sighed with frustration and turned back to her husband.  “Brett, tell us again what happened in that hotel room.”  She was sure there was something that he’d overlooked.  Something that could prove he was innocent.

Brett rubbed his aching neck and sat down again.  “I went into the room, packed up my things, got the money and started to leave.   Bailey walked in and we argued.  He accused me of trying to take off with all of our money.  His, mine and Devon’s.”

“Well you were,” Stormy said sarcastically.

Brett ignored his comment.  “I pushed him out of my way and made a run for it,” he explained.  “That was when I went to the casino next door and met Miranda.”

Stormy’s eyes narrowed on him as he tried to recreate the events in his mind.  “Why didn’t he run after you?” he asked.

“Stormy, stop insinuating that Brett pushed him!” Miranda ordered, sick of her brother’s negativity.

He shook his head.  “No, I mean let’s just assume, strictly as a conjecture, that Brett didn’t push him. Suppose he got a clear shot at the door and made a run for it.   If this Bailey guy wanted his money that bad, wouldn’t he have at least ran after him?”

“You’d think so,” Miranda said.

Stormy looked at Brett and suddenly realized he could be innocent after all.  “Didn’t you think that was strange?” he asked.  “That Bailey just gave up the minute you got out into the hall?”

Brett shrugged.  “I guess I didn’t think about it.  I was too worried about getting away.”

“So something must have kept him in that room,” Stormy continued.  “Or someone.”

Miranda’s eyes lit up.  “Like Devon.”

Brett looked at her and then at Stormy.  “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying Devon might know more than she’s letting on,” Stormy said.  “And instead of coming forward, she decided to point the finger at Brett.   I mean, let’s face it.  She didn’t even tell the police she was a witness.   As a matter of fact, she didn’t say anything about it until Miranda talked to her today.”

Brett grew into a daze, wondering if Stormy might be on to something.

Brooke opened the door of her apartment in the Valley and walked inside, taking in the stuffy air and sweating from the immense heat.   She threw her keys down on a table and went to open the window to let some fresh air in.   It had been weeks since she’d been there and it was in major need of some refreshing.   The fact that she still had the apartment was just dumb luck.   After her wedding to James, things went into an immediate tailspin and she forgot all about moving her things out and handing in her keys.   Luckily her lease wasn’t up yet.   Otherwise she’d have nowhere to go.

Walking around the small apartment in a daze, she started to feel like she was on an emotional roller coaster.    She never thought she’d have to live there again.   She was supposed to be living the good life in a fully staffed, forty-room mansion in Hollywood.   But that turned out to be nothing more than a dream, and when she woke up, she was already immersed into another romance.