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Previously...
James
and Ethan searched desperately for Winter. Hidden
away in a motel room in the Valley, Winter had a
meltdown in front of the mirror while chastising
herself in her mother's voice. Knowing the
baby was Ethan's, she renamed him Ethan Jr. After
the police arrived, she grabbed the baby and fled
in her car. A car chase ensued and Ethan cornered
Winter on the edge of the pier. Desperately wanting
to keep the baby for herself, she plunged off the
pier with the baby in her arms. Meanwhile,
Gwen blackmailed Brett for cash in exchange for
keeping quiet about their affair. Brooke and
Heather had a heart to heart.
Episode
39
"The
Mystery of the Whispering Walls"
Gwen
was sitting in her room at the Blackthorne mansion when the door opened and Brett entered
with a briefcase gripped tightly in his hand.
He paused in the doorway, his eyes narrowing on her suspiciously.
“I
thought you’d be packed by now,” he said and closed the door behind him.
Gwen
stretched languorously on the bed and shot him a wicked smile. “I started packing and then I had second
thoughts,” she said.
“Second
thoughts about what?” Brett demanded, thrusting the case of money at her. “You said you were leaving today after you
got your money.”
She
sat up and popped the latches on the briefcase.
Her eyes widened and she felt a surge of greed sweep over her. She hadn’t seen that much money in one place
in her entire life. To her it was a
fortune, but to the Blackthornes it was a drop in the bucket.
“How
did you come up with this much cash all at once?” she finally asked and closed
the lid again. “I suppose your wife and
father-in-law have no idea that you took it.”
Ignoring
her remarks, Brett anchored himself to the floor and crossed his arms neatly
over his chest. “Don’t worry about
where I got it from,” he began. The
truth was he had taken it from the petty cash account at Sunset Studios. It was a
risk, especially since Stormy watched every penny going out of the studio. He’d have to come up with a believable story
as to what he really did with it.
Admitting that he used it to pay off Gwen and her blackmailing attempts
was not an option.
“It
must be quite a lifestyle change for you,” Gwen continued. “Going from running cons at Las Vegas casinos to passing out fifty
thousand dollars whenever you feel like it.
Now I see why you’re so eager to hold on to everything you’ve got. Even if you stole it.”
“I’ve
worked for everything I have,” Brett retaliated.
“Oh
really?” Gwen asked and stood up from the bed.
She placed her hands on her hips and moved toward him with accusatory
eyes. “So drugging James Blackthorne to
keep him in the wheelchair was just another day in the life of a studio
executive? And when you thought I had
kidnapped Michael and yet were willing to keep quiet about it – that was just
you working for the future?”
Brett
had had enough of her thinly veiled threats. “Cut the crap, Gwen. You’ve got your money. I kept my end of the bargain and now it’s
time that you kept yours. Are you going
to finish packing and leave this house or not?”
Sighing,
Gwen turned and looked back at the case of money. “Actually I’m having second thoughts,” she
said.
“What?” Brett asked in a rage. He clenched his fists and moved closer, his
eyes flaring angrily and menacingly.
“You can’t do that. You said yourself
that James and Brooke will terminate your position here when they get their
baby back. They don’t want you hanging
around after learning of your shady past and prison record.”
“When
they ask me to leave I’ll leave,” Gwen replied.
“But I want to make sure I’m well taken care of when that happens, and
somehow I don’t think that fifty thousand dollars is going to cut it.”
Brett
closed his eyes with regret. He knew he
shouldn’t have given in to her blackmail demands. A blackmailer always got greedy and wanted
more. He should have taken care of her
in his own way when he had the chance.
“I
want half a million dollars,” Gwen announced and met him with her gaze.
“What?”
“You
heard me. And don’t even tell me that
you can’t get it because I know how much James Blackthorne is worth. Your own wife is an heiress to that fortune.”
“That
doesn’t mean I can just ask for five hundred thousand dollars and expect no one
to ask questions,” Brett insisted. “Be
reasonable. Take the fifty thousand and
just be grateful that you’re walking away with that much.”
“I
spent six years in prison before I came here and took orders from you and your
family,” Gwen said. “I’ve been walked on
and used for far too long. I’ll be
damned if I’m going to let it happen again.
You owe me, Brett. You and
everyone else.”
His
hands were tied. If he didn’t pay her
the money she asked for his scheming and plotting would be exposed to everyone,
and that was something he couldn’t let happen.
But on the other hand, he couldn’t come up with half a million dollars
without throwing up some red flags.
Suddenly
an idea came to him. A way to shut Gwen
up once and for all. Maybe it was the
answer he was looking for.
“I’ll
give you until tomorrow morning,” Gwen said and picked up the briefcase of
money. “I’ll keep this in the meantime.”
Brett
gritted his teeth and started to the door.
“And
remember what I said,” Gwen called over to him.
“I’d hate to see what happened to your cushy lifestyle if you wife found
out about all the nights we spent together, and that you were the father of my
baby.”
Refusing
to let her get to him, Brett opened the door and walked out into the
hallway. He had to get moving if he was
going to make Gwen Hardisty a distant memory.

James
stood on the shore below the pier, barely breathing as he watched with
anticipation at the events playing out in the choppy ocean water. He heard the ambulance in the distance
growing nearer and he wrung his hands together in agony. The sight of Winter jumping off the pier with
his baby was almost enough to stop his heart from beating. The chances of the tiny baby surviving in the
water was next to none. How was he going
to tell Brooke? What words were there to
tell his wife that their baby had died?
Twenty
feet off shore, a police officer had grabbed hold of Winter and was swimming
back to land with her. Ethan was close
behind, holding on to the baby and making his way to shore. James couldn’t bare the pain that the
waiting caused him. The ambulance
arrived on the scene and the paramedics stood by to administer whatever needed
to be done to save the baby.
Finally
the officer drug Winter’s unconscious body to the sandy beach and dropped her
onto her side. The paramedics rushed
over to see if she was breathing. James
looked down with contempt as they began performing CPR on her. He wanted to tell them to let her die. Her pathetic life wasn’t worth saving after
what she’d done.
But
Ethan was nearing the shore and he quickly shot out to intercept him. He took the baby from Ethan’s tired arms and
rushed back to the shore where Detective Baines and another paramedic rushed
over.
“Do
something!” James lamented as the paramedic peeled the blanket from around the
baby. “Please don’t let my son die!”
Exhausted
and out of breath, Ethan pulled himself onto the sand and knelt down beside the
motionless infant. He looked up at
James and shook his head, tears mixing with water that dripped from his soaked
body.
“I don’t think he’s breathing,” he
panted. “He’s not even moving.”
“Oh
my God,” Detective Baines said as he paramedic unraveled the protective
blankets around the baby.
“What?”
James exclaimed, tears bursting from his eyes.
“What is it?”
Baines
looked up at James and Ethan, then gestured back to the bundle of blankets and
towels on the beach. “It’s not a baby,”
he said.
“What
do you mean it’s not a baby?” James demanded and picked up the soaked blankets. “I don’t understand…”
Suddenly
realization finally dawned and Detective Baines stood up just as Winter coughed
and choked up the salty ocean water from her lungs.
“She
didn’t have the baby at all,” Ethan said in astonishment.
Baines
nodded. “It’s just a bundle of blankets
and towels.”
“What?”
James gasped, then turned to the ocean.
“Then he’s still out there!”
Ethan
stood up and grabbed his uncle’s arm.
“No, James. She didn’t have him.”
Winter
sat up and looked with wide eyes at the blankets on the wet sand. “My baby!” she cried and crawled on her hands
and knees, scooping the blankets up in her arms and cradling them with a
demented gleam in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,
Ethan Jr. I don’t know what I was
thinking. I just couldn’t let them take
you away from me.”
Ethan
and James looked down at the insane woman holding onto the wet umble of seaweed
and fabric. James closed his eyes in relief,
finally understanding that Winter had completely lost all sense of reality.
“I
killed him!” Winter shrieked and climbed to her feet in hysterics. She turned to Ethan and shook her head in
despair. “I’m sorry, Ethan!
I killed our
baby!”
The
uniformed police officers grabbed hold of her arms and led her to the nearby
squad car. She continued crying and
struggling in their grasp, dropping the blankets and staring at Ethan with an
empty, hollow look in her eyes.
“I killed him!” she cried as she was
forced into the back of the squad car.
“Oh my God, I killed our baby!”
Ethan
rubbed his face with his hand and realized they were back at square one. He turned to James and pulled him into an
embrace. Part of him was relieved that
Winter was as far gone as she was, but the other part realized that they were
no closer to finding Michael and bringing him home.

Miranda
passed by the game room where Heather was sitting in front of the TV watching
the news. She stopped and sauntered
inside, her eyes narrowing on Heather’s pale, listless face.
“You
look like you’ve been to hell and back,” she said, the bottoms of her jeans
scraping against the old, thick shag carpet.
“What’s going on with you, anyway?”
Heather
turned off the television and looked up at her.
Leave it to Miranda to cut through the bull and tell it like she saw
it. “I’ve had some stuff to sort through
lately,” she replied with a shrug. “I
just needed to be alone for a while.”
“We’ve
all had stuff going on,” Miranda
countered. “My baby brother is still
missing and my father is about ready to crack.
What could be so earth-shattering important that you’ve barely come out
of your room for a week?”
Biting
down on her lip, Heather decided that she had to confide in someone. She had to have an accomplice to help her
with her plan, and Miranda’s spunk and ability to think on her feet might be
just what she was looking for. She got
up and walked across the room to close the door so they could talk in private.
Miranda
frowned, amused by Heather’s sudden cloak and dagger routine. “Wow, this must be big,” she started. “Wait a minute. Are you a lesbian? Is that what this is all about?”
Heather
rolled her eyes and pulled her step-sister to the sofa. “No, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I need your help.”
“Help
with what?” Miranda asked skeptically.
She’d never seen Heather so serious about anything before. It was almost unnerving.
“Help
with breaking and entering,” Heather explained.
Miranda
almost laughed. “Breaking into what?”
she asked. “Man, you are losing it, aren’t you?”
“Just
shut up for a minute and listen to me,” Heather said, her tone full of harsh
reality. “I need to get into Will
Thomerson’s estate.”
“What
for?”
Heather
was suddenly reluctant to give her any more information that she had to. If Miranda knew about the tape of her and
Philip Whitacre then she’d most likely tell Stormy. And she certainly didn’t need her ex-husband
knowing what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into. Stormy was protective enough of her since
their divorce.
“I
need to find something,” she replied ominously. “Something that belongs to me.”
Miranda
shrugged indifferently. “So just go up
and ask him for it,” she said.
“It’s
not that simple. I have to be discreet
about this. I don’t want him to know
that I’m looking for it because then he’ll just hide it someplace where I can
never find it.”
“Whoa,”
Miranda said and stood up from the sofa.
“What is it of yours that Will Thomerson has up the street in his
estate? How do you even know this guy? You do realize that he and my father are
mortal enemies, don’t you?”
“Yes,
and that’s all the more reason to keep this thing quiet,” Heather replied. “I just want to get in, find it, and then get
out.”
Miranda
sighed and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes leveled evenly on her. “And you won’t tell me what it is we’re going
to look for? I’m just supposed to go
along and supervise?”
“I’ll
tell you more later,” Heather said. “After you promise to help me, and to
keep it quiet, especially from
Stormy.”
“Keep
what quiet from Stormy?” asked a voice from across the room.
They
both spun around and saw Stormy standing in the doorway, a look of suspicion
on his face.
“Stormy-“
Heather began nervously. “I didn’t see
you there.”
“Obviously,”
he replied and pressed further into the room.
“What is it that you want Miranda to keep from me?”
They
both looked at each other, their eyes darting nervously around the room. In a moment of selflessness, Miranda decided
to give her former sister-in-law a helping hand. “I was just telling Heather that we should
give mom and Jordan a party,” she said, making it up as she went along. “I mean, they never really had much of a
reception and they have been having a
hard time lately.”
Stormy
frowned distrustfully. “And why couldn’t
you tell me about it?”
Miranda
looked at Heather, trying desperately to think of a plausible story. “Well….”
“Because
you’re lousy at keeping secrets,” Heather explained with a shrug. “I mean, you remember when you told me about
my twenty-first surprise birthday party.
I had to force myself to look surprised when I came home.”
“Oh…”
Stormy said and scratched his head. “I
guess I didn’t realize. So, when’s the
party?”
Miranda
smiled and pushed her brother back to the door.
“You know we can’t tell you because then you’ll ruin it,” she said. “This way you’ll be just as surprised as mom
and Jordan are when it happens.”
Before
he could protest further, Stormy was shoved out into the hallway and the door
slammed in his face. He shook his head
in irritation and started back down the hallway.
Miranda
turned to Heather and threw her hands up in resignation. “Okay, so what we do we have to do?”

James
sat on the sofa in the library with Brooke, holding her in his arms as she
cried hysterically on his shoulder.
Ethan was standing across the room by the window watching them
apprehensively. It tore him up seeing
what this was doing to Brooke. In a way
he wished Winter had taken Michael,
because then by now this whole nightmare would be over.
“I
don’t understand,” Brooke sobbed into James’s shoulder. “What about the diapers and the formula that
Ethan saw her buying at the store?”
Ethan
shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets.
“She’d become unhinged,” he said apologetically. “She was so grief stricken when I ended it
with her that her mind snapped.”
“Detective
Baines went back to Winter’s motel room, “James continued. “He found newspaper clippings of the
kidnapping. We think she heard about it
and somehow got it into her mind that she had taken him. The room hadn’t been cleaned in days and they
found no traces that a baby had ever been there. No dirty diapers, no open bottles of formula
or soiled bibs. It was all in her
imagination.”
Brooke
buried her face into her hands and stood up from the sofa. “What’s going to happen to her now?” she
asked.
“She’s
been admitted to the psychiatric ward at the hospital,” Ethan replied. “She’ll undergo forty-eight hours of tests
and then probably be sent to an institution.”
Brooke
couldn’t help but feel sorry for the young woman. “It’s sad,” she said, then looked at
Ethan. “What about her family? Maybe you should call them.”
He
shook his head. “Her father ran out on
them when she was young, and her mother died a few years ago. She’s pretty much alone in the world.”
“How
awful,” Brooke said and sat down again.
She looked at James and reached out for his hand. “So what now?
Does Detective Baines have any
other leads?”
James
took a deep breath and shook his head slowly.
They were at a dead-end. No one
they’d suspected had turned out to be the real kidnapper. No ransom had been demanded, and it was well
over a week since Michael had been taken.
It
looked like they may never see their child again.

In
his office at Sunset Studios, Brett
held the phone to his ear as he paced back and forth across the expansive room,
stopping to glance outside at the bright afternoon sun.
“Yes,
I know people are released from prison on good behavior all the time,” he said
with an irritated frown. “But in this
case I’m wondering if it was such a good idea.
Gwen Hardisty is a menace to society.
She should have served the
full ten year sentence.”
Pausing
while he listened to the prison warden in Paraguay, Brett raked his fingers through
his hair and shook his head in protest.
“I’m prepared to make it worth your while,” he said. “How does fifty thousand dollars sound?”
Again,
Brett clenched his fists and started pacing rapidly. “All right.
Fifty thousand dollars and
we’ll do some location shooting in Paraguay in our next picture. The revenue you’ll take in from the tourism
alone will be ten times that amount.”
Finally,
the warden agreed and Brett smiled with satisfaction. “So you do
have a vacancy after all?” he asked. “Good. I’ll see to it that Miss Hardisty is
delivered to you first thing in the morning your time. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to serve
out the remainder of her sentence.”
After
he hung up the phone, Brett went to sit down behind his desk and smiled from
ear to ear. Finally he’d be rid of Gwen
and her threats to expose him. The
pills, their affair, the baby they made together, as well as his pronouncement
when he thought she was the kidnapper, were all going to remain a secret. And Gwen would be a distant memory. He could use the fifty thousand he’d already
given her to pay the warden. At last
everything was going in his favor.
Picking
up the phone, he dialed the air strip and talked to the pilot. “This is Brett Armstrong,” he said. “I’d like you to gas up the jet. I’ve got some cargo I need to deliver to South America tonight.”

That
evening, Stormy sat at the bar at Hotel
Terranova. He downed his fifth drink
and ordered another from the bartender.
After having all their hopes dashed about finding Michael, he and the
others were left with a sinking feeling that their search had come to a
halt. There were no more leads and no
more hope to cling to. Seeing the
torture his father was going through was torture in itself.
The
sound of clinking glasses at a nearby cocktail table caught his attention and
he turned around. There, sitting in a
cozy booth together was Jordan Rydell and a young woman whom he couldn’t
place. Probably a starlet who’d come to Hollywood to break her way into the
business. And what better way than to
cozy up to Jordan Rydell, who happened to be married to his mother.
“You
son of a bitch!” Stormy yelled in his half-drunken state as he charged across
the room and plucked Jordan out of the booth by the shirt
collar. He drew his fist back and
punched him square in the nose, sending him flying back into a passing
waiter. “How could you do this to my
mother?”
Jordan
flew back and knocked the waiter
– along with his tray of drinks – to the floor.
An enormous crash ensued and the lounge grew suddenly quiet as onlookers
gasped in awe at the spectacle. The
young girl who’d been sitting with Jordan cowered back into the booth and
watched with surprise as Jordan climbed to his feet and went
after Stormy.
“Knock
it off!” Jordan yelled as Stormy tried to get
free of his grasp. “It’s not what you
think, Stormy! Now cool it!”
“Not
what I think?” Stormy yelled, angrier at life in general than he was at his
stepfather. “You’re sitting here with a
girl half your age and my mother is nowhere in sight, and it’s not what I
think? I’m not stupid, Jordan.
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