Previously...

Miranda and David went to David's cabin in Big Bear, where a picture of a young girl in a photo album puzzled Miranda. Brooke and Ethan went to a neighboring resort, but not before they ran into David at a gas station and he reaffirmed his desire to get to know Brooke on a more personal level.  Ethan expressed his distrust in David to a indifferent Brooke. James served Brooke with divorce papers.  Brett uncovered a donation Seth made to the Land Commission, then investigated the land at Costa Mesa and learned that it had recently been granted a variance.  Seth sent Brett on a business trip to Reno and Heather accompanied him.  Alex rebuffed Jordan's attempts at reconciling.  Alex confided in Seth that she didn't trust Logan.  James and Leigh grew closer.  Renee received a letter containing a map that Adrienne had sent to her on the day of her murder, asking her to deliver it to Kenny in case something happened to her.  Alex learned that Adrienne had been Seth's former partner in Costa Mesa, and wondered what significance the map held.  

Episode 70

"$"

At seventeen, Rick Shively was on his own.  He grew up in Henderson, Nevada with a bipolar step-mother and a workaholic father.  While other kids his age were preparing for graduation and applying to colleges, he was working illegally every night as a bus boy and bartender at a local strip club.  A fake ID and a regular bang on the pool table with the club’s owner, Donna D., got him the gig.  It paid better than Burger King and wasn’t as monotonous as folding jeans at The Gap.  Besides, he didn’t plan on doing it for long.  Just long enough to save some money so that he could get out of that town and finally make something of himself. 

One Friday night he was naked in the back seat of his old Mustang with his girlfriend, Devon.  They had sex and laid on the sticky vinyl seats, planning for their future and dreaming of something better. 

“I want to get out of here,” Devon said.  She was a short, feisty girl with dark hair and a voluptuous figure.  “I’m sick of the B.S. at home, and I know you are too.”

“We gotta at least wait till graduation,” Rick insisted, supporting himself on one side with his elbow.  “After that we’ll do like we planned.  You, me and Bailey will leave together.  We’re the three musketeers, remember?  We’ll get out of here and head to Vegas.”

As much as Devon wanted to rush the process, deep down so did Rick.  His mother passed away two years ago and his father remarried all too quickly.  What was worse was that his mother had been pregnant.  Both killed in a car accident.   A baby brother or sister would never be a reality.  His father took it hard, despite his quick remarriage.  He’d never seen his father so broken up over anything in his life.  They hadn’t been the same since.

When he got home that night, Helen was awake and in one of her confrontational moods.  “Where the hell have you been?” she asked, drunk and on an assortment of uppers and downers.

“At work,” Rick said and rolled his eyes.  He went to the fridge and pulled out a Coke.

“You mean that freakin’ titty bar,” she said belligerently.  “I don’t know why I’m surprised.  You’re just like your father.  A loser.  Obsessed with women and their breasts.  Tell me, was your mother stacked too?”

“Lay off that.”  His eyes flashed major danger signals.

“So where were you?” Helen asked again.  “I know you weren’t at work because I called there two hours ago.  You were with that skank Devon again, weren’t you?”

“None of your business.”

“You got a smart mouth, kid,” Helen said and wobbled toward him.  “You think you’re all hot stuff marching around that place.  Well you’re not, do you hear me?  You’re nothing.  You’re going to wind up just like your father.  A workaholic with an unhappy wife at home.”

Rick bided his time, taking a deep breath and hoping that her tirade would soon be over.  He had to remain cool.

“And do you know why she’s unhappy?” his step-mother went on.  “He cheats on her.  He lines one up before the other is even gone.”

“That’s a lie,” Rick said.

“How do you think he bagged me so quickly?  We were screwing before your mom died.  And when she did, I was right there in line behind her.”

“He wouldn’t have left her.”

She laughed and hiccupped at the same time.  “Right,” she said.  “He stayed with her for the baby.  And when that baby died, so did his love for her.  Just remember that, kid.  Blame your whore of a mother if things haven’t gone the way you’ve wanted.”

Rick lost it immediately, dropping his can and rushing toward her with blinding speed.  He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall so hard that she flinched and cried out.

“Don’t talk about my mother like that!” he screamed.  His voice echoed through the house.  “Don’t ever talk about my mother again!”

“Take your hands off of her,” ordered his father as he entered the room. 

Rick looked at him and sighed with aggravation.  “Dad, you should hear the way she talks to me.  The way she talks about mom.  I-“

“I don’t know how else to tell you this, Rick, your mother is gone and you need to get over it.  I won’t have you touching my wife that way.  I want you out of this house.”

Rick looked at him, his eyes threatening to well up with tears but he fought them off.  He wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction.  Instead, he gave him one final look of contempt before turning and going to his room to pack a suitcase.

The next morning he, Devon, and his best friend Bailey left for Vegas.  For the next ten years they became experts at defrauding unsuspecting citizens of their money.  Pyramid schemes, phony tour operations, and confidence games were their specialty.  He and Devon drifted apart, she hooked up with Bailey, and Rick married Miranda Blackthorne and started a new life in Hollywood using the alias Brett Armstrong.

When that marriage failed, he was determined to succeed with another.  Over the months he’d grown to love Heather more than anything.  She was fragile and innocent and reminded him of his mother.   That’s why when they got married in Reno it seemed like the perfect beginning to their lives together.   

“You what?” Seth asked as he and Brett had drinks at the Yacht Club.

“I got married in Reno,” he said proudly. 

“Wow,” Seth said and folded his arms.  “I sent you off to make a public appearance in my place, and you come back married.  I guess you could say I footed the bill for the honeymoon.”

Brett laughed.  His face was unshaven after the long weekend and he was dressed in a sweater and chinos.  There was a lot to do now that he was back.  While Heather was busy getting settled into his condo, he was determined to secure their life together.  To do that they needed money, and a lot of it.  Seth Walker’s latest scheme was going to be the key to that security.

“Well, with the salary you pay me I can use all the help I can get,” he said with a smirk and gulped down half of his screwdriver.  “But I have a deal in the works that should bump up my savings account nicely.”

Seth looked at him curiously.  “What deal is that?”

“Costa Mesa.  I want in.”

Seth could only assume he was bluffing.  Brett couldn’t know enough to realize the value of his operation at Costa Mesa.  “I already told you, I abandoned that deal.  The Land Commission didn’t grant my variance, so I-“

“They did grant the variance,” Brett corrected him.  “And you did buy that land.”

“A company called Stratotech bought that land,” Seth corrected him.  “Do all the investigation you want.  My name isn’t associated with them at all.  So whatever you think you know, you-“

“I’m still not sure how you pulled it off, but you do own Stratotech.  Maybe not on paper, but-  And Stratotech owns Costa Mesa.  But it isn’t oil drilling that they’re doing there.   I did some checking at the records office at City Hall.  Then this morning when we got back from Reno, I went to the office to catch up on some work.  There was a fax from Panama.  Quite an interesting scheme you have going on there.  And very illegal.”

Maintaining his cool, Seth waved to a passing waitress and ordered another drink.  He leaned forward and folded his arms on the table.  “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Brett,” he said ominously.  “If I were you I would go home and play house with your new wife and forget everything you think you know about Stratotech.  This isn’t a game that you can con your way in and out of.”

His cold stare didn’t affect Brett’s determination.  “All I want is the chance to get in on the operation.  I’ll do whatever you need done.  Surely I can be of some kind of help.”

Seth regarded him carefully, partially confident in Brett’s ability to be of assistance.  He was a conman, and therefore he could probably be trusted.  Not that he had a choice.  He already knew too much.  He’d have to cut him in.

“I suppose I could up your salary a bit,” he said.

Brett smiled and shook his head.  “I want in for five percent,” he said.  “Of everything.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask considering the fact that I’m keeping your secret and I’m offering up my services.”

“Aren’t you full of entrepreneurial spirit?” Seth asked rhetorically.  “Things could get dangerous.  If the government knew what was going on in Costa Mesa-“

“You’re a smart man.  I’m sure you have contingencies if that happens.”

Against his better judgment, Seth nodded his head in agreement.  “Fine.  Five percent.”

Brett grinned and sipped his drink again.  He was on top of the world.  A new wife and a stake in a deal that would yield him millions of dollars.  How could anything go wrong?

“So what does your new father-in-law think of your marriage to his daughter?” Seth asked off handedly when the waitress returned with his drink.  “I can’t imagine Jordan Rydell is too eager to welcome you to his family.”

“You what?”

“I got married.  Brett and I went to Reno this weekend and we just did it.  It was crazy and last minute and totally unexpected, but we did it.  We got married.”

Jordan ran his fingers through his hair and paced the living room of his house in Beverly Hills.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  What was his daughter thinking?

“Crazy about sums it up,” he said disapprovingly.

“Daddy!” Heather said angrily.  “This isn’t the reaction I was hoping for.  I thought you’d be happy for me.  Don’t you want me to be happy?”

“Of course I do, Princess,” he said and placed his arms around her.  “I just don’t think that marrying Brett Armstrong is going to make you happy.  He’s a con man, Heather.  Are you forgetting everything he put Miranda through?”

“Miranda has nothing to do with this,” Heather insisted.  “Brett and Miranda knew each other for all of five minutes before they got married.  Brett and I have known each other for years.”

“Most of which you’ve spent hating each other,” Jordan said and threw his hands up in resignation.  “There was a time when you couldn’t even be in the same room together without the police being brought in to mediate.”

"Things change.  We’ve been getting closer for months now.  We’re in love, Daddy.  It’s nothing like what I felt for Stormy, or what he felt for Miranda.  This is real.”

“Nothing about Brett Armstrong is real.  That isn’t even his real name.  He’s a con man, a cheater, and a liar.  I don’t want you to be another one of his victims.”

Heather stormed around the room in a huff.  She couldn’t believe how negative her father was being.  “Look, he may have been untrustworthy once upon a time, but since he got out of the Blackthorne mansion he’s been different.  He’s got a career in politics and he wants a family.  How can you begrudge him that?”

Jordan sighed.  “God I wish your mother was here to handle this.”

“Well she’s not.  She abandoned us, remember?  So you’re going to have to think of something to say that doesn’t end in ‘big mistake’.  Daddy, I love Brett and he loves me.  I wish that you could understand that.”

He didn’t.  His daughter had been through so much already.  He was convinced that her marriage to Brett was going to make everything else she’d been through look like an afternoon at the Ice Capades.

Kenny looked at the map and shrugged indifferently, handing it back to James as they stood in his office at Blackthorne-Reynolds.

“I have no idea what it means,” he said.

James and Renee exchanged glances and both sighed in unison. 

“But Adrienne said you’d understand,” Renee insisted, folding her arms and glaring at her ex-husband.  “Come on, Kenny, this isn’t the time for one of your space outs.  Adrienne said that if anything happened to her I should give this to you.  She knew she was in danger.  You've got to help us find out why she was killed.”

“I don’t know why she’d send this to me,” he insisted.  “I haven’t talked to Adrienne in months.”

James ran his fingers through his hair and looked back at the map.  “It’s a truck route from Costa Mesa to Panama.  What’s in Costa Mesa?”

Kenny realized he would have to come clean to what he knew.  Or at least part of it.  “Someone applied for a variance to drill for oil at a site in Costa Mesa.   The Land Commission denied the variance, and then reconsidered.”

“Why did they reconsider?” James asked.

That was the part that Kenny wasn’t thrilled with revealing.  The fact that he’d been bribed into granting the variance was something he was unwilling to own up to.  Whatever the details were, he wasn’t interested.  The only thing he cared about was that the wildlife preserve would be a reality thanks to the donation from Seth Walker.  All he had to do was keep quiet about where the money came from.

“The oil for one thing,” he said.  “Who wouldn’t want to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.  It just seemed to make good sense that we allowed them to drill.”

“Them who?” Renee asked.  “Who bought that land and who plans on drilling for oil?”

Kenny shrugged. “A company called Stratotech,” he answered.

“Who owns them?” James added quickly.

“I don’t know," he lied.

“Do you think they’re planning on transporting that oil to Panama?” Renee asked and gestured to the map. “Is that what this truck route is all about?   Because if so, Stratotech is in for a world of trouble.  There’s a trade embargo with Panama.”

They both looked at Kenny with accusatory glances.

“I don’t know anything about Panama or illegal trade,” he insisted, grabbing his briefcase and starting to the door.  At least that much was true.    “I’m sorry I can’t help you any more than I have.”

After he left, Kenny stopped in the hall outside James’ office and recalled the conversation he’d recently had with Seth...

“What are you trying to pull?” Kenny asked.   “There’s no oil under that land and you know that as well as I do.”

“The land survey Logan gave you paints a different picture.”

“I know a fake when I see one,” Kenny insisted.  “The first survey we did showed no traces of oil.  Now suddenly you produce a new one that claims that land is oil rich.  So my question is this:  Why do you need a drilling variance if there isn’t anything to drill for?”

"Don’t worry about that,” Seth replied ominously.  “Maybe a donation in the Land Commission’s name would sway your decision.  As I understand it, the wildlife preserve on the South Coast won’t be a reailty unless you gain additional funding.  I could make that happen for you.”

“You want to donate money in exchange for a variance that you don’t even need?” Kenny asked.   “What is this?  Costa Mesa is a cover, isn’t it?  A front for some illegal operation.”

“With my donation, you’ll be a hero and you’ll be secured the post as head of the Land commission indefinitely.  Isn’t that enough?”

Breaking from the daze, Kenny continued down the hallway with his briefcase.  He didn’t know what Seth Walker was up to, and he didn’t care.  As far as he was concerned, he was out of it.  The only thing he knew was that something very sinister was going on at Costa Mesa, and it dind’t have anything to do with oil.

“What do you mean we have a new partner?” Logan demanded.  He was standing beside the window in Seth's office overlooking the marina.

“Armstrong found out what we were up to,” Seth answered.  “I had to cut him in for five percent.  You can relax, he’s not going to tell anyone.  He feels about money the same way we do.”

Logan clenched his fist and slammed it against the wall.  “Too many people are in on this, Seth,” he said, agitated.  “Leigh, Alex, now Brett Armstrong.  Even Kenny DeWitt knows that you own Stratotech.”

“That’s what Alex Reynolds is for,” Seth replied.  “On paper she owns Stratotech, so she’s the one they’ll go after if this thing leaks out.”

“But how long before they trace it back to us?” Logan insisted.

“Not fast enough.  Well be out of the country and free and clear.  Don’t worry about Brett Armstrong.”

“Well then should I worry about James Blackthorne and Renee DeWitt?” Logan asked and began pacing the office.  “Adrienne sent them a map.  They’re going to put two and two together.  All they have to do is take a trip to Costa Mesa and they’ll find out what’s really going on there.”

“That’s why I doubled up on security at the site,” Seth explained.  “Relax.  You worry too much.”

“Forgive me if I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison.”  Logan paused again at the window and glanced outside.  “This isn’t worth it to me, Seth.”

“Hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t worth it to you?”

Their conversation was interrupted when Alex stormed dramatically into the office, draped in a mink shawl and large round sunglasses.

“There you are,” Seth said and turned toward her in an instant.  “We’ve been trying to call you for days.  Where have you been?”

“Trying to figure out how to get out of this mess I’ve gotten myself into,” Alex said and stepped forward slowly.  “Why didn’t you tell me that Adrienne was your other partner?  The one who gave you the ten million dollars?”

Seth and Logan exchanged knowing glances.  “Does it matter?” Seth asked with a shrug.

Alex gasped and folded her arms.  “Yes, it matters.  She’s dead.  Murdered in her own home.  Her killer is still at large.”

“The police are saying it may have been a burgular,” Seth interjected.

“I don’t think so,” Alex whispered.  “And what is with the map she mailed to Renee DeWitt on the day she died?”

“Map?” they asked in unison. 

“A truck route from Costa Mesa to Panama.  What are you two up to?  Are we shipping oil to Panama?  Is that what makes this deal so important to you?  Illegal trade of natural resources?  If that’s the case then I want out because I don’t plan on going to prison again.”

“No one’s going to prison, Alex,” Seth said and walked toward her.  “I assure you that no one will find out what we’re doing.”

“So that is it!” she shrieked.  “What about Adrienne?  Did you…” 

“What?” Logan asked and came up on her.

She looked at them both in terror.  “Did you kill her because she found out?”

Seth laughed and placed a hand on her shoulder.  “Alex, you are so theatre.  Please.  Do you honestly think one of us would have killed Adrienne Fallmont?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes wide as she backed up to the door.  “All I know is that before she died she reached out to give that map to Renee.  James is going to find out about what we’re up to.”

“He won’t.”

“Need I remind you that he unwittingly owns part of Stratotech?” she asked.  “It’s a branch of Blackthorne-Reynolds.  He’s every bit as guilty as we are.”

Logan glared menacingly and hovered above her.  “Then I suggest you do everything you can to prevent him from finding out.”

Terrified, Alex backed up another step, flinching when her back met the door.  She quickly turned the knob and raced out into the hall.  The look in Logan’s eyes bore into her soul and she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling inside.  He looked like a man who would kill to get what he wanted.  She was positive that he’d been the one to strangle poor Adrienne. 

She hid beside the door, listening as they continued their conversation inside the office.

“She’s going to be a problem,” Logan said with agitation.  “Just like Adrienne.”

“She’ll be fine,” Seth said.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t worth it,” Logan continued and leveled a serious gaze at his partner.  “I want more money.”

“What?  Are you crazy?”

“My career is on the line.  Everything I’ve done to prevent people find learning the truth has been for nothing.  I’ve risked everything.”

“Everything you’ve done?” Seth asked and regarding him carefully.  “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly and dismissed the remark with ease.  “But I deserve more than we’d agreed on.  I want forty percent.”

“Forty percent?” Seth asked irately.  “May I remind you that this is now a five-way split?  With Armstrong and Leigh and Alex, that leaves me with less than a third.”

“Too bad,” Logan insisted.  ‘If you want me to keep my mouth shut and keep up appearances, you’ll cut me in for forty percent.  I’ll accept nothing less.”

Alex covered her mouth with her hands and quickly raced down the hall before he could see her on his way out.  She raced outside and hid behind a palm tree, spying Logan storm out to the parking lot.

The forty mile drive to Costa Mesa was the most stomach-turning ride of Leigh Purcell’s life.  James had insisted that she accompany him, stopping at a seaside restaurant in Orange County, and while although it was a romantic jaunt that she thoroughly used to her advantage, she knew that once they got to the drill site her guilt would be too much for her to hide.

“What exactly are you hoping to find in Costa Mesa?” she asked when they were back in the car and driving up the gravel road to the oil field.

“I don’t know,” James replied.  “But Adrienne was concerned enough about it to send that map to Renee before she died.  I think she was involved with someone with Stratotech.  Maybe whoever she was sleeping with was the man behind the operation.”

“You think whoever owns Stratotech killed Adrienne?” Leigh asked, swallowing hard and keeping her eyes on the road.  Her thoughts kept going to Seth and to Logan and how devoted they were to the deal.  Either one of them could have strangled Adrienne Fallmont, silencing her for threatening to tell.