B9/Ch8: A GRAYING LONLINESS

Gathering at the police station 

On an afternoon that could not contain the shocking news of Dr. Asha Hoffman's death, a crush of local media filled the front of the newly reconstructed police station in the center of Welshport Village. An overcast sky cast a blue glow around everyone's faces as flashbulbs illuminated the new Constable's young handsome face. He did all he could to calm the press, his words seeming to drift into the air and evaporate into the cold air reporters dug for more information. The press in this area of the country was hungry for scandal, and Welshport seemed to be a constant fountain of it pouring into the local ether of what would soon become local mythology. 

Inside the jailhouse, Nik had been taken into custody, not yet arrested for the crime, but questioned heavily over his relationships with Danielle and Asha. The tincture vial of empty nightshade extract found in his office did not bode well for the young doctor's innocence.

Welshport's leading prosecutor, Eden Syndey, had come to speak with Nik's family. He wanted to be sure they understood the nature of the charges Nik could be facing if the proof of his possible guilt was found.

In a small freshly painted meeting room Nik's mother Aurora sat close to her accused son and held her breath. She felt responsible for the entire ordeal. The only reason Nik was still involved with Asha was in hopes that her memory would return, and she could tell everyone what she did with Aurora and Caspian's child. Nik had fallen out of love with Asha when he discovered her betrayal of his family months ago. 

The pain in Aurora's eyes felt crippling. Caspian stood at the door of the room with numb Danielle. Father and Daughter lost in thought at how all of this was their fault too. 

"There is plausible evidence against you Dr. Jordan I can't go into details of what I've been given but if you had anything to do with this I suggest you come clean as soon as possible. It'll make it that much easier for you and your whole family." Eden instructed.

"Mr. Syndey as I've told the Constable and Dr. Ward, I had absolutely nothing to do with those patients becoming ill and certainly nothing at all to do with Asha's poisoning and death. I cared and loved Asha for years, I just wouldn't do something that sick -- not to anyone much less her. It against everything I am and my oath as a doctor." Nik explained.

"The evidence may prove otherwise, doctor. That's what you should be prepared for." Eden replied.

"Eden, my god, you can't actually believe my son would do this. He pledged to heal people, not make them sick and die. This is must have been just a terrible mistake." Aurora replied, ever the mother bear protecting her cub.

"Mrs. Jordan, I'm only telling you what could happen, evidence is evidence -- no matter what. I'll be honest, this isn't going to be an easy case for your lawyer." Eden explained.

"Lawyer?" Danielle whispered realizing Nik was in incredible legal danger and he hadn't retained a lawyer yet.

"But I didn't do it, surly there will be evidence that shows that too? How can there not be?" Nik asked, a naive innocent man attempting to reach for any sliver if hope.

Eden sighed and realized too that it didn't make logical sense for someone so intelligent to do something so foolish. 

"Alright -- I'll play devil's advocate. Who would have wanted to do this to you -- frame you as it were?" Eden asked.

No one said a word, a name -- Nik had no enemies. There was silence.

"I... I don't know. I can't imagine who. Or why." Nik replied finally breaking the group's quiet. 

"Dr. Ward was very sure that something was going on between you and Nurse Holten," Eden began as Danielle and Nik both moved uncomfortable in their skins with embarrassment of their affair. "Don't want you to fault Dr. Ward, he is the chief of staff at Hope and he has to look out for his hospital. He needed to ask those questions."

"I think we understand." Danielle replied in a meek voice.

"I will say however, that it don't get the notion that he actually believes you could have done this, but as I said, there are touches of evidence that clearly suggesting a motive." 

"He accused me right off?" Nik asked.

"Because you both lied." Eden replied bluntly.

"We... we --- " Danielle stammered. 

"We care for each other a great deal." Nik said. 

"Then why did he lie?" Eden asked, the room stood silent again. "Why did he pretend to still love one woman, Asha, when another woman had his heart? There have been rumors, apparently, of the two of you hiding around the hospital in lover's conversations. Nikolas, this does not look good. So why lie?" 

Nik new why. Aurora, Caspian and Danielle too. They all knew Nik had to continue to pretend to love Asha to get her to heal and finally remember who she gave the baby to, but now -- there was no use, it was all over. 

"I had to be sure that -- " Nik began.

"Nikolas, I -- " Caspian began, hoping to cut Nik off before it all came out but a sudden sharp pain stung him in his temple. Caspian keeled over in pain and fell to his knees and screeched with pain.

Danielle gasped and knelt down next to her father and caressed his back. "Are you ok? Father, look at me. Please." She said, calling him father felt strange, almost alien. She hadn't called him that in a while. But it slipped out. He grabbed her hand and, in that moment, felt as if he were her father Viktor again, like it was before the malevolent Caspian took over. 

"I'll get you some water." Danielle added.

"Is he alright?" Eden wondered.

"He's suffered headaches since his injury at the caves when Mary, Evie and Matthew were arrested. I didn't know they'd come back so severely." Aurora said, quickly rushing to Caspian's side. "Breath, just breath." She continued. 

Caspian suddenly pushed her off, shocking the room with his aggression. 

There was pause in the air, almost as if time had frozen. Everyone stared at Capsian whose face was red, swollen from his pain. Sweating and unable to make sense of why he shoved Aurora in such a way. His mind began to flash of his hands around someone's neck. A face. Another face on a dark street. Two men, their bodies trapped in Caspian's controlling violent rage. The face of the dead ex-Mayor Churchill, the face of Baxter Murphy beaten to a bloody pulp. 

"Take it easy, now, take it easy." Eden said, getting up from his chair facing Nik.

Danielle walked back into the room with water, Caspian, his head throbbing with his violent memories, quickly turned heading for the door and Danielle. The two collided and the glass of water went flying into the wall adjacent from them. Danielle fell back into the wall with a powerful thud as Nik rushed to help her.

"Caspian...." Aurora said, her voice flooding the void of noise in the room with a nervous power.

"I'm sorry. I'm... I'm so sorry. I have to get out of here. I have to get some air. Please... please forgive me all you." Caspian said as he dashed off. 

Eden stood there in silence. 

"I should go after him." Aurora suddenly answered. 

"Go." Nik said. 

Aurora's heart broke into two pieces. One would stay with her son, the other she'd carry with her to find the troubled Caspian. 

"Come straight home, ok? Come right home after this." She said kissing his cheek, he smiled sweetly and agreed he would.

Eden sat back down and pulled out a third seat for Danielle who was shellshocked over Caspian's reaction and Nik's questioning. She began to feel as if the world around her had fallen into a pit of hell. Lies. Secrets. Betrayal. Death. There was too much of it at every corner. Had she caused it by returning to Welshport to settle her late mother's estate? Should she have just let her father's memory die away and allowed him to live as Caspian instead of push for him to return to his truth self: Viktor. Had her presence not only caused Nik and Asha's relationship to faulter but also Caspian and Rebecca's.

Then it dawned on her.

"Rebecca." She whispered under her breath.

Eden, sitting next to her, heard. 

"Rebecca... Lord?" He asked. "What about her?"

"Rebecca!" Nikolas answered quickly. "I saw her, I saw her at the hospital just before all of this happened. She was leaving Asha's floor. We crossed just before she went into the elevator." 

"I don't follow, what would Rebecca Lord have to do with any of this?" Eden wondered just before the room fell quiet.

"Casador." Danielle corrected, breaking the beat of silence.

Eden shook his head confused. 

"Rebecca Lord-Casador: Caspian's wife. Caspian is the father of Aurora's missing child; the same child Dr. Hoffman took at birth and gave up for adoption without Caspian or Aurora's permission. This child is what binds Caspian and Aurora and is one threat to Rebecca's marriage." 

"But how would you know any of this?" Eden asked, his brow furrowed into a deep V.

"She told Danielle herself. She's always made it very clear how she feels not only about Aurora and Caspian's connection but how she feels about Danielle's hopes to get Caspian's memories back. Her iciness towards Danielle blew up in her face when Caspian discovered Rebecca was keeping the truth from him." Nik explained.

"She never wanted me to be involved with Caspian -- who is really my father Viktor. Rebecca has always seen anything that takes away from their relationship as her personal enemy." Danielle added.

Eden took in a big sign and leaned back on his chair, his head swimming with all the connections and twists the story had just taken. 

"Still I..." Eden began to say before Nik interrupted. 

"Get comfortable Eden, this is a doozy." Nik said, preparing to tell him everything just as Constable Justin Ryan reentered the room. 

"And what's going on here?" Justin said, seeing three deep concerned faces.

Another beat of silence. 

"Looks like we're about to hear the truth." Eden answered. "All of it." 

****

Secret in the basement 

Over a short boat ride across the tiny water way from Welshport Island to Goode Island, a darkened basement under the Goode family cottage where a salt encircled 9 foot wide, 10 foot deep pit had been dug, glowed the light of two oil lamps. Inside the hole, Mary Goode tried her best to climb the crumbling dirt walls. Her face and hands caked in the dark island soil. Her dress filthy and blackened by the dampness of her confines. 

Every inch she climbed in a vertical line only felt more and more complicated when the dirt around her fell apart in her hands dropping her back down to the ground.

She had no idea how to get herself out. Her magic rendered useless thanks to the salty circle around the mouth of the pit she was placed in. A clever old trick of the bewitching world that held off the magic of dark mistresses. What made matters worse, the hole itself had clearly been created with her twin Verity's sorcery. 

It was a giant gaping reminder that Verity was not only her flesh and blood sister given a second chance a life by the witch council but also proof of her own growing powers. 

As Mary paced the circular form of her subterranean prison, a stirring above her could be heard. Someone was home and walking around the front room of the small cottage on Goode Island. Hearing this, Mary stopped in her tracks and stared high above her out of the mouth of the hole she was trapped in as dust fell from the floorboards the made up the basement's ceilings. 

"Verity." Mary whispered to herself. "VERITY!!!" She screamed. 

The person above suddenly stopped. Dust fell from the frozen feet above and down on to Mary's face like snow from a winter sky. 

"VERITY! PLEASE!!!" Mary screamed up to her twin again. 

The person, seen only in shadows from below, turned and began to walk towards where the basement door would be in the first floor of the house. Mary heard every step. Then, she heard the basement door open slowly. It creaked, like seagulls screeching over a wide-open sea. 

Footsteps than came from the staircase. Slowly and methodically, the steps came down the bowing wooden steps of the dark basement staircase. Mary, blinded by the walls of the pit she was in, anticipated an angry twin sister's face ready to reprimand her for screaming so loudly for her freedom. But what she saw in the glow of her lanterns up at the top, was a face far from her twin's. 

It was Jacqueline Gray.

Jacqueline's eyes widened, shocked to see Mary standing in deep down in the whole. A small bed made of a shabby mattress, a personal bucket, the tiniest card table set up one of the lanterns and a small meal. 

"What the devil --- she actually did it????" Jacqueline thought to herself as her hands held tight to the rim of the whole. She could feel the shards of broken salt all around it. 

"Jacqueline, oh thank god, you have to get me out of here. You have to help me up and out, it was Verity. Verity has returned and she's placed me here and has gone to Welshport as me!" 

Jacqueline signed and sat back on the ground, she pulled her knees to her chest and locked them close to her as her long light-colored dress flowed over and into the hold.

"You know this feels quite ironic, Mary. It really is." Jacqueline said. "I was told to take over a body and allow myself to be burned at the stake -- for you. I did it. I did everything I was asked to do, and now the witch council has decided to shift gears and give Verity her own life -- and the irony is she's decided the hell with her own life, she wants yours!!!" 

Jacqueline burst into a cold laughter that iced Mary's blood. The frustration in the trapped woman's body began to overflow and she screamed up at Jacqueline with such anger Jacqueline swore she felt the air around her shift. 

"Get me out, Jacqueline, you have to."

"I have to?" Jacqueline questioned with a glimmer of sarcasm. "I have nothing to do with this. Absolutely nothing. This is your sister, this is your mess and this is what the council has laid out for you. I won't get involved." 

"You have to, you can't allow another sister in our coven do this to another, can you? She's posing as me, she's taking to my home and trying to be me!" Mary replied.

"Is very in our coven? I hadn't heard." Jacqueline replied flippantly. "Either way, I won't get involved, not now, not ever. Verity, for some reason or another, has the ear of the council. She's been given her own free will and freedom of thought by them for a reason and if I do anything against their wishes, its curtains for me. And I have plenty on my plate do contend with than get involved with two messy twin sisters." 

"But the council will punish you too! You knew this was happening and you've let it!" Mary shouted up.

"That's what I think you want to hear, but sweet, dear Mary, that is not the truth." Jacqueline replied as she stood up. "I'm sorry. -- Yes, I really am, but I'm stepping away far, far away from this fire. I've already been symbolically burned alive. I think I've paid my dues to this coven." 

Jacqueline then turned and began to make her way over to the staircase. Mary began screaming for Jacqueline to come back, help her, do what she could. The screams did bother Jacqueline. She was cold and calculating but she still had a heart, despite the evil things she'd done before. Her own hurt, her own damage came from decades of loneliness and abandonment. But the cards were stacked against her by the council -- and Jacqueline knew it.

"PLEASE!!!" Mary screamed. "Jacqueline, I beg you; I would owe you; I would be in debt to you. Get me out of here, please!" 

Jacqueline turned back and walked slowly towards the of the pit and peered down over into it and looked Mary in the eye as best she could. Her facial expression showed that she had no intention of helping Mary any time soon. 

"They've bound me, Mary. Because of what I did during the witch trials and all the other things I've done, the council has bound my powers. I'm limited and this circle of salt is better protection against anything I can do. I think Verity knew this. She expected this. And she's smarter than you or I ever thought she could be. You'll have to do this all on your own." Jacqueline explained.

As Mary stared up into the darkness above her from the bottom of the pit, Jacqueline's face vanished from the surface. The footsteps leading up the staircase and into the house then led out of the house.

Jacqueline left the Goode cottage, and Mary, for good. 

Mary fell to her knees and began to cry. With Jacqueline refusing to help, she indeed realized she was now on her own. No magic. No coven sister to come to her rescue. 

Alone.

****

In the park with the Bragas 

That afternoon, as the sun hung behind the gloomy sky, Filipe and Verity (posing as Mary) walked along the wet stone paths of Village Park with Charlotte and little Caleb. To the outsider this was a picture-perfect family, a husband and wife with their two beautiful children, but in reality, a more sinister secret churned within the mother who proudly pushed her baby boy's buggy under the dripping dewy trees. 

"Caleb's been a bit fussy this afternoon." Charlotte noted.

"Has he?" Filipe wondered, looking down at the boy who squirmed in his buggy. 

Filipe stepped in front of the buggy pulling the boy out and holding him close but there seemed to be no use to calm the child. 

"Maybe he's hungry?" Charlotte noted.

"He ate just a bit ago." Filipe answered. "And he doesn't need a changing. Here you go big boy, go to mama, she can always calm the baby beast." 

Charotte giggled at Filipe's joke as she watched her stepfather pass the baby over to Verity who grabbed hold of the boy and gulped. She cuddled him close as she thought a mother should but suddenly Filipe and Charlotte saw a difference in her, a difference in the woman they thought was Mary. 

There was a strange distance in the way the mother and child interacted with each other that hadn't happened before. The baby almost reacted as if he were being held by a stranger. 

"He is very, very upset!" Charlotte said, caressing her baby brother's head.

"I -- I don't know why he's so unhappy." Verity replied in her best Mary voice. "Should we go home? Perhaps he's sleepy." 

"Don't you remember? We woke him from a nap to go on this walk. He slept for most of the afternoon. He can't be tired." Filipe replied.

"Maybe he's sick. That could be it, it's been awfully chilly, I'd hate for him to be out here in this cool air feeling sick. Let's go back to the house." Verity replied, again in her best impersonation of the sister she had imprisoned in a home-made pit in the basement of the Goode Family cottage. 

Verity then pulled the baby off of her chest as if she were removing a piece of lint that was attached to her tight bodice and held him out for Filipe to take. This took Filipe by surprise, a strange alien behavior that Mary had never shown. It was off putting and made Filipe uncomfortable to see his wife look so unattached to the little boy that just two days ago she was so in love with.

"Mary, what is it? Are you feeling ok yourself?" Filipe wondered.

"You have been a bit quiet mummy." Charlotte added.

"Have I? I'm sorry! I guess you're both right." Verity said quickly trying to cover. "I think the worry over what might happen with Caleb's parents is still really bothering me. I just don't want to lose him and it feels possible."

Filipe took the baby from Verity as he finally stopped his frustrated wiggles and slipped him back into the buggy where the child himself pulled up a pristine white blanket to keep warm. Filipe then grabbed Verity's hand, cold as ice to match the air around them in the park and squeezed it tightly.

"I wish I could take that worry out of your mind, but like I've told you I would never ever allow anyone to take Caleb. There is nothing I wouldn't do to keep our family, as it is, together." He said reaching for his 15-year-old Stepdaughter and hugging her, reminding "Mary" her own daughter with Jacob was like his own child.

The family, a unit, a solid loving family that had battled so many things in their past, was as thick as thieves. Now there seemed to be a crack in the foundation, and "Mary" in her current form, was the crack that needed to be filled.

"We're a real family." Verity said, her voice still in the soft texture of Mary's tone. "A father and mother and our children.

Charlotte furrowed her brow. Something was different about her mother Mary. Something she could not feel with her own powers as Verity knew better than to allow the young woman the ability to link into her subconscious and risk discovery. 

"Mummy, I think you need to rest. You do seem a bit exhausted." Charlotte replied, an idea to get "Mary" to sleep popped in her mind. 

In sleep, Charlotte could infiltrate the subconscious of the woman she adored to see where all this odd behavior was coming from. 

"Sleep?! I think I'm fine, its this little baby boy who needs a good long nap." Verity said, quickly forgetting Filipe had already said Caleb had been asleep.

Filipe and Charlotte shot each other looks. They both could tell something was off about Verity, but it had been a rough time after the witch trials, the idea of coming back to a regular life after almost losing her life by burning might have caught up to her. 

"Let's get back." Filipe said, pulling Mary into a big side hug as Charlotte took control of the buggy. "I think we all need a good time away from here." 

"Away?" Verity wondered. "From Welshport?" 

"Would you like that?" He asked.

"Where would we go?" Charlotte wondered.

"Oh, I don't know, somewhere we can all put Welshport behind us for a while. Somewhere we can pretend we're someone else and just be happy." He said.

"Be someone else." Verity whispered. "I think I'd like that." 

"I'd love that!" Charlotte laughed. "School is almost out for the spring, and I'm sure my father wouldn't mind me taking a holiday with this side of my family." 

Filipe smiled "We'd be hard pressed not to ask Jacob his permission, but yes, I'm sure he'd be fine with  it." 

"Jacob?" Verity said, her face clearly confused.

"Jacob." Filipe replied seeing her frozen confused look. He stopped them all in the park path. "Is there something wrong?" 

"I -- Jacob -- yes. Charlotte's father, yes. I'm sorry. You know what, you're both right. I probably do need some rest. I haven't slept well, I have been up worrying about Caleb and everything, my brain is on it's last moments. Please, forgive me, both of you." The imposter said, clearly reading the faces of Mary's husband and child were now falling into deep concern over Mary forgetting Jacob.

"Let's get you home." Charlotte said, shooting Filipe another look. "We'll get you to sleep." 

Verity smiled and took over for Charlotte by pushing the baby buggy the rest of the way home. She knew now it would a lot harder posing as Mary and she had not done a good job of it on this first full day. If she wanted to continue the lie, the concealment of her true self, it was imperative never to have another day like this. 

She had to do better. Or fail. 

****

Aurora meets with Lear 

Meanwhile, at the Bellmore Beach house, Aurora rushed into the house and quickly removed her long coat and hat. She tossed the garments on to the soft woven white sofa's and called out for Caspian who had rushed out of the police station in a fit of his now reoccurring headaches.

Aurora dashed into the parlor -- empty. 

She went into the adjoining screened off sunroom, also empty. Empty bedrooms, empty study. 

The house was completely void of any signs of the man she conceived a child with. Caspian was nowhere to be found. 

Aurora went back into the front room and looked around hoping that maybe he had come home and before her and left again. She scanned for any kind of proof. But there was nothing.

Then, a sudden knock on the door. Aurora rushed over and opened it. The sky had darkened as dusk soon approached to welcome in a new night. Standing at the door was Lear Lockwood, the lawyer who agreed to represent Evie in the witch trials had agreed to do the same for Nik.

"Good evening, Aurora." He said smiling.

"Oh, it's you." She replied in a strange almost disappointed tone.

"I received a call from the police station, I've seen Nik. He said for me to come here too, did I misunderstand?" 

"No! No, not at all. I apologize for my reaction, I was —never mind, please come in.” She said. 

Sending Aurora’s frantic energy Lear wondered if something else has happened since Nik’s call to him from the station. 

“I just am worried about Caspian." She replied as he entered.

“Is he ill?”

Aurora couldn't truthfully answer. She didn't know for sure, but there obviously was something wrong with him. She shook her head and invited him to sit down on the white sofas where the room fell silent except for the bashing waves of the Bellmore Beach outside.

Lear opened his briefcase and began to pore through Nik's case files that had just been delivered. He hadn't been formally arrested or arraigned but there were already files on the case that needed to be addressed before anything else happened. Aurora was clearly distracted, not by the waves, but by her own spiraling thoughts. 

"Perhaps this is a bad time, I can go over these with you another time when Nik is back. He left the police station with me and was going to take Danielle home. I'll come back." Lear said gathering his paperwork.

"No, no, I want to hear this too. Its just -- I hate to burden you with more of our family issues -- but Caspian was with me at the station and while we all discussed what was happening with Eden, he changed suddenly. He became, well, he wasn't himself." Aurora said.

Lear's face changed. He knew of Caspian's past traumas of a darkness consuming him. He knew of the evil mind he had at one point when he was possessed by a force no one could understand. Hearing he'd suddenly wasn't himself again, seemed ominous. 

"I don't want to assume anything, and obviously you have a lot on your plate now, but you don't think--? Lear began before she quickly interrupted. 

"-- NO! I don't think that."

"There would be signs." Lear said, nudging her to see that perhaps whatever happened in the office was a sign of something happening to him again.

"No, no, he's had headaches since the attack at the coves. I believed they'd gotten better but he's having them again. I just don't know how frequently. He's ill, is all. I don't think anything -- else --- is happening." 

Aurora was unable to say what both of them were thinking. It was there, on the tip of their tongue yet neither of them could -- or would -- admit that there might be a slight possibility that Caspian's darker, more nefarious and demonic counterpart had returned. How could it? How could it have come back? 

"Alright then. Shall we discuss Nikolas' case?" Lear asked.

Aurora still wearing the worry on her face like a mask, nodded calmly. Lear began to talk but Aurora's mind simply drifted off into the sound of the waves outside hoping Caspian would come home himself, and not something born in the fires of hell. 

****

The Ryan brothers reconnect 

Later that evening Father Donavon Ryan stood outside the small cottage door of his younger brother Justin who had just moved to the village on the priest’s insistence when the opportunity for the job of the village's constable came up. Justin, who was born, along with his elder siblings including Donavon, just across the bay in Winter Port but grew up in Portland. Maine was home for the entire Ryan family, but Welshport felt like a foreign land despite its close proximity to the mainland. 

Nevertheless, Justin felt at ease knowing he had his older brother near him in the strange new village.

Donavon lifted his hand to knock on the door but his hand never kit made contact. Justin quickly opened the door with a grin from ear to ear.

"FINALLY!" The new constable shouted, reaching over for his brother pulling him into a bear hug. "I saw you through the window. Come in, I'm starved!"

"I brought wine." Donavon replied stepping into the small quaint home taking it all in. "This is nice!" 

"Not too shabby, eh." Justin grinned popping the cork on the wine. "White? I like white." 

"I remembered." 

"Sit, sit!" Justin added, pouring two full glasses of wine, the clear spheres of the glass shimmering in the low light of the room. "I'm so sorry we're just now catching up. I've been so busy since I got here. Did you know I'm the youngest constable this village has ever had!?" 

"That's good! Idle hands are the devil's ---" Donavon paused, a photo of Caspian Casador peeked out from under a file. 

Justin smirked but furrowed his brow "Workshop." Justin finished. "What?" 

"What's that?" Donavon pointed to the file on a side table.

"OH! Shit!!" Justin shouted reaching for the file to move it away, then caught himself cursing in front of his priest brother. "Oops. Shit. I mean shoot. Ugh, Von I'll never get used to seeing you dressed like this. And THAT is work. Pretend you didn't see it." Justin answered. 

"Why do you have a photo of Caspian?" Donavon wondered.

"I can't talk to you about any of this." Justin said. "You know how it goes." 

"I'm your priest, you can tell me anything in confidence." Donavon countered.

"You're also my brother and if anyone were to discover the two of us had any conversation about an open investigation, I could lose my brand new, very well paying, job. You know the county is paying for this cottage for a year. Talk about perks." 

"Investigation? You're investigating Caspian?" Donvaon's face quickly morphed from curious to concerned. 

"Not doing this." Justin said as he set the small table for dinner. 

"Look, I know how important this job is to you, I wouldn't have set you up for that interview with Mayor Cramer, but Caspian is -- well, I have a bit of history with him, and seeing his face in a police file worries me." 

"What kind of history?" Justin wondered, his little brother hat evaporating allowing for his detective hat to fall firmly into place.

"Strange history." Donavon replied cryptically.

"Ok, now it's you who has to tell me what's going on. All I can tell you is that there is a bit of curious information someone gave me about something that Caspian was mixed up in, nothing illegal, just about a relationship he had and a possible child and -- it's all very tangled up and I have to figure it all out." Justin replied.

"Yes, he and Aurora Jordan conceived a child together that died." Donavon answered.

"Only that it didn't." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"Go on, drink your wine, Von, you're going to need a very good gulp of that to hear what I have to tell you." Justin replied.

Over several glasses of wine, Justin dug into the story that Nik, Danielle and Aurora had told him at the police station. The night baby Caleb was born, how Dr. Asha Hoffman delivered the child while Aurora was drugged and put to sleep by Gregory Reigns, the former Constable who died at the Full Moon festival. He told him of the horror that Nik felt when he discovered the woman he loved, Asha, had been blackmailed by Gregory to take the child while Aurora was out cold, take the child and then help conceal the truth of the child's survival and even sex. He went into Nik's deceat and attempt to get Asha to finally tell the truth of what happened after Gregory's death but the injurie Asha sustained in the fire at the old Police Station locked her memory of whether the baby was really alive and where it went.

The Lie upon lie upon lie, the knot of it all getting larger and larger as the months went by -- all of this revealed by Nikolas to Justin right there under the very exposing lights of the new jail house interrogation room. 

Then Justin finally filled in about Asha's shocking death and how Rebecca might be connected through her collapsing marriage to Caspian. 

Donavon was speechless. He sipped his wine. Poured the last drops into his glass. His eyes were glazed, too much wine for a man who only drink a sip at Sunday Mass. 

Then Donavon blurted out something that felt like someone taking Justin by the throat. 

"Caspian was possessed by a demon. I should know, I'm the one who exorcised it from his body." 

Justin didn't reply right away. The wine slowly made it's way through his bloodstream too. Then the words from his elder priest brother finally hit his brain like cold ice water to the face.

"He what? YOU WHAT?"

"It's all true. And the child that was conceived was created before the exorcism. I didn't know any of this at the time really, it was all so fast. I had just gotten to the village myself earlier that year. I assumed the child had did as Gregory and Asha had told everyone, now, knowing the child is out there alive, the child of -- I can't even say it." 

"Jesus Christ." Justin whispered realizing he'd taken the Lord's name in vein. "Oh, sorry, but Jesus Christ." 

"I know." Donavon replied. "Whatever happens with this one, just -- be careful. Please." 

Justin smiled back nervously and nodded silently. He didn't know if he even believed in demonic possession, or creatures from some other supernatural place entering a body and taking over. It was too fantastic, too set in the dark ages of time to be real, he thought. His cathoclic upbringing clearly told him different but life and the new world around him said otherwise. 

"I'll be fin--" Justin began to say but his brother, slightly drunk now, grabbed Justin's hand. 

"Justin-- you do not know what I saw that night and I never hope you see it. Promise me, on the graves of our mother and our father -- you will be CAREFUL!" 

Justin squeezed Donavon's trembling hand and nodded again. "Yes, of course." 

Then, a small bell rang. The timer of the dinner Justin was cooking to impress his brother, the Father. 

"Dinner's ready." Justin smiled nervously.

Alone now in the kitchen. Justin saw his own reflection in the small kitchen window. He took a breath and wondered what in the hell had he gotten himself into. 

****

Chris, Genevieve & Morgan are stalked 

Back in the village, Genevieve and Christopher walked along the slick cobble stone streets with Genevieve's son Morgan. They had just left Gramercy Cafe where they had dinner. It was a sweet reunion of sorts, as Morgan had finally moved back in with his mother after being with the Braga family for a very long time. The repair of this relationship was paramount for Genevieve whose guilt for leaving Morgan alone for so long as she traveled to England to find Christopher seemed too painful for the young man to let go of. 

And for good reason. Loneliness and abandonment can never truly dissipate like morning fog. This was a relationship that would need intensive care to finally get back to normal. Morgan's moving in, was a start.

"It's really wonderful how you've decorated your new bedroom." Genevive said to Morgan as she walked between both Christopher and her son with both of her arms interlocked through both men creating a chain of a new family.

"It's nothing really. Just a few framed of maps I like." He replied. "The routes Filipe takes when his fishing ship goes out into the Atlantic."

"Filipe gave those to you?" Chris asked, Morgan nodded, the nonverbal response hinting at discomfort.

"I know you've grown very close to Filipe and Mary, but as I mentioned at dinner I hope you can give us a chance to reconnect, son. " Genevieve said, her eyes beginning to water. "I have to much to make up for." 

The three stopped in their walk. 

Genevieve turned her son towards her. Their eyes locked. She could see he still didn't feel right about coming home, the pain of her leaving him stung like salt in a wound. 

"Whatever you need, just ask it of me, and I'll do what I can do make it happen so that you can be happy again, with us." She said.

"Us?" Morgan replied.

"Chris and I, yes. You know we live together and, well, there's more to it than just that." Genevieve replied.

Chris stood in silence. Worried what Morgan would say to what Genevieve was about to drop on him. She removed her glove and showed him her ring, a ring he had purchased the day after he proposed. 

Morgan didn't respond again, he just stared at the beautiful diamond and then looked over at Christopher. 

"I don't know what to say." Morgan finally uttered. "I'm happy for you mama, for both of you, but, I have to think about what this all means for me." 

"It means that I'd like to help you and your mother have a family again. Together, the three of us. We're trying to give you what you deserve and what you've missed out on." Chris finally said.

"Do you love her?" Morgan responded quickly. 

And just as quickly Chris responded, "I absolutely do." 

"Do you love her because she looks like Sabrina?" Morgan asked, once again reminding the new couple of the oddity that Chris, who was once married to Sabrina Spencer, was now engaged to a woman who happened to look exactly like her. A non-related accidental twin that nature somehow created and reconnected with David. 

"Sabrina was very special to me and she and I share a son. I will always remember her fondly and for many years I mourned her. But," Chris began as he turned to the stunning Genevieve whose face lit up in the dark night as their eyes met "your mother is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met. The fact she just so happens to look like Sabrina, is something beyond our control. But I love her for her."

Morgan nodded, accepting this. He turned to his mother and pulled her into a hug. "I'm happy for you and... I'm happy to welcome you, Christopher."

Genevieve's tears were now halfway down her face. To her this was now a road to a place she felt happiest, in a family. 

"This calls for a celebration." Chris grinned. "You two head on home, I'm going to run over to Gifford's and grab us a bottle of champaign, how would you both like that?" 

Genevieve laughed and grabbed hold of her almost 16-year-old son and agreed they all needed a quick happy drink that evening at home. He kissed her and sent them on the short walk home and he bounded across the street and headed down the block in the other direction to the small grocery Gifford's.

The streets were emptying now that the night had closed in over the island. The gas-street lamps flicked on and warmed a hot glow in their glass containers 10 feet above the street. Christ quickly dashed along the slick-sidewalks. He held his hands deep into coat pockets and suddenly he felt a bludgeoning to his head from behind.

Chris fell to the floor, his shoulder breaking his fall before his face could hit the pavement.

The streets, void of witnesses.

Chris, writhed on the ground, one and to the pain on the back of his head, the other propping himself up.

Then a kick to his ribs. Then another. And another, knocking the wind out of Chris' chest.

He fell back onto the ground, his stomach and face now parallel to the wet pavement.

He slowly turned over to see who his assailant was but someone from across the street shouted.

The assailant, clearly a man, was looking down at Chris standing directly in front of a lamp who's light from behind shadowed his face like an lunar eclipse blocking the sun's rays hitting earth.

The man looked up at the person yelling, kicked Christ one more time and in a flash rushed away down the block and into the darkening night.

"Are you alright?" The person from across the street said, finally reaching Christopher.

"I'm fine, fine." 

"Did you get a good look at him? I saw you turned to face him just before he rushed off." The man asked.

"No." Chris replied, holding his terribly bruised ribcage. "But I have a good idea who it might have been." 

"Do you? WHO?" The man asked.

Chris said nothing and turned and walked back towards his new bungalow with Genevieve. His mind raced into the direction of only one person that would have sent him a message like that via one of his many paid goons: Jacob Lord, Chris' increasingly paranoid older brother whom he had just promised a truce in their life's long battle of sibling rivalry that once cost Chris' wife Sabrina her life. 

"HEY!! Get yourself to the police! You hear me! GET YOURSELF TO THE POLICE!!" The man shouted down the block near Gifford's.

Chris, however, had no intention in doing that. It would go against what he had promised, not to go after his brother. But Jacob, in Chris' mind, clearly wanted to send a message of who was still the supreme Lord brother in town.

No, the police would not be involved, Chris would handle this on his own.

Hiding in the shadows of a side alley was the assailant, panting in a heavy way as Chris limped by unable to see the person blocked by several pallets and crates. The person peeked out allowing the light from a nearby back window of a building to shine on his face revealing Caspian Casador.

The headaches had once again caused his rage to spike. His anger to build. His hate to fester in a way that was so volatile the only way he could release it was to beat another man on the shadow cast streets of Welshport Village. 

His third victim. First, Churchill whom Caspian strangled in his bed, then Baxter Murphy and now Christopher Wesley. 

The list was growing, and Caspian was going down a very, very dark road. 

B9/Ch7: A GOODE PRAYER

Dr. Ward questions with Nik & Danielle 

As night continued its rise engulfing a tragic day at Welshport Hope Hospital, Dr. Peter Ward and Dr. Nikolas Jordan took Nurse Holten into a side office. She was a wreck of a woman, her face pale and swollen from crying. Her hands were shaking. Her mind spinning into a dark place of guilt and confusion. What had she done? What had she done to Asha and all those other patients.

"Nurse Holten, we need every single detail of what has happened here. There are seven patients all of whom seem to have received a medication overdose administered by you. What did you give them?" Ward asked.

Danielle couldn't speak. She tried but nothing came out of her mouth. 

"Dani, you have to tell us. What was it that you gave them?" Nik asked, practically begging for some sort of answer. "Asha has died, Dani, please tell us." He added. 

"I...." that was all she could say, and handed them the list of her rounds, a paper attached to a wooden clipboard that she clung to the entire time. 

Ward snatched it from her and read it over noticing nothing out of the ordinary. 

In her mind Danielle flashed to what had happened in Asha's room and began to recount:

*

Danielle recalls her interaction with Asha 

"Good afternoon, Dr. Hoffman," Danielle said, checking off Asha's name on her medication rounds list. "Looks like we have the final brew of medical tea for your stay here. You must be very happy." 

Asha sat up in bed and flung her legs over the side and stood up. "I don't want it."

"Dr. Ward has ordered it, it's just the regular herbal medication with a few drops of vitamins to help keep your strength for your ride home. Nothing you have t taken before." Danielle replied.

Asha walked over to Danielle and took the tea. She stared at her and looked her up and down. The conversation with Rebecca circling her mind of how Rebecca saw Danielle and Nikolas together. Kissing. Hugging. Practically in love right under Asha's very nose. 

"Nikolas and I will be very happy together once I'm home. He's promised we'll go away together. Has he mentioned that to you?" Asha said, again her mind pregnant with Rebecca's description of Nik and Danielle's secret affair.

Danielle blinked slow, sensing a test from Dr. Hoffman. "How wonderful." She played. "He hasn't mentioned anything to me about that, and why would he?" 

"Why would he indeed." Asha said, sipping her tea.

"You must be excited to go home," Danielle added. "Maybe that help trigger your memory — has any of it come back?"

"Not yet, no." Asha replied, lying. She still held on to the truth about Aurora's child, a desperate move for a desperate woman clinging to Nikolas who only wanted that kernel past truth to free his mother Aurora of her grief of losing a child that was really lost. Asha secretly gave the baby away. 

"That's a shame, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to not have memories of such important and life changing events." Danielle replied, sensing Asha might be holding on to the truth for a reason.

"Similar to your father, I suppose." Asha replied, as she drank the rest of the toxic tea. "He's been dealing with his own memory issues for a very long time hasn't he? You know I received a visit from his wife, your stepmother, and she told me a few things." Asha added sitting back down on the bed.

"Did she?" 

"Yes. Very peculiar things about -- well, you." 

Danielle cocked her head to one side, confused. Her dark hair falling onto her shoulder like thick black waterfall bunching in the lushest curls. "What peculiar things did she have to say about me?" 

Asha opened her mouth to speak, she was about to tell Danielle everything, that she knew about the affair, that she knew Rebecca knew that the entire situation was about to blow up in Danielle's face but she couldn't say anything. She seemed frozen. 

"Dr. Hoffman?" Danielle said. "Dr. Hoffman?!" 

Asha lay back on her bed. Her heart rate slowing. Her eyes feeling heavy. She was unable to feel her feet. Blurry. The room went blurry. There was a strange fog that floated above her and seemed to fall on top of her. Her breathing started to slow. Her hands sweating. She tried to speak but her lugs couldn't muster the strength to fight a word out. She gasped for air. Danielle flinched not understand what was happening, the cup in Asha's hand fell and shattered on the hard hospital floor. 

"Dr. Hoffman!! ASHA! ASHA!!" Danielle screamed slapping Asha's face. 

*

Back in the office with Peter and Nik looked at each other unsure of what has happened. For his part, Peter felt the uncomfortable feeling that Danielle had done it on purpose, but it didn't explain the other patients. 

"I need to know something." Dr. Ward said, but he surprised Nik by asking it of Nik.

"What is it?" Nik wondered.

"I need to understand the nature of your relationship, the two of you." He said, darting his eyes to Danielle.

Danielle held her breath. 

"What -- what do you mean?" Nik asked.

"This is the absolute worst time for coyness Dr. Jordan. This isn't a large hospital where things are left in the shadows for no one to see or hear. There is gossip and rumor at every single turn of this place. I've heard about your relationship for week. I've turned a blind eye because it didn't, to me at least, seem to be anyone's business or for that matter true.  However, now, I need to know: are you two in a relationship?" 

"We..." Nik began before Danielle blurted out "Yes."  

Peter turned to Nik who silently nodded. Peter sighed heavily in disappointment. 

"When I discovered you and Dr. Hoffman were an item, I also turned the other cheek, at least in that you two were open, but this? The secrets, she hiding; this is not good." Ward said.

"Dr. Ward, you have to understand, this was not an intentional relationship, and I would never have hidden anything had Asha been healthy. I was waiting for her to be home and healed for it to come out. I always intended for Danielle and myself to be open with what we have, but the right time never came. Asha has been recovering for so long here, telling her about Danielle and myself in her state, I feared would set her back. And she has so much to tell us about what happened to her when she was kidnaped, I needed to allow her to continue to heal and recover." Nik said to Peter.

"And suddenly that right time may never come, will it? You certainly can't announce your relationship now that Asha Hoffman is dead and the reason, she's dead is the nurse whom you're in a new relationship with has given her the tea that killed her. Do you understand what I am saying?" Ward explained. 

"No, no, I didn't do this on purpose! You can't think that!!" Danielle replied. 

Ward only stared at her like a father furious with a child's behavior. His eyes pinned her down and burned through her as if she were a cold-blooded killer. 

"I have to call Constable Ryan. This cannot go unreported." Ward said.

"Doctor Ward, please you can't seriously think Danielle would do something to Asha on purpose! She would never! Obviously, something went wrong with the medication dosages, there were several others who were ill too. I wasn't involved with all those other patients as I was with Asha, so Danielle would have no reason to poison them. You, see, his was an accident; it has to be." Nik tried to explain. 

Dr. Ward furrowed his brow and looked at Nik. The young doctor was right; he had to be some sort of mix up -- but on who's part? 

"We'll clear it up with Constable Ryan." The chief doctor said. "I have to call him." 

Doctor Ward left the room and Danielle fell into Nikolas' arms. She began to cry uncontrollably, her face into his chest. 

"Shhh.. it's ok. We'll figure this out. No one thinks you did anything. It's ok." Nik said, trying to console her.

In his office, Dr. Ward could not ignore the timing of Asha's death and the reaffirmed truth that Nik and Danielle were having an affair. Still, the idea that anyone, especially his protege Nikolas, would have secretly laced his other protege's tea to kill her in a lover's knot felt incredible vile -- yet not totally unheard of. 

These thoughts swirled in Peter's mind as he waited on the phone waiting for the new constable, Justin Ryan, to be brought in by the operator. 

"Constable, yes, hello, this is Dr. Peter Ward at Welshport Hope. Congratulations on joining, yes, yes we're very happy to have you. Unfortunately, this isn't just a welcome call to you. There's been a death here at Hospital. Yes, suspicious. And I think I have the culprit here. Who? Nikolas Jordan. Yes, that's right, Nikolas Jordan -- Ill explain when you get here." 

Rebecca's crime had yet another victim. 

****

Filipe arrives home to a shocking scene 

The Night fog filtered up from the rocky shores around Welshport Island and seeped into the village streets like slow moving white molasses. Fishing trawlers had arrived over the course of the evening releasing their crew back from a hard three days out at sea, including Filipe Braga, who'd taken up a position on one of Matthew Winterborn's ships.

He walked along the slippery streets of the village and to the neighborhood where his mother's home stood. Filipe noticed almost all the lights were off, the windows closed up, which was odd for Filipe's mother Fatima. She especially enjoyed a fresh night sea breeze to come through her window. 

Filipe entered the home, quiet. Peaceful. Untouched. 

"Hello?" He asked, checking the clock on the dark wall across from him confirming the time. It wasn't late, and yet no one was there.

Filipe began lighting some of the front room's lamps, allowing the deep glow of the light to fill the room showing its clear emptiness. The family had vanished, it seemed, without a trance. Without a note. Without a single reminder of them. 

As Filipe was about to go into the backrooms, the front door suddenly opened. Fatima carrying Caleb at her side and Charlotte; All three dressed for the cold night air, entered with very worried expressions.

"What is it?" Filipe asked. But as quickly as the question came to his lips, he noticed a person missing. "Where is Mary?" 

Charlotte's eyes began to water. Fatima sighed deeply, almost a whimper, and passed Caleb to his father. The baby's eyes were swollen from crying, but the little boy mustered a smile as he touched his father's face.

"Where's Mary?" Filipe asked again.

"We don't know." Fatima replied darkly. 

Filipe felt a sudden pull on every one of his internal organs. He held on to the baby tight and shook his head as if the words his mother had spoken were in a different language. 

"What are you talking about? What do you mean you don't know? She didn't tell you where she was going?" He pressed.

"We came home from the market and found Caleb by himself in his crib." Charlotte replied. "We have no idea why she left or where she went and it's been hours." 

"We don't even know how long este pobrezinho was alone. He was just in his little caminha asleep like an angel." Fatima added, reaching for the baby she referred to in Portuguese as the poor baby. 

"No, that's not like her at all, something is wrong." Filipe said handing the baby over to Charlotte.

"We've been all over the village, Filipe, Mary has vanished." Fatima confirmed.

"The village." He replied, his mother nodded. "Then she must be on Goode Island. I need to go there." 

Fatima and Charlotte looked at each other, it clearly didn't dawn on them to check Goode Island. They couldn't think of a reason why Mary would go back at her mother's abandoned home on there; to run off unannounced to all alone. 

****

Verity looks in on her prisoner Mary in the pit

Meanwhile, across the fog cloaked watery strait between Welshport Island, the assumed vacant home of the Goode family on the smaller island named after them stirred with activity. The only house on the tiny island glowed with the warm light of the hearth as Verity Spencer stared at herself in a full-length mirror. She had switched her clothes with her twin sister Mary whom she had abducted to finally give herself the life she felt she deserved, one that she felt was taken from her. 

She posed in the mirror, trying to mimic Mary's subtle characteristics. She tried to speak like Mary, using her phrasing and direct way. The taking over of Mary's life had to be seamless. No one could ever know the truth and it had to be fast — and it had to last. 

Once she felt she had it down, she slipped into Mary's coat and adjusted the belt, tightly around her waist. She gave herself one last look and smirked.

"Done." Verity said, in a Mary's softer tone.

Then she went to the back of the house to a door that led to a cold and dark basement. The basement had been hollowed out, emptied of its contents. The floor had been opened up and a large pit had been made. A ring of salt had been poured out around the pit, a clever trick of magic that Verity had smartly learned from catching up on the documents and old books in the Goode cottage over the weeks she'd been there along. 

Inside the pit, deeply dug into the hard cold ground, was Mary Goode, trapped.

Verity peeked over and saw Mary laying in the fetal position on the tiny mattress that had been flung down there from one of the cottage's beds. She'd been dressed in Verity's dress and also given books, a pail, a lantern, blankets and several wash clothes. There was a ration of food that would last 3 to 4 days that Verity planned to replenish when she could make it back. 

Sensing eyes on her, Mary perked up met her twin's eyes. Eyes that were exactly like her own, despite their color.

"Verity. Verity. Please, please take me out of here. I don't understand why you're doing this. We can figure things out together if you just let me out." 

"No." Verity replied simply. 

Mary slammed her fist into the mattress in frustration, "BUT WHY!?" 

"Because this is how it's going to be, it is how it should have been. I'm going to be the one that lives in the world now, Mary, because I've been give this second chance and I'm not going to waste it." 

"You'd rather trap me here, in this ... in this giant grave... than live together? As sisters???" Mary questioned. "Doesn't that seem counter to what our mother would have wanted?" 

"What mother would have wanted?" Verity questioned. "She didn't have a chance to know what she would have wanted for me. It wasn't for her to decide. Which is the true beauty of this, Mary. I've been given the chance from the witch council to live as a person as a real-life living person the way it could have been and in my eyes, SHOULD have been. That's all that you need to know. You'll see the package of food there, it will last you enough. Don't worry. I won't abandon you, I'm not that kind of person. I was abandoned by time, by the universe, so I know what it feels like. But I'll come back and replenish your food and wash every few days."

"They'll figure it out, Charlotte. Filipe. All of them. You won't be able to do this forever Verity. They'll figure it out! I'm telling you. It's better to come clean, take me out of here and we can do this together." Mary pleaded.

Verity smirked. It was all so simple, Mary thought. But she explained to her trapped twin what she was forgetting; one very important factor: The whole village saw Verity supposedly burn to death in the fire when Jacqueline inhabited Verity's body after the witch trials. The whole village pegged Verity, the magically regenerated twin of Mary Goode, for the true witch of Welshport. They saw her die. They saw her turn to ash and die. Nothing could ever bring her back in the eyes of the mortals in Welshport. Verity knew this, it had to be this way, it had to be this way.

"Then why not kill me?!?!? WHY?? Why keep me alive and suffer in a pit below my mother's home!?" Mary screamed.

"OUR MOTHER!" Verity shot back. "Everything is you, you, you, Mary! Its not about just you anymore. I'm here. I'm alive, and I deserve to live." 

"And that means I should suffer?" Mary asked.

Verity took a breath, she walked away from the mouth of the giant pit she had created. She paced back and forth in the basement, her mind racing -- confused. 

"YES!" Verity screamed out. "This is the way. I can't kill a sister. You know this." 

Mary took a second and realized it was true. The Witch Council would never allow coven sisters to hurt each other, much less true sisters like Mary and Verity. No matter how they were in each other's lives. 

Verity once again peeked over the side of the large opening to the pit Mary was in. Two handfuls of salt rained down on Mary, once again to lock her magic and secure here in the place she'd been put in. 

Mary dusted herself off from the salt and shook her head "You've thought of everything." 

Varity's brow arched and she threw one more handful of salt over Mary who shivered with anger. 

"I have to get back." Varity said. "Take care of yourself, I'll see you soon." 

When Varity was gone, all Mary could do was sit back down on the mattress. She pulled her knees into her chest and held them there -- trapped. Powerless. In fear. 

Mary did the one thing she could do -- she prayed and hoped that someone somewhere somehow would listen to her prayer and find her. 

****

Justin meets with Peter  

Back at Welshport Hope Hospital, the shocking events on Danielle Holten's floor leaked through the corridors like liquid whispers hitting every ear that would hear. The sorrow over Asha's sudden and shocking death was a gut punch to everyone on staff who knew her, worked with her and cared for her in her convalescence from her terrible accident in the fire that destroyed the Police station almost a year before. 

In his office, Dr. Peter Ward, chief of staff, had summoned the newly minted Constable Justin Ryan to gather evidence on what Ward believed was an unfortunate, yet targeted event revolving around a love triangle of Dr. Nikolas Jordan, Nurse Holten and Dr. Asha Hoffman. 

For his part, Constable Ryan was seeing, in rather quick timing, that his new job in his new hometown was not going to be an easy paycheck. In the days since he'd been sworn in, he'd seen already enough dangerous crimes to send a shiver even in the biggest of cities. 

"You'll have to give me more than just that." Justin said to Peter on his theory of what happened to Asha. "A love triangle is a curious piece of the puzzle, but its not a death warrant." 

"No, you're right. I would never bring things up against Dr. Jordan and Nurse Holten just because. And to be honest, I can't imagine them doing anything like this at all. Ever. But there's been so much rumor on their affair and Asha's sudden death, in a manner that seems easily avoidable. It just --- Constable, it just all fits too neatly and too strangely." 

"Doctor." A voice came from the door. It was an orderly. His face cold and frozen as if he'd just witnessed something so awful that it had turned his stomach. 

"Not now, I'm with the constable." Peter told the orderly. 

"He'll want to know this too." The orderly said showing them both an empty vial.

"What is that?" Justin asked.

"Its a vial of Atropa belladonna." The orderly explained.

Justin shrugged and looked at Peter for explanation. "Where did you find it?" Peter asked.

"Where you asked us to look, Dr. Jordan's office." 

"Care to fill me in here?" Justin asked.

"Atropa belladonna is the chemical in nightshade." Dr. Ward explained.

Justin nodded, "The plant." 

"Yes. We use it in a deluded form to help patients who are in incredible amounts of pain or patients who are suffering extreme mental incapacitations to rest. Its cheaper and handier for this rural hospital to get. Morphine is quite pricy and harder to get out on the island. But..." Peter paused his explanation before Justin chimed back in.

"But?"

"But if too much is used, as I am sure you can deduce, it can be deadly." 

"And you found this in Dr. Jordan's office?" Justin asked the orderly who nodded affirmative. "Who asked you to go there?" 

"I did." Peter said. "I just -- I just had a hunch. I hoped nothing would be found." Peter said sincerely. 

"Well, sorry to say doc, but your hunch may have turned up right. Where's Nik Jordan now?" Justin asked.

"He's with -- Asha." The orderly said solemnly.  

Peter, Justin and the orderly and another orderly, a burly man that had come from Churchill Green who was more of a stone-cold security force inside the asylum, went back up to the floor where Asha's room was and where her body was being prepared to be taken to the morgue. Everyone's eyes watched in horror as the foursome went through the winding corridors. Everyone knew what was happening, everyone - nurses, the other few doctors that were on duty, the orderly, patients in the halls, visitors. Everyone. It was a scene out of a frightening place in anyone's mind that could happen in such a place of healing.

As they arrived to Asha's room, her body covered in a white blanket covering her from head to toe, was being wheeled out. Danielle saw the Dr. Ward and his team coming. She quickly grabbed Nik's arms believing she was about to be arrested for murder and attempted murder.

"Tonight, I think is my last day a free woman." She said dramatically. 

Nik turned to her, his face broken and unsure of what could have happened in his life that would lead him to this very moment.  The four men then stood in front of Nik and Danielle. Nik quickly catching up with Danielle's words. He slightly moved his body in front of hers fully expecting them to take her into custody.

"Nikolas Jordan -- you're coming with me." Justin replied shocking both Nik and Danielle as Justin lifted up in his hand the empty vial of nightshade --- the one Rebecca planted in his office in a flurry of panic to free herself of the evidence at the very last second. 

****

Verity poses as Mary & encounters Filipe 

Fog drenched nights in Welshport were a common occurrence. No night, in almost any season, didn't have a least a speck of sea fog that rolled over the wild Atlantic and over the small islands of Frenchman Bay in Maine. 

Combing the streets for Mary, Filipe fears were becoming more and more harrowing as Mary's disappearance felt incredibly out of character for her. The witch trials and his own trials and tribulations with Lycanthropy began to seep into his mind again. How they'd fought so hard to be together during those terrible days and yet again they were back at square one but he was alone.

As Filipe made his way towards the harbor to get on to a small boat he had there at the marina to head over to Goode Island in search for Mary, there was a sudden call to him in the shadows on one of the docks. He turned and saw a figure standing there in silhouette. 

Filipe, who was crouched down untying the boat, slowly got up and watched as the figure moved through the fog slowly, methodically, like a ghost walking through a wall. Then, as the fog lifted over her face, he saw Mary standing there.

"Mary! MARY! MY GOD Where have you been!?!!? We've been looking all over for you all night!" Filipe said, running towards his wife and yanking her small, framed body into a tight hug. He kissed her on her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, man in puppy love thrilled that she was alive and in his arms.

"I'm so sorry." Mary said, only in reality it was Verity posing as her twin sister, her tongue quick with lies. "I -- I'm ashamed of myself. I should never have left Caleb alone and not told anyone where I was going. I just needed sometime alone, but it was selfish. I'm so sorry Filipe."

"Time alone? Why? Did something happen while I was out at sea?" 

Verity, as Mary, shied her face to continue her ruse of innocence mixed with guilt. "How can I go on pretending Caleb isn't the son of two people we know and care about? How I can I continue to pretend, Filipe? Aurora and Caspian should know." 

There was a pause, Verity swallowed hard unsure if her pantomime of what Mary would have said, could pass the mustard. 

Filipe furrowed his brow "We discussed this, Mary." Her sister's name coming from his lips proved to Verity she'd succeeded. 

"We love our son, he's ours. Keeping Caleb away from his birth family is in his best interest. Caspian could always become a danger to himself and others. Everything about that man should give you confidence that what we've done to keep Caleb away from him was right. We're keeping our boy from irreparable harm in the hands of anyone connected to Caspian and the Lords."  He continued. 

"You really think this is the right thing to do?" She asked meekly, again in a voice only to continue her lies.

"Yes, I really do." He answered sincerely. 

"Do you think you can forgive me for this? For just leaving this way, I'm sorry." She sighed.

Filipe pulled her into a tight hug; his body warmed her. The emotional connection she suddenly felt was something Verity had never felt before. She finally understood something of a human connection with a person, a living person. His body felt like a wall between the chaotic world around her and the peace she had always wanted to feel within herself. She clung to him as if it were the last time she'd ever see him but, in a way, it was the first time. She never wanted to lose this connection, now that she had a taste. This, she thought to herself, is what it was all about. To love and be loved. To feel and be felt. To hold and to be held. To connect in all senses of the word. 

"Let's go home." he whispered.

"Home." She whispered. "To a family." She added, feeling a sense that finally she belonged. 

Filipe Chuckled and nodded his head. "Yes, to a family. Our family." 

"Our family." She replied in a blissful tone. "I love that." 

Filipe cocked his head and pulled out of the hug to look at her. Her face, half covered in shadow from the night was soft and pure, the face he expected to see, but there was something about her that he couldn't quite pin point. Her words seemed distant, almost as if she'd been gone for a long time and had just come home. 

"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked, both hands on her shoulders matching her eye to eye.

"Yes, yes! Of course, I'm sorry, it's been a very long night. Please let's go home." Verity as Mary said, as a night wind shivered across both of their faces.

He smiled, still unsure of her, but locked her back into his arms and the two set off home. 

Verity had so far kept things under control, but she would have to do a lot better than this when she first encounters Charlotte, Mary's very telepathic and psychic 15-year-old daughter. 

****

Celeste & Jacob, discussion in the gold room

Sitting in Tirymor House's luxurious living room on a double stuffed sofa upholstered with gold and white fabric of leaves from the garden of Eden, Celeste DeVianna-Lord sorted through the family mail that was brought to her on a silver tray by the household maid Jane O'Donnell.

The fire in front of her warmed her from the cold night just outside the French doors to her left. She skimmed through lines of beautiful handwriting from her cousin just across Frenchmen Bay in Winter  Harbor, Maine who had heard of Johnathon's hospitalization. A strange feeling of exposure suddenly clouded Celeste's mind. She didn't want anyone to know of Johnathon's struggles, but -- there it was, in the most beautiful penmanship she'd ever seen.

Shaking off her embarrassment, Celeste suddenly came across to letters to Evie from Catherine Randall-Ruth, the woman Evie met on the ship Iberia when she first arrived in Welshport. 

"God, do you correspond with that woman?" Jacob said, surprising Celeste by looking over her shoulder from behind. 

Celeste rolled her eyes.

"She's always been a pain in my mother's side. Invitations for dinner in New York, fancy dress balls in Boston, some kind of baptism for her grandchild in Newport. What does she want with you?" He added.

"Jacob, you shouldn't read other people's mail." Celeste replied as her husband across from him on an identical sofa. 

"I didn't. I read the envelope." He replied with a creepy grin.

Celeste sighed "It's not for me. Its mail for Evie. They're friends apparently. I'll send this out for Aurora at Bellmore Beach."  

"Aurora is at Bellmore Beach now? Such a shame to have one of our most beautiful family properties passed off to the Jordans. I guess the good news is it'll someday go to Gabriel, despite his Jordan linage. That's a positive." Jacob scoffed.

"I wonder how Evie is doing. Sometimes I wish we didn't have our falling out. I miss our friendship." Celeste confessed as she moved her hand over Evie's name on Catherine's envelope.

"You did what you had to do for Gabriel. His life needed a steady hand; he was only a baby. God knows Sebastian couldn't handle being a parent -- not the way he is. And we all thought Evie was dead, it was natural for you to take care of him as your own." Jacob replied, recalling when the two of them took guardianship over Gabriel. 

 "It was more than that, Jacob. And I do regret it." Celeste confessed.

"Gabriel is a Lord. We were only protecting his interests at the end of the day." Jacob replied, shrugging off his deceptive true plan at the time.

"By controlling his shares of his family's company. We both know what we had in mind, Jacob, and it was just to keep the boy safe." She said, reminding him of the very convenient monetary perk of controlling Gabriel's shares of the family company.

Jacob grabbed a match book that was on the coffee table in front of him ad removed a thick brown cigar from his inside coat pocket and lit it. The smoke puffed his chest to the air around him as he grinned coyly to Celeste's mia culpa about her part in Garbriel's guardianship. 

"It was what it was." Jacob said. "It worked out for everyone I guess, Evie ended up being alive, she took back her son and he has his shares. No harm no foul." 

"It's always just so easy for you to say that. When things go left you always have an escape plan that actually doesn't help you escape, it usually plunges you deeper into some kind of mess of your own making." Celeste said.

He moved over from his sofa to hers and sat close enough to her that if one were to see them one wouldn't be able to tell who was smoking. Their thighs pressed up against each other. She pushed him slightly over with his elbow and he kissed her neck. 

"You do love it don't you? The mess I make?" He whispered in her ear.

She scoffed and pushed him hard with her hand in the chest. 

"You would love it if I said I did." She said, slightly repulsed but always hid the twinge of excitement he gave her.

He reached over and put his hand around her waist. He could feel the tight corsetry of her dress that bound her into it like a fortress of fabric and whale bone. She pulled her close and they kissed passionately in the living room. The mail in her laps fell to the floor at the same time that the front of the mansion opened and slammed shut with a violent bang that startled the married lovers out of their quiet personal moment.

The two turned to the open living room double doors that led to the mansion's dimly lit marble foyer and a blur of dark fabric and red hair passed in a flash and twisted around the banister of the main staircase and bounded up the staircase in an equally blurry mass. 

The Lord family Paige and Jacob's personal fixer, Aaron Hamstead, entered. 

"Its Mrs. Casador." He whispered.

"What's the matter with her?" Jacob asked of his mother. 

Aaron shrugged. "All I know is that she was at the hospital and called me to pick her up. I came and she was in tears. But spoke not a word." 

"She must of found out, maybe Lear told her." Celeste said.

"Lear?" Jacob asked, of his cousin Lear Lockwood the family lawyer. 

"Caspian sent divorce papers in the mail for her to sign. Their up on her bed. Maybe Lear was alerted and he told her." Celeste explained.

“In the mail!? Quite cold, Isn’t it? Even for Caspian!” Jacob exclaimed. “Those are usually served by an officer of the court.”

Celeste and Jacob then looked back to Aaron for more information, but he shrugged again, having truthfully no idea what was happening.

Upstairs, Rebecca closed and locked her bedroom door behind her, little white Maltese BeeBee quickly scurried in making it in with his mistress in the nick of time. The vast room had already been lit with soft lamps as per customary routine in the evenings at Tirymor. A member of the Lord family never walked into a dark room, even Beebee had never seen a dark room. 

The matriarch paced back and forth alongside her large bed. She stopped and turned towards the wall behind her. A large portrait of herself and her late first husband Albert Lord stared back at her. Tears fell from Rebecca's eyes as her mind drifted off into what had happened to him, his fall into the dark shadows of madness at such a young age that eventually took his life -- and now her own crumbling life seemed to be going down the very same path.

Her plan was never ever to hurt anyone. No one, especially not Asha, was supposed to die. She only wanted Danielle to be dealt with in an administrative way and let go from her post at the hospital. It was just one way for Rebecca to chip away at Danielle's link to Welshport. No one, not a single person, was ever meant to die.

And yet -- death came and took an innocent person, a woman who had helped her in the small plot. 

Rebecca turned away from the painting of herself and Albert. Her face swollen with her crying and saw several folders on her bed perfectly tied with twine. She stepped over to her current husband's side of the bed, one Caspian hadn't slept in in weeks. Her dress, long and dark flowing like a woman in mourning, curled around the banister and clung to the curves of her body like it was made of her own skin.

Rebecca untied the twine string and read through the divorce papers that were couriered to Tirymor House with the mail earlier that day. 

"No." She whispered. "NO! NO! NO!!!!" She screamed as she threw the papers across the room frightening BeeBee over to a corner of the room. The papers fell to the ground like leaves from a tree in fall and were scattered everywhere.

Rebecca fell to the floor in the fetal position. She reached for her rosary in her pocket, the same pocket that she had held the vial of deadly nightshade that she placed in Nik's office and clutched them to her chest. Her whole world was damaged beyond repair. She had no idea what to do next. She had killed a woman, made other's ill, and framed an innocent man for the crime.

Beebee slowly made his four-legged way over to his mistress and whimpered as she cried uncontrollably. She reached for his little furry head and caressed him. 

"What do I do, my sweet thing, what do I do?" Rebecca asked the dog, who licked her. 

She was trapped now in her own misguided web of lies and treachery. All in the hopes of keeping the man she loved in her grasp, in her control, and in her life. Her hurt, her loneliness and her yearning for someone special in her life had led her to do things she had never thought herself capable of. 

Outside her door, Jacob listened to his mother's banshee cries of despair. He instantly knew this was not only about the divorce. Something else, he thought, something else had happened. He grinned and arched a brow as ideas quickly flooded his mind. He realized that perhaps, his mother's devastation could yet again benefit his own future.