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When Cassadines Fall
Play Nice
Vehicles converge on the L&B building. Nik and Lucky in his truck. Stefan in the Cassadine Limo and V in her little compact. Dara is tucked down in the back seat of V's car. Ned lets everybody in and then locks the door and turns the sign around. Ned looks at all of them. "Well. Quite the motley crew." He goes over and gives Alexis a quick kiss on the lips. "See you at home, play nice with the other kids."
Alexis leads the way to the conference room. "Lucky. What do you have?"
Lucky quickly summarizes all the info he found. Stefan chimes in with the last bit of info. "Larkin is banking with us down in the Caymens."
Alexis brows go up. "Oh really. You guys win the prize." She hands over the report from Robideau. Lucky grabs it before Stefan can and starts scanning and nodding. He would have gotten it all within a couple more hours of hacking.
"What is the hurry now?" Dara asks. "Why is V playing cloak and dagger to get me out from under the FBI's watching eye?"
"We have information that you're going to be arrested today for Official Misconduct." Nikolas tells her.
Dara laughs. "Oh you have got to be kidding." She looks from face to face. "This is insane!"
"According to our source, the warrant will be on the judge's desk before end of business today."
"This has gone beyond snowball to avalanche!" Dara protests. "The next step if they were going to push it would be to fire me not have me arrested. On a Friday?! When the courts will be closed until Monday? Do you know how many enemies I have in that jail?"
"Miss Jenson, you are welcome to stay with me at Wyndemere over the weekend. It would allow you to attend Madeliene's birthday party on Monday before having to deal with this unpleasantness." Stefan invites.
"Oh I didn't hear that." Alexis mutters. obstruction, damn wouldn't her brother ever learn?
"The warrant hasn't been issued yet." V reminds Alexis. "That we know of." Dang, I'm getting good at this hair splitting stuff.
"Marcus would give me a heads up." Dara protests. This can't be happening.
"If they have him in the loop." V agrees. "Which is exactly why they won't. I bet they won't involve the PCPD at all but go straight to the sheriff's department or the state police. Which is really going to tick Mac off."
"What do you want to do, Dara?" Alexis asks her client.
"I've got to make arrangements to turn myself in before the courts close and then go for ROR. I think Judge Porter would give it to me. Carter too."
Stefan looks over at Nikolas and makes a motion with his head. Nik rises to go over to a more private location to talk to Stefan. "Madeliene isn't here."
"Lucky and I started moving as soon as we got the word." Nik admits. "I called Maddy but she is working and waiting for a call back from Kevin Collins."
"Dr Collins?" Stefan quirks a brow.
"Maddy got a phone call from her friend, Larry. The one who owns Cinnamon. She's in a panic wondering what the heck is going on with him because nobody at the VA is talking. Dr Collins is looking into it and I hope he succeeds."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because the next step is Carly Quartermaine." Nik informs him wryly. "Or Maddy using her insurance settlement to sue the VA."
Stefan's jaw drops slightly and then slams shuts with a definite click. "Why? Am I missing some information? Some fact? Some reason why this street person wouldn't be better off in a controlled facility where his needs are met rather than living in sub freezing weather? Some reason why Madeliene has made this a priority?"
Nik straightens as Stefan's questions become more emphatic. He picks his words carefully. "I'm sure one might rationally and logically believe Larry is in exactly the right place to meet his needs. However, Madeliene believes those needs could be met here in Port Charles under Dr Collin's care at General Hospital. I believe it unlikely Maddy will ever allow distance to dismiss or mitigate her concerns again." Nik alludes to Lisette's death.
Stefan's eyes narrow and he strokes his beard thoughtfully. "Then I shall contact Dr Collins directly and offer whatever assistance and hospital resources to facilitate Madeliene's friend return to General Hospital."
"That would be good." Nik agrees with a nod. "Lucky and I will follow through on this. I'll reinforce your invitation to stay at Wyndemere. It's unlikely that any of the local law enforcement community would seek Dara out there." Stefan excuses himself and Nik returns to the conference table where only Lucky sits now. "Where is everybody?"
"Upstairs getting lawyerly. Getting motions ready and planning strategies. That whole getting arrested thing sure threw Dara." Lucky shakes his head. "Larkin and Ford must have their heads so far up their posteriors.... How much pressure are they going to put on Maddy to snitch for them?"
"They may have an idea of what Maddy might know but they have no idea of the strength of her spine."
"Where is Stiff off to?"
"Working to get Cinnamon's human transferred back to Port Charles. I didn't even have the chance to tell him that Robideau got the information about Dara. All it took was the threat of Maddy teaming up with Carly."
"Oh yeah, I see how that could work." Lucky kicks back in his chair kicking his feet up on the conference room table. "Well my job here is done."
"Not quite. You're going to bail Dara out if the Judge decides to not release her on her own recognizance."
"Yeah, right. And everyone will believe that 'cause I'm so confident in her skills after she's prosecuted darn near everyone in my family for murders they didn't commit." Lucky says wryly.
"It doesn't matter why. And if they are busy wondering then all the better for us."
"So you're going to keep your distance?"
"Until it becomes otherwise necessary." Nikolas agrees. Dara comes back down the stairs. Nik rises to his feet as does Lucky. "Ms Jensen, I hope you'll consider my uncle's offer if you discover the timing is too tight for what you wish to accomplish today. It would be unfortunate for you and stressful for Madeliene if you are incarcerated on her birthday."
"Unfortunate... stressful... Yeah, you could put it that way." Dara says wryly. "V is typing up the motions now.... I should call Marcus let him know what is going on." Dara reaches for the phone.
Lucky leans over and puts a hand over it. "I know this is not the way you're used to thinking but you know your boyfriend better than anybody... do you really think he is gonna be able to stay cool knowing what is going down? I don't know... everything I've seen on the guy says he is a total hothead who'd probably start kicking ass and taking names starting with Justus and moving from there."
"Which while satisfying..." Nik prompts.
"Isn't going to get it done." Dara sighs. "Well since I won't need my first phone call to call my lawyer...."
"You don't have to rush this, Ms Jensen. Relax. Go out to the island. Let Mrs Lansbury spoil you for a few days. Monday is soon enough." Nikolas presses.
"She's a great cook." Lucky nods. "It's the only reason I ever go over there."
"And the additional time will allow us to discover which Judge is involved. While I am confident my Aunt has crossed every T and dotted all the I's in whatever she is planning, I can tell you are as uncomfortable with the speed with which this is all happening-- as am I."
Emily, Elizabeth and Maddy hang out in the kitchen of Wyndemere Lite. It's Maddy's night to cook. She ignores the contents of the crockpot knowing that taking the lid off of the pot will just delay the meal and rather works on the side dishes that will go along with the stew. Mrs Lansbury's menus are posted on the fridge under one of Granny Sophia's magnets. It was nice of Mrs Lansbury to go to all of the trouble and it sure saved a lot of time to know what was on the plan for the day. She'd been able to just chop everything up and throw it in the crockpot before she left for the the day and put a little sticky note on the top. Touch it and Die.
Liz looks up the recipe for the dessert and starts gathering the necessary items for the filling of the cranberry apple tart. "You think the guys are going to show up on time?"
"Who cares?" Maddy shrugs. "They don't and more for us. It's not like anything is going to go bad. Stew just gets better with time."
Emily starts going through the radio stations trying to find something fun to listen to. "When Johnny makes it for the restaurant he puts it in bread bowls."
"Well that would save on clean up!" Liz laughs. "Oh stop on that one!" She demands of Emily who backs up to the last radio station. It is a new station to the Port Charles market. "My mother used to listen to this stuff back when I was a kid."
"Mine too!" Maddy agrees there is a little shimmy in her step. The three of them start singing along with Barry White as he growls that he can't get enough of your love, babe. Emily tosses her hair back and fakes like a microphone. Maddy starts when her cell phone rings. Liz and Em both know she is expecting a couple of different calls and fall silent. Em turns the radio down. "This is Maddy.... Dr Collins, Great! I was hoping to hear from you." Maddy frowns. "Is there a problem? Do you want me to go with you?... Okay. Please call me if there is anything you need." Maddy bites her lower lip as she disconnects the call.
"What's up?" Liz demands
"He's going down to see Larry and his doctor-- tonight-- in person." Maddy tells them.
Em turns the music back up but not loud like it had been before. "Oh scary. That must mean he found something... or suspects something. What did Carly say when you talked to her?"
"We agreed to wait until whatever Dr Collins found out. She's got some ideas and a really big warning."
"What was that?" Liz asks.
"She took down Ferncliffe after she'd done her time and got out. Anything I do could be held against Larry. He's kind of a captive audience. I have no doubts what she lined up would work but it'd take time. Time I don't know Larry has. Dr Collins has got to come through."
"Okay, Change of subject." Emily demands. "Dr Collins is looking into it and we can't do anything right now. So... I didn't want to talk about this around Grandfather earlier... yesterday, on my only afternoon off mind you, I went down to the courthouse and did a title search on that property you were asking about."
"The corner?"
Emily nods. "Used to be a service station. I think it's being held onto as some kind of tax loss or something but the reason it closed was some federal environmental regulation. They passed a law that you had to have some kind of special tanks otherwise you'd get fined mucho dinero every day you pumped gas. It's kinda like the ELQ tankers being tripled hulled so they don't spill oil into the ocean if there is a wreck."
Liz pulls down a mixing bowl and starts combining dry ingredients. "I get it. So rather than being fined or putting in the new tanks they just closed."
"Yeppers." Em agrees. "And the owners can't sell the property until the tanks are removed and there is an environmental inspection done to make sure that there has been no leaking into the surrounding soil."
"Ew gross." Maddy grimaces. "What if it has been leaking?"
"That's easy enough to find out. Carly and Jerry had the water tested above Deception Spa before she bought the property where the stables are now."
"The methlab thing." Maddy remembers Taggart telling Dara about it. That had all gone down right after she moved to town.
Em looks down at her watch. "Carly and AJ have already left for the weekend. But Jerry was the one with all the phone numbers anyway."
Liz puts down the spoon and wipes her hands before reaching for the phone. "Where are they off to this weekend?"
"Florida. Carly wants to show AJ her favorite beach. Who are you calling?"
"Bobbie." Liz says around the phone. "Hey Lucas. Is your mom there? It's Elizabeth.... Hey Bobbie! Howzit going? Yeah, everything's fine. Tammy and Penny know how swamped you've been at the hospital lately so it's all covered at the diner. That isn't why I was calling. I was kinda wondering if you could ask Jerry for the number of the lab he used to check the water up on Carly's property. You don't have to.... Hey Mr Jacks... um Jerry. Do you have the number for the lab you used to do water and soil samples?" Liz snaps her fingers but then just grabs the dry erase marker and quickly transcribes the number that Jerry dictates to her onto the board mounted on the wall. "Thanks I really appreciate this. No reason-- just thought it would come in handy. Bye."
Emily looks at her in disbelief. "No reason-- just thought it would come in handy?! What the hell do you think you'll ever need a number for a lab? Gees Elizabeth!"
"I didn't think she'd put him on the phone! Bobbie wouldn't have asked!" Liz protests. "And I got the number."
"Well I don't know why you need the number, Maddy, but you can plan on Jerry being up to his ears in it now. He's gotten used to dealing with Carly. Someone telling him no reason will send up about a million flares."
"I just sleep with a Spencer, okay?! I don't think that way!" Liz protests. "I did okay with Ricky!" She looks over to Maddy for confirmation.
"You did excellent with Ricky." Maddy nods. She explains to Emily. "Elizabeth got Ricky out of sight before he could get caught by Larkin one morning. Oh and listen to this... Niknik was wondering why Ricky would get in the middle of a family fight between Rita and her sister. That happened today at Kelly's."
"Oh ****." Em blanches. "This is so not good. Johnny is going to freak. He's about ready to dump Vicki ten miles out of town in the middle of a blizzard buck nekkid and let her make her own way home. Whenever Vicki is ticked she takes it out on Rita and that puts Johnny through the ceiling."
"This is Vicki Porter, right? She is the same age as Sarah. They used to pal around until Sarah went off to Bosnia with the 'rents. Vicki ran the in crowd at PCHS. I wonder if Nik remembers her from there?" Liz remembers.
"I think Nikolas blocked his adventure in public school out of his memory; it was one of the things he lost along with his voice after he got shot."
"Whoa wait a minute! 'Candy got shot?! This is news to me!" Maddy blurts out. "What the hell happened?"
Em winces. "Wrong place wrong time. We were all at Luke's listening to music. There was a driveby someone trying to shoot Jason and Nik got caught in the crossfire. He was shot in the throat. Jason had to do an emergency trach on him so he could breathe."
"Mr C must have freaked!"
"Oh yeah." Liz agrees. She has finished putting together the pastry and slides it into the preheated oven to cook. "And it broke up Nik and my sister. Nik's got this thing about being perfect. When he couldn't talk after it all happened he pushed everyone away."
"So the bullet messed up his vocal chords? Or was it the trach?"
Em shakes her head. "Neither. He like threw a clot or something at the hospital. It was a brain thing. Dysphasia. He could think fine but the messages weren't getting to his speech... so everything he was saying was coming out scrambled. He wouldn't see anyone. That's when he taught me how to fence. He was okay with trying to talk to me as long as I was making a total idiot of myself with the fencing. And the bizarre thing was he could talk just fine in french but English? That took a little while to come back. My French sucks. The only person I knew fluent in French was Robin Scorpio... so I hooked them up." Em breaks off what she is saying when the guys come in the back door.
"Wow something smells good." Lucky sniffs the air appreciatively.
"I'm going to go wash up." Nik tells the others and keeps walking through the kitchen.
"Give me a minute." Maddy tells the others as she follows Nik.
Upstairs in Nik's room. Maddy knocks on the door but doesn't wait for the come in before entering. There is the sound of water running in the bathroom. Nik comes out of the bathroom drying his hands. He is somewhat surprised to see Maddy in his room leaning up against the door. "Your Aunt is going to stay over at Wyndemere for a few days. Until Alexis can get everything straightened out with the courts." He tells her. Maddy walks over to him and reaches for his black turtleneck pulling it out where it is tucked in and then pulls it over his head in a swift motion. "Whoa. Not that I'm complaining but what the hell is going on?"
"Shut up." Maddy mutters with a frown on her face. She throws the turtleneck to the floor. Reaching both hands to his neck she starts brailling his neck from the back to the front. Nik rests his hands on her hips watching her expression as she doesn't meet his eyes. One by one she finds them-- the exit scar at the back of his neck, the dime sized entry scar and then just as scary the scar at the place just above where the collar bones meet the breast bone... a circular scar about the size of the end of bic pen. "You could have been killed! Paralyzed from the neck down."
"Someone has been telling tales." Nik realizes what this is all about. "I'm fine. It's ancient history."
"Oh Candy, don't you start trying to blow this one off. I've seen people shot before back home. I know how much it must have hurt, how scared you must have...."
Nik cuts off the flow of words with a kiss swallowing her protestations. His hands slide to the middle of her back and then down. Returning the favor he grabs a fist of material in his hand and brings it up sliding his other hand against the bare skin he exposes. Running his hands inside her sweater and up her back bringing the sweater up to her shoulders. He takes a half step back and breaks the kiss momentarily to bring the sweater over her head and then drops it on top of his turtleneck on the floor. "God, I want you." He runs a finger along the edge of her bra tracing the top of it where it cups her breasts. His breathing grows more labored as he follows his finger with his eyes and then with his mouth. Maddy arches her back closing her eyes. Her fingers tangle in Nik's hair bringing him to her. Nik kneads his fingers against her denim clad flanks. Maddy starts climbing him like a tree. Lifting her up, he carries her to the bed and sets her down on the edge. Maddy lays back and looks up at him... every look an invitation and a dare. Nik reaches for the button at the waist of her jeans unfastening it and then running his hand along the inside. Impatient with the limited access he unzips them. Maddy lifts her hips, and Nik peels the jeans down her legs leaving the matching scrap of lace.
There is a pounding on the door. "HEY YOU GUYS COMING TO DINNER?"
"I locked it." Maddy breathes already reaching for him.
"GO AWAY." Nik snarls. He sits down on the bed and reaches for the laces of his winter boots. Maddy curls up next to his back pressing herself to him and then reaching around to unfasten his belt and unbutton his jeans. Nik kicks free of his boots and then tosses his jeans to the floor. He pulls Maddy under his arm settling her in his lap wrapping her legs around him. "Tell me now. Tell me now this is what you want." Maddy leans and whispers explicitly in his ear. What she wants, how she wants it and for how long.
"You. Hard. All Night long."