Keesha and AJ were standing up to leave. "I still can't believe this." She
said. "Brenda... and Robin... it's so..." She trailed off and shook her head.

"I know." AJ agreed.

~

Ned sighed audibly and Alexis put a hand on his shoulder. "How you doing?" She
asked gently.

He didn't answer for a moment. "How am I supposed to answer that?" He asked
her finally, a slight edge in his voice.

"I was thinking maybe honestly." She suggested.

"I don't know." He leaned his head back. "And I didn't mean to snap at you.
Everything's just..."

"I know." She said softly.

~

Veronica and Jagger nearly collided while slipping out.  "Sorry." They both
said at the same time. He let her go by, and shook his head, thinking. He had
serious doubts that this woman had killed Brenda. But he figured that she
played in there somewhere.

~~

Justus and Jason were standing in the penthouse. "Now, this is unusual. Having
to go bail my lawyer out of jail."

"Yeah."

"How much do they have against you?" Jason asked.

Shaking his head, "A taped confession." He sighed. "I think I may just plead
guilty and have it be over."

"Going to jail would make it over?" Jason asked, with raised eyebrows. "You
don't think you could build any case?"

"It could be done, but..."

"But you're just going to give up? Why?"

"I don't know." Was all Justus could manage. "I don't know."

~~

A pretty, raven haired woman looked around the police station tenatively. She
was Michelle Portia Craft, a beautiful, confident woman with a slightly cool
and competitive edge to top it all off. A slightly young and very ambitious
ADA.

But that was all Dara knew about her as she noticed her walk in. She would be
prosecuting Justus, Dara remembered and shuddered. She only prayed that
Michelle would lose, but she doubted it. Michelle's record was short, but very
clean: all wins, except one which she offered a plea, still leaning towards
the prosecution's favor.

As Michelle approached, Dara held a direct, almost glaring gaze. "Hello Dara."
Michelle half-smiled, tilting her head in a slight friendly gesture the way
she usually did. It wasn't fake, but just knowing that she was going to put
Justus away, ticked Dara off.

"Hello." She said cooly.

Michelle arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow, and narrowed her sharp dark
eyes. "Something wrong?"

Dara shook her head. Pointedly, "Nothing." Still with an attitude about her,
which annoyed Michelle, who didn't have a long fuse herself.

"Bad day?" She said, with slight malice. "I hear the Cassadine case isn't
going well. The *second* one, I mean." She dug, purposefully. "Better luck
this time, by the way." She said, with a flip of her dark hair before leaving.
Dara fumed as she watched her go.
~~

Bobbie smiled when she opened the door. "Hello?" She called into the house.

"Hi, Bobbie." She followed Carly's voice and found, to her amazement, that
Carly was folding laundry.

"Where's Lucas?" Bobbie asked.

"In the kitchen. Eating lunch. He said he was tired of hot dogs, so I
attempted to make chicken salad. He seemed to think it was allright. Or he was
sparing my feelings." She shrugged. Bobbie stared at this young woman,
wondering when her daughter had been replaced by a pod person. Carly noticed,
"is something wrong?"

"No. I'm just surprised, that's all." Bobbie shrugged. "I thought...that you
didn't cook."

"I try sometimes." Carly shrugged. "It's usually a disaster."

~~

The Quartermaines were getting ready to leave. Monica patted Emily's shoulder
to comfort her. Edward was glaring at something.

"What on earth are you glaring at, Father?" Alan asked him finally when he
hadn't moved from his spot, though the others were all starting to leave.

"Ned brought that Cassadine woman with him here." Edward commented with
disdain. "I can understand that he's upset, but does he have to be irrational
too? She's a..."

"I can't believe you!" Emily cried, throwing up her hands. "Brenda is dead.
We're at her funeral. And you're worried about Ned's love life?" She shook her
head. "Next you're going to start in about Michael again!" She stormed out.

"She's absolutely right, Edward." Monica put in. She went after Emily.

~

Karen and Joe were preparing to leave. "First Robin now Brenda." She shook her
head. "This is totally unbelievable."

"Come on." Joe said, wrapping an arm around her, in an effort to comfort her.

She nodded sadly. "Yeah. Let's go."

~

Ned and Alexis approached Jax, Jerry and Julia. Ned spoke, both to Julia and
Jax. "If there's anything I can do..."

"Thank you." Jax said softly. "But no."

Ned looked to Julia and she shook her head. "I'll be fine." He nodded.

Alexis, who didn't really know what to say, broke the silence: "Do the police
have any leads?"

"We gave them one." Jerry picked up the question. "On Veronica...oh, that's
Brenda's mother."

"Veronica?" Julia said aloud. "But I thought..." she trailed off, shaken.
"She's alive."

"Yes." Jax answered.

~~

Later, outside the church, near a fresh grave, stood a man. It was Sonny
Corinthos. He set a single red rose on the grave. "Brenda, Brenda, Brenda..."
He shook his head and sighed. "I left you, so you'd be safe. And now you were
murdered." He sighed. "It was worth it, to leave you I mean. As long as I knew
that you were alive.... the rest, it didn't matter. Just that you were alive."
He paused as a single tear trickles down his cheek. "But now you're not. And
nothing is worth anything. It's all wrong."

~~

Veronica sighed and sat down at the bar. She glanced around the restaurant.
She searched her mind for the name. The Recovery Room, she recalled.
 

Across the room, Eve was sitting with a cup of coffee, a chicken dinner and a
newspaper. When Jagger walked in, he spotted her and hesitantly walked over to
her table. "Mind if I join you or am I banned from your company now?" He
asked, only half teasing.

She half-smiled as she glanced up. "Sit down." She set the paper down. He
sighed and did so. She noted the sigh. "Bad day?"

"Yeah. They buried an... old friend of mine today." He bit his lower lip, and
she couldn't help thinking that he looked so... sensitive and smoldering at
the same time when he did so, with the dark eyes and the hispanic
complexion...

"Who?" She asked softly. She took a sip of her coffee.

"Brenda Barret." He said softly. He paused before adding, "Handling her case
makes it even harder."

"You're handling her case?" Eve asked, curiously.

"Yeah."

"Speaking of your job, you might not want to be seen with me. Last I heard the
towns trying to pin a couple of murders on me." She sighed.

"I heard." He commented. She looked at him, surprised and he shrugged. "I just
didn't think it polite to say anything." Pause. "From what I hear, it's a
witch hunt sponsored by Lucy Coe."

~~

"Master Nikolas." Mrs. Landsburry handed him an envelope. "This came for you."

"Thank you." He said. He was opening it, when the doorbell rang and he dropped
it on the table. He reached to pick it up, but just then Mrs. Landsburry
reentered.

"Miss Quartermaine is here to see you, sir."

"Oh, ah... send her in." He said and she did enter.

"Hi." She sighed a long sigh.

"Hello." He smiled at her. "What brings you here?" The envelope lay at the
foot of the table, half-opened.


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