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Ricard Branch exited the Emerald Café and noticed that Sara Reynolds was leaving Gemini Designs, which was just across from the shopping area's water fountain. Ric smiled, remembering the first time he'd noticed Sara walking through the halls of Marquette Cove High School. He had been struck immediately by her beauty, and was still amazed by it.

Only now, over a year later, was Sara finally paying attention to Ric's feelings for her. And Ric couldn't stand living with the guilt of knowing that the reason Sara was now interested in him was because her girlfriend, Erin Maddock, had been murdered last summer. In her grief, Sara leaned on Ric for support and was now developing real romantic feelings for him.

The guilt came in with the fact that Ric was in part responsible for Erin's death. After asking resident drug dealer and his employer Quentin Blood to help him win over Sara, Quentin acted by having Erin murdered and blackmailing Ric into continuing to sell drugs for him. So now Ric was trapped between a rock and a hard place...if he stayed with Sara, he'd never be able to love her fully without telling her the truth, but if he chose to tell the truth, he would lose her forever.

Ric removed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Sara's number. She answered after a few moments.

"Hello?"

"Hey Sara," Ric said.

"Ricard," Sara said, smiling. "How are you?"

"Good," Ric replied. "Say, what are you doing tonight?"

"Nothing important, probably hanging out with my brother," Sara said. "Why?"

"How would you like to get dinner?" Ric asked.

"Sure," Sara said. "Where?"

"Emerald Palace," Ric said.

"Emerald…Ric, you can't afford that place," Sara said. "You don't have to take me there."

"Come on, you're used to going there with your family, aren't you?"

"Yes, but —"

"Then that's where we're going," Ric said. "I don't take my dates out to the Bun Shack."

"Well, I don't know," Sara said. "I still don't think…"

"Come on, how can you resist a sad face like this?"

Sara laughed. "I can't see you, Ric."

"Turn around."

Sara turned around and saw Ric staring at her across from the fountain, grinning. She rolled her eyes and hung up the phone before joining him next to the Emerald Café. As she walked toward Ric, she accidentally bumped into someone passing by her.

"Excuse me," Chris Server said, not recognizing Sara at first.

"Oh, it's no problem…Chris?"

"Oh…Sara," Chris said. "How's it going?"

"Good," Sara replied. "But um, I'm about to go talk to Ric, I'll talk to you later."

Sara hurried away from Chris, while he frowned and stared after her. He watched as Sara and Ric embraced, and then he quickly became angry. Why was it fair that Ric had done the same things he had, and yet he was still with the person he loved, and Chris had lost Blake, probably for good.

"I'll get you back, Branch," Chris muttered, taking a different route to the Emerald Café so that he could hear what Ric and Sara were talking about.

Vincent Moore sat outside the Emerald Café, going through a guest list on the new laptop that Michael Hanley had bought for him. It was the guest list for his eighteenth birthday party at the Hanley mansion, which would be serving as a double birthday party for Michael, since their birthdays were in the same week in late May.

He'd been working on the list for a few weeks now, and had been adding and cutting people from the list. Part of him wanted to keep it a list of people he actually liked, but there were a few people he wanted to invite, if only to create enough drama to keep the party interesting.

Vince was briefly interrupted as his cell phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID on his phone and noticed that it was Mark Zane, his editor for the school newspaper. Vince rolled his eyes and turned his phone off so he wouldn't have to listen to Mark whining about another one of Vince's articles being late.

"That's one person who won't be coming to my birthday party," Vince muttered. "Not unless I get to behead him in the center of the room."

While Vince returned to his list, he noticed Chris pass by his table and stopped himself from making a snide remark. In fact, knowing that Blake and Chris had broken up, Vince was thinking of inviting him to the party just for fun, but now that Vince was friends with Blake, he wasn't going to put Blake through spending a night with Chris.

"Help me…"

Vince spun around to find that he was staring at himself. Startled, Vince blinked and thought he had to be dreaming. When the image of himself wouldn't go away, for a moment Vince thought that his doppelganger had somehow risen from the grave.

"Oh my God," Vince gasped. "What the —"

"Help me…"

Vince reached out to touch the image of himself, but his fingers passed through the person. Vince cried out and pulled his hand back, feeling as if his body temperature had just dropped instantaneously. Before Vince had a second chance to react, his laptop slammed shut and the apparition of himself vanished.



Bale & Maddock Law Offices

Blake Thomas entered Robert Bale's office, walking past the secretary and into the room that connected Robert's office with his partner, Melissa Maddock's. Blake noticed a man in about his twenties working at the desk, but passed him by as well. He knocked on the door to Robert's office, which was partly open.

"Mr. Bale?" Blake asked.

Robert, who had been speaking on the phone, lowered it and looked up at Blake. "Hello, Blake."

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"

"No, I'm just on the phone with Melissa," Robert replied. "I'll be a couple of minutes, what did you come by for?"

"To ask you about my aunt and uncle," Blake replied.

"Okay, I'll be with you shortly," Robert said, returning to his phone call.

Blake nodded and exited the office, opting to sit in the room where the man Blake didn't recognize was working. He turned to face him, suddenly noticing that the man was rather attractive. Blake wondered why he hadn't noticed immediately.

"Are you new here?" Blake asked.

"Huh?"

"Are you new working here?"

"Oh, yes," Darren Reynolds said, glancing up from his work. "Sort of. I used to live in Marquette Cove, but now I'm back. This is my first time working here, so…yes, I'm new."

He extended his hand to Blake.

"I'm Darren, Robert's nephew," Darren said.

"Oh, so you're the brother Sara mentioned she had," Blake said.

"Yep, that'd be me," Darren replied. "And you are?"

"Blake Thomas," Blake replied. "I go to school with Sara."

"Oh, you're a sophomore too?"

"No, a junior," Blake said. "I'll be a senior in two months, once summer rolls around."

"You look older than a sophomore," Darren said.

"Thanks. I don't even turn eighteen until next month."

Darren smirked. "I see…then you're not that young."

"Hardly," Blake replied.



Downton Flat
London, England

Eric Hanley sat in the dark musty corner of the room his captors had been holding him and his sister, Ariel Hanley, for what seemed like an eternity. He rarely saw his captor and when he did enter the room it was only to give them their meal for that day. He had never seen his face or the faces of the men working for him, and Eric wasn't sure how many there were.

Eric heard voices in the hallway, immediately getting to his feet he made his way towards the door. Every joint in his body ached and he was still bleeding from the escape attempt he had made the day before. Fortunately, Ariel had been able to escape and hopefully get help.

Eric listened closely and now recognized at least one of the voices as his sister. He looked around the room for something to attack the captors with even though he knew there was nothing. They had stripped the room yesterday of anything threatening, including their cots, after they had finished beating him.

The door swung open and one of the thugs walked in holding a gun towards Eric.

"Make a move and you're dead," growled the thug.

In walked the other with his sister, who had been tied up. For a moment he stood there holding Ariel and just watching Eric. He could smell the fear Eric felt; yes they had definitely accomplished something by beating him. It was very unlikely that they would make another attempt.

Quickly the masked thug cut Ariel loose from the rope that they had used to tie her hands and legs up with. He then shoved her forward in the direction of her brother. Ariel, who was still woozy from the poison dart they had captured her with, stumbled downwards toward the floor hitting her face on the floor. Blood began to spill from a fresh wound on her forehead from the fall. Getting up she moved towards her brother and took a seat next to him on the floor.

"Let this be a lesson to you. You can't escape and if you try again, we will kill you," stated one of the men. "And just for the trouble the two have caused us you can go without food for the next few days."

Both men turned around and walked out.

Love is eternal. Life is forever. Yet things shall always remain...guasti cose.

"That would look good on me," Morris Anderson said to himself as he looked at an outfit in the window of Gemini Designs in Emerald Square. Making a mental note to himself to come back for it later, he turned around and ran into Scott Hart, knocking him to the ground.

"I'm so sorry," started Morris before he realized who he had just bumped into. "Scott Hart, long time no see, bitch."

Morris reached a hand out to help Scott to his feet. Scott quickly dusted himself off and shook his old friend's hand.

"Yeah, it's been forever. What's up?" asked Scott.

"Same shit, different day. Dropped out of college, hoping to take some night classes..." Morris noticed that Scott was distracted by something happening across the street.

"You okay Scott?" inquired Morris. Scott shifted his attention back to Morris.

"Yeah man, really its great seeing you again. We should hook up later. The Luminary?"

"Eight?" Morris asked.

"Eight. See you later."

Scott darted across the street almost getting hit halfway through. He stopped to cuss at the driver a few times and then made his way into the alley. Morris couldn't help but worry about his old friend. Scott was known for his partying hard and drugs. Morris would have a drink with him tonight but decided that would be all that happened, at least for now.

Vince turned around and saw that Mark Zane was standing behind him, and then he realized that Mark was the one who had closed his laptop. Vince angrily reopened the computer and glared at Mark.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Vince demanded.

"You owe me an article," Mark said. "You might not know what a deadline is, because you so rarely do anything that involves work, but I do."

"You…you have a lot of anger, Mark," Vince said. "I'm going to need you to calm down."

"Your article was due two days ago, you're avoiding me," Mark insisted.

"How anyone could do that is beyond me, you're always creeping around like a big freak," Vince snapped.

"Just please get me the article."

"I'll get it do you before midnight," Vince insisted.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm working on a guest list for my birthday party," Vince said.

"You're what?" Mark demanded.

"Oh, and you're not invited," Vince said, removing a pair of headphones from his jacket pocket and sticking them into the laptop. "I don't know how well you'd fit in at the Hanley mansion."

Vince placed the ear pieces into his ears and turned a CD on full blast. Irritated, Mark groaned and stormed off.



Bale & Maddock Law Offices

"So you graduated from law school?" Blake asked, sitting on the edge of Darren's desk.

"Yeah, it was really…fun," Darren said, laughing. "A lot of work, but now I get to work here with my uncle."

"How long are you staying in Marquette Cove?"

"I don't know," Darren replied. "I guess if there was something to keep me here…I'd stay a little longer."

"Maybe something will pop up," Blake said, as Robert exited his office and paused in the doorway.

"Blake, I'm sorry, but I haven't been able to get a read on where your aunt and uncle are," Robert said. "I guess they don't have phones in Europe."

"If they're still even in Europe," Blake muttered. "I just…I don't want to become a burden to the Andersons. Especially with Kelli still recovering from her gunshot wound."

"I'm sure the Andersons don't mind, they invited you to stay with them," Robert said. "But I'll keep looking into finding your aunt and uncle."

"Thank you, Mr. Bale," Blake said, turning to leave. "It was nice meeting you, Darren."

"The same here," Darren replied.

As Blake exited the office, Darren turned back to Robert.

"Why can't he stay with his parents?" Darren asked.

"They were murdered last year," Robert answered. "The police never found the attacker."

"That's horrible," Darren said softly.

"Times are hard," Robert responded, returning to his office.



Emerald Square

"I'll go," Sara said. "I'd love to."

"Really?" Ric asked.

"Yes, really," Sara replied.

"Good, then I'll be at your house around…seven?"

"Sounds good," Sara answered.

Sara glanced down at her phone, which was still in her hands. She saw what time it was and placed the phone into her purse as she returned her attention to Ric.

"I'm sorry, but I've got to run," Sara said. "I'm meeting my Aunt Felicia in a few minutes. But I'll be ready at seven."

"I'm sure you'll be the most beautiful person at the Emerald Palace," Ric said.

Sara smiled and said goodbye as she headed toward her aunt's house. Ric folded his arms and grinned, watching as Sara left. He was going on his first official date with Sara, and it was tonight…he couldn't wait.

"Our first date," Ric said. "It's not as if I've never been on a date before on it…but somehow this feels…it's different."

"Maybe because the only reason she's going on a date with you is that her girlfriend is dead?" Chris demanded, emerging from behind Ric.

Ric spun around, startled. "Chris...what...what are you doing here?"

"You know, we both go to the same school and it's amazing how well you've been able to avoid me," Chris said, pushing Ric away from him. "Ever since Kelli got shot, you've been missing in action."

"Chris, look...I can explain," Ric insisted. "I didn't...you know I didn't mean to leave, I was just shocked. I was scared."

"You abandoned me," Chris snapped. "You left me to get arrested and almost sent to jail, and you're the reason why all of my friends and half of Marquette Cove wants to lynch me."

"I'm sorry," Ric apologized.

"You can take your apologizes and burn in hell with them," Chris snarled. "Have fun dating Sara, Ric. While it lasts."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ric demanded.

"It means that when she finds out that you're working for Quentin Blood, she won't have anything to do with you," Chris said. "And your star-crossed relationship is going to crash and burn."

Ric didn't respond.

"Have fun on the steps of the palace," Chris remarked. "It might be the last time you'll ever be there."

executive producer
Ira Madison

next time...
Joel tries to reconcile with Kelly.
Thomas continues trying to rape Kelli.
The captives find themselves with a new problem.