Thief of Hearts

by Medea3

A serial killer is loose in Salem. But don't worry: so are Sami and Lucas. A Sami-Lucas story with Austin-Carrie and Philip-Chloe on the side. Complete. Written/set 2000.

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 8, 2000

Part 1

Disclaimer: Sami and Lucas and their friends don't belong to me. However, if Ken Corday and NBC are having an auction . . .

Notes: This story has a disgusting premise, but nothing explicit, as this is in a way more a vent than a fic.

Dedication: For Jaymie, Amy, Ann, Nicky, Lilya, Laura, SuperSami, Shanni C, PrimeLime, Julie, and all the other supporters of Sami and Lucas, present and future.

Sami Brady flew into the building which her mother had called home for the past several years. Unwilling to wait for the elevator, she ran up the stairs two at a time and sped to the door of Marlena Evans Black's penthouse apartment. Her hand was on the doorknob when she suddenly froze in place. She had come across town as quickly as was humanly possible, but she should probably stop to collect herself before barging into the room. The last thing she wanted to do was upset anyone; everyone was already upset enough. After several deep breaths, though, she finally realized that she was procrastinating instead of pulling herself together. She opened the door without knocking.

Inside the apartment, John and Marlena sat on the couch, with Sami's sister Belle between them. Belle's face was mostly obscured by her hair and by the fact that she was curled tightly against Marlena, but Sami could still see that her eyes were red and swollen. On the steps behind the couch, Sami's father Roman was conversing in low, earnest tones with her stepbrother Brady. All heads turned when Sami entered, and Roman gestured that she should join him. She obliged, giving him a half-hug as she moved to stand next to Brady.

"Daddy?" she whispered. She could not seem to think of anything else to say, but he was obviously waiting for her to voice a thought of some sort. All right, then. It wouldn't do to act like she was in shock in front of her younger siblings, anyway. "I heard about it on the news and I felt like I should be here."

"You should be, Peanut. I'm glad you came in before I told Brady everything. Now I won't have to repeat it."

"What do you have to tell us?"

"I wanted to tell you a little bit more about what happened than you heard on the news. I thought it would be a good idea since this affects your sister so much, and you, too."

"Well?" asked Brady, sounding impatient.

"Last night, your sister's friend Mimi Lockheart was found dead in a dumpster. She'd been murdered."

"Yeah, they said that on the news."

"What they didn't say, because they don't know, is that the marks on her body are exactly like the marks found on two other bodies earlier this month. Both young women, around Sami's age. Both prostitutes."

"Does that mean Mimi was--"

"No, no, there's no indication of that. She apparently just got fed up with living with the Wesleys while her family's new house was built and took a walk through the wrong part of town."

"So why do they think she was killed by the same person that killed these other women?"

"She was cut with the same kind of knife. All three bled to death." Roman spoke as matter-of-factly as he could, hoping he would not upset his daughter and Brady any more than was absolutely necessary. But both would be spending large amounts of time with Belle in the coming days and weeks, and John and Marlena had decided that if they were kept completely informed of the progress of the case they would not be tempted to discuss it or search for information about it where Belle might hear. "The defining mark was a complete scraping away of the skin over the victims' hearts. On one of the prostitutes you could actually see the ribs. On the others, the cuts were shallow."

Neither Sami nor Brady seemed to have anything to say about this. Sami found herself wishing for Eric and Carrie. She was currently not happy in the role of oldest sibling. But Eric was far away in Colorado, and Carrie even farther away in Israel.

She was saved from finding her voice again when Belle released a shriek that sounded more animal than human. "I am NOT going to bed. And I am CERTAINLY not going to let you drug me into submission, Mom! Of course I'm overwrought, as you put it. My best friend is DEAD. And if I had noticed what was going on with her a little sooner, she wouldn't be. Don't say I can't say that. I can and you know it! If the timing about finding out what was wrong with her family had been a little bit different, the Wesleys wouldn't have let the Lockhearts move in with them as some kind of public relations stunt, and Mimi wouldn't have been so unhappy she had to go on a walk somewhere where someone could grab her and kill her and leave her in a dumpster!"

Sami was startled that her youngest sister had figured out the Wesleys' motivation in inviting the Lockhearts to live with them. Belle usually saw the good in everyone and focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That had changed forever, she realized, hypnotized as she watched Marlena inject a sedative into her youngest daughter's arm.

She left the room an hour later, but had barely gotten halfway down the hall before her father's footsteps behind her caused her to turn around. "Dad?"

"Sami, why did you leave without telling me?"

"I said good-bye--"

"I know, I know, but I thought you knew I didn't want you going out alone."

"Look, Daddy, I know you love me and you're trying to protect me--"

"Not trying to protect you, am protecting you."

"I'm an adult."

"As were those two women we found last week. One was a year older than you and one was a year younger."

"I'm not going to be walking through the worst part of town."

"I know but--" suddenly Roman's voice grew softer and less abrasive. "Indulge me, okay?" He offered her a smile, which she readily returned, and she allowed her father to escort her home without further complaint. Her smile, however, grew tighter when Roman insisted on standing outside the door of her apartment and listening to make sure she slid her deadbolt into place, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he finally left.

She did, however, make a cursory check through her closets and under her bed to ensure that she was indeed alone. Then she laid a black dress and matching shoes out on the chair that stood next to her bed. She had a funeral to go to the next day.

**********

Philip Kiriakis sat in the living room of the vast mansion that he called home and stared at the wall. He knew that if he sat here long enough someone would come and talk to him, and he did not want to be talked to, but neither could he muster the energy to stand up and walk to a more private location. All of his energy was devoted to thoughts of Mimi Lockheart. No, he corrected, he was thinking not of her but of himself, and his own guilt. Could he have prevented her death? She had never been a close friend of his, but he had known her since they had started school. If he had taken her mood swings a little more seriously, if he had used his wealth and popularity to convince Jason and Jan to back off of her when they had begun to torment her, would he have made her life easier? Would she still have chosen to be in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time?

Mimi's parents had spoken to him earlier that day and had asked him to be a pall bearer. He wasn't sure what that job entailed, other than carrying the casket, but he had agreed. He knew that his nephew, Shawn, who was actually older than he was, would be one as well and that had made the offer easier to accept. Still, he needed to ask someone about this. Shawn wasn't home, and his brother Austin wasn't around. His other brother, Lucas, was probably somewhere in the house but Lucas was never his first choice to ask about anything in part because his father's lectures frequently concluded with "don't turn out like Lucas" and in part because Lucas had always struck him as a know-it-all who was slightly resentful of Philip's mere existence.

Despite his desire to be alone, Philip stood up in search of his youngest older sibling. He found him in his room, looking rather distracted.

"Lucas?"

"Yeah?" Lucas was not particularly eager to speak to Philip, but the kid had just lost one of his friends in the worst manner imaginable. If he kept that in mind, he wouldn't have to think of the other subjects that had been occupying his thoughts for the past few hours.

"What's a pall bearer? Do you just carry the coffin?" He tried to make his voice sound detached.

"Yeah, that's it. Whoever's in charge will explain everything, oh my God, are you one of Mimi's pall bearers?"

Philip nodded miserably. The earnest, caring look in Lucas' eyes was bringing the feelings he thought he had pushed down back to the forefront.

"It's no big deal. I mean, it IS a big deal, but not in the way that you have to worry about not knowing what to do."

"Thanks." Philip began to back out of the room, slowly. Lucas finally lifted his head and took a hard look at his brother for the first time since his arrival.

"Did you need anything else, Phil?" His voice was gentler than usual.

"No." He continued to move backwards and managed to overturn an end table in the process. He cringed as a table leg snapped in half; antique furniture was not known for its durability. Lucas jumped up and held the pieces against each other.

"Shit." He stared at the ruined object and his eyes grew glassy, almost as if they were filling with tears. This reaction struck Philip as rather extreme, and he briefly forgot his grief and guilt.

"Lucas? It's just a table, even if it's an antique. Dad'll know it was an accident."

Lucas drew in a deep breath. "I'm not worried about the table." His younger brother looked at him expectantly. "Look, something happened, but you don't need to know about it."

"Is it something with Mom?"

"No. No! I told you, you don't need to worry about this."

Philip was infuriated. He hated few things more than being told he was too young to understand something, but if he shouted at Lucas, Lucas would waste no time in throwing him out of the room. Lucas had next-to-no brotherly affection for him, and no sentimental plea would bring him back to this level of openness once it was lost. So Philip decided to go with a logical approach.

"You've already told me that there's something to worry about, so I am worried. I probably think it's worse than it is. And since I'm going to find out eventually, it doesn't matter when."

Lucas sighed. He couldn't argue with that. Well, he could, but he did not seem to have the required energy.

"About an hour ago, some kids found Nicole's body in the park. The same thing happened to her as to Mimi Lockheart."

In spite of his efforts to control it, Philip felt the blood drain from his face, although he was just barely able to keep himself from swaying on his feet.

"Gees, I knew I shouldn't have told you."

"No, no. I'm . . . sorry, Lucas."

"Doesn't matter. We were divorced, right? We never even had a real marriage. And I know you didn't like her, so you don't have to pretend to be sorry."

"I didn't like her. I didn't want her dead!" protested Philip, his anger returning.

"I know, I know." Lucas inwardly reminded himself not to take out his feelings on his little brother, who had enough confused feelings of his own. He studied the teenager for the umpteenth time, and noted that his lips were nearly twitching, as if he were trying to think himself out of saying something more. "Just say it."

"When you say the same thing happened to her as to--" he couldn't quite bring himself to say his friend's name-- "what do you mean? There was some reason the cops wouldn't give any real details about what happened to Mimi. Do you think the same person did it?"

"I just meant that she was murdered. Stabbed. I'm sure there are lots of people who wanted to stab Nicole. Probably has nothing to do with Mimi."

The two stood a moment more in awkward silence until Philip dragged himself off to his own room.

********

The weather for the funeral was appropriate: chilly and dark, without a spot of sunlight. The rain held off, however, although the dew on the grass soaked through everyone's shoes. The mourners all looked sick, Sami noted; no one could find any consolation during the burial of one so young. She saw her mother, arm wrapped tightly around Belle, and moved to them. Marlena extended her other arm to hug her older daughter. For years, Sami would have rejected such a gesture, but now she returned it. She had seen her mother staring at Mimi's family, and she knew that Marlena was imaging such an accident befalling one of her own children. Perhaps she was even thinking of DJ, the older brother that Sami had never known. Sami, of course, was herself thinking of Will.

Belle raised her eyes to look at her favorite sibling. Her face was flushed and her manner subdued, but she still seemed to feel the necessity to talk, to spread information, as she always did. "Look, Shawn and Philip are pall bearers," she said. "The older two other ones are uncles, and the rest are cousins."

Sami's eyes followed her sister's. Both Shawn and Philip looked very much like Belle-- physically and emotionally exhausted, unable to deal with the situation. "Just wait until their parents die and come back from the dead a few times, and they find out that the man who raised them isn't their father, and-- stop that!" She did not need to one-up the younger generation's suffering. She could not corner the market on pain. This was not the time to be selfish. She had to help Belle. Shawn, too, if she could, since he was her cousin. As for Philip . . . he didn't have much of a family, she thought derisively. Thus, she was slightly perturbed to see Lucas Roberts walk up to Philip and say something to him, in a low voice, meant for one pair of ears only. Philip straightened; his entire posture changed. Whatever his brother had said had helped.

There were limits to these politeness and selflessness things. Just because she was at a funeral, that did not mean she could not glare at Lucas.

Her glaring was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.

"Daddy?"

Roman spoke not a word but gestured that Sami should follow him. He mouthed "later" over his shoulder to Marlena, and brushed a hand against Belle's shoulders as he guided Sami away.

"How did you get here, Peanut?" he began when they were alone.

Sami's ire rose. Her father had pulled her away from her mother and sister for another lecture? "Well, let's see," she began, her voice thickly laced with sarcasm. "It wasn't on a horse . . . or a donkey . . . or a flying pig . . ."

"Samantha Gene! This is serious!"

"Really? Thanks for telling me. I thought it was all a joke, and Belle's friend wasn't really dead. Thanks for explaining. I'll go tell Belle, in case she's confused, too."

Roman attempted to reign in his exasperation. Sometimes Sami seemed *so* like her mother had when he had slept on her floor to protect her from another killer, so many years ago.

"Sami, I need to tell you that you know another of the victims."

"Oh my God." Her annoyance faded away quickly.

"It's Nicole."

"What?"

"Your brother's name was on her emergency information sheet. He's flying in this afternoon. So is your sister."

"My sister?"

"Yeah," chuckled Roman, almost amused in spite of himself. "Carrie. You remember her? She wants to help take care of Eric and Belle."

Sami was still slightly nervous in the presence of Carrie, but she supposed she had to get past that at some point. Austin had finally chosen her, after all. Anyway, Austin was out of town on Titan business.

"Is Mike coming, too?"

"No. I think she and Mike are on the outs, and I will not have you bringing that up."

"I won't." Probably, she internally amended.

"Sami? Earth to Sami?"

"You're sure it was the same person?"

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sami, don't fight me on this. The women getting killed are like you, and your sisters. I need you to be careful. Please, Sami."

"I'll be careful," she whispered, finally thoroughly frightened.

"Good."

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Are they sure it was Nicole?" She did not know why she felt the need to ask that question.

"Lucas identified the body officially. I saw it myself, too. And I saw Mimi's body, if you're wondering."

"Lucas, huh?"

"I don't like the bastard any more than you do, but I had to feel sorry for him. He was one of Nicole's victims, just like Eric."

Sami had to admit that, in some corner of her mind, she felt sorry for Lucas as well. He had truly cared for Nicole, as her father had pointed out, just like Eric. Yet he was here, today, supporting his little brother. Sami had noticed neither of Philip's parents in the church.

At her father's request, she made her way back to the crowd so she could keep an eye on, and an arm around, Belle while Roman explained the situation to his ex-wife. As she hurried through the group, her shoulder connected sharply with a shoulder she knew all too well.

Blue eyes met brown.

"Lucas."

"Sami."

"I'm sorry." Was she apologizing for the bump? For Nicole? For refusing to share custody of her son with him? Well, she knew it was not the last one and felt assured that he did as well.

"It's all right."

The gaze lingered a moment too long, and each felt an eerie chill of a painful shared past-- and a future that might be worse.

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 9, 2000

Part 2

Sami set the pitcher of apple cider on the table, although she knew no one would touch it, and returned to the chair in which she had been sitting. From this vantage point, she could stare at her twin brother without his being able to return the gaze. His face was a study in agony, and if he had spoken, she was sure he would have voiced a plea to be anyone but Eric Brady and anywhere but here.

Nicole's funeral had been different from Mimi's, but in the end it had been no less painful. Perhaps Sami had not liked Nicole-- perhaps no one in her family, save her twin, had-- but no one wished this level of grief upon Eric. Eric had spoken at Nicole's service, and he had sounded calm and collected, but on the drive home with his sisters, he had announced that he did not remember anything he had said. Now he was sprawled sullenly on the floor, shoes, jacket and tie carelessly tossed under Sami's chair. Sami and Carrie were still neat and uncomfortable in their black dresses as they sat stiffly in the deserted Brady Pub.

Belle and Brady had skipped Nicole's funeral, but were sitting side by side atop a nearby table. The two had regained much of the friendship they had shared as young children since Mimi's death, with Brady taking a principal role in taking care of a still-distraught Belle.

So, thought, Sami, Belle and Brady are together and they aren't fighting. Carrie and I are together and we aren't fighting. In fact, I don't think all five of us have been together at all since Mom and John got married. She smirked lightly, but it was enough to catch Carrie's attention.

"What?"

"I was just thinking that I haven't seen all my brothers and sisters together since Mom and John got married."

Carrie shrugged. "Weddings and funerals, you know. It's too bad, but . . ." her voice trailed off. She was jet-lagged in addition to being concerned about Eric and Belle and nervous about spending time with Sami.

"I think it's good." Belle's voice broke the silence, and even Eric swiveled to look at her. She had not said a word since entering the room.

"Good?" prompted Sami.

"Well, not good like I'm glad I don't see any of you very much, but good that we can all come here when it's important. I mean, I was talking to Philip the other day, and he has a whole bunch of brothers and sisters and he doesn't really know any of them. None of them think of him as a brother very much because they were all grown up when he was born. Maybe Lucas wasn't quite, but--"

Sami involuntarily tuned out the rest of Belle's statement. Lucas. He had spoken at the funeral today, too, looking as close to terrible as he ever did. Like her father, she held some sympathy for Lucas because he was in a situation so similar to that of Eric, and because she could not get the image of him approaching Philip on the day Mimi was buried out of her mind.

Her thoughts might have grown even more nostalgic, focusing on his ability to make her feel better long years ago when they had been friends, closer than any brother or sister, if she had not been furious that he still held full custody of their son. She was so lucky to have Will-- Nicole, and Mimi, and those poor women whose names she did not know, would never have the opportunity to feel the all-encompassing love that she had felt for five years now. However, her luck in having Will was meaningless if she could not see him! Maureen Lockheart and Fay Walker would never hug their daughters again, now, and suddenly she felt that she was in the same position as they were. The room suddenly grew smaller, and without realizing it, Sami blurted out "I have to see him."

"Who?" asked Eric, annoyed at being torn from his reverie once more.

"Will." Sami stood up.

"Sami, you can't leave," protested Belle. "Your father won't leave you alone for the rest of your life if you do."

"And *our* father will help," added Brady.

"Not to mention Mom," contributed Eric, who looked like he might smile in spite of himself.

Sami's voice rose desperately. "I don't care! They've been in the back having some kind of top-secret parental meeting for almost an hour now! I'm sick of indulging their misconception that I'm a little girl who can't take care of herself, and I'm going to go see my own child. And I don't care if any or all of you have a problem with that!"

"They don't think you're a little girl, Sami," argued Carrie a little too harshly. "They DO think you aren't safe alone out there-- and they're right! Show a little compassion. Show a little respect."

Sami pursed her lips. The reasons she had for not arguing with Carrie were too numerous to list. "What if we went together? You could drop me off at the Kiriakis Mansion, and you and Eric could go back to the apartment. You need a rest. How many hours have you been up in a row, anyway?"

The plan was tempting. "What do you say, Eric?" Carrie asked her little brother.

"If that's what you two want."

In agreement, the three bid good-bye to their younger siblings and went on their way. If their parents wanted that much to speak to them, they would not be hard to find.

As she stood on the intimidating steps of the Kiriakis Mansion, Sami began to rethink her idea. However, her love for Will and the knowledge that Eric and Carrie were waiting in the car until she went inside forced her to ring the doorbell.

The door was answered by none other than Philip Kiriakis.

"Philip?"

"Yeah, I live here."

"I didn't expect you to answer the door."

"It's part of my Dad's plan to keep me from getting spoiled."

"Oh." Sami forged ahead. "I came to see Will."

"I figured. Come in. The last I saw he was playing in his room. Lucas is around someplace, but I don't know where or doing what, so I can't find him and tell him you're here."

"Thanks, Philip."

"No problem."

Sami made her way to Will's room alone, and paused in his doorway to drink in the sight of him. He was playing with an elaborate set of battery-operated cars, moving them all around the room and occasionally crashing them into the walls and each other, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.

"Hey, Little Man," she finally said.

"Mommy!" he cried, dropping his cars in mid-chase and running into her arms.

Sami held the hug for a moment longer than necessary so her son would not see the tears welling in her eyes. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and held Will at arms' length. "How are you doing?" she finally asked.

"Good. Daddy bought me new cars."

Sami rolled her eyes. Lucas had yet to discover that there were ways besides buying presents in which to show affection.

The object of Sami and Will's discussion chose that moment to enter the room. "Sami, what are you doing here?" he asked in as neutral a tone of voice as he could muster for his son's sake.

Sami looked up, her eyes not yet totally devoid of tears. "After everything that happened, I had to come hug my son! Okay, Lucas?"

"Okay. I just asked."

"You didn't ask. You accused."

"I can't help what you read into my questions."

Sami nearly snorted. "You're keeping my son away from me on purpose. You can help everything that goes on."

"No, I can't. I can't help you. You're beyond help! I offered you joint custody, or have you conveniently forgotten that?"

"You shouldn't be allowed to have any kind of custody."

"The only reason you have to back that up is a story you invented, just for fun!"

"It wasn't for fun, it was for protection!"

Sami and Lucas broke off their argument simultaneously when they realized that Will was paying them rapt attention, his eyes wide and his mouth open. Sami gathered her self-control back together and coolly finished, "Well, as I said, I came to see Will. Philip didn't know where you were, so no one could tell you I was here."

Lucas shrugged. "I was out by the stables. I was taking a walk." Then he stepped behind Sami and used his slight height advantage to whisper in her ear "I buried my ex-wife this morning. Give me a break."

Sami nodded imperceptibly, and sat down to continue playing with Will. When the time came for her to leave, she hugged him once more, and once more she found her eyes filling with tears.

"Bye, Will."

"Bye, Mommy."

"I'll walk you out, Sami," put in Lucas, who had been wandering in and out of the room throughout the visit. As they reached the bedroom door, though, he turned and gave Will a hug himself.

"Are you leaving, too, Daddy?"

"No, Buddy, I'll never leave you," Lucas mumbled into his son's hair. And over Will's head, he mouthed the words "I understand" to Sami, who had not entirely regained her composure. Her composure returned with that remark, though, and with it returned her anger. She had to leave Will, and Lucas did not.

Lucas seemed to catch her thought, and he smirked.

"I've been telling you for years, it doesn't have to be this way."

Sami gave him a glower and stomped out of the house.


**********


Eric and Carrie rode to the apartment that had belonged to each of them at one point in time after dropping Sami off at the Kiriakis Mansion in silence. They trudged up the stairs in silence as well. The two had always been close; as children, they had been mainstays in each other's lives while parents drifted in and out of the picture. Thus, the silence was not awkward, but it was pained all the same.

Of course, it quickly became awkward when they opened the door to Sami's apartment to reveal Austin Reed.

"Carrie?" he asked, as if perhaps in the last year he had forgotten what his ex-wife looked like.

"Austin."

"Where's Sami?"

"She's with Will. Why weren't you at the funeral?" If Austin could ask abrupt, semi-rude questions, so could Carrie.

"Funeral?" The confused expression on Austin's face made Carrie regret her comment, after all. "I just got back from Chicago a few hours ago. Titan thing."

"Oh."

"It was Nicole," Eric clarified for the two as he shoved his way into the apartment and threw himself onto the couch. "She was stabbed to death last week."

Shock was plainly evident on Austin's face. Eric was not his favorite person, largely because of the way he had treated Greta von Amburg, but . . . "I'm sorry man," was all he could think to say.

Eric shrugged.

"I came back to Salem to see Eric, and Belle. One of Belle's friends was stabbed the day before Nicole was," Carrie explained. "Mimi. I guess she was friends with Philip, too."

"Yeah, she was . . . you mean two people I know were stabbed to death this week and no one called me to tell me about this?"

"You'll have to ask Sami."

"Yeah, I will." Now Carrie decided to brush past Austin into the room, stumbling tiredly against him and not much caring.

"Are you all right?" he finally asked.

"Tired."

"And I guess I'm not helping." He half-smiled. "Take care of yourself."

"Uh-huh."

Austin could not resist asking the next question. "Is Mike with you?"

Carrie had expected it. "No. Mike and I are over. Finished. Kaput. You can gloat if you want. We're still friends, but we weren't right for each other in the long run. Too much age difference. Too much history with different people."

"I'm not going to gloat. I want you to be happy."

Carrie failed to respond, and the silence stretched. They had parted on as good terms as could have been expected the previous fall, but they had not expected to have many opportunities, such as this one, to spend time alone.

Finally, Austin found something harmless to say. "I'm glad you're back in Salem. I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Thanks." Five minutes after Austin left the apartment, Carrie fell into a deep, dreamless, sleep.

She was unpleasantly awakened by the ringing phone. "Why didn't Eric answer that?" she rolled her eyes. Eric was still staring blankly at the wall, so she didn't bother to ask him but simply picked up the telephone.

"Hello?"

"Pumpkin?"

"Dad."

"Are your brother and sister with you?"

"Eric is."

"Where the hell is Sami?" Carrie began to feel more sympathy for her sister's rant earlier that day in the Pub.

"With Will."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure she was two hours ago. Dad, she's an adult!"

"I know, I know. Look, we have another victim. Twenty-two years old, blue-eyed, blonde, pretty. Sound like anyone you know?"

Carrie's stomach dropped at least six inches. "Wh-what are you saying?" she stammered.

"No, Carrie, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. I shouldn't have phrased it that way. Do you remember the stripper who testified when your sister was on trial for killing Franco Kelly? 'Candy Cane?'"

"Yeah."

"Her. The last three victims, my kids have gone three-for-three knowing them."

"You're sure it was the same person?"

"That's what Sami keeps asking me. Yes, I'm sure. This is what I do. Now be careful. And tell your sister to be careful when she re-appears."

"Okay, Dad."

"This guy is slick. We thought we had him this time, but we blew the takedown. And this was not a bunch of rookie cops."

"You're really worried."

"This is what I've been trying to tell you."

"We'll be careful."

"I love you, Pumpkin."

"I love you, too."

Carrie was left to wonder whether returning to Salem had been such a good idea after all.

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 8, 2000

Part 3

Chloe Lane walked quickly down the semi-darkened street, humming an aria from "La Boheme" under her breath. She would go to Dot Com for a drink, and then head home. She did not dread going home as much as she had recently because in the aftermath of the death of Mimi Lockheart, her parents and brother had moved into Alice Horton's complex. The move made sense to Chloe. After all, the Horton Center had been designed for that kind of thing; Nancy and Craig's house had not. It had been a little too crowded when seven people had been living there. Actually, it had been a lot too crowded. She had not wished harm on Mimi Lockheart. She was sorry that Mimi was dead. But she refused to indulge in the kind of guilt that Mimi's friends seemed to be feeling. She firmly believed that she had done all she could to help Mimi, and blamed nothing but fate and some nameless psychopath for the girl's untimely demise.

Of course, she was still slightly frightened to walk the streets alone at night. She could admit that to herself, but she would not admit it to anyone else, especially not Craig, who was the only one in Salem who seemed to especially care what happened to her. To Craig, and to anyone else who might ask, she said that she had learned to take care of herself and not to be afraid of her own shadow while bouncing between foster homes after her adoptive parents died.

As Chloe repeated to herself that she was a strong, self-sufficient young woman, she began to feel brave enough to cut through the alley to Dot Com's rear entrance. Her courage began to drain away, though, when she saw a figure lying at an odd angle, have hidden by a garbage can.

"It's only my imagination," she told herself.

She was wrong, she realized a moment later. Her scream echoed unheard through the alley, and she crumpled to the ground in terror. When she picked herself up, a moment later, she shakily wondered if this was some kind of joke. This was the kind of prank Jan would pull, right? It was about as funny as leaving a dead chicken on the doorstep who wouldn't help you cheat at your schoolwork. But she looked at Jan's body again, and she knew that this was no joke. One could not mistake a live human for a dead human any more than one could mistake a live chicken for a dead chicken.

Being orphaned and made a ward of the state, nearly killing your biological mother and being tormented by her peers had not prepared her for this. Jan's body had stiffened, and her clothes were soaked through with blood and other bodily fluids. Most noticeable was a large, bloody stain on her pale blue tank top; it looked almost as if someone had attempted to remove her heart. Randomly, Chloe noticed that Jan's jewelry and makeup were still perfect, as always. Jan never wore an outfit that she would not be caught dead in.

Chloe lost what remained of her lunch into the garbage can before haltingly walking into Dot Com and shakily requesting that the clerk call the police.

Hours later, she was still at the small cyber cafe, and promising herself never to come back. She was stiff, and cold, and tired, and her voice had grown raspy from giving statements and assuring concerned but nosy people that she was fine, really. Dot Com had closed early at the request of the detectives who had arrived moments after Chloe did, and now she stood in front of the building, waiting to be allowed to leave.

A familiar face came as a surprise, and Chloe was so delighted at its appearance that she briefly forgot that she had barely spoken with the face's owner for several weeks.

"Belle!"

"Chloe! I'm glad you're here. Why are there so many cops around?"

"It was awful."

"What was awful? You look sick. Sit down."

"No. I've been sitting down. I feel like standing. Maybe you should sit, though."

"What's going on?"

"Belle-- your friend-- your friend Jan-- she's dead."

"WHAT? Chloe, if this is some kind of sick joke--"

"It's not. It's not a joke. I wish it was."

"How?"

"Stabbed. Someone stabbed her, and left her behind this building."

"Miss Lane." A young, uniformed police officer arrived. "You may go now if you'd like. I can drive you home. You'll probably get a call from us tomorrow since you did find the body."

Chloe nodded numbly.

"You FOUND THE BODY!? You left that part out!" exclaimed Belle, not caring that the police officer probably knew who she was because her father still hung around the Cop Shop occasionally.

Chloe shrugged. This conversation was going downhill, and that was saying something.

"You don't seem very upset about this. I know you never liked Jan, or Mimi, but you could at least feel something when you see their dead bodies!"

"I did! I did. People show their feelings in different ways."

"You aren't showing any at all! Mimi was right, she was right! You ARE a witch, aren't you? Did you KILL them?"

Chloe had expected Belle to be upset, but she had not expected to be accused of killing her friends. The rational part of her mind told her that Belle was probably in shock, but the rational part of her mind was not in control. She told the young policeman that she wanted to take herself home, and ran from the premises, hating the tear that trickled out of each eye as she ran. She did not want to go home, in part because she did not want to explain to Craig and Nancy why she had been late and in part because she did not want the sympathy she was sure they would give her when she did. She did not want to be alone, but her options were limited.

Somehow, her feet took her on a long walk to the Kiriakis Mansion.

A young woman was standing on the step when she arrived. Chloe felt that she had seen the face before, but she was unable to place it.

"Hello?"

"Hello." The woman seemed to size Chloe up. "Are you here to see Philip?"

"Yeah. I'm Chloe Lane."

"Oh!" Understanding lit the woman's face. "I'm Carrie Brady. Aren't you friends with my sister Belle?"

Now understanding lit Chloe's face as well. "I knew I'd seen you before."

Carrie nodded. "If you've been in Marlena's office, or her penthouse, you've seen pictures of me. Belle talks about you a lot, you know. She really admires you. I hope I get to hear you sing sometime."

Chloe was saved from responding when Henderson arrived and ushered them inside. Philip was not far behind Henderson, and he smiled his first happy smile for days. He genuinely liked Chloe, although he had less than no idea as to why. If Chloe was coming to visit him unannounced, he had to take that as a positive sign. He immediately pulled Chloe off to another room, one where no servants, parents, or brothers would disturb them.

Philip did not hear Lucas' amused laugh.

"Do you think he likes her?" he asked Carrie quizzically.

"I couldn't really tell." Carrie returned the smile, but it faded. "Lucas, are you okay?"

"You came all the way over here to ask me that?"

"Yes."

Lucas couldn't help but be flattered. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"You aren't answering my question."

"I'm fine. Or I'll be fine. Or something."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be sure?"

"I've been around a lot of people who've lost people they loved. I've lost people I loved myself. And no one is *ever* fine. My brother Eric isn't fine. Even Sami can't get through to him. My sister Belle isn't fine. She's missed a lot of school, and she's going to miss a lot more."

Lucas tried to stop himself from making a face, but Carrie caught the expression anyway. "Bad example, okay. I know you don't like the twins."

"I'm sorry, but you can't say I don't have a reason."

"No."

"And Sami and I may work something out some day before Will graduates from college."

"Glad to hear it." Carrie's words rang true. Although she had not been able to be of much help to Eric or Belle by returning to Salem, her relationship with Sami had improved enormously. The tentative, rushed amends that they had made before Carrie had left for a life in Israel with Mike had become real over the past few days. Apologies for everything from lies to court testimony to anything connected to Franco or Austin had passed between them. Sami had grown up enough to become the semi-sweet sister that Carrie had nearly forgotten she had craved. Even though Carrie had temporarily moved into the Pub, in the hopes that leaving the apartment to the twins would give Sami a chance to get more than two words out of Eric, she found herself spending a lot of time with Sami. Both had dodged the bullet of inheriting Marlena's cooking ability, and they had started making meals together on a regular basis while they commiserated about their inability to help their siblings. Carrie was startled to note that Sami was spending virtually no time with Austin, and she wondered if this arrangement was for her benefit.

"Look, Carrie, you don't have to worry about me. Nicole's and my marriage was over. It was a fraud while it lasted."

"Don't say that."

"She was sleeping with your brother! What should I say?"

"I didn't know that. I did know you cared for her."

"Yeah, I did. And I'm sorry she's dead. But we had an ugly breakup, and she was not a part of my day-to-day life. She was a part of my past."

Lucas was giving Carrie his most utterly sincere look, the one that had encouraged her to date him several times when they were teenagers. Carrie finally accepted that he was speaking the truth, and leaned in to hug her friend.

Their embrace was interrupted when they heard a shout from the adjoining room.

"You found what? God, Chloe, did you KILL her?"

"No, I didn't kill her! What is with you spoiled rich kids thinking that?"

Carrie and Lucas entered the room, after picking the lock, to find Philip gradually backing himself against a wall and shaking his head in the manner of the slightly hysterical. "I won't do it again. I won't. I won't carry another coffin. No more dead friends. No more dead sisters-in-law. I won't do it again. I know you didn't like her, but--"

"I can't believe that's what you think of me! You're scum, just like I thought you were when I first met you. I never should have trusted you. I don't know why I thought I liked you!"

Chloe turned to run from the house, but Carrie grabbed her arm. "What's going on?"

"All I did was find her! I didn't do anything! I don't know witchcraft like your stupid brother" she nodded at Lucas "and YOUR sick little sister think!"

Carrie's eyes met Lucas'. "She means Belle," Lucas announced, and Carrie briefly considered laughing at the fact that one had to think over just who was meant by "your sick little sister." Yes, Sami was looking like the sanest of her siblings at the moment-- and that was a troubling thought.

Chloe took advantage of Carrie's loosened grip to run out the door. Lucas made a move to chase her, and Philip shouted that he should let her go.

"Let her go? Are you out of your mind, Phil? Girls her age who go outside alone end up in dumpsters and you're sending her out in the middle of the night?"

"It's only eight."

"Close enough."

"I'll get her," Carrie interrupted. "Take care of him, Lucas." She heard Philip mutter something obviously untrue about not needing to be taken care of.

Carrie called after Chloe, but she received no answer. She hadn't really expected one. Since she knew the general direction Chloe would have to take to get back to her neighborhood, she set off to follow her. However, her search proved fruitless, and she wound up walking all the way to the ritzy neighborhood in which the Welseys lived. She had no desire to run into Craig and Nancy, and no desire to return the way she had come. This was not a good situation. "Stupid, unappreciative teenager," were among the milder thoughts that flitted through her brain.

Less than a block ahead of her, Chloe did not care what Carrie was thinking. She had not asked the woman to follow her, and she was delighted that she had managed to avoid being spotted by walking through backyards and crawling under a bush or two. "I should be a criminal myself," she thought proudly.

She cursed herself for that though when she heard the scream. She rapidly backpedaled, as unpleasant memories of running off stupidly and leading her mother into the path of an oncoming car rushed to the forefront of her mind.

"GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" was the only thing she could think to scream. She would later wonder how ridiculous she sounded, but as it happened, the figure in black obeyed her command.

Carrie did not even hear Chloe's shout. She had not heard her own shriek of pain. She had felt the white-hot blade enter her flesh and nothing more, as she simultaneously tumbled to unconsciousness and the pavement.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Chloe's hands went to her friend's sister. "Don't be dead, don't be dead, no, please." Her plea seemed to be answered; a moan escaped Carrie's lips, barely audible amidst Chloe's sobs. Desperately, Chloe scrambled to her feet and ran the quarter-mile to her home.

She flung open the door and nearly fell into her mother's arms.

"Chloe! The police called over an hour ago! Where have you been, young lady?"

"Craig," she choked out.

A furious Nancy misinterpreted the request. "Craig is not going to take your side against mine this time! You have no right to behave this way, running off at all hours, not calling home--"

"No, she'll die, please."

"Chloe, I heard about Jan. She's already dead."

"Not Jan!" Chloe tried to wrench herself away from her mother, but she was unable to do so. "Down the block. Just now. She's hurt."

Craig had been watching the scene unfold from the next room.

"Nance, wait."

"Don't you take her side!"

"I'm not taking sides. That's fresh blood on her clothes!"

Chloe was so flooded with relief that her knees nearly buckled. She did manage to point in the direction from which she had come. "That way. You have to help her."

Craig was already out the door with a doctor's bag in one hand and an industrial-sized flashlight in the other. Nancy and Chloe trailed after him.

He reached the prone figure and fell to his knees beside it. He was relieved to note breathing, though shallow, and a pulse, though thready. Only after he had taken vital signs did her observe the victim's face.

"Oh shit. Carrie Brady."

Chloe nodded miserably, and Nancy's exclamation of shock drew her husband's attention to her.

"Nancy, call for an ambulance! Now!"

"Craig--"

"NOW!"


*********


Sami and Eric ran into the hospital's waiting room in tandem, looking more eerily twin-like than they usually did. They searched for someone who might have knowledge of Carrie's condition, and as one they spotted John Black.

"John!"

"Twinners! There you are." He hugged them both, and they returned the gesture, even managing to avoid mentioning that they were NOT his "Twinners." They had not answered to that name since age eight.

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine. She's conscious. Your parents are talking to her right now."

"Do you know what happened?"

John's voice dropped. "It was the same person. I don't have details, but I know that much. He came up behind her and stabbed her in the back. Chloe Wesley was nearby and startled him so he didn't finish the job. She called Craig and he started taking care of her right on the scene. There was also another murder yesterday. Another of Belle's friends. Chloe found the body this evening."

"Which one?" asked Sami dumbly. Belle was running out of friends.

"Jan. Now, do I need to remind you that this is SERIOUS, and you should NOT walk ANYWHERE alone, Sami."

"No, you don't." Sami's face was pale.

"Good. Eric, see that she keeps her word. You're in charge of her."

"WHAT?" Even under the circumstances, Sami was unwilling to stand for the indignity of that statement.

John did not bother to respond. Roman and Marlena walked out of Carrie's room, and John walked in. "You can go, too, Eric," grumbled Sami. "I'm sure Mom and Dad will baby-sit me."

Eric accepted his sister's offer, but she never heard him. Her ears had attuned themselves to another familiar voice, and she went looking for its source.

"What are you doing here?" she asked abruptly, placing herself in front of Lucas.

"If you must know, Carrie was visiting me right before she went out chasing Chloe. I can't believe that stupid girl got Carrie stabbed."

"Why was she chasing Chloe?" Sami momentarily didn't care that she hated Lucas. She had questions, and he had answers.

"Chloe was fighting with Philip, and she ran out alone. Carrie chased her trying to keep her safe, but she put herself in danger. You know how Carrie is."

"Yeah."

"Or maybe you don't. I guess what that psycho did to her tonight isn't much worse than what you used to do."

"With no small amount of encouragement from you. But you're right, in a roundabout sort of a way."

"I'm right?" Those were words Lucas had never expected to hear escape Sami's lips.

Sami's eyes hardened, her lips narrowed, and her muscles tightened. "This has gone too far. Nobody beats up on my sister but me."

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 10, 2000

Part 4

Sami pulled on the neckline of her form-fitting top, attempting to show a little bit more of her breasts. Then she hiked up her skirt, attempting to show a little bit more of her legs. Her long, blonde hair coursed freely down her back, and she had painted her face more thoroughly than she ever had before, which was quite an accomplishment. A smile flitted across her face as a brief memory of her mis-spent youth passed through her mind.

"Jamie, I'm sure Austin is falling in love with me now! He couldn't take his eyes off me!"

"That's probably because he's never seen anyone wearing that much makeup before."

Poor Jamie. She had always tried to tell Sami that she was dressing too provocatively, wearing too much makeup, and Sami had never listened. It was a good thing Jamie could not see her now. For once, Sami was glad that her childhood best friend no longer lived in Salem. Jamie fit the profile of this killer's victims perfectly.

So did Sami.

That was what she was counting on.

She had gone from the hospital to the house in which she had grown up. Her father still owned this house, for sentimental reasons she supposed, and it was filled with things which he would not or could not throw out. It had not been hard to find one of Roman's guns. He did not even lock them up, since he had no young children or mischievous teenagers to worry about. His house was his alone.

This particular outfit provided nowhere for her to hide the gun, so she simply carried it in her hand and planned to stay in the shadows. When the psychopath grabbed her, she would shoot him. She would not be distracted, as Carrie had been while chasing Chloe. She would emerge victorious, and before she called the police, she would kick her prey ten times-- once for the six dead women, once for Carrie, once for Belle, once for Eric, and once because she felt like it!

She did not know why she believed the murderer would come after her. While the earliest victims had been found in the worst part of Salem, the more recent ones had been scattered widely around the town. The sole uniting characteristic of the victims was that they were women, young and pretty. However, she felt that the killer would have had some curiosity about Carrie's fate, so she proceeded with too much passion and too little caution to the darkest streets near the hospital. Few woman, or men for that matter, would be roaming the streets alone. While the detectives had successfully prevented the newspapers from publishing details about the murders, gossip about the rash of deaths was running wild throughout Salem. If the killer wanted to go after someone, he had few choices.

All of these thoughts danced through Sami's mind as she sauntered through the alley. She only hoped that she would not be found by police officers before being found by the object of her thoughts. It would never do for Roman Brady's daughter to be arrested for solicitation, would it?

Her mind became blank with lightening quickness when she felt a hand seize her shoulders. In her panic, she dropped the gun.

No amount of regret at her own inability to take advice, no inventive promise to God, would save Sami's life this time.

As much as she could, she prepared to die.

But the blade that had landed Carrie in the hospital a few short hours earlier never pierced Sami's flesh.

She had attempted to keep herself hidden in the shadows, and seemed that the owner of the hand that held her had done the same. Sami now suffered the unsettling feeling of knowing that her captor was studying her face even though she was unable to see him. Still, this feeling was infinitely preferable to death.

Being thrown down a set of cement steps that led from an overpass to the narrow road that ran below it was also preferable to death, but Sami found no pleasure in that event when it occurred.

The scream that for some reason had not come to her lips during the terrifying moment when she dropped the gun split the air now.

"SAMI!" Sami recognized the voice even in her disorientation.

"Lucas," she whispered. For a crazed moment, she wondered if it was he who had grabbed her on the overpass. No, she corrected herself, that could not have been it. She knew the feeling of Lucas' hands, the sound of his breath, the smell of his cologne. Even deprived of sight, she would know Lucas anywhere.

Presently, Lucas appeared by her side and pulled her to her feet, not as gently as she would have liked.

"Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Then do!"

He placed his arm firmly around her shoulders and hastened her back to the well-lit streets, glancing wildly about them all the while.

"Now," he said softly, when he was sure that they were out in the open. "Are you all right?" His hands gently tamed her wild hair so he could see her face. She would have a bruise on her cheek where she had become intimately acquainted with the staircase.

Sami knew that she should lean away from her enemy's touch, but she had been more frightened than she cared to admit, and Lucas' fingertips felt hot and gentle against her face. "Get a grip," she said to herself. Aloud, she replied, "I'm fine." Regretfully, she broke the contact between herself and Lucas. "What are you doing here?"

Lucas smirked. "You are nothing if not predictable."

"*What?*"

"I knew you'd pull something like this as soon as you made that little speech about no one hurting Carrie but you. No wonder your family's trying to keep you on such a short leash. You'll give them all gray hair."

"That's none of your concern."

"I disagree. My son's mother IS my concern."

Sami rolled her eyes. "If you cared that I was his mother, you'd let me see him."

"You see him whenever you want to. Would you do the same for me if you had custody?"

"You know the answer to that."

"I guess I do." A blue-and-white sign caught Lucas' eye. "Let's go in there."

"No."

"Why not?" Exasperation crept into his voice.

"Why should we?"

"Because I don't want to argue with you in the middle of the street in the middle of the night. It's September. It's getting cold."

Sami eyed him critically. "You should have worn a coat."

"It wasn't cold when I started after you," he growled through clenched teeth.

Sami's merry laughter seemed out of place in the situation. There was nothing like baiting Lucas to restore her good spirits after being attacked by a psychopath.

Lucas did not enjoy watching Sami gloat about having gotten his goat, but he was relived to enter the small shop, warm but run-down, that hunkered beneath the sign labeled "Sweet Treat."

They sat down at a small, sticky table and sized each other up in the dim light. Lucas only then noticed the details of Sami's outfit, and his smirk returned.

"Two prostitutes and one stripper," she said by way of explanation.

"This is what we got this time of night," a waitress declared irritably as she stomped up to the table. "Take it or get out and let me close up."

"We'll take it," responded Lucas.

"It" was ice cream, in two bright blue bowls. Sami began to play with hers, as long as it was there. However, she did not want to look as if she had civil, or, even worse, submissive, feelings toward Lucas.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" she demanded.

"The weather?"

"You know what, I don't have time for your snarkiness. I don't like you and you don't like me and I don't understand why you followed me tonight. So I'll be going now."

As she arose, the waitress returned. "Message for you two," was her brief, surly statement.

"From whom?" asked Sami before the older woman could turn on her heel and leave again.

"Don't know. It was left in the kitchen while I was out here with you."

"Is anyone else working here tonight?"

"No. I'm trying to do all this work myself." She punctuated her statement with a reproachful glance, and left once more.

Sami unfolded the slip of white paper. It was printed with tiny, pale pink hearts. She recalled that she had gotten similar stationary as a Valentine's Day present from John the year she turned six. Most little girls had a collection of such things, she supposed.

The note was written in red ink, in handwriting so strange that it took Sami a moment to make it out.

"You were closer than anyone else.
Be satisfied with this.
You will not upset my plan.
The Thief of Hearts."

Sami stared so long at the note that Lucas took it from her hands wordlessly.

"Sounds like a threat to me."

"I've been threatened before."

"By a serial killer?"

"Stefano DiMera."

"You're terrified of Stefano."

"So? Whoever this person is, he isn't as smart as Stefano."

"He's smart enough to kill six women and attack two more without getting caught."

"He didn't really attack me. He just grabbed me, and looked at my face, and let me go."

"So he can come back and get you later!"

"No, I don't think so at all. I think he already knew me. I can't explain it, I just felt recognition. Not like someone who would know me anywhere, but like someone struggling to place me and finally doing it."

"Can you place him? Are you sure it was a 'him?'"

"No and yes." Sami noticed that she had once again fallen into a civilized, if not friendly, conversation with Lucas. She did not like this state of affairs. "I have to get back to the hospital."

"Fine. I'll go with you."

Sami had expected nothing less, and didn't argue.

As usual, the hospital was surrounded by flashing blue and red lights, ambulances, stretchers, police cars, paramedics, cops . . . yellow crime tape?

With a startled squawk, Sami jogged up to the area that had been roped off. Lucas kept pace with her. There, on the ground, lay the body of a woman in her early twenties. Her hair was black and curling, and it covered part of her impossibly pale face and part of her blood-soaked clothing. No one was tending to her as if in an effort to save her life, but he body did not look like it was yet cold.

"Shit, Lucas, I know her," she whispered as the two were guided away from the scene by one of the police officers.

"Who?" he whispered back, instinctively offering her his arm for support, which she accepted gratefully.

"We went to high school together. We were both candy stripers. Jane, her name is, was. She was a nurse at the hospital."

"I'm sorry."

Sami shrugged against Lucas as they made their way to the elevator. "I have to catch him," she said firmly.

"WHAT? Sami, you aren't a cop. You don't know how to handle this. All you can do is put yourself in danger."

"The cops aren't doing enough. The cops don't know anything, or else you would be in jail for killing Franco Kelly."

"Don't start with that."

"Fine, I won't. The present is too important for me to worry about the past."

"You're right. You should go off half-cocked and use yourself as bait again." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "You've had some bad ideas, but this one . . ."

"You know Carrie? Who you've always claimed to care about?"

Lucas rolled his eyes.

"She's lying upstairs, in pretty serious pain. She could have died. Two teenagers who spent time with your family and with mine are dead. My baby sister is hurting. Your baby brother. Someone I went to high school with. And then there's your ex-wife! I know you cared about her, too. If you want justice, it has to be me! The note said I was close."

"It also left no doubt in my mind that if you got close again, you'd get dead right after. You ended up lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs in a dark ally tonight."

Sami's blue eyes blazed, all passion and challenge. "So back me up!"

"What!? You HATE me. Why do you want me to be the one who's protecting you?"

"You're the only person I know who won't tell my parents."

Her statement was so impishly absurd that Lucas had to laugh. Sami was undeterred.

"Practically everyone either one of us cares about needs our help. We can do this. We were blackmailing half of Salem before we could buy a legal drink!"

"That's not something to be proud of."

"I'm suggesting that we use our powers for good."

God help me, but she's almost making sense, Lucas thought to himself as they exited the elevator and headed for Carrie.

"Okay," he answered slowly. He nervously reached for the pink-and-white paper that Sami still clutched. The paper fluttered to the floor as the two tried to avoid making any more physical contact than was necessary-- after all, they still hated one another. The fact that Lucas had spent the better part of that night's adventure with his arm around Sami was irrelevant.

Unfortunately, the paper caught the eye of Roman Brady, who had noticed the arrival of his younger daughter. Fury and fear warred for possession of his face.

"God, Sami, tell me that's not what I think it is."

"What?"

"That note, young lady." He took it and read it over his daughter's mock-innocent protestations. "Jesus Christ." Roman's voice grew low and dangerous. "Samantha, the Salem PD has been getting notes like this after every victim. Serial killers love publicity, and they like to name themselves. Tell em you didn't go out playing vigilante dressed like that."

"I didn't go out playing vigilante dressed like this."

"Which is why you have a note saying you got close, on the same paper, in the same writing, the police department has been getting? That's it, Sami, I'm locking you in a safe house until this is over. I thought you had more respect for the law, and the people who ENFORCE the law--"

"Detective Brady." A clear voice interrupted Sami's rant. Three heads turned to see Chloe Lane. "It wasn't Sami. It was me." Roman's sneer was brimming with annoyance, but Chloe continued. "Belle and Philip were so upset about Mimi and Jan. I wanted to help, I don't know what I was thinking, so I went out in the street to see if I could lure him back. I'm sorry I didn't see him better when he hurt Carrie--" Chloe began to cry, and Craig, who never seemed to be far from his step-daughter when she needed comfort, appeared to toss a glare in Roman's general direction. Chloe responded with big doe eyes, and then continued. "I gave the note to Sami and Lucas because I was afraid to go right to you. I'm so tired. I've talked to so many police officers today."

Sami and Lucas stepped back in shock as the force of Roman's interrogation fell onto Chloe. She insisted that she had seen no more of the man than she had during his attack of Carrie; that is to say, very little. He seemed short, but she was not sure, everyone looked short to her, and his eyes had sparkled in the dark, but she had not been able to tell their color.

Chloe rejoined Sami and Lucas long hours later.

"Would you like to explain that performance to us?" Lucas asked.

Chloe drew a deep breath. "I-- well-- Belle has always been really good to me. I want her to feel better. Philip probably hates me forever now, but maybe Belle and I could be friends again someday if whoever killed Jan and Mimi gets caught. And I know that Carrie-- it was sort of my fault. I overheard and I wanted to help."

Sami nodded her thanks solemnly, but Lucas spoke. "Thank you." Chloe turned away, but he motioned her back. "I promise my brother doesn't hate you. He's upset. He was sorry he spoke that way to you as soon as you left."

Chloe brightened in spite of herself, and returned to an anxiously waiting Craig.

Lucas and Sami were left alone to plot their return to the world of crime.

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 16, 2000

Part 5

"I'm glad you're here."

Sami uneasily embraced Austin, attempting to look around as she did so. Carrie's hospital room was filled with machines that monitored everything science had devised a way to monitor. Bags expanded and contracted, IVs dripped, lights blinked, tones sounded.

"I drove in with Mom," she finally explained to Austin.

"I figured."

"I take it there hasn't been a change?"

"No."

They sighed together. "Come on, Carrie. Wake up," urged Austin.

"And there's no more news about what happened?" asked Sami. She knew her question was badly timed, but she needed to gather all the information she could, and Austin was not one to withhold information based on the attitude of the questioner-- at least, not if the questioner was Sami.

"No. She went into shock yesterday evening, as you know. You were there?" Sami nodded miserably. Carrie had suddenly lost consciousness less than a quarter-hour after the discovery of the body of the unfortunate nurse. "No one was in her room but your family and medical personnel, and police officers. They still think someone injected her with something to send her into this-- this--" Austin's voice broke off roughly, and Sami tightened their embrace.

"Austin, she'll be okay. My family, we're tough. We always pull through. Carrie won't let this beat her. The doctors said she'll come out of it, they're only concerned because they don't know when. And the doctors are great."

"The doctors are great? Craig Wesley hates her! He tried to destroy her because she was helping Mike Horton!"

"He's not the only doctor here. There's Lexie Carver. There's lots of them. And Craig IS still a doctor, no matter what he did in his personal life. On top of that, Carrie got hurt in the first place trying to protect HIS step-daughter. And you can see how much he loves Chloe."

Austin pulled back an inch and raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I can see."

"So you've noticed, too."

"I can't wait to see his bitch of a wife turn on him."

Sami was taken aback by his vehement tone. "What have you got against Nancy?"

"Same thing. The way they treated Carrie . . ." his gaze returned to the prone figure in the bed. "She's so good. So dedicated to helping people, and doing the right thing. Sweet. Kind. Non-judgmental. This happening to some criminal is bad enough. But to have it happen to Carrie . . ."

Sami stared at Austin's face. It looked hauntingly like Eric's had when he had first learned of Nicole's death. The worship that he had always held for Carrie had re-appeared as well, washing away the scorn that had replaced it a year or so earlier. The look he gave Carrie was a thing of beauty, but something he had never exactly given her. She was startled to realize that she didn't much care. She had seen very little of Austin in the months preceding the rash of killings. When the killings had started, she had concentrated on her family, her friends, even Lucas, but she had not thought to call Austin. Yes, he was her friend, and in so many ways her knight in shining armor, but if he was her perfect man, why did she always find herself flirting with Brandon? Why wasn't she jealous now that he was standing here staring wistfully at his ex-wife, who just so happened to be her half-sister?

"Sami, I've been meaning to ask you something." Austin jerked Sami back to reality.

"Ask away."

"When you first found out about how big a problem this situation is, when people we know started dying, why didn't you call me?"

Sami tried not to let the irony of the situation show on her face. For once, they were on the same page mentally.

"I don't know, Austin." He looked at her out of the tops of his eyes. This was his 'that's not good enough' look. She sighed. "Well, we haven't seen much of each other for a long time. It got to be my habit to talk to my family, or Brandon, or my other friends instead of you. I'm sorry. I should have called you."

"Don't apologize. That's not what I'm looking for. I could have called you, too, and I didn't."

"Austin? What's going on with us?"

He looked her directly in the eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think we're friends. Really good friends. You're a better friend than I've ever deserved."

It was Austin's turn to sigh. "That's what I think, too. Not the part about you not deserving me. Well, maybe that part. Come to think of it, ESPECIALLY that part."

They might have smiled had it not been for the other occupant of the room.

"It doesn't seem appropriate for us to break up in your ex-wife's hospital room while she's here, asleep."

Austin shrugged. "We broke up months ago. It's just that nobody knew."

They sat down together and held vigil for Carrie.

All too soon, though, Sami had to leave the man who had long been the subject of her dreams to visit the man who she assumed would always be the subject of her nightmares. Just the thought of seeing Lucas Roberts, with his ever-present smirk and his knowledge that he had gotten away with nearly killing Sami, made her want to scream. Every muscle in her body contracted, and as she made her way to her apartment, where she and Lucas had agreed to meet, her anxiety grew stronger and stronger. Her stomach filled with butterflies, the edges of her vision blurred, and the slightest distractions on the street made her jump. She assured herself that these feelings were not caused by Lucas, who was not worthy of them and whom she could handle anyway, but by the knowledge that tonight she would once more offer herself as bait to a sociopath.

A corner of her mind wanted to turn back, but the rest of her felt it was the least she could do for Carrie. Carrie had used herself to bait Alan Harris on Sami's behalf so many years ago. In the end, Alan had caused the rift between the sisters that had never been repaired. Maybe this would even the scorecard.

Lucas was leaning against Sami's door when she arrived.

"How's Carrie?"

"The same. They say she'll be fine. They don't know when." Sami unlocked the door, and the former friends sat down on the couch unceremoniously. "How's Will?"

"Normal. He jumped out of bed at the crack of dawn this morning, he was so eager to go to school."

Sami didn't know whether to smile or to growl because she had not seen Will off to school herself. She suspected that a combination of the two emotions found its way to her face. Lucas refrained from commenting on it, and simply asked if she still wanted to act that night.

"Yes. He's hanging around, I'm sure of it."

"Are you sure you don't want to let the cops do their jobs? Isn't your own father on this case?"

"Yes. But they need some help. I think whoever this guy is can spot a cop a mile away. That's why I was so lucky last time."

"You were so lucky he threw you down a flight of stairs."

"He didn't kill me."

"If he really did look at your face and decide not to kill you, why wouldn't he avoid you now?"

"He'll want to stop me from helping the police."

"Why not just ignore you?"

Sami hadn't quite considered that, and Lucas enjoyed having the upper hand, however briefly.

"Unless he thought you were someone else."

"A disguise?"

"You got it."

"That's sort of what I did last time. You think I should be a stripper kind of thing again? With a wig?" As it happened, Sami owned an appropriate outfit for such an occasion, complete with a wig. Brandon had bought it for her when they had infiltrated a strip club, looking for clues to the identity of Franco's killer.

Lucas opened his mouth to tell Sami that she should not use the same disguise she had on her previous attempt to lure in the killer, because he would now know what to look for. But as an image of Sami's smooth, flawless skin barely hidden by scraps of clothing that she probably had to paint on returned to him, he found himself re-evaluating his decision. Why not let Sami dress up like a hooker? If he had to keep an eye on her, he might as well make it easy on himself. He agreed to her suggestion.

"I guess you've had a lot of practice at that sort of thing, anyway."

Sami whirled to face him. "WHAT was that supposed to mean?" She momentarily worried that he knew of her excursion to the strip club.

"Don't get all insulted. We both know that you spent years trying to attract my dear brother by dressing that way. Didn't you even plant yourself naked in his bed once? Right before you ran away to Seattle?"

"None of your business."

"I thought so."

All of Sami's suppressed emotions bubbled to the surface as anger. "Lucas Roberts, you have NO right to speak to me that way! I didn't do anything to get Austin that you didn't do to get Carrie, or Nicole! And at least I actually loved Austin! You didn't even give a damn when Nicole got murdered! You don't seem to care that Carrie's lying unconscious at the hospital--"

"Shut up, Sami! I DO care. I cared about Nicole and I care about Carrie. You're the one who never things about anyone but herself--"

"ME?"

"YOU! Why aren't we sharing custody of Will?"

"Because you're a drunk and a killer and an unfit father."

"I'm not, I'm not, and I'm not! You're a liar, and you're too blind to see that the one you're hurting is your son! Will loves me, and he loves you, and you're demanding that he choose. If one of us is a bad parent, it's you."

Sami was so outraged that she could not come up with a response. She had been called many names over the years, and most of them fit. However, no one save Kate had ever called her a bad mother. She glared at Lucas, and finally, coolly ordered him out of her apartment.

"Gladly." He left without looking back, and she shut the door behind him.

Lucas scrambled down the stairs as fast as he could, wondering all the while why he had agreed to have anything to do with Sami. He told himself that he wanted to protect her, but let out a strangled laugh at the thought. He did not go around rescuing damsels in distress; he left that to his older half-brothers. Besides, if anyone had ever been able to take care of herself, it was Sami Brady. Next, he told himself that he wanted to help his family, but he was only slightly more likely to care about Philip's life than about that of a total stranger. Then he wondered if he simply wanted some excitement to take his mind off his other problems. Just because he had never dealt with things this way before did not mean he could not start now. A more likely explanation lingered in the back of his mind. Was he so pathetic that he was still longing for the friendship that had been lost years earlier? Did he still miss Sami?

No, he did not miss Sami. He could not miss something that had never existed, and he had made up the bratty, insecure, destructive, determined, dedicated, loyal, funny, endearing, beautiful companion of his late teens and early twenties. No real person could so completely forget a friendship as she had. No real person could treat a former friend, someone for whom she had held the slightest modicum of affection, in such a degrading, dehumanizing way. Missing her would be as reasonable as missing a dream. Not real. Never real.

She had had a point, though. If there was someone he should be missing, it was Nicole. He and Nicole had not parted on the best of terms, but they had had a real friendship until his mother had insisted on forcing the issue with her offer of five million dollars. An image of Nicole came to him. He had been stranded in the hospital after hitting rock bottom and nearly killing his son by getting drunk and then getting behind the wheel. Hell, he had continued to drink AFTER getting behind the wheel. He'd driven with one hand on the horn and one hand on his flask. Somehow, he had survived the ensuing crash but he had not believed himself worthy of life and had not been willing to complete his course of physical therapy. Nicole's visit had given him the inspiration he needed to live a life that would be devoid of Will . . . and Sami . . . for an indeterminate period of time.

Tears came to Lucas' eyes and a sob rose in his throat. Desperately, he wrenched open the door to the basement. He knew it would be deserted; half of the inhabitants of the apartment house did not realize it existed. Lucas, however, had been in the basement a few times with Carrie or Sami.

Hidden away from prying eyes, Lucas continued to fight a losing battle with his emotions. Nicole was dead now, but all he could think was that he was glad it hadn't been Sami. Guilt and grief warred for possession of his face. Sometimes he did miss Nicole. Intellectually, he was certainly sorry she was dead. But Sami had been right. He was not wandering around in a plastic-wrapped stupor as most of the friends and families of the victims were.

It was hard to believe how much he wanted his feelings to stop. He would have given anything for a moment of mental clarity long enough to stop the tears from coursing down his cheeks. Swallowing his sobs was making his whole body ache.

"Grow up," he whispered aloud. "This is like something Sami would do." Yeah, Sami. He was better than Sami. He would NOT be like Sami.

Slowly, he stood up and marched out to his car as if nothing had happened.

**********

Sami struggled into the hot pink spandex halter top and regarded herself in the mirror. It was slightly discomforting to realize how easy it was to make oneself look like a prostitute. It was even more discomforting to realize that she was alone in this endeavor, but alone-ness was preferable to Lucas Roberts' company. Hadn't he tried to kill her when he framed her for Franco's murder? She had never proved that he had done so, but that didn't mean that he had not. So why would she want this man to help her? He might try to kill her himself, with her own father's gun. She was glad that she had been able to retrieve it after dropping it like an idiot the last time she had come face-to-face with the animal who had hurt her sister.

She decided to head right for the worst section of town, where the first three murders had taken place. This plan was dangerous not only for the obvious reasons but because the police would be watching that area, too. She did NOT need her father to get a report on her new hobby.

Every car looked like a plainclothes police car to Sami, and after several unnecessary dives behind piles of refuse and broken down cars, she became bolder. Just when she began to pay less attention to her surroundings, a pale green sedan with multiple antennae approached her. She swore under her breath. She knew that car; her Uncle Bo had driven it while on a case on occasion. Nothing was available to provide her with instant cover, so she turned on her (spiked four-inch) heel and sprinted down the nearest crossing alley. She soon found that she had avoided the car at a price; this part of town was not very familiar to her, and now she had to worry about finding her way home as well as the deranged serial killer.

Luckily, she was not so distracted that she did not feel a man's footsteps behind her. She spun around, reaching for her gun.

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Sami, we've been through this before. You've threatened to kill me lots of times. You never actually do it. Stop wasting our time."

Sami's temper flared once more, although she did lower the gun. "Don't you know better than to sneak up on someone who's carrying a gun and planning to shoot the first person who grabs her?" she hissed.

"I sneak. It's in my nature. Sorry."

"Well, you were so sneaky that we've scared off anyone who might be hanging around."

"Not my fault."

"It never is, is it?"

"One of the advantages of being me."

"What are you doing here?"

"We had a deal. I said I'd back you up."

"But . . ." Sami could not think of a proper answer to that statement without admitting that she had not treated him especially well earlier that day. "Anyway, I have to find a new place to look. If he was around I'll never get him, but if he wasn't, I have a chance to get him wherever he IS."

"My car's back there. I'll drive you wherever you want to go."

"What?"

"Did you damage your hearing when you fell the other day? I said I'd help you."

"I'll walk. Thanks."

"You don't want to walk. You're freezing."

"I like the cold. And it isn't that cold."

Lucas' eyes focused on Sami's barely covered chest. "You really do look cold."

The faintest hint of a blush stained Sami's cheeks. "Stop looking at me like that."

"I hate to break it to you, but the whole point of clothes like *that* is to make men look at you like *this*."

"Not YOU."

"I understand that I'm a step down from a psychopath who's killed seven women--"

"Fine, you know what? Let's go." Sami's fear, cold, and tiredness overwhelmed her desire to stay away from Lucas.

The two traveled the few blocks to Lucas' car in silence. Sami sank into the leather passenger seat with no small amount of gratitude, and she was slightly disappointed when they arrived at the opposite end of the run-down neighborhood. Reluctantly, she reached for the door handle, and was surprised when Lucas covered her hand with his own. She shot him a questioning look.

"I might have another idea."

"I'm listening."

"Stay here with me and watch. He has to look for his victims, whether or not he finds them and grabs them. We might see him without you being the bait."

Sami wanted to protest, but it really was not good weather for bait, and she was already limping in her disguise shoes. Nothing had ever felt as good as Lucas' luxury car did just then. It was nice to be rich.

She nodded in nervous agreement. "Okay." Her final words lingered in the air as each stared at the deep shadows on the sides of the street. After fifteen minutes, the silence was truly bothering Sami. "Lucas?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you come looking for me?"

"I told you. I said I would."

"I thought that was off this afternoon." Both were still staring out the windows, eyes straining against the darkness. The lack of eye contact somehow made the conversation easier. "I was hard on you."

"You always are."

"I'm just so tired of taking care of my family. I wasn't meant to be a good person."

"Good is relative."

"But why DID you come back?"

"Like I said, I want Will to grow up with both parents."

"Then why did you frame me for killing Franco?"

"I didn't."

"Then why did you let me die?"

"I didn't. I confessed to save you."

"Not until I was already legally dead. If Mike and my Mom hadn't been there to do CPR . . ."

"I can't explain why I did something I didn't do."

"Why would you save me after I'd done so many things to you, if you didn't have a guilty conscience?"

"I want Will to grow up with both parents."

"You keep saying that."

"Because you aren't listening. If you listened once, you'd understand. *I want Will to grow up with both parents.*"

"So do I." Sami's voice was not far above a whisper.

"Then what's stopping you?"

"I was framed for murder. That's a hard thing to get past."

"You can't get past it, even for your son?"

"I could do anything for my son. But sometimes it's hard to know what the right thing is."

"The right thing is to let go of this. Just let it drop."

"But someone who would hurt me like that might also hurt my son. WOULD, and DID hurt my son by keeping me away from him. How do I know he won't finish the job?"

"He's dead. Roberto."

Sami snorted. "Too bad the dead can't talk. It's be interesting to know how he killed Franco when he was at the strip club while the wedding was going on."

"How do you know that?"

"Brandon and I checked it out. We were even going to go to Italy following a lead, but then everything happened with our families."

"You were going to go to Italy with Brandon?"

"That's what I just said, yeah. We wanted to find Roberto's alibi."

"What if you hadn't been able to? What about THAT time you missed with your son?"

"It would have been worth it to have him all the time, eventually."

"Eventually? How many more years, Sami? And what about what you just said about wanting him to have both parents?"

"I also said I don't want him to have both parents if I think his father is dangerous."

"You're locked in a car in a back ally with me, and there's a loaded gun between us, but you think I'm dangerous?"

"Fine. You're right. Roberto must have killed Franco even though he was at the strip club when it happened. Why do you suppose he did it?"

"For the mob."

"The mob swears that's not true."

"What do you expect them to say?"

"Assume they're telling the truth."

Lucas shrugged. "Maybe it was self-defense. You saw how Franco treated Candy." He hoped and prayed that his voice had not risen half an octave.

"Self-defense? Then why would he lie? He wouldn't have to go to jail."

"The mob is like a family, and families can be tricky things. I know you've lied for your parents, and your brothers and sisters. I know you'd lie for Will."

"I would lie for Will. Will comes first. It's a good thing *Roberto* didn't have kids, because he might have been persuaded by the *mob* to kill their mother or something. Someone who's that easily swayed, who'll listen to everyone but himself, just can't be trusted."

"He might have changed."

"That kind never changes. Once you're in, you're in."

"It's not like that, though. Not always. It's been months since I spoke to Mom."

"WHAT?"

"It has to do with Nicole's and my divorce."

"You mean the five million."

"You heard."

"It made my day. But why are you still living at the Mansion, then?"

"Victor asked me to. He's having some residual health problems, and he's frozen Mom and Vivian and Nicholas Alamain out of Titan, and he has to have SOMEONE he trusts around all the time."

"He trusts you, and not your Mom?"

"I didn't cheat on him."

"So, if Victor asked you to get rid of someone for him, since the two of you are on such good terms . . ."

"I wouldn't do it."

"What if this mess hadn't happened, and I HAD gone to Italy, and Victor had told you to stop me?"

"I'd have said no. Gees, what could I have done? Followed you and poisoned your food?"

Sami laughed. "This is serious."

"So am I."

"I'm sure Victor could come up with a better plan than that. More elaborate."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Sure. He'd make a life-sized doll that looked just like Will and wave it outside your window so you'd think you were going crazy."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"The idea of me hurting you is stupid. I wouldn't do it."

"You've hurt me before," Sami muttered before she could stop herself. She chnaged the subject in self-defense. "We've been here for hours."

"Ready to give up?"

"For now."

Lucas switched on his lights and turned the key in the ignition. "I don't blame you for hating me."

"I don't hate you." Her words were barely audible, but they branded themselves into Lucas' memory as the sweetest he had ever heard. They drove home, too exhausted to speak. This time, the silence was almost comfortable.



"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 18, 2000

Part 6

Taylor Raines stumbled against the side of her mother's house, turning an ankle on the recently frozen autumn dirt. As a rule, Taylor did not swear, no matter how she felt, so she did not now. Instead, she straightened up and once again picked up the plastic bag containing her family's garbage. It would be collected early tomorrow morning, and she had decided not to disturb Brandon even though he had told her to let him do this particular job.

Ouch. She was training to be a physical therapist, and her brother worked with children in the hospital. She knew that her ankle was not seriously injured, but it did hurt. So distracted was she by the shards of pain that shot up her leg that she did not hear the approach of another person in what should have been a deserted front yard. She never even felt the knife that found its way into her chest.

Not twenty feet from Taylor, Brandon paid half-attention to the football game to which he had tuned the television. He wanted the noise for company more than anything else. His mother was at work and his little sister was busily, compulsively cleaning the kitchen. Everyone dealt with grief in their own way, he supposed.

He was torn between being glad that Taylor was home from college to help his mother get through Nicky's death, and being petrified that a similar fate would befall Taylor. The streets of Salem were not safe for her; that was why he had temporarily moved back into his mother's home as well. It was strange to live with his mother and sister again after so many years, and not entirely unpleasant. However, he did miss some things about being on his own. First and foremost, he missed Samantha Brady. He knew that tragedy had touched her family as well, but he still wished that they had been able to make a little more time for the friendship that he had very much wanted to become more.

For now, though, his mother and his remaining sister had to come first. The television began to blare a commercial, so he stood up and wandered into the kitchen to see if Taylor had settled down enough to accept his help or have a conversation.

The kitchen was empty, and Brandon's paranoia and defensive instincts immediately went into overdrive. He noted the folded strip of white plastic lying diagonally across the counter, and realized that Taylor must have decided to take out the garbage. "I told her not to do that," he grumbled to himself. This was not the safest neighborhood in Salem even when there weren't any psychopathic killers lurking around, brutally murdering young women.

He stepped outside, and picked out his sister's slim figure as she turned the corner of the house. Then he picked out another figure. His boxer's reflexes served him well, but not well enough. Taylor's body had drained of life before he could cross the front yard. He turned his attention to the figure in black, and all the pent-up fury that had been building since he had heard of Nicky's death found release as he grabbed the man by the neck. He was too surprised to cry out when the knife, still wet with Taylor's blood, entered his own chest. His last, hazy thought was that this man must have studied anatomy. He knew just where to strike. High piercing sounds then filled his mind as it shut down for the final time.

Had Brandon clung to consciousness a moment longer, he would have recognized the piercing sounds as his mother's screams. Fay had come home from work early to see her children. She had lost Nicole, and that made each moment with Brandon and Taylor all the more precious. Her mind shut down as well; she was unable to comprehend that each of her three children had been struck down in such a way in such a short period of time.

Even the figure in black pitied her. The finest man he had ever known had always told him to hold family above all else. He had not intended to take the life of the woman's son, who would have taken care of her, but he had gotten in the way. Such actions could not be tolerated. However, he would put the woman out of her misery as well. He lifted Fay's limp form and, instead of mutilating her as he had the others, he quickly, efficiently, cut her throat. Time was running out. He could not remain at the scene long enough to dot he job properly if he wanted to avoid being caught. The Salem Police Department employed an incompetent crew, but he could not afford to take chances.


**********

Sami had woken up feeling uneasy, but not bad. She had spent the previous night making small amends with her worst enemy, but she assured herself that she could take back everything she'd said in the light of day. She wasn't entirely certain that she *wanted* to take back the things she had said. She had watched her siblings deal with the losses of childhood best friends and ex-lovers. Lucas was both. Lucas, she was sure, had been more to her than Mimi had ever been to Belle, or Nicole to Eric. She had not spoken to her high school classmate Jane for years, but she had cried the night her body had been discovered. Knowing, for the rest of her life, that Lucas was not out there somewhere, teasing, smirking, trying to buy his way into someone's heart, would have been exponentially harder to deal with.

What if he had treated her badly? So had most everyone she cared about. She had returned the favor. And this rash of senseless killings made the never-ending custody battle for Will seem ridiculous and insignificant. So Will had two parents who loved him. So much the better. Her son should be allowed to hold onto the security such a situation could provide as long as he could.

If she could convince herself that Austin was Will's father, she could certainly convince herself that Roberto had killed Franco.

Then she had seen the headline of the Salem Spectator.

Sweet little Taylor. Sami had only seen the dark-haired girl a few times, but she had had an unrequited crush on Eric. Anyone with that much taste could not have been all bad, and Eric had spoken highly of her.

And Fay. She and Sami had had several pleasant conversations, with Fay never reprimanding Sami's inadvertent slams of Nicole. She had always defended Abe Carver as well. The woman was simply hard-working, a loyal mother, liked by all, and class personified.

Those deaths would have been heartbreaking enough. But Brandon . . . Brandon, who had helped Sami prove Roberto innocent. Brandon, who had always had time for her. Who had flirted shamelessly, had teased, had never told her to be anything other than what she was. Brandon, who had always wanted more than she could give him but who settled for friendship.

Brandon dead?

She pushed the newspaper away and buried her head in her arms, crying her soul out against the kitchen table.

Eventually, she became aware of Eric's hands on her back. She did not want to look at him, but when she did, she saw compassion and understanding. Eric had been her rock for much of her life. She was not so distraught that she was unable to find relief that he had actually come far enough out of his Nicole-inspired funk to comfort her, but her relief and Eric's comfort were not enough.

She had to find that bastard, and she had to find him now. Only one person could help her, and it wasn't Eric.

Sami arrived at the Kiriakis Mansion in record time.

"You know, then," was Lucas' unhappy greeting.

"It was on the front page."

"At least they're all together."

"You don't really believe in that kind of thing."

"No, but I thought it might help you to hear it if you did."

"I don't know what to believe in anymore. Everything's a mess. I haven't felt this helpless since . . ."

"You were on death row," Lucas finished bluntly.

"No."

"No?"

"Death row was different. It wasn't like anything else. It never seemed real. Even now, I sort of think of that as a dream. Like I was in a coma or something. This is more like when I was a little girl and my mother died. Everything seemed so hopeless. I couldn't do anything, and even the adults around me couldn't do anything."

"You have a nice range of tragedies to choose from."

"So do you. But we can't stand here and talk about that. We can't afford to be hopeless. We aren't helpless. We can put an end to this."

"That family died minutes apart last night. He killed them all at once, even someone who we *know* was an incredible athlete. What makes you think that we can catch him? Are you that arrogant?"

"Yeah, I am. And so are you. But that's not the point. They weren't ready. We will be. We'll have a gun. We'll be watching out."

"Sami--"

"Are you coming or not?" Her voice suddenly became sharp.

"I'm coming, but not now. It's eleven o'clock in the morning. We can't do anything until it gets dark."

Lucas was the tiniest bit annoyed when Will chose that moment to enter, thus preventing Sami from telling Lucas that he was right. Lucas loved to be right. Not as much as he loved his son, but for a greater number of years.

"Mommy! Did you come to see me?"

"Of course, Little Man! Why else would I be here?"

"You could come to see Daddy."

Sami squelched a sigh. She had known that this phase would come, that Will would want his parents to be together. That didn't make things easier. "Daddy's right here. I came to see him, too, but you first. You'll always be the most important thing to me, understand?"

"I understand."

"Good. C'mere, give me a hug." Will happily obliged, then pulled away, catching Sami's hand in his own small one and grabbing for Lucas with his other hand.

"Come see the picture I drew."

Sami and Lucas exchanged a look that was the eye contact equivalent of a shrug, and follow their son's lead. If you had to wait around for darkness to fall so you could look for the man who kept killing your friends, you might as well wait around with your son.

The time passed not as slowly as they might have expected, but not as quickly as it often did when Will was around. As soon as the sun began to sink toward the Kiriakis stables, Sami and Lucas took their leave of their son.

"I didn't think of bringing my slut clothes with me," Sami admitted.

"It doesn't matter. It didn't say in the paper, but we can be pretty sure Taylor wasn't dressed that way." He tried to stay detached from his words. He did not need thoughts of the sweet young physical therapist clouding his judgment just now.

"Okay."

"Bad part of town, then?"

"Yeah. He seems to be going back and forth. I think it's time he went after another stripper, or hooker. Maybe those alleys by the strip club?"

"Good enough." Lucas stopped with his hand on the doorknob and eyed Sami. "You don't need a disguise, but you might want to cover your hair. It's pretty distinctive."

"How?"

"Hang on." He ran back upstairs and rooted around in his closet until he found an old Chicago Cubs baseball cap, which he presented to Sami.

Sami made a face. "The Cubs?"

"So?"

"Whatever. Let's go." She pulled her hair underneath the cap as they made their way to the car. They drove in near-silence to the strip club. Under ordinary circumstances, Sami would have teased her companion about knowing his way around this part of town so well, but today she just stared out the window. Mimi. Nicole. Candy. Jan. Carrie. Jane. Taylor. Fay. *Brandon*. But not one more. *Not one more.*

Sami moved away from the safety of the car, and Lucas, and hunched down on the ground. She was slightly disgusted by the thought of cowering against the filthy brick wall of a sometime warehouse, but she wanted to look like she was down on her luck. She'd play the teenaged runaway today. This was a role in which she was not inexperienced. Her grip on the gun tightened.

Lucas wished that Sami would stay a little bit closer to the car. His being here would not do much good if he could not see her. He scrambled into the passenger's seat. He had a better view there, but because the passenger side of the car was inches from a wall he would have to climb back into the driver's side before he could get out of the car. Not perfect, but at least he would *know* when to get out of the car.

Hours crept by. Lucas felt miserable and cramped inside the car, but he imagined that Sami felt worse. She still looked pretty, though. Not many women looked beautiful while cowering in an alley wearing old clothes and a baseball cap, but Sami did. Lucas had enjoyed looking at Sami even when they were enemies, and now that they were on slightly better terms, well, that made this pastime all the more enjoyable.

He jerked into movement when he saw the shadows shift. Almost before he saw the movement, he heard Sami's cry. "You bastard!" The cry was followed by the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. The bullet ricocheted off a drainage pipe that had not completely rusted through, and Lucas assumed Sami had lost control of the gun. This was NOT good.

"NO! YOU WON'T GET AWAY THAT EASILY!" Sami began to chase her would-be assailant down the alley, with Lucas a few steps behind. He noticed the abrupt change in the runner's movements. He was reaching for a weapon.

"Sami, stop! Watch out!"

"No! We have him!"

"I mean it, Sami!" But Sami did not comprehend Lucas' warnings. Her only thought was to catch this killer any way she could. The knife was an inch from her heart when Lucas shoved himself into the other man. He felt the knife slide between his ribs and fought back a wave of dizziness. "This isn't as bad as being in that car accident," he reminded himself. The mind-over-matter method was not working as well as he'd hoped it would, though, and he staggered stupidly. His attacker vanished. Sami looked after the man, assuring herself out of the corner of her eye that Lucas was not mortally wounded, but knew she had no way of apprehending him.

Sami turned back to Lucas, and her breath caught in her throat. Even in the dim light she could see that his shirt was fast becoming soaked with blood.

"We didn't get him," he said, made uneasy by the look of concern in Sami's eyes. It had been a long time since he'd seen such a look.

"That's not important."

"It had better be important. I'd hate to think I got stabbed over something wasn't important."

"I saw his face, Lucas." As she spoke, Sami hesitantly put her arm around Lucas' waist. He was going to be able to walk tot he car under his own power.

"WHAT?" The pain in his side made Lucas wish he had not reacted to Sami's announcement with quite so much emotion.

"I saw his face. I've seen him before, but I can't place him. I know I'd know him if I saw him again." She stared at the car. "You can't climb over the seat like that. I'll pull the car away from the wall so you can get in."

"You aren't driving my car."

"You CAN'T drive it."

"Neither can you. You've never met a car you didn't crash."

"That is not true. I just--" Sami broke of her protest abruptly when she got another look at Lucas. "Just stop arguing. You need to get to a hospital, and you need to get there now."

She angled the car away from the building and loaded Lucas inside as gently as she could. Then she pulled on her seat belt and took off for the hospital with tires squealing.

"Slow down!" Lucas demanded. "You aren't going to do anyone any good if you get us both killed on the way over. I'm not hurt that badly."

Sami did not believe him, but she obligingly slowed down.

"You saw him. And we have his knife." Said knife was still partially imbedded in Lucas' ribcage. He was afraid to remove it. "We have to tell the police."

"We don't have a choice," Sami agreed. "They'll take the knife at the hospital-- how can you just sit there and talk to me while that thing is--"

"I'd rather talk to you than think about it, okay?"

"Sorry." Lucas nearly asked Sami why her voice was so soft, and low, but they arrived at the hospital and he was rushed inside.

Sami trailed listlessly after the doctors and Lucas. She could visit Carrie, or she could sit in the waiting room until news of Lucas' condition arrived. She opted for the latter. The longer she could put off several inevitable conversations with her family, the better.

A plastic chair and an out-of-date magazine were Sami's sole companions for an all-too-short period of time. Her father, her Uncle Bo, John, and Abe stormed into the waiting room.

"Sami! Fancy meeting you here," her father began conversationally, but she could here the anger and bitter sarcasm in his voice. "A funny thing happened. The knife that was the murder weapon in ten cases and the attempted murder weapon in one more was just pulled out of Lucas Roberts' chest!"

"Is Lucas okay?" she asked, attempting to sound calm but knowing that her genuine fear would show through.

"As a matter of fact, he is," took up John. "I'm sure he'll be very helpful to the police later on. And I'm sure you will be, too. Care to start explaining your role in this?"

"You know Lucas and I hate each other."

"We know you brought him in, Sami," said Bo.

"And we know you were working together," finished John.

"How do you know that?"

John pulled the hat off Sami's head, and her hair spilled down her shoulders. "You would never buy a hat like this. You were raised better than that. Yankees or nothing."

In any other situation, Sami would have smiled. Today, though, she simply began to explain her most recent adventure to four furious men. She was glad that they all loved her; she doubted that she could have stood the interrogation they would have given anyone else.

*********

Lucas almost thought he could hear the subdued tones of Sami's voice. That wasn't very likely; she was probably at the police station, or at least in a private room of the hospital, giving her version of the events of the past few nights. He had just finished speaking, himself; now he lay sluggishly in his hospital bed. The knife had entered and exited his body cleanly, and no organs had been touched. He had lost blood and suffered some minor muscle damage but had overall been very lucky.

His door creaked open, and he realized that he had not imagined Sami's voice. She stood just inside the room and stared at him, her face full of sympathy.

"Do I look that bad?"

"No . . . do you feel bad?"

"Not really."

"You talked to the cops?"

"Yes. You did too?"

"Yes." Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she looked like she might cry.

"What's wrong with you? Police brutality?"

"Of course not."

"What?"

"You were yelling at me that he was about to stab me, and I didn't understand, and you got stabbed instead."

"So? We had to get the murder weapon somehow. I'm sure it'll help the cops a lot."

"That's why you walked into that dagger?"

"That's why. You don't need to feel guilty, Sami. It wasn't because of my repressed love for you or anything like that."

Sami nodded. Somehow, she hated hearing Lucas tell her that he had not been trying to save her life. Well, he had, but not in such dramatic terms as one might think.

"I have to go down to the police station. My family isn't going to let me out of their sight now. They're going to treat me like I'm Will's age."

"It's hard to blame them."

"I guess."

"Sami!" Roman's stern voice interrupted the conversation. "I'm waiting. Excuse us, Lucas. You have another visitor, anyway."

Lucas' mind churned. Another visitor? He had not lost consciousness, and he had asked that no one be called. Specifically, he did not want his mother to be called. He loved her, of course, but he needed to make her understand that his life was his own. If she saw him in a hospital bed, she would become so upset that he would have to treat her with more kindness than he was ready to give just yet.

He was equally surprised and relieved when a blue-eyed, blond-haired teenager entered the room.

"Philip?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. What're you doing here?"

If Lucas hadn't known better, he might have thought Philip had blushed. "I came to spend time with Chloe. Dr. Wesley's working now, and he's making Chloe stay where he or his wife can watch her all the time. Ever since she told the cops she was the one who was out chasing the Thief of Hearts, she isn't allowed to do anything."

"So you two made up?"

"Yeah. She understood why I was upset, even though she was probably more upset. She's great."

"Good. You never know how fights are going to work out."

"I know. I mean, you and Sami have been trying to kill each other for as long as I can remember, and know you're taking a knife for her? Didn't think you had it in you."

"I didn't take a knife for her. We were both trying to catch this guy, and the best we could do was get his weapon."

"Way to get it." Lucas growled inwardly. His younger brother's smirk look unpleasantly like his own. "Come on." Philip grabbed a chair and pulled it nearer to Lucas' bed. "You really don't feel anything for Sami? I mean, she's pretty hot."

"Don't let Chloe hear you say that."

"Be serious."

"You'd know how serious I am if Chloe did hear you."

"Fine. Hey, did anyone tell Mom what happened to you?"

"No. And you aren't going to, either."

"Lucas, she'd want to know."

"I don't care."

"But--"

"No buts. She doesn't find out. It's not that I don't love her, or understand about being concerned for your child, but I can't deal with her right now."

Philip nodded. "I understand."

"Probably not, but thanks."

"Probably not? You think I don't understand Mom? I know she loves me. She'd do anything for me, and that's why she and Dad are always fighting. But she expects me to do things because I love her. She asked me to try to get Dad to marry her, and he saw what I was doing, and . . ."

"I'm sorry." Lucas' voice grew softer. "That's part of who Mom is, you're right. I hadn't realized she'd done that. I mean, I used to lie to your father all the time when they were dating. I helped Mom neglect to tell him all kinds of stuff. And the older I got, the more serious the things I did for Mom got."

"So where did you stop?"

"Not soon enough. I'm not telling you more, but I am telling you that you have to listen to yourself. If something seems wrong to YOU, don't do it. Mom knows you love her. And she'll still love you, not matter what."

"That's not easy."

"Who said it was?"

Philip shrugged. "So, if you decide that the right thing to do is keep being friends with Sami, you're going to do it, even though you *know* it'll give Mom a coronary?"

"No question."

"Thief of Hearts"
by Medea
September 29, 2000

Part 7

Will was fast asleep in his bed, and Sami, out of a mixture of boredom and anxiety, began to put away the toys that lay scattered on the floor. She knew that he was old enough to begin doing these things himself. Furthermore, she knew that the Kiriakis Mansion employed servants to do this kind of job if Lucas had deemed Will's learning to clean up after himself unnecessary. Still, she needed to do something with her hands.

Glancing at her watch, she noticed it had been only fifteen minutes since Will had closed his eyes. He was unlikely to wake again soon. It was a shame that she needed to rely on her five-year-old for comfort and distraction, but perhaps she had brought it on herself. She was not a cop, and she knew it.

The fact that she was not a cop did not lessen the indignity of her parents' decision to assign her a temporary bodyguard. She had begged and pleaded but had lost the battle when her father had latched onto some obscure bit of litigation that demanded a witness in a case such as this have a guard, even against her will. Sami had attempted to engage the young man in conversation, but he was not very talkative. So far as she could tell, the only positive aspect of having a full-time baby-sitter was that he made it easier for her to walk into the Kiriakis Mansion whenever she wanted to visit Will. The Mansion's inhabitants were far less likely to argue with her when she was accompanied by a uniformed man who was armed to the teeth.

So, she visited Will every day. Lucas had just gotten out of the hospital, and she was surprised that he was not around today. Maybe he was at the police station. She had certainly spent enough time there recently-- so much time that she had not been able to move Will back to her apartment. As luck would have it, she had been shown a mug shot of the man she had seen in the alley. No one had been willing to tell her who he was, or why they had his picture, or why she knew she'd met him before. She had noticed that Roman's face had tightened even more when she had sworn that yes, this was the man who had stabbed Lucas with the strangely beautiful dagger.

A light knock on the open bedroom door surprised her. Her heart flipped over when she realized that this had to be Lucas. She had been so busy with Will and her new full-time job as subject-for-interrogation that she had not visited him in the hospital. It was strange not to know if he was her friend or her enemy.

"Hey."

"Hey. How do you feel?"

"Better. It wasn't that bad in the first place."

"Bad enough to stick you in the hospital for a few nights."

"Just barely. I think they kept me there more because they didn't want me to play cop again than because I needed a doctor."

"Probably. Did you see my escort outside?"

"You must be thrilled about that."

"Believe me, I am. I heard you got out yesterday. Where were you?"

"Afraid I was out catching serial killers without you?"

"No . . . I just expected to find you here with Will."

"I went back to the hospital to see Carrie."

"I should have guessed. I talked to her this morning."

"She said so. She's really glad that you two are getting along a little bit now."

"So am I."

"Austin was with her."

"Good. Being alone in a hospital is pretty boring."

Lucas smirked characteristically, but his eyes held more than a hint of disbelief. "You're really over him."

"It's been a long time. So if you were going to suggest that I seduce him so you could have Carrie . . ."

"Not quite. But I do know something you want to know."

"What?" Sami didn't bother to try to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Your father brought Carrie some mug shots. You know how she thought she saw the guy who drugged her? She picked out the same one you did."

"Did anyone tell HER who this guy is?"

"No. She asked, and whined at your father and everything, but it seems like it's classified."

Sami rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"So tell me what this guy looks like," Lucas continued.

"That's classified."

"Ha ha. I told you what *I* knew."

"You have to be careful about doing that."

"Sami . . ."

"He's older. Fringe of gray hair. Scary eyes. Has to be insane. Wiry build. Short, like Chloe said."

"Thank you. Now, since you've answered my question so nicely, I'll tell you the *other* thing that I know that you want to know."

"You were holding out on me?" Sami was actually more pleased than annoyed.

"Did you see the dagger?"

"Not well. I saw that it was carved. I thought it was kind of pretty for something that killed a lot of people I cared about."

"Most people agree with you. It was an antique. German. Should be in a museum."

"Who told you?"

"I saw it, and I remembered it from a history class I had a *long* time ago. So I asked the cops when they were questioning me and I guess I got close enough to the truth that they just confirmed what I thought."

"German, huh?"

"That doesn't mean this guy is German, though."

"I think he is."

"You got that from looking at him?"

"Not really, but remember-- that's it!" Sami grinned jubilantly.

"What's it? Remember WHAT?"

"When we got that note in that ice cream shop, we could barely read the writing. You know how the European way of writing is a lot different from the American way?"

Lucas slid down against the wall. "We didn't even notice."

"We were distracted."

"We're slipping. How did we used to blackmail the whole town?"

Sami did not want to admit to herself, much less to Lucas, that she thought she and Lucas had been able to blackmail most of Salem because they had been working together, and that they had not caught this killer that first night because they had NOT been working together. Fortunately, the shrill ring of her cell phone removed her temptation to say any such thing.

She listened adamantly to the voice on the other end of the line, and snapped the phone shut almost immediately.

"I'm going back to the police station. They want you, too."

"Why?"

"They have him."

Sami's bodyguard again proved himself useful by driving the pair across town to the police station. They were quickly ushered into a narrow, half-lit room which looked into a slightly larger room filled by a table and several chairs. At one end of the table sat Roman and a few other detectives. At the other end sat the man she had identified earlier.

"That's him!" she declared before anyone could ask her anything.

"You're sure?"

"I'm positive."

"You would swear to that in court?"

"Absolutely."

Her questioner grinned. "We've got him."

"May I ask who he is?"

"His name's Wilhelm Rolf. A modern day mad scientist. German ex-patriot. Works for Stefano DiMera, although DiMera is leaving him high and dry. It doesn't look like he acted on any kind of orders from his boss on this."

"That explains why you knew him, and he knew you," Lucas spoke for the first time.

Sami nodded. "Guess he couldn't kill the Queen of the Night's daughter."

"But he attacked Carrie."

"She hasn't been in Salem for a while. Maybe he didn't know her. Or maybe she doesn't count because she isn't blood-related to Mom. Stefano draws that kind of distinction even if my family doesn't."

Lucas turned back to their escort. "If he wasn't ordered to do this, then why?" He only half-expected an answer, but the information was readily forthcoming.

"Mostly, he did it because he's a loony tune. Brilliant when it comes to developing medical technology but a few fries short of a Happy Meal in general. He enjoys killing. He enjoys attention. It was apparently part of some convoluted plan to throw your mother's family into chaos without actually hurting them directly. It should have made it easier for DiMera to get closer to your mother. It's really no wonder you were able to get so close."

Sami and Lucas stood in silence while they digested this information.

"Do you want to stay longer?" they were asked eventually.

"I'd rather go see my sister," Sami replied. Lucas voiced his agreement for this plan, and soon they found themselves in Carrie's hospital room and blissfully free of Sami's escort.

Carrie sat up in her bed, looking healthy but bored. Her solemn face brightened when Sami and Lucas entered together, both grinning like the cats who'd eaten the canary. Their relief had been replaced with a strange kind of adrenaline-induced hyperactive glee.

"Both of you, twice in one day?" she asked, deciding that she should not immediately comment that they were supposed to hate each other, not make hospital rounds together. She was also slightly frightened by their matching self-satisfied facial expressions. In the past, her life had not gone well when Lucas and Sami felt the need to gloat about something.

"You look like you could use some company," Lucas answered smoothly.

"I'm not complaining," she said, the pout on her face belying her words.

"So if you aren't complaining about us, what *is* wrong?" asked Sami.

"They don't want to release me from the hospital even though they have NO reason to keep me here. I feel fine. I think Craig's just afraid that the hospital will get bad publicity if I somehow have a relapse even though no one has ever had a relapse from something like this before."

"No one has ever had *this* before. The drug that sent you into that coma was brand-new."

"At least that should narrow down the list of people who could be behind the killings."

The grins on the faces of her companions grew wider, and she wondered if they could possibly mean what she hoped they meant.

"Actually, they've narrowed the list down to one, and he's sitting in an interrogation room at the police station," Lucas told her. He and Sami told Carrie all that they knew and were just finishing their recitation when Austin arrived.

"Carrie, I talked to them but they still don't want to let you out."

Carrie rolled her eyes.

"Why don't you just leave?" Sami asked abruptly.

"That's more your style."

"So? My style is always wrong?"

"I'd almost agree with you on this one, Sami, but there's a guard by her door. You know that. And after the fuss she's been making, and I've been making, the nurses out there are watching for her, too," Austin answered for his ex-wife.

Sami smirked in reply, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that Lucas looked willing to go along with her ideas, as he had been over the past several weeks. She peeked around the corner of the door.

"I know both of those nurses," she announced. Then she pointed at Lucas. "Go flirt with them."

"Yes, Sami," was his sarcastic response. However, he did make a beeline for the nurses' station and, leaning against it, began to expound on Sami knew not what topic. She stood in the doorway and rolled her eyes so obviously that she wondered if this was what it felt like to be Kate Roberts. As she had hoped, the guard noticed her reaction to Lucas. Still, she did not very much appreciate his comment.

"Jealous?"

She nearly snorted. "Of him? Never. I don't understand why women fall for that."

"Sure, Sami."

"How do you know my name?"

"You were on the list of approved visitors for your sister."

"Oh, of course."

He studied her for a moment. "Is it true you tried to catch the guy who did this yourself?"

"Uh-huh."

"You two must have been very close when you were growing up."

"Not always. That's part of the reason I had to try to make it up to her. I just hope I haven't lured the killer back here. It feels like I'm looking over my shoulder a lot anymore." She tried to make her lip tremble. She'd had a lot of experience with this defenseless innocent garbage when she'd tried to seduce Austin in what now seemed like a past lifetime.

When Sami was certain the guard's eyes would follow her, she strolled away from Carrie's room, in the general direction of her mother's office. Once around the corner, she let lose her most blood-curdling scream.

The guard came to her side, but oddly enough, the man who had grabbed her shoulder had vanished. Still more oddly, when he returned to his post, Carrie had vanished. Sami cried a few none-too-sincere tears and left herself. The hospital staff would panic, but they probably deserved it, right? Their nurses were willing to flirt with the likes of Lucas Roberts.

*********

Several hours later, Sami and Lucas trooped triumphantly into her apartment carrying an early edition of the Salem Spectator emblazoned with the three-inch headline "Thief of Hearts Nabbed."

"Eric?" Sami called. "Good, he's not here," she amended when she didn't get a response.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "You're that eager to be alone with me?"

"I'm that eager not to watch the two of you pick a fight with each other."

"Because you never pick fights with anyone?"

"Standards are different for me."

"Sure." Lucas didn't bother to come up with a witty retort for Sami's shameless claim. He didn't even bother to keep the wistfulness out of his voice. The deadly game was over, and so was his brief relapse into friendship with Sami. He had almost forgotten how good it felt to catch her eye across a room and know what she was thinking as clearly as if she had spoken. How much fun it was to tease her, and be teased in return. How innocent she looked, even at the ripe old age of twenty-two, when a hint of vulnerability crossed her face.

He would will himself to (almost) forget again. At least he had managed not to tell her the entire truth about Franco's death. The guise of "Roberto must have thought" had kept him from implicating himself completely.

Sami sat down beside him and sighed. "It's all over," she murmured, unconsciously echoing Lucas' thoughts as she hugged the paper close to her chest.

Lucas forced a half-smile. "That's supposed to be a good thing."

"I know. Everyone can start healing and . . ." she ended her sentence with a meaningless gesture. "But even though it was so serious, I know this is awful, but I had fun. Not that having all these people I know killed was fun, and I sort of feel guilty about that, but, well--"

"Sami."

"What?"

"I understand. Adrenaline rushes are fun. Acting like something you're not is fun."

"Breaking my sister out of that stupid hospital was fun."

"Did you hear her telling Austin she always wondered what would happen if we used our powers for good?"

"We always used our powers for good."

"Our own good."

"Still good."

"In a way."

They noticed that they were leaning closer together with each word, so they abruptly jerked part as if nothing had happened and resumed their conversation.

"But that's not the only thing I liked about playing vigilante. I like being in control. I like being able to gloat. I like feeling smarter than everyone else." She stopped just short of saying "I like YOU."

"I understand that too," he almost whispered. He made a conscious effort to raise his voice, and tried to inject some levity into his tone. "It was kind of strange working with you again after all this time."

"I know. That's almost why it was fun. I mean, you can't gloat all by yourself."

"You need a partner in crime."

"Exactly."

"Too bad it's over." Lucas stood, forcing his actions to mimic the sarcastic indifference in his voice. Nonetheless, Sami was left in no doubt as to what "it" referred to.

"Is that what you want?"

"Isn't it what you want?"

"I thought we talked about this that night we were watching for the Thief of Hearts in your car."

"I figured you'd change your mind about that once everything calmed down."

Sami silently shook her head for a long moment. "Losing so many friends . . . it put our problems in perspective. Everything worked out so much better when we were working together, and if there's even a little bit of a chance that we could be better PARENTS if we worked together . . ."

"It's going to be easier for Will not to have his parents fighting all the time."

"But it's not only that." As soon as the words escaped Sami's lips, she wanted them back. Naturally, Lucas noticed the odd inflection of Sami's statement and looked at her curiously.

"Sometimes we're just . . ."

"What?" prompted Lucas. He knew what she was going to say, but he had been the one making peace overtures for years. It was Sami's turn now, and she knew it.

"Better together than apart," she completed lamely, recalling her thoughts from a few days before.

Lucas decided to take pity on his friend in her embarrassment. After all, she had come through and actually said she wanted him around. "And I won't tell your parents when you dress up like a hooker to bait serial killers," he joked.

"Mmm-hmm. That's a good thing. I still can't believe they got me a bodyguard."

"It's just because they care about you."

"They could send me a birthday card."

"You're telling me they don't?"

"No, they do. Sometimes I just think life would be a lot easier without all these . . . complications."

"We could take Will and move to Tahiti."

Sami refused to admit even to herself that that idea held some appeal. Instead, she held out her hand.

"Friends?"

"Friends."

They shook on it.

The End