Scott returned to the Chandler Mansion. He hadn't bothered cleaning it up since he got out of jail, so there was still dust everywhere. He heaved a sigh and sat atop the blanket covering on the couch that kept the furniture clean. Adam Chandler still owned the house until AJ was old enough to inherit it, but luckily Scott knew about the house key that was hidden in a tree's crevice near the courtyard.
It was almost like one of those exhibits within a famous person's house. There was so much history in that living room. So many memories. A lot of them were bad, but quite a few were good.
Scott wiped his forehead and walked into the parlor, loosening his collar a bit.
"It's hot as hell in here i—" Suddenly, he noticed Annie in a cranberry red bikini, stretched out on the couch with a wine glass in her hand. He froze a bit.
"The repairman never showed," Annie informed him, swirling her wine around in the glass. "Want some?" Scott grinned devilishly and tore off his shirt, throwing it on the ground beside him. He pulled his belt out of the loops as he walked towards the door leading to the terrace. Annie's eyes widened as she sat up and looked at him.
"What are you doing?" she questioned. Scott smirked and faced her, walking backwards out the door as he unzipped his fly and went out into the dark night after throwing his pants into the living room. Annie gasped and threw herself to her feet, standing in the doorway and watching him with disbelief as he jumped into the pool, completely naked.
A shirtless Scott made his way downstairs in the middle of the night. He suddenly noticed Annie, sitting dismally on the foot rest of the couch in a lavender silk robe. She cried softly as she looked through the pictures her daughter drew for her. Slowly, Scott walked in and sat at her side, putting an arm behind her back.
"Hey," he said softly, concerned for her. "What's wrong." She sniffed, then looked up to meet his eyes, her cheeks coated with tears. She looked at the picture again for a moment, then leaned over to Scott and wrapped her arms around him. Scott hugged her back, letting her cry as long as she needed to.
As Emma sat in Scott's lap, Annie tried to explain to the upset little girl that everything was okay despite the yelling upstairs between JR and Colby.
"Sometimes, grownups, they yell," Annie explained to her daughter carefully. "Like little kids do." Emma nodded in understanding.
"That's what Scott said," she told her mother. Annie smiled in surprise, looking at Scott for a moment.
"Did he?" she asked. Emma nodded again.
"He said families fight sometimes," Emma recapped. "But they still love each other."
Emma grinned wider and got off Scott's lap to give her mother a hug. Annie gave Scott a look of thanks.
"Well Scott is a very, very smart man," Annie told her daughter. "And nice, too."
The sounds and feelings of the house were still there as if they never left. He could hear the clanking of dish against dish as Lucretia prepared dinner in the kitchen. Upstairs, Adam Chandler grumbled at his office computer, frustrated with the modern technology that he was forced to get used to. Footsteps padded down the staircase as Colby sang to herself, thinking no one could hear.
Scott closed his eyes softly, and if he didn't know any better, he would say that AJ was on the floor beside him, contorting one of his Transformers figurines and making robotic sound effects.
The familiarity brought tears to Scott's eyes. Without even thinking, he made his way upstairs. The years passed by him in the hallway, too. He saw himself as a five-year-old boy, running with JR at full speed as Stuart Chandler chased them close behind. Scott reached out to grab his childish self, but only grasped the air. Off to the side of the hallway, a teenage Hayley peeked through one of the secret passageways of the Chandler mansion, then lead her boyfriend by the hand to a guest bedroom. He heard a scream from the downstairs parlor that he recognized as Krystal's. After a short moment, the yelling transformed into heavy breathing and sighs of relief, complete with the cries of a newborn baby. Beneath his feet, the earth began to shake with the effects of an unfortunate gas leak as a party continued downstairs.
Still in his dream-like state and rushing through the past absorbed within the walls of the Chandler mansion, Scott opened his bedroom door to see JR and Annie, lying naked in his bed.
Annie yawned, her lack of sleep catching up with her. Her eyes grew heavier with the brightness of the computer. She scrolled through the recent article about Scott.
GREAT SCOTT, HE'S RELEASED!
Last week, the once-admired Scott Chandler was released from jail, serving only two of the years in his three-year sentence. On October 15, 2010, Chandler called police to his house and openly confessed to stealing an expensive new idea called the NanoTech Project, property of the late Palmer Cortlandt, owner of Cortlandt Electronics before it was combined with Chandler Enterprises to form Chandler-Cortlandt Enterprises. Chandler left his new wife and stepdaughter and was carted off to jail.
Ironically, Scott was once seen as the only good-hearted Chandler—the new generation that would mean great things for one of the most powerful families in Pennsylvania. In another note of irony, the renown Chandler Enterprises was brought back from its horrible reputation by Annie Chandler, a woman in her early thirties who has been married and divorced with both Adam and Scott Chandler over the course of a year. It turned out that the company's peace offering with the opposing force by joining forces with Cortlandt Electronics was the best solution to the problems of Chandler Enterprises. The only person who had the courage to do it was the woman who people once referred to as nothing but Chandler arm candy.
Annie sighed, not as flattered about the article as she should have been. A related article link caught her eye.
ANOTHER CHANDLER BEHIND BARS…OR NOT?
Annie didn't want to read it, yet she could not take her eyes off the words. It was about Marissa. She hadn't thought about that woman in a long time. She couldn't think about her, or else it would drive her insane.
Marissa Chandler was found guilty in the attempted murder of Annie Chandler—her cousin-in-law's wife—and the murder of her husband JR Chandler. After a temporary stay in Oak Haven Mental Institution, she escaped from jail. This was most likely accomplished with the assistance of an inmate who was released the day of her escape.
Caleb Cortlandt glanced across the hall to Annie Chandler's open office door. He couldn't help but notice her anxiety as she worked. Ever since Caleb started working with her, he picked up that she had a sort of alternate personality when working. She was quiet, attentive, serious, determined, and an extremely hard worker; however, something was off today. He wondered if her kids were alright. Those three were the only things that Annie let herself love, as far as Caleb could see. He stood up and walked across the hall to Annie's office.
"Knock, knock," he said, tapping lightly on the door. Annie looked up from her work immediately.
"Yeah," she blurted, snapping out of work-mode. Caleb walked in and stood by the chair across from her.
"Everything okay?" he inquired. He let his large hands rest on the back of the leather seat.
"Fine," Annie assured him, folding her hands on her desk and meeting his eyes. "Why do you ask?"
Caleb grumbled like the mountain man that he was at heart and crossed behind Annie's desk to see what she had up on the computer screen.
"Hmph," he mumbled. He let himself smile a bit as a personal congratulations for his successful emotion reading. He looked at Annie. "Are you still scared of Marissa?" he asked. Annie bit her lip.
"I wouldn't call it scared…" she reasoned, taking a momentary glance at the article again. "I guess I've just been thinking about her more. Ever since Scott came back."
"You shouldn't," Caleb assured his business partner. "Marissa would have done something by now if she was ever planning on doing anything at all where you're concerned."
"It's been ten months," Annie pointed out softly. Caleb shrugged.
"Long time," he scrutinized; he put a comforting hand on her shoulder and paused for a moment before he pieced his words together. "You and your family are safe from her."
"I just can't believe he's back," Amanda Martin breathed, bouncing little Carey in her arms. Annie nodded in agreement, her eyes on the ground.
"I think we all had kind of gotten used to not having him around…" Annie figured quietly. "Not that having him back is a bad thing, just…" Annie's voice trailed off, not knowing how to explain things.
"I get it," Amanda assured her friend. Annie heaved a deep sigh.
"And him coming back…I mean, you know how content I am with my life right now…and its pretty scheduled and predetermined. When he stepped into that, I guess it just brought back a lot of memories that took me two years to get over."
"Have you been thinking about JR?" Amanda asked carefully. She glanced off towards the nearby sand box to check on Trevor, her three-year-old son.
"More than anything," Annie admitted in a whisper. "The anniversary of his death was three weeks ago. When Scott came back."
"Bad timing," Amanda commented. Annie managed a nod.
"No kidding."
Carey reached her hands forward to her mother and Amanda passed the toddler across the picnic blanket. Carey began babbling in baby talk as she sat contently in her mother's lap. She tangled and untangled her tiny fingers with the grass on the ground. Amanda smiled at the adorable little girl.
"She looks so much like you," Amanda gushed, tapping the giggly toddler on the nose.
"I think she looks like JR," Annie said quietly. She slipped her hands under her baby's arms and lifted her to eye-level. "JR's big blue eyes, his smile…they have the same face shape, too."
"But she has your look," Amanda countered with a soft smile. "Almost every adorable little face she makes looks like a mini version of you." Annie shrugged, considering the idea.
"Emma looks like me," Annie pointed out. "But she definitely has Ryan's strength."
"Are you saying you're not strong?" Amanda accused her friend. "Annie Chandler—survivor of four crappy marriages, mother of three, boss of a huge company—not strong?" Annie blushed modestly. She shrugged in attempt to end the conversation, then once again lifted Carey up to get a good look at her.
"I guess I just see JR in her every day to keep myself sane."