The Morgue

Sami closed the door so that it didn't make a sound and stood just inside. Anna and Lexie had their backs to her. Through the space between them, she could see that someone had unzipped the body bag and Tony's face and his upper chest were visible.

"…he never would explain when I asked him…"

Lexie was talking. It appeared to Sami the two women were reminiscing and some instinct made her hang back and listen.

"He either make a joke of it or changed the subject, almost as though he felt responsible."

Anna shook her head slowly. "No, it wasn't that…exactly. I think it was more a matter of feeling guilty that he'd ever loved the man, or trusted him and doing that brought years of misery to people he loved. The fact he couldn't protect them is still a sore spot."
"Which is why he's so concerned about EJ," observed Lexie.
"Yes. In the end, Stefano only had two options." Anna's voice was tinged with sadness and even a bit of shame and she reached over to zip the bad up with one impatient swipe. "It was either send him to that damn island or kill him…and now…"

"Oh my God, Stefano killed Tony?" came Sami's shocked question.

Anna jumped and had to stop herself from snapping at the girl for scaring her that way. "Sami." Putting a hand over her racing heart, she tried to slow her breathing down to normal and when Lexie opened her mouth to answer Sami's question, Anna hurried to interrupt her. "Actually, yes. This was all Stefano's doing. Tony found out what he and Nicole had pulled off and the way they were using EJ, manipulating him and Tony planned to tell his brother everything."
Sami's eyes grew wider. "What do you mean, Stefano and Nicole?"
Anna shrugged. "Stefano was determined to have control of his granddaughter whether you were willing to allow it or not."

Sami looked from one woman to the other. Lexie's expression was almost blank, and for a woman who'd just lost her husband, Anna didn't seem all that heartbroken. Both of them did appear to be worried, though.

And while it was true Stefano would be anxious to get a hold of Tony's body if he had something to cover up, that anxiety would increase tenfold if he'd assumed the problem already dealt with only to learn otherwise.

"He's not dead, is he?"

Anna and Lexie looked at each other and Lexie rolled her eyes. "I did warn you, " she muttered.

Anna threw her head back. The fingers on one hand flexed in and out of a fist at her side while the other gripped the side of the gurney. Still, she made an effort to control her temper. "Sami look, all I care about is Tony. I'm not willing to lose him again just because he feels responsible for that…idiot brother of his and your children and refuses to see reason..."
"Hey, whoa…relax Anna. I'm not going to do anything to hurt him."
"But Stefano will. This…" Anna waved a hand, "horrible place is where he wants Tony to end up."

Glancing around her with distaste, Sami experienced a sense of déjà vu that was most unsettling. Hadn't she lived all of this in another life? Before EJ arrived in town. What amazed her is that it really did feel as though it were all a part of someone else's existence…when she'd been a different person. What happened to her in only the space of a few years? she wondered, frowning and once more her gaze fell on the body bag and she imagined it held someone she loved…one of her children…or EJ.

She lifted her eyes from the bag to Anna's face and saw the alarm in the older woman's eyes that mirrored her own.

"Perhaps you could explain to me how your husband always gets himself into these situations," Sami asked to hide just how nervous she was feeling.
Anna's bark of laughter was incredulous. "You're talking about…"
"Sorry," she said hurriedly, raising her voice to drown out Anna's cutting and rather malicious sense of humor. "Let me get this straight. Baker out there was sent by Stefano who suspects you pulled one over on him, and that Tony is, in fact, alive."

Anna gave a stiff nod, hoping Lexie didn't do something stupid, like laugh.

"And you think that I can help scare him off because he…" Sami had to concentrate a moment, thinking back to what was said on the phone between them as opposed to the wild ideas she'd come up with on the ride over. "and Nicole and Stefano took my baby…switched her in the clinic with one they found somewhere else." The question which hit her back in the car surfaced now. "You told me that Sydney was mine, but Nicole…where is her child?"

A brief flicker of something that Sami swore was satisfaction lit up Anna's expression, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. "She lost the baby before Thanksgiving."

Sami had to look down to hide the instant joy that leapt inside of her. The bitch had got hers. Finally. After all that pain she'd put Eric through and everyone else in town, Nicole had received her just desserts. Oh god, how she wished she could have been around to see…

Her head shot up and she found both women eyeing her, an inquisitive, measuring air in their expressions. She couldn't tear her gaze away from Lexie especially.

It had been just an innocent, helpless baby. And it had been EJ's...

"He didn't know before today, did he?" she asked in a whisper. It reverberated about the sterile room made of concrete and stainless steel and filled with cadavers.

Lexie looked away in disgust but a small smile crept up the side of Anna's mouth and she answered Sami's question with more compassion than Sami had ever heard her display before. "No, he didn't."
"I..." The idea of what Nicole had done had her stumbling for words. "How?"
Anna shrugged. "A few lies…a rubber belly…separate rooms in the mansion…and assistance from none other than her future father-in-law…."
"Stefano…but I would think he'd flay her hide for this."
"Not if it suited his purposes."
"What purpose?"
"Revenge."
"Against who, for heaven's sake…EJ? He's working for Stefano, why would his father turn around and do such a thing now?"

Anna didn't reply. Instead she turned to the gurney and its contents and let Sami's imagination do its own work, and it didn't take long. She thought about all those targeted by Stefano since he'd emerged from his coma. That in turn brought to mind something else from the previous fall; that circus they'd survived in the hospital, and Stefano, living free as a bird back in the mansion. She remembered the cocktail party he'd thrown too, and how he'd made certain to invite them all…his children and their spouses, or ex in her case, along with his newly found brother so that he could put them on the spot and level his finger in accusation at Marlena.

He'd demanded justice, or least his version of it. And they'd all refused. Hell, Lexie and Abe hadn't even bothered to show up and the rest had all laughed in Stefano's face.

Not such a wise decision as it turned out.

Her gaze wandered back to the body bag. "Does EJ know?"
Anna rolled her eyes in disgust. "Does EJ know," she mouthed in a mocking tone, looking at her sister-in-law instead of Sami. "Perhaps if I count the number of times since Tony came home that EJ has been warned, I could finally convince Tony just what a colossal waste of his energy this is and we could move…very far away."
"You won't get any argument from me," muttered Sami.
"Maybe the two of you could try behaving with a little maturity," snapped Lexie, "long enough to get rid of Baker before he calls up Father and arranges himself some reinforcements."
"He can't."

Lexie and Anna stared at Sami and she shrugged and pulled out the phone she'd walked away with.

And before she could prevent it, Anna grabbed it out of her hand and opened it, quickly pulling up the call list and running her finger down the numbers on the tiny screen, even as she turned to keep it out of Samantha's reach when Sami tried to take it back.

"There."
"There what?"
Anna had found the number she was looking for and once she'd hit the button to dial it, she handed it back to Sami who looked plenty perturbed.
"Just listen to who answers the damn thing, okay?"
Sighing, Sami took the phone and almost dropped it immediately when a ominously familiar voice, complete with Italian accent erupted in her ear. "Baker? What is going on down there? Do you have him yet?" Without thinking, she snapped it shut and tossed it back to Anna as though it might combust.
"Believe me now?"

Sami thought she was going to be sick. Stefano had her daughter and he was willing to murder one of his own sons just to keep her.