Magic Before Dusk
Chapter 3







The jail hall grew quiet. A silent whimper echoed through it thickened walls. Slow and dank was the atmosphere as minutes beckoned to the last statement. It rewound and played through his mind each minute. Secrets weren't lies, yet the truth hurt as secrets brought pain.

*Flashback*

There was something in the diary. From the dream and sure enough Brady found the entry that began with Mimi. He went on further to find what caught his eye. And it shocked Brady again…

"Once a liar, always a liar. How could I know until the day I saw her at the store with golden hair and a pair of intriguing blue eyes. Her hair so long and extended past the length of mine. She seemed beautiful but her words shown through a darker light that appalled me when I greeted her. I don't know what made me walk to her but if I hadn't, I never would have known that I had a sister…"

Brady read to his horror it was true. His eyes hadn't been fooled and for some reason this discovery would be the key to everything. Why hadn't Chloe told him about this? Was this what he wasn't suppose to know? He continued to read on as the questions poured onto him for each new thought as an explanation but it would all provide for one big outlet of a question, Why?

"…I didn't know off hand. But soon after Phillip's accident me and her came across each other once again. For days after I remember feeling bad about his death so I'd frequently visit his grave where his father had made it know here on this great land resided a Kiriakis. I never saw his body, a closed casket memorial and I don't think I could have handled it nor did I want to allow Brady to see just how sad I was. I really need to tell him about her. She knew Phillip… that's what it was. When I went to his grave one afternoon she was there. She was indirect with how she knew him but the fact was that she knew him and she knew of Brady and the baby…"

"What baby?" Brady questioned aloud. He never knew of any baby. Glancing back down to the diary he read the line again and it still stood as written. It made sense now, the dream and the doctor visit. He never asked about a doctor visit the actual day she moved in but in the dream she did and he never questioned it. Was it possible he knew something then he hadn't wanted to come to terms with?

"…the more I racked my mind with questions as to how she knew the more I realized something. Mimi's suspicions scared me but could it have been true? Was Phillip alive but alive in someone else? Was this the girl Phillip found happiness with and why Mimi was never the one he could really go to? This girl favored me so strongly and maybe this was the outlet for Phillip accepting me and Brady. He'd had her, my sister, almost identical but she wasn't. He had Victoria…"

Then a memory came to Brady in a flash, one evening when Chloe came in late. "So how was your day?" he had questioned.

And the answer she gave with the mention of a name that wasn't Mimi's. "Well, I went out to meet Tory"

"Who is Tory?"

Chloe ran up on Brady and she did one of her smiles, massaged his back and answered, "You'll never know…"

Brady slammed the diary. And that's when he noticed a slip of paper fly out at the impact. He eyed it quickly and recognized the handwriting, it was Belle. But it could not have been Belle who snuck in, she had to have someone help her. Brady began to read the note when a rattle came from another cell down the hallway. Then an inmate begin uttering something.

"It doesn't look good for you Black…"

*End of Flashback*

Placing the clues together, his mind continued on with it's path…

*Flashback*

"It doesn't look good for him," a voice whispered to someone besides them.

A kind voice that was faintly remembered. His mind was blurred with visions of the night that begin these days of turmoil. He heard the your girl speak so softly and tried so hard to remember it. Why wasn't it he could put a face to it? Why was he trying to block it? It was something so innocent about the voice that made it feel corrupt. The voice underlined what he couldn't remember and why it was he couldn't save himself. Shock still racked his body from the jail cell at night

*End of Flashback*

Thoughts of Mimi flooded his mind, Veronica, Phillip, Belle, Belle's helper, Chloe, and the baby. Intertwined to one another. Each had a story and then there was what was happening now.

"Phillip," Brady started…

"I wanted to tell you guys about her… I wanted to you guys about her…" he said pained as all Brady could do was listen. "If I got to you earlier and told you, it would have never got this far. But I had to make sure I was safe. She's has help and I couldn't just trust anyone. Now it's too late. She might be dead now and the baby… the baby, I don't know."

"Phillip, you've got to tell me, what's going on? I mean how much of this do you know about? Where is Chloe? What happened that night? What am I not aware of…?"

"Your aware of everything and yet you shut it out, Brady… Quit denying what your mind knows and your heart won't allow. Admit that you were wrong," Phillip said trying with his might to help Brady, help him with what he blocked. It wasn't as simple as just remembering, Phillip knew the pain would be there and the realization would nearly shock Brady but some things can't be helped. This was one… of many.

Brady slammed a hand against the bar, "PHILLIP! Damnit! Just tell me! I can't remember, it's not f***ing clicking, if I could remember do you think I'd be in this hell hole now!? Phillip, just explain to me… How did you get here and if you weren't dead how did it go unnoticed for so long? I mean didn't you father…"

"My father didn't even know of this. But someone saved me and once I was in the clear I informed my father. He helped me go unnoticed for a long time and helped me get here tonight without no one knowing about me. All the while he searched for who did this. The cause of the chaotic mess. To think it started months before the death. It stated when Nancy gave birth to another girl… It doesn't matter now and we have to work from what we can do now. You know, I never told him, I knew the cause, but needed to protect her. I didn't do a good job since she's dead now."

Brady shook his head violently, he wasn't going to make this easy. Through his words he could feel the shaken.

"That b**ch," Phillip muttered loud enough for Brady to hear as far as his cell may have been. And continued on lowly, so low that it begin to sound as if he were whispering… "and that bastard of boyfriend of hers… it's all their damn fault. I can't believe I didn't see it before!" His voice grew louder and took on deeper depths leading to one final blow…

"Mimi"

**************

He shook a passed out Belle as they still stood outside the prison. Thinking that it may have been too soon on revealing the fact he thought Phillip may be alive and now because of it he had to try to carry her somewhere safe before they were found out.

"awww," a trembling moan came from her cherry lips. Slowly Belle blinked her eyes to reality and to her friend.

"Are you alright?" he questioned concerned.

"Yes, but I wasn't just dreaming, you did say you thought Phillip was live, right?"

"Well not necessarily…."

Belle sighed a relieved grunt and began to stand with the help of his strong arms, "Okay, that's good because if he was it would complicate things and lead me to suspect things or more of someone…"

Rubbing his tousled hair, "Well I meant I'm more positive that he's alive and I think the someone you are thinking of is the one you should be suspecting."

Belle turned rapidly around to him, "Your kidding, right? I mean it's not possible because that would mean… and he was…. And never died… for months… then she died… and her sister… and and and" it came out a mile a minute from her mouth until he hushed her raging thoughts.

"Belle. Yes," he said slowly because he too knew what it meant.

"But I mean why? How could she? And it doesn't make sense…"

"With the way she's been acting lately, nothing makes sense to Mimi Lambert. I mean hell she married Kevin so quick and is strange… I mean not the funny type strange as once before, but the scary devious strange. She's not Lockhart."

"You're right about that Jason, she isn't a Lockhart anymore…"

Belle grabbed hold of Jason's hand as she got an idea and immediately ran off to what she could only describe as unburying the truth.

"I've got an idea" she said in between breaths.

"Yeah, that's pretty dangerous, don't you think…."
***************

Sickened to the stomach she lay in a fetal position on the cold marble floor beneath her tender skin. Which had become the treatment to harsh conditions, bad treatment, and under nourishment. The chains constrained her severely. Slowly the outside of her body decapitated to meet how she felt on the inside. Her stomach she remember, slowly massaging it. A cry is what she couldn't make for the lost innocence of her and Brady's child. Nothing could make up for the absence except her death. Where she could meet her child once again and hold her. It was a girl, possibly Isabella.

"Isabella," she moaned sorrowfully. Words became to difficult to say as her throat had been dried to the scalp and deeply rooted injuries to it caused it's further distortion. Her unheard screams and un-silenced wails, her pleaded bawls for the one who did this to her to set her free with a promise to not speak of it. As it had been in the beginning but the would not give in for this is what they wanted to see. All three of them, having trusted when she shouldn't have trusted. And fell prey to the trap that had been set up since the beginning.

"Except Veronica wasn't included in the part when she'd die in absence for me. Noooo, she didn't know that, now did you V?…" Chloe whispered as a destructive smile spread across her face.

A noise came from the far ends of the basement and echoed as the stepped closer.

"Still hanging," he said shocked and amused at the same time. He set down a tray of food besides her swollen ankle. "You know, you really should eat, just think of the harms your causing to that baby…"

"DON'T YOU DARE!" She forced out with all her might…, "don't you dare go there… you and your crazy wife destroyed my hope. Is this poisoned as well?" she asked before viciously kicking the slop to his darkened slacks.

He stared down horridly before replying, "You'll regret that Chloe… you will be sorry. You should be thanking me, but instead you ass like the stupid b***h that you are and placing it on my legs. Cheap slut, don't' worry. Soon you and your family will be reunited in death, I hope hell's a blast seeing as Brady might have much longer sitting on death row wondering what happened. Idiot. If he wanted to save you he would have done it months ago but you know what he doesn't you hoar!…"

"Now Kevin," came a soft voice walking towards him. As a hand hung to his shoulder from behind leading to the appearance of her face, "that isn't how we treat our guest now sweetie…" as she swiftly kicked Chloe to the side of her stomach. "Well if she wasn't dead before I just cleared up any confusion in your head now, okay?" she laughed lightly then stared down.

Coughing up blood and spit, Chloe spat out one last time, "Why?"

Smiling, Mimi replied, "Who needs motive when your about to inherit lots of money for the pain of living in a shadow. I never could live up to you or Veronica. But as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and well that's a crock of s**t!"

Chloe used her remaining strength to look up to the eyes of her friend and enemy. She never knew she had been keeping her enemy closer than her friends the whole time. If she did, it could have been prevented but now she couldn't fight the truth any more. She was dying….

Her last thought were of her and Brady and the unforgotten future with Isabella…

TBC….