Zach stood on the balcony of his new penthouse, inhaling the deliciously sweet air of Rio De Janeiro. He admired the view, the vast white beaches that stretched for miles in either direction. The water was the deepest purest blue, making the beaches back home look like sewage drop off. He silently thanked God that he was a quick study in languages. He was already fluent in French, German, and Spanish. He was quickly adding Portuguese to that list.

He had been here only a week and he truly missed Pine Valley. He missed his casino. He missed his wife. He longed to hold her in his arms and smell the crisp scent of her hair. Closing his eyes he could almost reach out and touch her bare shoulders as she stood in front of him.

Someone knocked on his door so he turned to go back into the penthouse. He crossed the very elegantly decorated living room and opened the door to a petite girl with a short black bob. "Noite Boa. Está aqui seu correio, senhor." Smiling, Zach took his mail and gave a euro to the girl at the door. Her name was Ursula. She could not have been more than 5 or 6. Zach had met her father the day he got to this crowded city of Ipanema.

They were very hospitable, volunteering to show him essential places close by. They were his neighbors in this high-rise on the beach. Her father, Josua, was a widower and was raising his daughter with the help of an au pair. Zach had met the au pair, a teenage exchange student. He had not divulged much information on his own life to Josua, only that he was a casino owner and he needed to get away.

Ursula grinned and thanked him, running toward the penthouse she lived in. She was sweet. Zach found her to be amusing actually. She had come over with a gigantic cat to introduce him to, Lala he remembered. She wanted him to come meet her au pair, said they would make a nice couple. Zach tried to explain that he and the au pair would not make a nice couple because he was much too old for her. She was determined to be friends with Zach, showing up 3 and 4 times a day to color, show him her toys, or just examine everything in Zach's penthouse. Josua had apologized repeatedly, thinking that his child was being very rude to him. Zach told him she is a child and he found her delightful. She was welcome to visit anytime she wanted.

Zach was actually glad for Ursula's company. Her visits often diverted his mind from wandering to thoughts of Kendall and his own unborn child.

There were many times he wanted to pick up the phone and just call Kendall, even if she didn't want to speak to him, just to hear her voice say 'hello.' He wondered if she was ok, if she was happier with him gone. He had not even spoken to Edie since he had left. He knew she would give him a good tongue lashing, for running away. He deserved it, too.

He looked around his penthouse and noted the stark difference this penthouse had from his condo in Pine Valley. The basic color was different shades of cream and tan. Accented with tables of smoked glass and brass and brass statues scattered about. There hearth to the fireplace was brass also. There were various paintings on the walls, very simple ones of birds, or the beach. He had a painter paint one very special portrait for him while he was still in Pine Valley. The day he left, he went to get the painting. He looked at it now, hanging over his fireplace. It was copied from a candid photo he had of Kendall sitting on the piano bench in his old condo. She had her back to the piano and wore only his oversized silk robe. She was naked underneath and the robe was open, yet the only thing revealed was the smooth skin of her swollen belly. Josua saw it, saying how beautiful the woman was in the painting and then dubbed it a portrait of a Madonna. Zach told him she was a woman that he cared for very deeply.

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Kendall was in her room in the dark. She had her shades drawn against the sunlight and the lights were off. She didn't want to get out of the bed. She had only gotten out of the bed to use the toilet and that was two days ago.

It has been a week since Zach had left. She had called the casino, asking Edie if she knew where Zach had gone. Edie had informed her that when she found out where Zach had gone, she would kill him. She had sadly told Kendall that she was delivered a set of Keys to a storage unit just outside of town, which she was to put them into the safety deposit box at the bank. That was this past Monday.

Kendall called everywhere she could think of. No one in that town seemed to care where her husband had run of to. She even called Myrtle, knowing that he often times confided in her and Myrtle didn't even know if Zach had left town.

She lay in the bed, wishing she could just sleep forever or wishing that she would just die in her sleep. She couldn't stand to feel the baby inside her moving and kicking. It seemed as if her skin had grown too small for the two of them.

There was banging at her door. Kendall had no intention of getting up to answer it. Who ever it was, they could just leave, just like others had in the past few days. All she did was turn over to her side and pray for the knocking to stop.

---------------------------------------------------

Edie sat in the office at the hotel casino and cracked her fingers when Marcus, from HR, came in with a stack of payroll checks that needed to be signed. Edie wished there was a stamp somewhere in the desk that had Zach or Kendall's signature. But Zach was too squeamish about people forging things. She had over 8 hundred checks that needed to be signed within the week. Normally, the checks would be divided among Zach, Kendall, and herself to save time.

When she returned from being off for three days, all hell had broken loose and she had to hit the ground running in order to fix things and keep up with her current workload, which had mysteriously doubled since she had been gone. She realized that she had to quickly come up with a new game plan when she found a copy of the storage bill that had been paid for up to a year. Suddenly, her boss and his wife was no where to be found.

She had spreadsheets in front of her that basically said that she needed to get another few million into the vault quickly because the first two drop offs had to be signed by someone with a key into the vault. No Zach, no Kendall, just her. She found out she had to be the one to reschedule and fly to Las Vegas and attend a board meeting that Kendall and Zach seemed to have forgotten about. There were messages that there was fire damage to the hotel area of the casino located in the Flats in Cleveland, and the hotel and casino were shut down until the damage to the hotel was repaired. There were people coming in for a political conference and someone had double booked half the rooms there in Pine Valley. She had 24 hours to decide if charges were going to be pressed or dropped against 3 different people who were caught trying to cheat at the roulette table.

She had taken care of everything within three days of returning to work, and things were running smoothly again. While she was at it, she had to recruit three of the supervisors to temporary managers. She took two days to orient them on what was going on as far as she knew, and what their jobs would be while they had the assignments. The bottom line, she was to have to last word on whatever decisions that needed to be made.

When that was done, she got on the phone and got hold of the pilot that Zach used when he needed to fly anywhere. She was given a flight manifest and found out that he was in Mexico. She had to do more digging and found out that he was sold a penthouse in Brazil.

Her boss was hopping planes and she was up to her eyeballs in problems. Damn him.

The next call she made was to Fusion. A woman there told her Kendall had not been there in a week, and to let her know that they were drowning in paperwork and other legal matters.

The next thing Edie knew, the door to the office was pushed open by a familiar petite woman. "Can I help you?" She asked and stood up.

"I hope so… My name is Greenlee Lavery and I'm looking for Kendall Hart."

"It's Slater, and you look familiar."

"I'm her best friend and I thought that she would probably be here since she hasn't been to Fusion and I can't get hold of her."

Edie arched one eyebrow at her and replied, "I'm sorry, but Kendall hasn't been here in quite some time. She doesn't usually show up here to do anything except sign payroll checks." Edie regarded the woman and walked around her. "When did you lose your best friend?"

Greenlee shifted uncomfortably, "She was going to sign and file divorce papers. She was at home the last time I saw her," Greenlee said looking down at her shoes.

"I'll tell her to get in touch with you when I see her."

Greenlee nodded and left the office. Edie called the pilot back and asked if Kendall was with Zach when he took him to Mexico. Of course the answer was no. She went to the safe, and opened it, finding the divorce papers still in the envelope, unsigned, untouched.

Sitting down in the chair behind the desk, she remembered that there were extra keys on her keychain that she never used. She pulled it out and looked at them, they were marked. She remembered when Kendall had given her the set of keys, for 'just in case.' They were clearly marked: Fusion, car, and home.

Edie locked up the office and let one of the supervisors know she was leaving. She got into her car and went to Kendall's condo. She had never actually been to Kendall's condo, but she had been to Zach's and she knew that Kendall lived right across from him.

She parked her car and got out. Walking toward what she knew to be Zach's condo, she wasn't surprised to see that the shades were drawn and no one was home, but she was taken aback at the Reality One sign in front of it. She stopped and looked to her other side and assumed that the condo with the mail piled into the box was Kendall's. She really didn't want to just barge into the woman's home. So, she opted to knock. She rang the door bell and then banged on the door-- and nothing. She pulled out the keys that Kendall had given her and tried the lock. It was a perfect fit.

Edie gathered all the mail that was in the box and on the ground and pushed open the door. She looked around and set the pile of mail on a counter in the kitchen. She turned her nose up at the molding pie, cake, and cookies as she grabbed the trashcan and slid the food into it and closed the tie on the bag.

Looking around again, she walked back into the living room, noticing something with a blue cover on it on the floor. It looked suspiciously like a legal document. She picked it up and flipped through it. It had not been drawn up by Olivia Cudahy or Jackson Montgomery. But it was signed on the last three pages by Zach. She tossed the papers down and went to a door toward the back of the condo that was closed. She softly called Kendall's name as she pushed the door open. No one answered. She called again.

She saw a form on the bed stir and she carefully walked over it, repeating Kendall's name. Kendall was there, in the bed. She clicked on the lamp and looked closer at Kendall. She was not in good shape. Kendall was thin, but now she looked downright bony. Edie grabbed the telephone off the nightstand and dialed 911, cursing Zach to hell as she did so.