Chapter Two – "People Are Disappearing"

Across town, Opal Cortlandt was alone in the Glamourama, watching the clock with a worried look. "Where in the world are Palmer and Brooke?" she wondered, more than slightly annoyed. They should have been there by now. "My stars, they should have been early! This is no time for dilly-dallying!" They were in a crisis, and decisive action had to be taken! How could they be late to the first Emergency Veterans' Strategy Meeting?

"What is happening to us?" she asked herself, as the seconds ticked by. Another week with no storyline. How long could this go on? Recurring status was a real possibility, and one she didn't much want to think about. It had happened to others she knew. Poor Marian. She hadn't been seen in months. And where was Liza? Banished. And where was Edmund? Killed off. And where was Maria? Exiled to Miami. And why? Why? WHY?

The answer was all too clear to Opal. The Veterans were being pushed aside to make room for the hordes of Newbies who were taking over Pine Valley. At this point they dominated every storyline. Front-burner, all of 'em. Where did that leave her? Where did it leave her ex-husband and all her friends?

"Doomed," she murmured. "All of us are doomed!"

She knew Palmer didn't believe her. He thought another major storyline was just around the corner. Opal snorted. If that were true, it had been around that corner for two years.

"Wake up and smell the Ovaltine, you old fool! The Powers That Be have no further use for us! To them we're dinosaurs!"

"You may be a dinosaur," he shot back. "I am a swan!"

"You are a dead duck," she corrected him. "And so am I. Palmer, why did it all change?"

"Why did all WHAT change?" he asked, refusing to see the truth in what she was telling him. "Opal, what are you blathering about? What's changed?"

Everything had changed. Pine Valley was almost unrecognizable. People she had never heard of were marrying the Chandlers. How could that be? Adam belonged with Brooke. Everybody with sense realized that. And that wasn't the only thing wrong. Weird things were happening all around her. Ryan Lavery had come back to town, safe, sound, hale, hearty and extremely alive, which was wonderful of course except that it had wrecked his memorial service, which had severely shortened Opal's time on camera, and raised more questions than it answered. Worse than that, her very own dead daughter-in-law, Dixie, hadn't really come back from the grave after all. The woman pretending to be Dixie had confessed to being an imposter. Turned out it was Dixie's half-sister that nobody had ever heard of before. How bizarre was that? When JR found out it just about killed him. The news hadn't done Palmer much good either. Poor Palmer. Seeing Dixie again, or someone he thought was Dixie, had given him a new lease on life. So much for new leases. Why were things so off-kilter and out-of-whack?

Brooke was at the door, ringing the bell and banging the knocker like her life depended on it.

"He's gone!" she reported breathlessly when Opal let her in. "Palmer has vanished!"

"You've reached Zendall," the answering machine was informing the caller. "Sorry, but all operatives are currently helping other clients. Your call is important to us, so please leave your name, number and the time you called and somebody will get back to you as soon as possible. Please wait for the beep and thank you for calling!"

"You lazy lout!" Kendall laughed. "Zach, the phone is right in front of you on the desk. Couldn't you make the tiniest effort to pick up the receiver and talk to the person?"

"I may not want to talk to the person," he explained logically. "It might be another telemarketer. I have no intention of subscribing to 'The Banner' or 'The Sun'. I don't even know where Llanview is."

"Kendall, it's me," they could hear the caller saying. "Call me when you can. I'm in trouble."

It wasn't a telemarketer. It was Ryan.

"Palmer has vanished?" Opal repeated to a stunned and shaken Brooke. "When? How?"

"We were on our way over here," Brooke recounted, trying to stay calm. "He wanted to stop off at Wildwind to see Di. I guess he wanted to yell at her some more. Anyway, he went in but he never came out again! Di swore up and down she never even saw him!"

"Di!" Opal sniffed. "She probably did away with him. There's nothing I wouldn't put past that lying she-demon!"

Opal had not as yet let go of the bitterness that Di's impersonation of Dixie has caused throughout the town.

"I don't think Di would hurt Palmer," Brooke had to disagree. "But I can't imagine what's happened to him. I've tried calling him, but his cell phone is off. I don't even get voice mail! All I hear is this hauntingly familiar tune I almost recognize but don't."

"That's not like Palmer," Opal said. "I'm calling Tad! We need a detective on this case!"

"Ryan, why do you need a detective?" Kendall asked coolly, after sprinting off the sofa and grabbing the phone before Ryan finished his message and hung up.

"Who said I need a detective?" Ryan asked. "Kendall, I need you!"

"He doesn't need a detective, does he?" Zach checked just to make sure. He got up from the desk and began pacing. He didn't like the idea of Ryan phoning them. Actually, he didn't like Ryan altogether. He wished his wife shared the feeling but he didn't believe that for a second, despite her recent claims to the contrary. Kendall blamed Ryan loudly and frequently for Greenlee's sudden departure. But now he was calling them. What did he want? "What does he want?"

"Dunno yet," Kendall evaded. She turned her back on Zach and began whispering furiously into the phone. "Ryan, this has got to stop! You call me at home! You call me on my cell! You call me at Fusion and I don't even work there anymore! What do you want from me?"

"I need you, Kendall," the voice on the phone revealed. "With each and every fiber of my being!"

"Does he want me to get him out of town again?" Zach asked hopefully. He had helped do that once before when Ryan wanted the world in general, and his wife Greenlee in particular, to think he was dead. "I can start working on that right away. And there's no charge!"

"I'll ask him," Kendall lied. She bent over the phone again and resumed the furious whispering. "Ryan, you don't need me. You never needed me. I was a detour. A detour! Does that ring any bells?"

Ryan laid it all on the line. "Kendall, with Greenlee gone, I don't know where to turn!"

"What's he saying?" Zach asked, trying not to sound as irritated as he felt.

"He doesn't know where to turn," Kendall reported. "I'm about to tell him."

"How could she walk out on me?" Ryan was moaning. "She didn't even leave a note! I call her cell, but it's off. I don't even get voice mail! All I hear is this hauntingly familiar tune I almost recognize but don't!"

"Kendall, hang up on him," Zach tried. "Clients may be trying to get through."

"Yeah, right," she muttered. "Ryan, my hubby wants you out of my life," she translated to Zendall's sole caller on a six-line phone. "And, believe it or not, so do I!"

Zach wished to the core of his being that she meant that. More than that, he wished he could tell her how he really felt about her. "I care about you" didn't cover it. Not that he didn't care about her. But that was the least of it. She was the last thought he had every night and the first thought he had every morning, even though she wasn't lying next to him. He couldn't get her off of his mind any more than he could get her into his bed.

"Okay, I hung up. Happy now?"

Happy, he wasn't. Nuts about her, he was.

The phone began to ring again.

"Hang up on him," Zach directed. "It'll do him good."

But it wasn't Ryan this time.

"I need to hire your Agency," a metallic voice intoned. "People are disappearing."

People are disappearing? This could be serious! Please check out Chapter 3 where there's sure to be more questions than answers! As always, I'd love to read your review!