Chapter Sixteen – "The Second Basement"
Previously: Kendall, Jonathan and Lily discover a floor plan of the Casino in Zendall's wall safe, showing a second basement, where they speculate the Vanished may be hidden. With Zach under arrest, a desperate Kendall accompanies Jily to the Casino hoping against hope she won't find the bodies of her missing friends and family. Meanwhile, an imprisoned Zach has convinced Ryan and Derek to help him make sure Kendall is safe. When Jily and Kendall reach the Casino's second basement, an unseen hand turns on the lights.
Ethan stood smiling at Kendall, Jonathan and Lily. He was all by himself in the second basement. The Vanished were nowhere in sight.
"Thanks for turning on the lights," Kendall thanked him. "What are you doing here, Ethan?"
"Looking for Simone," he replied with no hesitation. "I've been searching all through the Casino, just in case. You never know where Zach could have stashed his victims."
Kendall winced. "So you think your Father is guilty of this?" she asked him. "You think he's capable of doing something like this?"
Ethan smiled, but the smile didn't go all the way up to his eyes. "In my opinion, Zach Slater is capable of anything. Isn't that what the Script says?"
"Ryan showed the Script to you?" Lily asked.
Ethan nodded. "I can't say that I'm surprised. Only terribly sorry that I'm related to the man, if only biologically."
Kendall had stopped listening to him.
"So the Vanished aren't here," she stated. "That means there's no connection between the crimes and Zach." She began breathing normally again for the first time since Lily and Jonathan found the Casino's key and floor plan in the wall safe.
"I never thought it was Zach," Lily volunteered.
"Lily is a wonderful judge of character," Jonathan told them. "When everybody else in this town treated me like I was still a deranged killer, Lily saw something else. She saw that I had changed."
But Ethan was shaking his head.
"Mark my words. Zach is behind all of this. It's the only possible explanation."
Kendall was in no mood for a debate but she couldn't let that go.
"You're wrong, Ethan. I believe completely in Zach's innocence."
"I'm not that innocent," Zach smiled, emerging from the elevator with Derek and Ryan. "But kidnapping people isn't my kind of fun." He was so relieved to find Kendall safe and sound, he felt as if he were floating off the elevator. He still couldn't believe the electric effect she had on him. But that didn't stop him from enjoying it.
"I don't care what anybody else thinks!" Kendall declared, wrapping herself around him, to his infinite delight.
"When did you ever care what anyone thought?" he inquired of her, wondering how her presence could brighten up even a dingy second basement.
She laughed and broke out of their embrace. But she didn't walk too far away from him. How could she have missed him so much in so short a time? Kendall had always yearned to be loved, but never liked feeling so dependant on anybody. So needy. "No wonder I didn't want to fall in love again," she thought ruefully. She stared at her husband and allowed herself to feel everything he made her feel: love, anxiety, insecurity, insane happiness and about four thousand other emotions she was too weary to name. "I can't negotiate this," she realized. "I'm crazy in love with him, and that's all there is to that."
"Zach, you're free!" Lily greeted him. "Did they find out who did it and where the Vanished are?"
"Not yet, I'm afraid," Derek told her. "Zach convinced Ryan and me to find Kendall because she's on the list. But I guess we worried for nothing."
"Ryan put Lily and me in charge of watching out for Kendall," Jonathan explained to Derek. "But you're on the list too, Ry! You shouldn't be out alone."
"We've been taking good care of Ryan," Zach said mildly. "Right, Derek?"
"Waste of time," Derek growled. "There's nothing here. Another dead end, that's all."
"I'm not so sure," Ethan said, his eyes fastened on something on the floor on the other side of the basement. "What's that, do you suppose?"
It turned out to be a delicate, exquisitely beautiful gold necklace with two hearts linked together.
"Somebody must have dropped that," Lily assumed. "Maybe it belongs to one of the Vanished. That would mean that at some point they were here after all."
"That belongs to my sister, Dixie," Di said unsteadily, walking out of the elevator.
"Your dead sister Dixie?" Kendall clarified.
"Not exactly," Di said quietly.
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"I wish we knew what the hell was happening!" Adam was complaining to Krystal. He was nothing if not a man of action. But in this case he hadn't a clue of what action to take. "I should be doing something! I shouldn't be lying here in bed while my town disappears!"
Krystal disagreed. "You on the list, Adam. How can I keep you safe if you go gallivanting around town looking for who knows what?"
"Keep me safe?" Adam echoed. "Why? Because I'm your meal ticket?"
Krystal threw herself directly on top of him. "You're a heck of a lot more than that to me, and you know it!"
At that potentially interesting moment, JR came into their bedroom.
"Di just called me. Jamie told her Tad hasn't come home yet. She thinks he's been taken."
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"Dixie's alive?" Kendall repeated, the words as amazing to her as when Di first said them a moment before. "How can Dixie be alive?"
"It's a long story," Di explained.
"Well, this necklace is evidence that Dixie was here," Lily analyzed. "But we don't know when. She might be one of the Vanished."
Di nodded. "Or she might be the kidnapper. 'You Are My Sunshine' is more or less her theme song."
"And that's the tune we hear when we try to call one of the Vanished," Kendall recalled. "Could be a clue."
Ethan seemed doubtful.
"I still think it's you, Slater," he told Zach.
"Thanks, son," Zach replied. "I love you too." The problem was that he did, although he had no notion how he could ever make Ethan believe he did, after everything that had happened between them, beginning with his denial of his only child. He had done that out of love, but Ethan would never believe that.
"Tad's gone missing," Di told them then. "At the Police Station, they told me you were here, Derek. I didn't know where else to go." She looked around. "I didn't know there was a second basement. Tad and I --". Briefly she broke down. "Tad and I only checked the first basement. There was nothing there."
"There's nothing in the second basement either," Derek pointed out glumly.
"Except the necklace," Di said brokenly, taking it from Ethan's hands. "Dixie's necklace."
Derek was in no mood to speculate on who left the necklace and under what circumstances.
"I'm going back to the Station. I'd advise you all to go home and sit tight."
"Me too?" Zach asked happily, surprised that Derek didn't seem to want to take him back to his cell.
"You too," Derek affirmed. "The more I think about it, the less sense that Script makes."
Kendall stifled a cheer and contented herself with flying into Zach's arms.
"I guess we'll go home to the penthouse," Ryan said, jealousy and regret stabbing him clear through. "Come on, Jonathan."
"Lily has to come along with us," Jonathan said. "There's nobody left at home to take care of her now."
"My brother Reggie can take care of me," Lily differed. "But I'd rather go with you, Jonathan. If that's okay, Ryan."
"You two are quite an item," Ryan commented.
"We're good together," Jonathan explained solemnly. "We belong together."
"So do we!" Kendall whispered to Zach, hugging him even tighter.
Ryan watched in silence and felt his heart shatter as he thought of what had been, what might have been, and what could never be again.
"Come on you two," he said to Jonathan and Lily, keeping a stiff upper lip. "Let's go home. Greenlee must be worried."
"Where are you headed, Ethan?" Derek inquired as they all got into the elevator. "Home to get some sleep?"
"Oh, I have miles to go before I sleep," Ethan told Derek pleasantly. "Miles to go before I sleep."
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"Mom, please call me back when you get this message," a tearful and terrified Amanda begged Janet's answering machine. "Everything has gone crazy in Pine Valley, and I'm really scared!"
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"Please tell me again why we're we going to the Police Station?" a sleepy Babe requested with a yawn.
"It's safer there," Krystal told her. "You know how lousy the security is in this Mansion! Where's little A?"
"I've got him," JR said, holding his sleeping son against his heart. "Where's my Dad?"
"Right behind us," Krystal assumed as they all walked down the stairs and out of the Mansion.
Only Adam wasn't right behind them.
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Adam has vanished? Who's left? Can Zendall, Jily, and Ryan solve the mystery before there's nobody left to solve it? Please return for the next thrilling installment which features Zendall transforming Fear into Passion! Finally!