Chapter 2

Kendall glared at Zach, daring him to deny that something was wrong. He sighed. "Kendall…"

She stormed over to him and grabbed ahold of the lapels of his jacket. "Zach, please. The last time I saw you like this was back in January. Remember that night when you couldn't sleep, and you were upset that I was praising you? It's because you were keeping the secret about the blackout. Please tell me that there isn't another secret you're keeping from me."

Zach reached his hands up and encircled her wrists. "Kendall, I've told you before that I have many secrets. What I was thinking about just now…has nothing to do with you. It's all stuff from my past that should remain in the past…dead and buried."

Kendall lowered her head and brushed her lips against the knuckles of his right hand. "But they aren't buried. You resurrected them. It's all jumbled up in my head, but I do remember some of the stories you told me while I was in the coma. You glossed over a lot of the bad stuff, but I got a pretty good idea of what your life was like before you became 'a simple man who loves his wife.' I know you don't want to go into details, but I think you should at least tell me what looking at a picture of my mother and her dead lover has to do with your past."

Zach took a deep breath and turned away from Kendall. He went over to the sofa and sat down. It had been much simpler with Maria. When they were together in the desert, they both had something to hide. They never asked questions that probed too deeply. They knew each other well enough to sense when the other was troubled, but they only offered each other a comforting shoulder to lean on. Kendall wanted more, and she deserved more. The depth of their love for each other demanded it. He just had no idea where to begin.

Kendall sat down next to him and gazed at him solemnly. "You didn't recognize his name, but you recognized his face, didn't you?" She saw a flicker in his eyes. She pressed on. "Did you meet him when he was undercover for the FBI? Was he investigating you?"

Zach smiled grimly. "He did investigate me. Not because he wanted to arrest me, but because he wanted to use me. I was recruited, in a manner of speaking. When we met – I was about twenty-three at the time - he was struck by the resemblance between us. He said we could have been brothers." Kendall's eyebrows shot up. Zach shook his head. "No, we aren't related at all. It was just a coincidence. He sized me up and decided that I was good 'raw material.' As a government agent, he had access to a lot of information, so when he dug into my past he found out that I was Alexander Cambias, Junior. He knew I faked my death and he used it against me."

Kendall frowned. "Are you telling me he blackmailed you into working for the FBI? You were a Fed?"

Zach chuckled. "No, I was never officially hired by the government. Certainly not by the FBI. Sam wasn't an FBI agent, either. That was the name he gave me. Sam Keith. Sam would sometimes don the role of FBI agent if it was useful for his purposes. Sort of like when CIA agents pretend to be State Department employees at U.S. embassies overseas. I never really knew what counterintelligence branch he worked for. CIA, NSA, whatever. The only thing he ever told me was that he was given a very large budget to follow very secret missions that were not officially sanctioned by the U.S. government. Often times in order to get the job done, he'd persuade people to do some of the particularly dirty work for him. Everything was done in such a manner that it could never be proven that the government had anything to do with the operation."

Kendall clutched at his arm. "I remember you telling me that while I was in the coma. You were one of the people he used for his missions. He came to you again and again and made you do stuff in exchange for his silence. That was Chris Stamp? The man my mother almost married?" She gaped at him.

Zach shrugged. "Sam always had a soft spot for women. He never let himself be fooled by one, but he did have a certain reverence for them. He enjoyed taking care of them."

Kendall relaxed her grip on his arm, and moved her hand over his shoulder and gently squeezed the back of his neck. "Tell me, Zach. What were some of the things he made you do?" Zach sighed and shook his head. "Zach, these memories are eating away at you. You need to talk about it, and I know you're never going to go see a shrink, so confide in me. Just tell me one thing that you had to do for him."

Zach lowered his head, knowing she was going to be stubborn about this. He cast his mind about for something relatively benign. Looking up at her again, he gazed into her beautiful green eyes. He suddenly remembered another pair of green eyes. A young man with green eyes that were filled with pain and longing and unending heartache.

"Maxwell, you are completely out of your mind. You're going to ruin everything!" The regal, middle-aged woman glared at Max as he straightened his tie.

He reluctantly tore himself away from the mirror. "I'm not ruining anything, Aunt Sophie. This works perfectly into our plans. I'm going to take her to Renee's favorite restaurant. When Renee sees us together, she'll be livid. After tonight, she'll be putty in my hands."

Sophie put her hands on her hips. "I will admit that making Renee jealous is a very good idea. Using Greenlee Lavery to do it is completely unacceptable!"

Max narrowed his eyes. "Greenlee Smythe is more than acceptable, she's inspired. She's gorgeous. She's rich. She's a bitch. Best of all, she's pregnant. Renee's head will explode. I'm quite certain she'll go running to Daddy, who will come see you to try and get the scoop on Greenlee. It's brilliant."

Sophie shook her head and started pacing. "You know precisely why I'm opposed to this. I should stop you, but I know that if I do you'll just find some other way to see her. You disappoint me, Maxwell, you really do."

"No, it's your life that disappoints you, Sophie. You're bored out of your mind. You want to be running with the big dogs, and instead you're stuck kissing up to rich old farts again. It drives you crazy."

Sophie slapped her hand against the door jamb. "Don't you say it! Don't you call me crazy! I am not crazy!" She took deep breaths to calm herself. "You're right about one thing. I am bored! I left this kind of penny-ante shit behind years ago. I had it all, Maxwell. I had more power and money than you can ever dream of."

Max stalked over to her and glared down at her in contempt. "At what price? Hundreds of lives destroyed by drugs because of your lust for power? You disgust me. You're nothing but a greedy, murdering pig and I don't ever want to hear you whine about your lot in life. You should be dead!"

Sophie's hand cracked across his face. "I am dead! And so are you. Remember that!"

Max's eyes were certainly dead as he stared down at her, silently. Then he turned and walked out the door. Fuming, Sophie went to the secret hiding place and retrieved the emergency cell phone. Maxwell had gone too far this time.

Ian Wells strolled over to Doctor Madden. "Your former captor has just discovered that you've been rescued."

Greg glared at him, struggling against the ropes binding him. "Rescued? I would hardly call this being rescued. I've simply traded one form of captivity for another."

Ian shrugged. "Potato, potahto. Whatever. At least you're alive, which you wouldn't be if I had left you in there." He shook his head in disgust. "Hayward has a brilliant mind, and he's very cunning. But he's always had one major weakness. Dixie Cooney. He gets too distracted when she's around. He'll do anything for a piece of that ass. Not that I blame him." Ian reflected on Dixie's many charms.

Greg watched as Ian lifted his hand, revealing the stryker saw he held. Madden was filled with dread. Suddenly he wished that David was still his captor. Hayward was cruel, but he wasn't quite as sadistic as this man appeared to be. Greg tried to distract him from his intended purpose. "Who are you? You look familiar to me, but I can't quite place you. What do you want from me?"

Ian leaned over the gurney. "I want the same thing Hayward wanted. The location of Dixie's child, Kate Martin."

Greg blinked at him. "You're a friend of Dixie? Is that why you look familiar? Have I seen you around Pine Valley?"

Ian shook his head. "We've never met. I am a friend of Dixie. I'm also a friend of someone else you violated. For what you've done to these two women and countless others, I will make you pay."

Greg's eyes widened as it finally hit him. This man's picture was in various newspaper clippings in Greg's secret photo album. "I know who you are! But…but you're supposed to be dead!"

Ian fingered the on switch. "Now, now, we're not here to talk about me. We're here to talk about Kate. I'm not quite as patient as David. I like immediate results. If you don't tell me where Kate is, I will start with your fingers. It'll be a little hard to inseminate women without your hands, Doc. You won't be able to deliver all those babies that you seem to covet so much. Of course, in time I guess you can develop half-way decent prosthetic fingers. But using them will be a bit tricky if you're blind, because your eyes will be next."

He picked up a wicked-looking instrument from a nearby tray that Greg recognized as one used to sever the optic nerve. Greg breathed deeply, in and out, trying to maintain control. Whatever this man had in store for him could be remedied or overcome. Any pain, any loss of function would just be temporary.

Ian chuckled. "I know all about you, Doc. You see yourself as some sort of God. Well, what kind of God will you be if you're no longer all-seeing? Or all-knowing? You revere your own brilliance, Doc. What would happen if someone were to pop open that skull of yours and start poking around? Things might get a bit messy."

Madden's jaw went slack. He stammered. "If you give me a lobotomy, I won't remember where Kate is, I'll be completely useless to you!"

Ian shrugged. "The way I see it, if burying you alive doesn't get you to cough up the information, and deforming you doesn't get results either, then it's obvious you're of no use to me. Pretty much the only option left is to cut you loose and be done with you. But not before taking away the weapon that you've been using to violate all those innocent women. Hacking up your brain will have the same effect as cutting off the dick of a rapist. It will render you powerless."

Madden gagged as nausea threatened to overwhelm him. "How…how do I know that…that if I tell you where Kate is, you won't lobotomize me anyway?"

Ian smiled grimly. "If you tell me where Kate is, I'll see that as full cooperation. I'll turn you over to one of my acquaintances at the FBI, and you'll get thrown into a federal penitentiary with all the other violent offenders. Not much of a life to look forward to, but you'll still have all your marbles. I'll give you a little while to think about it." He set the stryker saw on a nearby table. "Tommy!" A swarthy-looking man walked in. "Show our guest a few pictures of some of our other customers. Just in case he thinks I might be bluffing."

Kendall caressed Zach's back, encouraging him to share with her. Zach rubbed his forehead. "Sam told me I had a unique skill that he could utilize: I had successfully faked my death. There were times when he needed help giving people new identities. Kind of like his own personal subset of the witness protection program. Most of the time these people were glad to shed their old life, often because they were criminals that wanted to escape a prison sentence. In exchange for not sending them to jail, they did work for Sam."

Kendall stared at him, appalled. "He let criminals run around free?"

Zach shrugged. "From what I could gather, they were mostly people that committed non-violent crimes. Hackers, smugglers, embezzlers, anyone that had a particular talent that was of use to him. The few times he recruited someone dangerous, he used the person in a dangerous assignment. If they died, it was no great loss."

Kendall shook her head. "Wow. That's pretty mercenary. So you were telling me that you helped people create a new life?"

Zach nodded. "There was one man…he wasn't like the rest. He didn't want to give up his old life. He never said as much to me - he was very quiet, kept to himself. He and an older woman were sent to my casino in Rio de Janeiro. Sam arranged for them to have plastic surgery, and their faces were still bandaged when they arrived. He told me to give them new identities and train them in the fine art of being someone else. The woman was an eager pupil. Her partner was…dutiful at best. In all the times I performed this particular task, I never asked anyone about themselves. I didn't want to know. But this man was different. I had the urge to ask him who he was, ask him how he had been put in the position of working for Sam. He was very sad. He took long walks at night around the grounds of the casino, sometimes staying out till dawn. Once his bandages were off, he would sit in the bar and watch the couples dancing. He was longing for someone, Kendall. He was longing for a life that had been taken away from him.

Zach looked down at his hands, which clenched tightly. "I found myself wanting to help him. Wanting to give him back what he had lost. He didn't belong in the world that Sam was thrusting him in. But I fought the desire to go to him, to question him. I told myself that being in Rio was his choice. Sam wasn't holding a gun to his head. If he wanted to go back to his old life that badly, he would find a way. I told myself that interfering would just make things worse, make things harder on this young man. We were all forced to live with the choices that we've made in life, and sympathy was a wasted emotion.

Zach looked over at Kendall. "I was wrong. I should have helped him. Every so often I think of him and I wonder where he is. I wonder where he is supposed to be."

Kendall reached out and touched his cheek. "Zach, you were right the first time. This guy made a choice. Maybe he was unhappy with his decision, but it was his to make. I mean, look at Ryan. You used your obviously well-honed skills to help him fake his death. He didn't want to be apart from Greenlee, leave everything behind, but he was doing it for a reason. A really crappy reason, but it was what motivated him to take that drastic step. He did what he thought he had to do, and no one was going to change his mind. It was probably the same with this guy." She pulled him into a hug.

Zach allowed Kendall to comfort him. He told himself that she had a point. Like sympathy, regrets were a waste of time. The man and woman would have changed their identities numerous times since they left Rio. Even if he wanted to right that particular wrong, he could not. He would never see them again.