Notes: Sorry this is taking so long to write. I really am posting it as soon as I get chapters written, which is why sometimes there a couple of chapters a day and sometimes there are none. This would be much easier if I didn't have a job! Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing. Believe it or not, there are only a couple of chapters left.

After hearing Lauren's dire statement to Martin, Danny knew he had to act. He'd been listening to the whole exchange over the two-way radio on his cell phone. Martin had promised to leave the cell phone connected so Danny could hear everything, if Danny agreed to give him a chance to diffuse the situation without sending Lauren into a panic that might cause her to kill his father.

But the situation had changed when Danny had realized that Lauren wanted Martin there to hurt his father. And the best way to hurt his father would be to hurt or kill Martin. As soon as Danny realized this, he started to move toward the small house. He knew that if he could get to Lauren that he could convince her to let Martin and his father go.

Just as he approached the lawn, he heard a car screech to a halt behind him. Turning quickly, he saw Sam and Jack exiting the car.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?" Danny asked in a panicked tone as he jogged towards them.

"No, Danny! The question is what hell are you guys doing?" Jack responded as he slammed his car door closed.

"What…what do you mean?" Martin asked as he watched Lauren's wounded eyes turn cold.

Lauren stood as she wiped the tears out of her eyes. "I tried to think of what would humiliate him most. My first thought was to bring your mother here, but see, I don't think he really would care what she thinks or what any woman thinks. But you? He cares what you think."

Martin shook his head as he glanced at Victor. "I doubt that."

"Let's just see about that," Lauren said as she turned back to Victor. "Tell him what you have me do. Tell him how this all started."

"Go to hell! You're deranged!" Victor spatted.

Keeping her gun trained on him, she screamed, "Tell him!"

"You'll have to shoot me—"

"Dad!" Martin called out.

"She's delusional, Martin. She's sick," Victor continued.

"Dad! Dad! Stop!" Martin yelled as he watched Lauren's hands shake as she kept the gun pointed at his father.

"I won't. I won't let her do this to me," Victor responded in a surprisingly calm, cool tone.

"You won't?" Lauren asked as tears again started to stream down on face. "You won't? You're not in control here! I am!" she exclaimed as she swung the gun around to point it at Martin. "This will hurt you more, won't it? Tell him the truth, or I will kill your son right now!"

"No! You bitch! No!" Victor called out.

"Lauren, don't…don't do this," Martin pleaded in gentle, but shaky tone. "This isn't going to help you."

"Maybe not, but killing you will kill him. And that's all I care about anymore. I want him to suffer. Don't you understand?" she asked and then she glanced back at Victor. "Tell him! Tell your son what you did to me or I will kill him."

"You won't do it," Victor said. "You won't kill an innocent man."

"Watch me!" Lauren responded, trying to sound confident, but the emotion was still evident in her tone.

Martin noticed that her hands were shaking badly now. It was very possible she could shoot him without even consciously pulling the trigger. He had to do something since his father seemed intent on not giving in.

"Why don't you tell me?" Martin said as he tried to look into her eyes. "I want to hear it from you, Lauren."

Upon hearing the gentleness in his tone, Lauren took a deep breath to compose herself. "It won't be the same," she responded in a small, weak tone.

"Yes, it will. I want to hear it from you," he repeated. "Tell me how it started."

Martin felt a wave of relief wash over him when she finally lowered the gun.

"My father died," she said in an emotional tone. "That's how it started."

Martin nodded as he tried to keep eye contact with her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your father."

"At the funeral, your father said that he would help us. He told my mother that he would be there for whatever she needed. Turns out, my father wasn't that great with his money. So my mom had to pay off a lot of debt. I had to drop out of school and come back to D.C. We had to sell our house. I got a job to help her with the bills, but it wasn't enough. So she went to him," Lauren said as she glanced in Victor's direction. "And he did just as he said he would, he got us in touch with this trust attorney that helped us get access to my father's pension money. And that helped."

"But then my mom kept going back to him for advice…for help. I don't know. I think she was so lost without my father, that she just needed someone to lean on. So he came over more and more. One night he showed up before my mom got home. So I tried to be friendly because he'd been so good to us. He told me I was beautiful and that I should go back to New York to follow my dream. Then he said he'd help me any way he could. It felt strange…very strange, but I was so desparate to get out of there and back to New York that I said yes."

When she finished this statement, Martin heard her voice crack with emotion and regret.

"He set me up in that loft and he said that he would help me get a student loan so I could go back to school in the fall. At first everything seemed okay. I got a job. And I started setting up auditions again. And then one day, one day my brother called me. He was just about to start the summer session at Georgetown. Your father made that happen, too. Turns out, my brother had been arrested. The cops found a pound of heroine in his car. My brother swore it wasn't his, but his prints were all over it. My brother begged me not to tell my mom, so I went to your father again. And he helped, just like always. Except this time, he expected payback."

"You liar. You lying bitch!" Victor called out.

"Dad…shut up! Let her talk," Martin said. "Don't listen to him, Lauren. I want to know what happened next." Silently, Martin stomach churned because she was basically filling in all the blanks that Danny had pieced together.

"He got my brother a lawyer. He told him not to talk. The DA was prepared to ask for a full sentence because he was caught so close to a school. Ten years! He would have gotten ten years. But a couple of weeks after my brother's first hearing, his lawyer got a call that the heroine was missing from evidence lock-up. The DA had to drop the charges. It was like a miracle. I came back to New York, thinking the nightmare was over. But it had just begun."

"What do you mean?" Martin asked, his stomach still in knots.

"When I got back to my apartment, he was waiting for me. I didn't even know he had a key. All of a sudden, there was something different about him. He was cold…distant."

Hearing the clink of ice in a glass, Lauren's breath caught as she closed the door.

"Mr. Fitzgerald…I…um…I wasn't expecting you," Lauren said as she hesitantly put her bag down. "How…um, who let you in?" she asked, almost feeling nervous.

"I have a key," he replied in a quiet tone and then taking a drink of scotch.

Lauren's eyes widened. "I, um, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Did you come for something specific? Did you hear the good news?"

"I heard. Michael is free and clear to start at Georgetown. Interesting development, wouldn't you say?"

Lauren nodded. "Once again, we, um, we appreciate everything you did."

"How much do you appreciate it?" he asked as he rose from the chair.

"What?" Lauren asked, now completely nervous as she watched him walking towards her.

"How much do you appreciate all I've done? Your brother, this apartment, helping your mother pay the bills…"

"I, um, I can't thank you enough. We can't thank you enough. I don't think we could ever repay—"

Victor continued to walk towards her as he looked her up and down. "There's something you could do to repay me."

Lauren's stomach turned as she took a step back. "Mr. Fitzgerald, I, I don't think—"

"It's not what you think. I don't want you to be my mistress. I just want you to help me play a kind of game," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Her brows narrowing into a frown, she responded, "What…what kind of game?"

"I want you to go out tonight, find someone, and bring him back here."

Lauren just continued to look at him with a confused frown.

"It's simple really. I want you to have a one night stand with a stranger. I'm betting you've done it before. You'll wear a tight dress, you'll bring someone back here, and you'll let him fuck you, and I'll be watching—"

Lauren shook her head as she tried to hold back the tears that threatened. "Why would I? What—"

"You will because you owe me," he said as he stepped towards her.

"Fuck you! I'll leave this apartment right now. I don't owe you anything," she said as she turned to walk out.

Grabbing her arm, he spun her around and pinned her against the wall. "It's not the apartment. It's your brother. Your brother is free now because of me."

She tried to struggle out of his grasp, but couldn't. "Then go ask him to fuck someone. You sick son of a bitch. He'll tell you to go to hell, too."

Getting even closer to her, he spatted, "No. He'll just go straight to prison."

"He planted the heroine, and he made it disappear. He said he could very easily make it reappear and my brother would go to prison. I didn't know what to do. I…I…knew he was powerful enough to make it happen. I now think he was planning everything from the moment he told my mother he'd help her after my dad's funeral."

"Christ," Martin muttered.

"You don't actually believe what she is saying, do you, Martin?" his father asked.

Martin ignored his father's question and asked Lauren, "Your mother and brother knew what was happening, didn't they?"

Lauren nodded. "I asked my mother what I should do. I thought she'd help me, but she said that her life and my brother's life would be ruined if I refused him. She told me that eventually he would get bored and move on. She either had no idea what a sick bastard he is or she just didn't care."

Martin shook his head as he tried to find the words to say to her. "Lauren, I…I…can't imagine…all I can say is that I will do whatever I can to help you and to make sure that he pays for what he's done. I—"

Lauren cut him off as she raised the gun. "It's not enough, Martin. I'm sorry."

"Jack! Jack! I have to get in there. Don't you understand? I can stop her."

"No. No way, Danny. Tactical is on its way. We have to wait for them. An FBI Deputy Director and a fellow agent are being held hostage in there. We have to follow procedure!"

"Goddamn it, Jack! Procedure? You're preaching "procedure" to me? Give me fucking break!" Danny exclaimed as he looked from Jack to Sam.

"Jack—" Sam started as she became overwhelmed at watching Danny's desperation.

"I'm not going to lose two agents today," Jack replied, sounding just as desperate.

"Lauren won't shoot me!"

"Lauren Palmer has been abused and tortured for the last year, and her brother just tried to force her back into it. She's not in her right mind, Danny!" Jack pleaded.

Shaking his head, Danny started to back away toward the house. "You're going to have to shoot me, Jack, because I'm going in."