Chapter 5
Up in the attic, Sami finished her breakfast and pouted. She walked across the room to take out the diary and held its power in her hands, knowing she had to take action now. It had been several weeks earlier that during the long, boring hours she spent in the attic that she had figured out how to use an old bobby pin to pry open the lock on the old attic door. Now was the time to put that knowledge into action, before it was too late, she decided.
Sami figured Bart would be posted outside Maison Blanche's front door and that Rolf, Lexie, E.J. and Stefano would all be downstairs. But she had to get down there somehow, either to find an escape or find a way to Lexie. She grabbed one of the luxurious robes that hung in the attic's closet and stuffed the diary into its large front pocket and headed downstairs slowly but swiftly, at least as slow and swiftly as a pregnant woman could.
Out of sight, but within earshot of E.J. and Lexie, Sami hid in the stairway and listened as they talked.
"So Lexie, are you going to tell me what's going on or not?" E.J. asked as he and Lexie walked down the last steps of the grand staircase and walked into the large front room of the mansion.
"Yes, E.J. I will tell you, but you aren't going to like hearing this," Lexie said with trepidation. "Despite the improved spirits Father has been demonstrating the past several months as he recovered from the kidney transplant, I'm afraid he's not going to make it much longer unless…"
"Unless what?" E.J. asked with concern.
"Well, Rolf says that we need to induce labor now," Lexie said. "He needs that umbilical cord blood now to develop the cure for Father's condition, if he is to live."
"But Samantha is so close to giving birth already. I don't see how it's necessary to risk her life or the life of her child," E.J. said throwing his hands up in disgust.
"It's quite necessary," Rolf said, stepping out of the fireplace passageway to join their conversation.
E.J. glared at Rolf in disbelief while Lexie looked at them with obvious discomfort.
"I'm going to go check on Father," Lexie said disappearing into the fireplace passageway.
"Dammit," Sami whispered to herself as she saw Lexie disappear.
Sami took a few steps up the stairs to head back to her room, but then reconsidered and decided to listen to what Rolf had to say.
"E.J., I understand you and Samantha have become quite close these months she's spent here as the hired surrogate mother to Stefano's child, but this is what she was paid to do and it is time to get that umbilical cord blood," Rolf said. "The child was never going to be hers to raise anyway, so why does it matter if we let her carry it to full term? Now if you don't mind, I need to get up stairs and bring Samantha down to surgery so we can begin the procedure. Tony has sent word of his orders and I intend to carry them out."
Sami gasped. She ran and hid in a second floor closet while she tried to think of what to do next.
Downstairs, E.J. seethed beneath the surface, but tried to maintain a cool demeanor so he could continue the pretense that he had no idea the child Sami was carrying was his and potentially protect Sami through reasoning with Rolf.
"There's a way to do this without being cruel," E.J. said standing in front of Rolf.
"What is cruel about making a deal and expecting the other party to hold up their end of the bargain after they agree to it?" Rolf asked, sidestepping E.J. and heading up the stairs with E.J. trailing closely behind and pleading with him to reconsider.
Sami heard them slowly walking up the steps and sobbed with fear. She realized that E.J. was powerless to stop what had already been set in motion. Even if he wanted to help her, Rolf was now dead set on getting her child and she would have to find a way out herself.
As they were ascending the flight of stairs up toward the attic she could hear E.J. arguing more forcefully against Tony's plans even as she slithered out of the closet and hurried down the grand staircase toward the front door.
Once there, she looked out the window and to her disappointment, but not her surprise she saw Bart standing there on the front porch armed. She knew similar Dimera goons would be posted outside all the exits. She would need some other way out. Someone else to help her get out. She brushed her hand across the pocket of her robe and felt the diary and remembered the secrets it contained. She would have to find Lexie even if it meant she might have to face Stefano, too.
Shaking, she fiddled with the fireplace to open the secret passageway and stepped inside.
Chapter 6
Roman looked at his watch and nervously sipped the glass of water at his table at Chez Rouge. Anna had phoned him to say she was running late, but Roman insisted their lunch date not be cancelled.
He fiddled with his pocket and removed a small box to examine the reason it was so important to him that Anna not miss their date.
As Roman fiddled with the ring, he heard his ex-wife squeal behind him.
"Oh Roman, it's beautiful!" Marlena gasped.
"Well, Doc, I'm glad this gets your seal of approval, but I'm afraid this is for my other blonde ex-wife," Roman said with a teasing grin.
Marlena playfully punched his shoulder and Roman laughed.
"So you found out my big secret. What are you up to?" Roman asked.
"Oh I was just here for lunch with some people from the hospital. But seriously, Roman, Roman, I really am glad for you and Anna finding your way back to each other," she said with a sigh. "Of course, if you hadn't lost your way we'd have never had Eric or Sami…"
Marlena stopped as they both remembered their lost daughter. After they returned to Salem and John awoke from his coma, Roman had wanted to go back to New Orleans to continue the search for Sami but when Lucas returned without her saying he had searched the place top to bottom and there were no clues to be found, everyone took his word for it and just waited and hoped she'd contact them.
"What I mean to say is…" Marlena said attempting to interrupt his melancholy, "I'm just so glad you are getting this happiness in your life. You definitely deserve it."
Roman smiled appreciatively.
"Well, Anna hasn't said yes yet," Roman said sliding the ring box back in his pocket.
Marlena told him not to worry. She'd be crazy to turn him down and gave him a kiss on the cheek just as Anna entered the bar.
"Am I interrupting something?" Anna said smiling at the same time she was shooting Marlena daggers with her eyes.
"No, I think I am interrupting something," Marlena said with a wink at Roman. "So I'll let you two enjoy your lunch. It was nice seeing you both."
Marlena headed toward the ladies room.
"What was that about?" Anna asked, perplexed.
"Well, sit down, first. Here, let me pour you this glass of champagne," Roman said, his arm shaking as he filled their champagne flutes.
"Champagne? For lunch?" Anna said with a sly look on her face. "Not that I'm complaining, but…"
"Well, Anna, you see," Roman said nervously. "I know you and Billie are supposed to leave for Paris Fashion Week tonight and before you left I wanted to celebrate our three-month anniversary with something special."
"Oh but, Roman, I'll only be gone a week…"
"I know, Anna, but it's more than that," Roman said, interrupting her. "These past few months back together again have been some of the greatest months of my entire life. They've made me realize how much I had missed life. How much I had missed love. How much I had missed you, Anna."
"Roman…" Anna said in shock.
"That's why I want to make sure that you stay a part of the rest of my life," Roman said removing the ring box from his pocket, placing it on the table and opening it. "Anna, will you marry me?"
Anna gasped. She was speechless and just covered her mouth with her hand. Roman smiled uncomfortably.
"I take it that's a no?" Roman asked sheepishly.
"No, Roman. I mean… I don't know. That's the honest truth. I just wasn't expecting this at all right now and I need some time to think about what this means," Anna said. "You understand, don't you?"
"Sure, Anna. Take all the time you need," Roman said. "How about this – I leave this ring with you and I'll let you tell me when you get back if you think it looks good on you."
Anna held the ring and stared at it. It was beautiful. Much more stylish and expensive than the engagement ring he gave her for their first wedding and much more than she would have expected on a cop's salary. But she knew her heart still belonged to Tony. Sure, he hadn't called her since she came back to Salem, but she needed to have a talk with him before she could go through with a marriage to Roman.
She looked down at the ring and thought how jealous Tony would be to know that Roman had proposed. That would get him to admit his feelings for her for sure. She would go down to Mythic to see Tony right then.
"Roman, I like that idea very much," Anna said gulping down her champagne in one swig. "Thank you so much for understanding. Now I have so many errands to run before I leave I hope you don't mind me not staying for the rest of lunch. I'll call you."
Anna gave Roman a big kiss and grabbed the ring box on her way out the door in such a hurry she nearly knocked Marlena over as she came around the corner.
"Oh, hi again, Marlena," Anna said in an excited rush. "And bye, Marlena!"
Marlena shook her head and walked over to Roman's table.
"Runaway bride?" Marlena said.
"Not funny, Doc," Roman said with a sigh. "She said she has to THINK about it. And what are you doing here? I thought you left."
"I had, but I needed to stop in the ladies room," Marlena said. "Listen Roman, I'm sorry I made that joke. I had no idea. But I have to tell you, Anna is crazy if she lets a man like you get away."
"Crazy like you?" Roman said in a huff as he threw a wad of cash on the table and walked out.
Chapter 7
Lucas ambled into his office at Mythic Communications disheveled and unshaven and set his briefcase down on a chair when he saw his desk chair seemingly swivel around on its own to face him.
"Mom, what are you doing here?" Lucas asked Kate.
"Oh, me? I am here working, trying to keep this company going, pouring my lifeblood into this office so that you and all my children will have a stake in a very successful corporation to inherit one day, but it seems you are not interested enough in that to show up for work until the afternoon?" Kate accused.
"I… well…" Lucas stammered.
"Well nothing," Kate said throwing her hands in the air in frustration and getting out of the chair to walk across the room. "I don't know what to do with you, Lucas. What is there I can do to help you? I mean, you're clearly drinking again."
"What makes you say that?" Lucas said defensively.
"For starters, this is not the first time you've been late to work," Kate said. "Thankfully Tony is too preoccupied with his whole weird DiMera thing to notice, but I am really getting sick of covering for you here."
"Then don't. Stop covering for me," Lucas said. "See if I care."
"Oh, that's really mature, Lucas. There's also the fact that it looks like you haven't shaved in a week," Kate said moving closer to Lucas and putting her hand on his cheek before he pushed it away. "And you're definitely wearing the same suit as yesterday."
Kate leaned in and sniffed.
"Dammit, Lucas! You're drunk right now, aren't you?" Kate screamed.
"I'm not drunk. If you must know, yes, I just had a beer with my lunch," Lucas admitted. "But it's nothing."
"No, it's something. It's you giving up on life. I mean, how can you do this to Will?" Kate asked.
"In case you forgot, Mom, Will is still living with his Uncle Austin and Aunt Carrie in Europe. It's not like I'm going to drink around him when he gets back when school starts again," Lucas said defensively.
"Well then that makes it OK. You're just going to hide your drinking from him and that will keep him from seeing how screwed up his father is," Kate said.
"If I'm screwed up it's because of you, Mom," Lucas said furiously. "If it wasn't for you Sami would still be here. She wouldn't have left. We would be a family and I would be happy with her."
"How is it my fault that little slut couldn't stay faithful to you and ran off with E.J.?" Kate scoffed.
"Don't call the mother of my son a slut, all right?" Lucas said. "I am perfectly aware of what she did without you reminding me every fifteen minutes with your putdowns."
"What am I supposed to call this bitch who ran away with another man on your honeymoon and broke your heart?" Kate said. "I'm sorry, Lucas, but I am not holding my tongue when it comes to that monster. Especially not now when I see how much pain she is still…"
But Kate was interrupted by a knock on the door and a secretary entered.
"We're busy," Kate said glaring.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Roberts, but there's a phone call for Mr. Roberts," the secretary said bowing her head in fear of her demanding boss. "The caller says it's urgent."
"Thank you, Emily," Lucas said smiling. "I will take that call right now. We aren't discussing anything important. You can let yourself out, can't you, Mom?"
Kate huffed as she stormed out of the office while Lucas took a seat at his desk and pressed the blinking red light to see who was on the other end of the line.
"Yes, this is Lucas Roberts… Wait… Celeste?" Lucas said surprised. "Why the hell are you calling me? Hold up… Celeste, you're talking too fast… I don't think… What?!... OK… Fine, you can meet me in the alley outside Mythic in ten minutes."
Chapter 8
Nervously, Sami wandered down the secret corridor in search of Lexie.
Sami thought back to how close she and E.J. had been to escaping months ago as they walked down that same hallway, how despite all the horrible things E.J. had done to her and her family he proved his loyalty to her then and there trying to help her escape and it cost him his memory.
She shuddered as she passed his room where she first learned of his amnesia and remembered the torturous, miserable sounds that taking away those memories had made. But she knew this was her last hope. Her baby's last hope, she thought, as she rubbed her swelled stomach and tried to steel herself to whatever she might find around the corner.
Soon she came upon what she realized was the makeshift medical room. Carefully she tread so as not to wake up Stefano as he slept, on one side of a mesh curtain, in the hospital bed surrounded by Lexie's impressive collection of state-of-the-art medical equipment she had used to restore Stefano to much improved health and monitor Sami's pregnancy.
On the other side of the curtain she saw a cold, stainless steel table, an array of strange science instruments and experiments along with what appeared to her to be crude medieval torture devices. Surely this was Dr. Rolf's domain, she thought. This was where they hurt E.J. She wondered if this would be the side of the curtain she would be on if she gave birth at Maison Blanche and tapped her hand on the table with quiet fear, until a voice behind her caused her to let out a yelp.
"Shhhhhhhh. Sami, what are you screaming for? And what the hell are you doing here?" Lexie whispered.
"Lexie… I… I needed to talk you before you let Rolf induce my labor," Sami said. "I need your help to get out of here. My baby needs your help. And we can help each other!"
"Sami, even if I wanted to help you, which I don't, there's absolutely no way…" Lexie said before Sami interrupted.
"Oh, there is too a way. Right here," Sami said pulling Stefano's diary out of her pocket and showing it to Lexie. "This is our ticket out of here and back to our families in Salem. Once Tony sees this he's not going to lift one finger to help Stefano and we'll be free."
"What are you talking about?" Lexie said skeptically.
"I found this in the attic. It's Stefano's diary. It has all his secrets. All his schemes inside its pages," Sami said excitedly. "And the biggest one involves Tony."
"Sami, just what are you trying to accomplish intruding in an old man's personal business?" Lexie asked.
"But it's business that concerns all of us, Lexie. It concerns your father and Tony and E.J. and my baby," Sami said. "Oh, Lexie, I know you hate me and I don't expect that to change. But if you care at all for E.J., the father of my child, your brother… well sort of your brother… but anyway, if you care for him at all you'll…"
"Sami, how dare you question me about my feelings for my family?" Lexie said.
"I wasn't. I just mean… I just don't want my baby to be born in this awful place. I just want to get out of here. And you can help me Lexie. We can help each other," Sami pleaded. "You just have to call Tony and tell him about this."
"Oh, so you think Tony is going to help you get out of here, Sami?" Sami said. "He hates you even more than I do."
"Well, after you show him the diary he'll hate someone a hell of a lot more than he hates me," Sami said. "He'll hate Stefano for keeping the truth that E.J. is his son a secret from both of them all these years!"
"What?" Lexie gasped and tried to make sense of what she just said. "You're crazy. Sami, this has to be the most ridiculous lie you've ever told. And you've told some big ones."
"It's true," Sami said. "It's all in here. I'm not making this up. Apparently E.J. is Tony and Anna's son. I guess Anna was pregnant with him and thought she had a miscarriage after the boating accident, but Stefano paid off the doctors to lie. He was afraid his grandchild, the heir to the DiMera legacy, would hate him if he was raised by Tony and he couldn't stand the idea of that so he hid him away from everyone all these years so he could groom him to lead the family just the way he wanted. I guess he was raised in London, not that far from Anna actually, which is so sad."
"That's preposterous, Sami," Lexie said. "I mean you've heard E.J. talk about growing up here at Maison Blanche. Are you saying E.J. is just making that stuff up?"
"No, Lexie," Sami said. "I'm saying someone else made up those memories for him. It says in here he was raised in London by some governess Mary Poppins-type woman named Wells. But Stefano gave him these other memories to think he was Elvis Junior when he was ready to send this latest and greatest pawn to work terrorizing Salem."
"So why not just tell E.J. this?" Lexie said. "He has just as much reason to hate my father for this as Tony does."
"Because E.J. doesn't remember," Sami said. "You've seen the way he adores Stefano, thinks he can do no wrong. He won't believe me. And even if he did, Rolf would just zap him again and make him forget everything I told him and I'd be even worse off."
Lexie paused to contemplate what Sami was telling her.
"Is there stuff about me in there?" Lexie said. "Stuff about my mother?"
"Not in this one," Sami said handing her the diary so Lexie could thumb through the pages looking it over. "I mean in that trunk upstairs there's a whole bunch of diaries and letters and pictures and all kinds of stuff about your mom and John and Hope and Steve all of Stefano's victims over the years… but that's not important. What needs to happen right now is you calling Tony and telling him about this so he can call this whole thing off and we can go home. He'll confront Stefano totally outraged and after that my baby's umbilical cord blood and your medical services will no longer be needed because we'll all just leave the monster here to die."
Lexie looked up from the book, slammed it shut and glared.
"Sami, don't forget that monster you are referring to is still my father," Lexie said.
"But after all this, you can't still care about him, can you?" Sami said. "I mean this diary just shows the world would be a much better place if he just died."
"The same can be said for you after all the horrible things you've done to people over the years, so get off your soapbox, Sami," Lexie said clutching the diary with her arms. "I'm not calling Tony. My father's health is too fragile right now to have anything upset him."
"But Lexie… you can't. You can't do this," Sami said reaching out for the diary while Lexie held it just out of her grasp. "I know you hate me. But I never knew the hatred you had for E.J. And Tony?"
"This isn't about my hatred for them," Lexie said. "It's about my love for my father. These past several months I've really gotten to know him. For the first time in our lives, I spent time with him and got to know him as my father. Not just as the great Stefano DiMera, but my dad, who was kept away from me when I was growing up when I could have used a father, even if he had all these flaws and eccentricities."
"Flaws and eccentricities? Pffft." Sami scoffed while Lexie ignored her.
"Sami, if he kept this a secret all these years, I'm sure he had a very good reason and I'm going to do everything I can to help him recover so that if he wants to reveal that secret, he will get that chance," Lexie said.
Sami was speechless. A single tear ran down her cheek as she contemplated her plan's total failure.
"Sorry Sami," Lexie said. "You'll have to look for help elsewhere."
Just then E.J. entered the room.
"Lexie, Rolf said he needs Samantha upstairs to get things ready for the procedure so I'm going to take her back to the attic," E.J. said stoically.
Lexie nodded and walked toward Stefano's bed pulling the curtain around them.
"E.J., you're not going to let them do this are you?" Sami said pounding his chest.
"I'm sorry, Samantha," he said dragging her into the hallway. "Truly sorry."
Defeated and resigned to her fate, Sami didn't even bother struggling as E.J. linked arms with her to escort her out of the room. She didn't cry either. There were no tears left.
But as they walked past his old room toward the fireplace passageway suddenly E.J.'s demeanor changed.
"Don't worry, Samantha. There is no way in hell I'm letting Rolf get his hands on our baby," he whispered.