Laura and Steele arrived in time to catch Emily signing for the money at the bank teller's counter.

She turned and spotted them. A blank expression quickly replaced the shock on her face. "Mr. Steele, Miss Holt—this is a surprise. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know, just passing through." Steele's smile was cool.

Laura crossed her arms. "But then, so are you. Aren't you Emily?"

Emily stared at them for one calm moment, before dropping the money-filled suitcase and lunging for Laura's eyes, red nails bared. Steele caught Emily by the waist and used the momentum from her leap to swing her around and throw her back into the counter. The bank teller had the presence of mind to ring the silent alarm.

Emily caught herself against the counter and smiled in a way that reminded Steele of the feral, wild cats he'd run into in South America. Her long, beautiful hair—once so elegant—now spread outward in a mane of tangled split ends while her eyes—so sultry before—were red and wild with spitfire.

Laura stared at her opponent, transfixed by the terrifying vision before her. "Why, Emily? Why drag Charlotte into this?"

Emily snarled—actually bared her teeth and snarled. "That bitch! That little thief deserves so much more pain, but I'm working with a deadline. They're really murder." She grinned without amusement, madness evident in the depths of her eyes.

Laura glanced at Steele. "What did Charlotte take?"

Steele's expression was grave, watching Emily's every move for a threat. "Jake. Charlotte has Jake, and she had a decrepit old doctor she was sleeping with for his money. What does that make you, Emily?"

"Jake is mine! He was always supposed to be mine. We grew up together; he came out here with me. He's a sweetheart, and he's mine!"

"Except he was never rich enough for you," Steele said, rubbing his lower lip in thought. "You had to make your fortune first, anyway you could. But he changed the rules, didn't he, Emily? He found love elsewhere—your sister Charlotte."

She laughed bitterly. "Daddy's adoration wasn't enough for her—oh no. She had to take Jake, too. Well, I'll take it all back. Jake's mine—he's always been mine."

Laura looked at Steele. "So she kills the doctor—" Laura didn't have to finish the thought; Emily did it for her.

"Doc had to die eventually, but when I found out the wedding was set for this weekend, the time table had to be moved up. I thought without him to identify me I could take her place at the wedding. But after one afternoon impersonating Charlotte, I knew I'd never manage to convince Jake. And it wouldn't matter. If he married me as Charlotte, she would still get him—don't you see? She would win."

Steele shook his head, almost feeling sorry for the deranged woman in front of him. Almost. "And you couldn't have that, could you?"

Laura nodded, neurons firing with excess adrenaline. "So, you decided to frame Charlotte instead. A sure fire way to stop the wedding and send Jake into your comforting arms."

"And it would have worked if you two had just done your job," Emily spat.

"You hired us to prove Jake didn't murder Dr. Symmons. We did that. And we're here to collect our fee." Steele nodded to the cop cars surrounding the bank and the teams filtering into the lobby. "Justice served in exchange for services rendered." He looked to Laura with a raised eyebrow. "Sound about right?"

Laura grinned. "How generous of you, Mr. Steele."

Emily growled and lunged for Laura again. Laura stiffened, preparing herself for the impact, only to realize it never came. Suddenly Emily was snarling on the ground while David Addison held her down and snarled back. "I don't usually hit blondes, but for you, I'll make an exception."

When the dust settled and the blood was mopped off the floor, everyone returned to the Remington Steele office with one exception.

"Where's Davy?" Laura asked with concern.

Maddie winced. "We had a fight. If past behavior is any indication, he's at a bar somewhere."

Laura gave her partner a pointed look.

Steele sighed. "I'll go convince our missing hero to return, shall I?"

Without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the office, stride full of purpose. Three pairs of female eyes followed his progress.

Charlotte sighed appreciatively. "You have that? My God…" Confident in his love, Jake laughed.

Laura shifted in her seat. "Well, have is a relative term. I have Mr. Steele the same way one might have a stray cat. He's content to be yours provided there's lots of milk and plenty of attention to keep him occupied, but he's liable to wander off again whenever the mood moves."

"I heard that." Steele appeared in the doorway, slipping into his jacket. "Don't believe her for a moment. This cat is getting positively domesticated."

Laura smiled. "So I hear."

"So you know, though Lord knows you'll never admit to it. Well this cat is going a wandering after Mr. Addison. Leave the milk out, Laura, there's a dear."

Laura blushed, secretly pleased. She caught Maddie looking at her with disbelief. "What?"

"You love him, don't you? You don't mind if he takes all the bows and all the credit."

Laura laughed. "That's his job. Sometimes he gets carried away, but that's why he's got me. And trust me—some days, he wishes he was me."

Oh dear, thought Maddie, David's right again.

David was belly up to the bar by the time Steele arrived.

"Tequila," David told the bar tender, in case the man had a sudden lapse in memory. Anything was possible; David was being to feel a bit foggy himself. "Intravenously if possible."

Steele slid into place beside him. The bartender spared him a glance, and Steele shook his head. "Nothing for me, thanks."

"You don't drink?" David found the concept difficult to grasp.

Steele shrugged. "Not to excess. Inebriation was something of an occupational hazard in my former profession."

"Oh yeah? What profession was that?"

Steele assessed the man next to him and decided that if David could remember the details of this conversation when he sobered up, he deserved to keep the information.

"Thief."

"Yeah? Figured as much. Me—I tended bar. Listen to the world's problems all night long and inebriation becomes a job description." His shot arrived and David downed it in one gulp. He looked back to Steele. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Stay with one, exasperating, aggravating woman and stay sober all the time?"

Steele smiled and tilted his head in thought. "Depends on the woman, I suppose. There are few women I would be tempted to try it with in the first place, let alone get committed to the idea. But Laura—I don't know. I'd rather drive her crazy then drive myself to drink. Better time."

David nodded, considering. "Maddie argues great. I love the way she argues. I mean, I'm always wrong—even when I'm right, I'll be wrong eventually. But she's sooooo strong; she's just so—there, you know? Like if I don't bait her just a little she'll withdraw into this cold, icy shell, and I'll never see her again. And man, she can just be sooooo warm. All that ice—it's a crying shame."

"Have you tried explaining this to her? It sounds pretty good to me."

"Yeah, I try. Man, I try. But there's just so much to say, and we just don't. We haven't since I told her I'd loved her forever that first day and she smacked me one good." He shook his head, pursing his lips a little to grasp his slipping concentration. "We kissed a while back, yeah? I mean a really great kiss. Fan-freaking-tastic kiss. Definitely in my top five. And what do we do? Ignore it. Pretend it never even happened—like 'whoopies, I tripped and accidentally frenched my partner.' Happens all the time, no big deal." He tossed back another shot and smacked the glass back down on the bar. "Bullshit."

Steele nodded, at a loss for any further pearls of wisdom to offer. Laura would know what to say. He signaled the bartender. "You'd better start me off with a scotch, thanks."

Back at the office, Laura kept a wary eye on Maddie, who was slowly growing paler and paler.

"Should we discuss this?"

Maddie shook her head, motioning to Jake Grove and Charlotte Gear sitting on the couch. "Shouldn't we do something for them?'

Laura sighed. "Right, business first."

"It's this darn dedication," Maddie commiserated. Laura blinked at her. "What?"

Laura laughed. "Nothing. Are you sure you only went out once with Mr. Steele?"

"Once was enough."

"All right." She turned back to the couch and dragged a chair over to face its occupants. "Mr. Gove, Miss Gear, I'm afraid we haven't been formally introduced. I'm Laura Holt. I'm an associate of Remington Steele Investigations, we're partnering with Blue Moon on this case." Seeing concern in Jake's eyes, she smiled reassuringly. "Free of charge, I assure you." She looked to Charlotte. "We were hired Monday by your sister Emily who was using your name. She told quite a story; it's hard to tell which parts were true and which were fabrications. I hope you won't mind me asking a few questions to clean up our files?"

Charlotte shook her head. "Not at all. I assume I'm no longer under scrutiny for murder?"

"Not at all. We believe your sister intended to frame you for the murder of Dr. Symmons in order to forestall your wedding this weekend."

Charlotte looked at Jake and sighed. "Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense." She turned back to Laura and continued. "Emily and I met Jake in the second grade. We moved from Iowa to Georgia one summer, and it didn't go too smoothly. Jake was the only one we met that year who didn't laugh at our northern accents. Kids are tough. Eventually I picked up a little of a southern twang, but Emily went in the opposite direction. She wanted it all gone—perfect speech, perfect inflection—no hint of where she came from or who she was. And that wasn't the only thing she was set on perfecting. Hair, makeup, clothes—by the time we graduated, it was hard to tell that we'd ever been related, other than our faces. Daddy took it hardest. He thought she was abandoning her family, but I knew that wasn't it. It was worse. She was abandoning herself. But she loved Jake, or tried to at least. She was so wrapped up in ditching her past that she forgot to make room for him in her future."

Jake shrugged. "Wouldn't have mattered. I've always been crazy for Charlotte, and nothing could change my mind."

Charlotte nodded. "Emily realized that after we came out here. I was working and going to school; Jake had inherited his uncle's auto shop, and what time we weren't spending working or studying we spent with each other. We just didn't have as much time for her in our lives anymore, and Emily didn't know how to find her own. She latched on to the first kindly person she met."

"Dr. Symmons?"

Charlotte sighed. "Yes. He was kind, and he knew a thing or two about crazed women. I think he really loved her, but I've never been convinced that they slept together. She would have, I'm sure, but I like to think better of Dr. Symmons." Charlotte was quite for a moment. Maddie stared at the coffee table, thinking about love's fragility. Laura nodded for Charlotte to continue, accepting that she'd probably never know the truth about Emily's relationship with Dr. Symmons.

Charlotte looked to Jake and shrugged, turning back to answer Laura. "That's about it. She took off five years ago when she realized that Jake and I were getting serious. I never really expected to see her again. I changed gynecologists; I thought that was best for both of us. But then my new one moved to Washington and I thought, what the heck? I mean how many people do you want to have poking around down there if you can help it, you know?"

Maddie and Laura looked at each other and shrugged. They knew.

"So I went back last week, and it was fine. He was just as lovely as ever, just as charming and easy to talk to. I told him about Jake and me tying the knot next week, and he was so happy for us. Last weekend I went away with some girl friends for a spa weekend. My grandmother is almost bed bound and can't leave New York, so we're having the wedding out there, and let me tell you: it is not easy planning a wedding on the other side of the country."

Jake laughed. "Charlotte's been a little stressed."

"Stressed? I've been damn near homicidal." She winced. "Bad choice of words. Anyway, I take off for the weekend, and Sunday afternoon Jake gets this call."

Jake leaned forward to pick up the story. "I didn't want to tell you at the time, in case it ruined my Charlotte's alibi, but a woman called pretending to be Charlotte. There was no reason it couldn't be Charlotte, I mean we'd agreed not to talk while she was away, but it could have been an emergency. But it didn't feel like Charlotte. Even over the phone I could tell it wasn't her. And now that I think of it, there was something else that happened last week."

Laura sat up straighter. "Yes?"

Jake bit his lower lip. "Well, last Thursday, the day after Charlotte went to see Dr. Symmons, there was this kiss. She came into the auto shop after lunch. It was pretty steamy, too, and I remembered thinking that something was different, and I didn't quite like it either. I asked Charlotte about it after and she said 'What damn fool kiss?' We argued about it all the way home. That's when she said we better not talk while she was away." He looked at Charlotte questioningly. "Do you remember that?"

"I sure do. I thought you were losing it on me. I remember thinking, 'oh great, sixteen years and he's gonna crack on me a week before the wedding."

"But I wasn't cracked. It was Emily, trying to be you."

Laura cleared her throat to get their attention. "She told Mr. Steele and myself that she realized she could never deceive you into believing she was Charlotte, and so rather than kill Charlotte she decided to frame her for Dr. Symmons' murder."

"Poor Dr. Symmons."

"No." Maddie spoke from her seat at the desk for the first time. "Rich Dr. Symmons. He had embezzled nearly half a million from his own practice by the time Emily killed him."

Charlotte shook her head sadly. "I can't believe that. He was always so kind."

"Kind or not, he's books were a work of fiction," Laura stated. "He must have told your sister about your upcoming nuptials. She intended to kill him anyway, but her failed attempt to seduce Jake made her first plan inoperable. Instead of stepping up the poison, she stuck a needle in his brain, figuring the poison will be enough of a tip off for anyone with a functioning brain cell to tell that he was murdered.

"But Saturday is the ME's drinking day, and he signed off on the body with just a cursory glance. When no news of the murder turned up by Monday, she came here to set the Remington Steele Agency on the trail, figuring it would all come back to the only twin in town. But she didn't know that her sister had an airtight alibi, or that her red finger nails would eventually give her away.

"And then she did the stupidest thing of all and made a grab for the money." Laura shook her head, baffled by the thought. "Why? Why not let it sit and rot? It was only going to lead us to her."

Maddie sighed. "I suppose she was going to use it to incriminate Charlotte, again. Or take off and hope all the evidence would just come crushing down on her sister. If Charlotte hadn't been in our office, David and I never would have suspected a thing. Emily couldn't know you had connections at the bank or that nail polish would lead you to the truth. What a mess."

Jake stood up. "It certainly is, Ms. Hayes. We want to thank you both for clearing it up. An ongoing murder investigation would have really put a crimp in our weekend plans."

Charlotte stood next to him with a laugh. "Now there's an understatement. Jake and I would be delighted if you and your partners would accept invitations to our wedding in New York this weekend—all expenses paid. After all, it's because of you there's even going to be a wedding."

Maddie and Laura shared a glance.

"That's awfully gracious of you—" Laura began.

Maddie jumped in. "But we really couldn't—"

"Say no!" Steele shouted from the doorway. "A wonderful, weekend wedding. Marvelous! Just rolls off the tongue doesn't it? A weekend wedding. In New York. Not quite as rolly, that one…" He giggled and stumbled into the room to fall on the couch, forcing everyone to back out of the way.

Laura smiled apologetically at Jake and Charlotte, who were staring at the prone figure of the great Remington Steele.

"Is he drunk?"

Laura sighed and nodded morosely. "I don't suppose you want to rescind that invitation?"

Jake and Charlotte left after reassuring Maddie and Laura that they would still expect to see them in New York. Laura found herself alone in the office with an inebriated Mr. Steele and a disapproving Ms. Hayes.

"That man could drink Ernest Hemingway under the table," her partner lamented, slurring his words.

A yard away, Laura could still smell the booze on his breath. She tisked and went to lift his feet onto the couch and straighten his pillows. "What happened to you?"

Steele hiccupped and smiled while Laura to fussed over him. "You smell like smoke."

She snorted and perched beside him on the coffee table. "You, I'm afraid. Been playing Bogart again, have we?'

"And booze."

"You, again. Did you roll in the stuff?"

"David Addison."

"What about him?"

"David Addison happened to me. His alcohol problems are catching."

"All right, Mr. Steele. Just lie still." She looked up at Maddie. "I've only seen him this drunk twice in all our time together. One bad case and—"

"—One righteous party," Steele finished gleefully.

Laura looked back down at him and laughed. She brushed his hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead. "You are going to hate yourself in the morning. Davy must be worse than we thought."

Maddie grimaced but remained silent, worry lining her usually soft features.

Steele hiccupped again. "Nothing a bottle of tequila won't make go away in the next hour anyway."

"Oh, David…" Laura barely heard Maddie's pained whisper.

Another hiccup. "I really think Laura ought to have a go. She's the tequila expert in this outfit."

"Tequila? I haven't had tequila since—oh."

"Pre-cisely. Ob-Ob—clearly the woman for the occasion."