Chapter 21

E.J. sat by the phone anxiously hoping Roman would call him with some information about the letter, so anxious in fact that when the doorbell rang he reached for the princess phone in the parlor before realizing someone was at the door.

Hoping the person brought news of Sami, E.J. opened the door without looking through the peephole.

"Have you heard anything about Samantha… oh Lucas," E.J. said, looking with pity on the sad man in front of him. "I'm sorry, but we're all stocked up on Girl Scout Cookies here so if you'll run along…"

E.J. tried to slam the door shut, but Lucas stuck out his foot in the door to block it.

"But if I run along I won't have the chance to tell you what I heard about Sami," Lucas said.

Curious, E.J. opened the door wide and allowed him to enter.

"Just what have you heard about Samantha?" E.J. asked impatiently. "Tell me."

"Well, I heard she left town," Lucas crowed. "Got fed up being married to you, not that that's all that surprising given what a bastard you are."

"Cute," E.J. smiled scornfully. "And do you happen to know where she is? No? Well then maybe you can spare me the insults and tell me what you're bloody well doing here. Or even better, leave."

"I'm here for my children!" Lucas screamed. "Since Sami abandoned them, I'm going to take care of them now. They're going to be with their father. Their true father."

E.J. scowled while Lucas smiled knowing he had scored a direct hit on what was quite the sore subject for E.J.

"But you can't take them. Sami hardly abandoned them, Lucas," E.J. said defensively. "The police are looking into her disappearance and she's only been gone a few hours. And aren't you at all worried about this? You once loved her, or at least made a very good imitation of it, Lucas, so are you telling me now you don't care at all where she is or what's happened to her?"

"I can honestly say that," Lucas said bitterly. "But I do care about these twins. They're all I have left."

E.J. sighed. Something didn't seem right with all of this, but so sick with worry over Sami he wasn't entirely thinking straight and he very much wanted to get rid of the poison dwarf, even if it meant letting him babysit the twins until Sami was back.

"Well, I suppose it can't hurt to let you watch the twins while all of us are out looking for Sami," E.J. said as he walked up the stairs to get the twins.

"No it can't hurt," Lucas whispered to himself with a wicked grin while E.J. went upstairs.

A few minutes later E.J. came downstairs with the twins toted in car seats in each arm while each of their diaper bags were draped around his neck. E.J. passed them off to Lucas begrudgingly as he still couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right about this, but he decided his worry was more for Sami than anything.

"Let me know when you find Sami," Lucas said with a strange smile as E.J. shut the front door behind him.

E.J. almost went after him to find out what he meant when his father came up behind him.

"Who was at the door?" Stefano asked. "Did someone have news about Samantha?"

"No, Father," E.J. sighed. "It was Lucas Roberts. He came to pick up the twins. I told him he could watch them until Samantha gets back."

Stefano eyes shifted with nervousness at those words, but E.J. didn't notice.

"Say, Father, you don't know anything about Samantha's disappearance do you?" E.J. asked. "Because I just have this funny feeling I can't shake that somehow Andre is involved in this. I mean, I know it's crazy because I killed him, but…"

"Oh Elvis, it's only natural for your thinking to be a little crazy when you are so sick with worry for your beloved," Stefano said, attempting to change the subject. "I do hope you find her soon, but I am not feeling well so I am going to lie down."

"But Father, wait…" E.J. said even as Stefano waved him off and continued walking back to his bedroom.

E.J. began pacing wondering what he could do to try to find Sami. He had to take some sort of action or he'd lose his mind before Roman called with information on the letter. E.J. decided to walk back upstairs to the bedroom and see if he could come up with any clues looking around the room.

The room was still just as he had left it before with the tissues and broken glass, but in the bright mid-day sunlight something in the painting that frightened Samantha caught his eye.

Chapter 22

E.J. walked over to the painting and stared into its haunting eyes that seemed strangely familiar, even though the face in the portrait was not. He remembered his father once telling him it was of Stefano's brother, Giovanni, who was Andre's father. Apparently Giovanni had died of mysterious causes while Andre was just a boy and that was why he came to think of Stefano so much as his own father.

Stefano didn't like talking about Giovanni, and E.J. knew better than to press his father exactly why that was the case but the few times he did talk about him, E.J. got the sense that his uncle's death was sudden, tragic and devastating to his brother and best friend.

Realizing his standing around the bedroom reminiscing wasn't doing much to find Sami, E.J. turned and started to head out of the room, until out of the corner of his eye he noticed the painting was crooked.

E.J. reached up to try to straighten the painting, but when he fiddled with the frame to attempt to set it straight it still kept sliding back even more crooked than before. So E.J. took the painting off the wall in an attempt to reset it straight back on the hook, however E.J. never would put that painting back on the wall as removing it had uncovered a bizarre six-inch by three-inch rectangle hole in the wall.

Shocked to discover this surprise in his family's own home, E.J. picked up the painting again and looked at its backing. Though the painting had been encased in glass in the front, it had no backing to protect the fabric of the canvas and when E.J. slid his hand across the material he noticed a slit where he could peel back the painting right where the portrait's eyes would be.

"So someone has been watching us? Watching Sami?" E.J. muttered himself trying to make sense of it all. "And there's a room behind this wall!"

E.J. began pounding on the wall around the hole and screaming for Sami but he heard nothing in return. He knew there must be some secret doorway to get through the wall but how would he get back there, E.J. wondered.

Running his fingers against the wall and eyeing it extremely closely, E.J. thought he could make out a crease in the wall where a door opening might be between the bed and the bureau, but with no handle to open it that didn't help much.

After lunging at the wall gave him nothing more than a bruised shoulder, E.J. sighed. At wit's end and feeling defeated, E.J. rested his hand on the phoenix statue on top of the bureau, when to his surprise the statue pulled back and suddenly the door opened.

"Samantha?" E.J. yelled as he stepped into the dark passageway. "Samantha, where are you?"

E.J. turned to the right as he got into the passageway and began walking down the hallway calling for Sami despite not knowing what he might find. Though he was in his family's house, this part of it was completely foreign to him.

"Samantha?" E.J. called, but still hearing nothing his voice got weaker and he started to wonder if he had fallen into some sort of trap.

Yet as he got to the end of the passageway and found a heavy door where the hallway stopped, E.J. knew Sami was inside, he could feel it, even before he burst through the door screaming for her.

"E.J.!" Sami shouted with relief as she struggled with the ropes binding her hands to the chair. "Thank God you found me. I was so scared."

E.J. knelt in front of the chair as he put his hands on Sami's cheeks in an attempt to soothe her. E.J. wanted desperately to kiss her, but he decided that could wait as he pulled out his pocket knife and reached each arm around her sides to try to unbind her.

"Thanks for coming for me, E.J.," Sami said. "Thanks for knowing that I didn't leave you."

"You can thank me later," E.J. said with a wink. "Right now, we've got to get you out of here, sweetheart."

But before he could cut through the rope to free Sami, a familiar voice entering the room prompted him to drop the knife.

"Sami, you didn't tell me we were having company," Andre snickered as he walked in the room smiling with his gun outstretched. "Good thing I just LOVE surprises."

EJ turned around and got up to stand, but Andre scolded him waving him into a chair next to Sami.

"You sit right there and don't move if you don't want your bride's brain blown to bits," Andre warned.

E.J. gritted his teeth but complied, unwilling to risk an attempt at wrestling the gun away from Andre and put Sami in more danger. As Andre took some extra rope to tie him to the chair, E.J. looked at Sami and sighed for failing her.

Somehow despite the dire straits for the two of them, Sami remained as spirited and feisty as ever.

"You're not going to get away with this Andre," Sami snarled.

"Oh, I'm not?" Andre laughed. "It doesn't appear Elvis brought any backup, now does it?"

Sami scowled with hatred but said nothing.

"And I'm sure he can tell you how your father saw your note and is convinced you really did run away of your own accord to get away from that awful, hated husband sitting next to you?" Andre said with a smile.

Sami glared at Andre but when her gaze turned toward E.J. and his eyes confirmed what Andre had said, Sami frowned.

"Maybe Sami, you can fill in E.J. on why Lucas won't be coming to the rescue on this occasion," Andre chuckled.

E.J. was confused by the statement as well as Sami's reaction to it, but decided to change the subject.

"Andre, just what do you think you're going to accomplish by keeping us prisoner here?" E.J. asked. "You know that Father will never go for this. You'll be kicked out of the family."

"Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that," Andre said in a mocking sarcastic tone as he stood in the doorway about to leave them. "Perhaps I'll just have to eliminate Stefano and take control of this family myself. Thanks for the idea, E.J."

The door slammed shut. E.J. and Sami looked at each other unsure what to do or what to say.

Chapter 23

Andre giggled to himself as he strolled out of the secret passageway and back into Sami's bedroom.

"It's all mine," Andre said to himself as he pushed the door back into place, reset the phoenix statue on the bureau and placed the picture frame carefully back on the wall. "The DiMera Empire is mine."

But Andre didn't realize the current occupant of the family's throne was within earshot.

"Just what do you think you're doing Andre?" Stefano screamed so loudly and startled Andre so badly he jumped.

"Just admiring this portrait of my father," Andre lied coolly, regaining his composure despite not knowing just how long Stefano had been standing in the bedroom doorway. "Well, of my biological father, anyway, Father."

Though Stefano walked with a cane, it didn't take him long to get across the room and confront his mischievous nephew.

"You are lying to me!" Stefano screamed as he smacked Andre across the face. "Where is Elvis?"

"How should I know?" Andre asked through gritted teeth.

Stefano cocked his hand back ready to smack Andre again just as his nephew decided to offer up the truth – well, part of it anyway.

"He probably went looking for Samantha," Andre said.

Stefano sighed. "What did you do with her Andre?" Stefano asked with resignation.

"What did I do with her?" Andre asked. "I did nothing to her. Didn't she leave some letter saying she ran away?"

"She did, and now Elvis is missing and Lucas Roberts has the twins," Stefano said with exasperation. "DiMera twins! All my plans are in ruin."

"And how is that my fault?" Andre asked. "I've done everything you wanted."

"Don't lie to me, Andre," Stefano said firmly. "I raised you, I gave you everything you ever wanted, everything you ever needed after Giovanni's death. I took you in and made you a part of my family and treated you like my own son. I deserve the truth."

"Oh, I'll tell you what you deserve," Andre said with an evil grin. "To be treated just like my own father."

Andre pulled a syringe out of his pocket, which Stefano eyed nervously.

"What do you mean?" Stefano asked, unsure he wanted the answer. "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking what is mine," Andre said. "What should be mine after all the loyalty I gave to you, to this family all these years. I worshipped you, Stefano. When I was a child I wanted nothing more than to be one of your subjects, to get close to you, to be just like you and that's why… That's why my real father had to die."

Stefano recoiled in horror.

"But you were just a boy!" Stefano screamed.

"Yes," Andre said with a sinister grin. "But I had outgrown my father. He had outlived his purpose and I needed to live with you if I was ever going to assume my rightful place as head of the DiMera Empire."

"I won't let this happen," Stefano insisted. "Get out of my sight. You are a traitor to the DiMera name."

"No, Stefano, I think that's you," Andre snickered. "You're the one who's turning over your kingdom to that lovesick golden boy of yours no matter how many times he's defied you. You're the one who's letting the Bradys live in peace just so you can play matchmaker. No, you are not fit to rule."

"Andre, no! No!" Stefano screamed as Andre shoved the syringe in his arm.

"That should do the trick," Andre said as he looked back quickly before he darted out of the room and out of the mansion without being seen.

Stefano collapsed against the wall right next to Giovanni's portrait and slid his arm along the wall until he finally ended up on the floor convulsing.

Chapter 24

"Well this is just great," Sami sighed as she turned away from E.J. and began struggling with the ropes tying her to the chair.

"I'm sorry, Samantha," E.J. said with resignation. "I'm sorry I failed you."

"Failed me?" Sami scoffed. "Are you telling me you are giving up? We can't let Andre get away with this. We just can't."

"You're right, sweetheart, I just wish we had a plan to get out of here," E.J. said, beginning to struggle with the ropes behind his back. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but it sure would be nice if we saw Lucas show up right about now."

Sami met E.J.'s eyes with anguish at those words and then looked away.

"What? I take it I said something wrong," E.J. said shaking his head in frustration. "Are you going to fill me in or do you want me to play twenty questions to figure out what Andre was talking about when he brought up Lucas before and why I shouldn't dare to hope for your ex-husband to come walking through that door?"

"E.J., Lucas already has walked through that door!" Sami screamed as tears filled her eyes and E.J.'s stomach began doing backflips. "Lucas was in on this whole thing with Andre! That's why we have to get out of here before he gets his hands on those babies."

"Oh God," E.J. whispered to himself without Sami hearing him.

"Speaking of the babies, E.J., where are they?" Sami asked desperately. "Did you leave them with my mother or Anna before you started looking for me?"

E.J.'s instinct was to lie. He wanted to shelter Sami from any more worry. He wanted to tell her the truth after he had recovered the twins when the painful and embarrassing truth – that he had been duped by Lucas Roberts and had unwittingly handed them over to the enemy – would cease to matter. E.J. opened his mouth about to speak when the tears welling up in Sami's eyes forced him to pause. He simply couldn't lie to Sami about her children, even if he had lied about so many other things.

"I… I'm sorry, Samantha," E.J. stuttered. "I… I…. well, you see, Lucas stopped by while I was sick with worry for you and…"

"Lucas?!" Sami raged, interrupting her husband. "Oh no, tell me you didn't hand over the twins to that bastard."

"Samantha, how was I supposed to know that jobless, ambitionless, charmless twerp was cunning enough to pull off something like this?" E.J. asked defensively. "He came by asking to see the twins and even though something didn't seem right I thought maybe he could watch them while I went looking for you."

"Well, this is just great," Sami said getting out of the chair to stand up and pace the room as the ropes that had been binding her to the chair fell off her arms and onto the floor.