Episode SEVEN - Caesar's Heirs

AN: To do this episode real justice, as I see it as a real marking stone and defining and shaping their relationship and their future, at least in my story, I realised eventually that I would need to split it into two sub-episodes to cover all important aspectsg.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all my loyal reviewers and the ones that put my story or even me up on their favourite ones –lists. I cherish each and every review and new member of my avid readers community, even if I don't always let you know.

"Roxane, you don't have to put on the red light..." Hastily Andrew pushes the button to skip to the next track. Although he's a big fan of "The Police" and loves to hum and sing along with Sting while doing relaxing no-brain work in his office that nevertheless needs to be done even by a CEO this song hits entirely too close to home now.

The next two days were awkward to say in the least. Several times Andrew made overtures to encourage Bridget open up to him by trying to build on the progress from that night. He asked, if there was something bothering her, if he could help her as he could see her worry, if she wanted to talk, if she wanted to tell him something about Gemma, but she kept her worries to herself. And all the time he fought against the urge to take the easy way out and just sit down to listen to her phone calls to see, if and what he could learn from them. But she didn't open up and he resisted temptation; they were at a stalemate and both held their breath waiting for the other shoe to drop in nervous anticipation and with gradually mounting tension between them.

And finally the tension snapped: Bridget wanted to talk. And he had been so hopeful that she would trust him and tell him who she really was and what she knew about Gemma's disappearance. Then he would tell her that he already knew and that it didn't make any difference to him. Andrew's feelings for her wouldn't change with the fact that she had a bit of a drug addiction. Who was he to judge? He and Catherine had had a line or two once or twice for the kick in their wilder days before they had Juliet, too, just to learn if sex was truly better if you were high. But he had realised quickly enough by watching their friends and by simply knowing where that road led to. And he had had big plans for his life an addiction of any kind would interfere with. Besides if he chose his business partners based on their level of sobriety, then he'd be out of business. He would love to help her. He wanted to be there for her, protect her... but she didn't let him. Instead of coming clean Bridget kept piling the lies. That hurt. That hurt so much that... he almost didn't get what she was trying to explain with mounting desperation due to his mounting incredulity.

Had he thought he was making progress with her? The hell he was doing! At least he could agree with her on one thing: There was just no understanding of that kind of behaviour. Feeling as if he were trying to catch smoke, he latched onto the only thing he could get a grip on. He called her on the carpet for keeping secrets in their marriage. Was there anything else to do? Could he react any different than acting as ignorant Andrew? Siobhan had never told him about Bridget, so should he just sit back and listen and then lean back and tell her that everything was "cool"? That it wasn't a big deal to renege her own sister? Looking back he realised only then how much it had bothered him all these years that Siobhan had kept her a secret. It made him wonder what else Siobhan had kept quiet about, hadn't thought it worth mentioning to him. Had he really ever known her at all? And why hadn't he ever brought her up? Why had he been content to let Bridget be forgotten? Because he had thought Siobhan had been entitled to her secrets or had their silence about her really just been most convenient for all of them? Didn't that make him as bad as her? And now? Why didn't he come clean and told Bridget he knew who she really was? Surprisingly the answer came quickly and easily to him: He felt it was too late to be believable anymore. He had wasted time by playing his stupid games. If he would tell her now he knew about her, then he would need to explain why he hadn't spoken up before. And that would mean admitting that he knew Siobhan was dead, which would mean admitting he listened to her phone calls, which would mean eventually admitting he had planned her murder. And he didn't trust her enough with THAT information yet, if ever. And without complete trust, there could be no lasting love. Did he really love Bridget? An hour ago he would have confirmed it with everything he had. Now, he wasn't so sure anymore. How could you love a person that didn't exist? Siobhan had been real, Bridget was real. "Siobhan" was an artificial product born out of Bridget's survival instinct. And Bonnie was just his fantasy woman. Had he simply deluded himself into thinking he loved Bridget just because he was physically attracted to her and she was nicer and more agreeable than Siobhan, yet possessed that indefinable more, that certain aura of being a wild beast that could strike at you any time it felt threatened, which made it so enticing to interact with her? Besides, they knew each other what five, six weeks? Trust and love took their time to grow.

Eventually Bridget wanted him to respond to her, but there was nothing to say. Barely hanging onto his control with jaws so tightly clenched that his teeth ached, he left wordlessly his home to go to his office. He needed time and space to think things through and find a way to get Bridget out of this tight spot while covering his own back. What had he missed these past days by not listening in? What had Bridget done to Gemma that made the police think she had something to do with her disappearance? It was evident he wouldn't get any straight answers from Bridget. She didn't trust him enough either.

And in the comforting stillness of his office he learnt what happened. Gemma knew she was Bridget. Juliet had had a veritable stash of drugs, which she had surrendered to Bridget, who in turn went to NA meetings not to (just) help Juliet but to help herself and Juliet had conveniently provided the perfect alibi for her. Why had she felt she couldn't keep up the charade anymore and how come that he hadn't notice that Bridget was on edge and close to breaking point? Had he been so focussed on his company and Juliet that he had overlooked Bridget's emotional state that he unwittingly committed the same mistakes he had vowed not to repeat? Had he inadvertently added to her stress? And why did she need to look for a new sponsor? Which by the way was wonderful news – Saint Malcolm had deserted her in her hour of need. He was out of the picture and out of the run for Bridget's affections. Then Henry had hidden the evidence of foul play for some reason and he learnt about Henry's and "Siobhan's" mutual distrust. What would make either of them think that the other one was the culprit in Gemma's disappearance? Had there been pillow talk about disposing their spouses? If yes, he had seriously underestimated Siobhan. He would never have pegged her for a killer. To ruin a man, yes, to exact some measure of revenge, yes, but to kill, no. It made him doubly glad that he had taken steps first... and that suicide of hers... made even less sense.

And the icing on the cake was that Bridget teased the hiding place of the evidence out of Henry only to go promptly there to leave traces of herself as Bridget. It was all about protecting her new life as Siobhan, so she thought.

On one hand he still felt it had been a fundamental mistake that would haunt them for the longest time to come, but it also indicated her willingness to remain Siobhan for the rest of her life. She was committed to them. And that meant... exactly what? What worth had a promise of commitment from someone like her?

And on the other hand what if the police came to them and told him his wife had an affair with a man whose wife had mysteriously disappeared? Where fit that into her plan to protect her new life, if she dragged Bridget back on scene most prominently, which put the Martins into the spotlight of not only one police investigation but two?

One way or the other... she had issued gold-engraved invitations to the police and the FBI. This agent Machado was on his way back to New York this very moment. Oh God, if he only had known sooner! He would have talked to Bridget. "Siobhan" had a perfect alibi. When Gemma had called him around midnight, she had been at home tucking Juliet in and later they had been in bed. So sod it, if the cops learnt about Siobhan's infidelity. The moment he asked Josh for the surveillance device he knew his suspicions about his wife's fidelity might end up on file somewhere. It had been a calculated risk and hence the non-negotiable demand that her murder was supposed to look like an accident while he had been abroad. They could have told the police the truth – "Siobhan" had ended the affair the moment she learnt she was pregnant and he had forgiven his wife and they were trying to make it work again. End of story. End of their involvement in Gemma's disappearance. But no, he wanted to play the knight in shining armour and respect her privacy and now they were in the biggest mess imaginable. Before he had thought the police might come to them as the closest friends to Gemma... now he knew it was only a matter of time before they knocked looking for suspects. Siobhan had an affair with Henry and her sister had left her fingerprints on the evidence! Damn Bridget's impulsiveness and lack of thinking things through.

He came to the bitter conclusion that he had done everything wrong. He should have called immediately the police upon learning that Siobhan had killed herself and Bridget was an opportunistic impostor. Why had she been running away? She could have started a complete new life with a new identity by taking advantage of the witness protection program. What had she hoped to gain by running away to Siobhan? Had she really believed her sister would be able to protect her better than law enforcement agencies? Did she think Siobhan would and could part the seas for her? Could she really be that naive or that trusting? Nothing had changed. She still made one bad decision after another and dug herself deeper and deeper into a mess of epic proportions. But this time she had not only dragged herself into, she had dragged him along with her, although to be fair he hadn't been exactly an unwilling partner in crime so to speak.

Frowning Andrew watched Bridget watching the morning news featuring Henry being taken to the police for further questioning. It wasn't hard stop watching. In fact it was the easiest thing to do once you realised that that bloodthirsty mob was not reporting news – they reported themselves trying to gather news. From his own experience last August when the Dow Jones Index crashed by a thousand points and everyone pointed the accusing finger towards HFT, he knew how it felt to be accosted by the press mob. He had left the office to get to his car after a day of crisis management and calming the more volatile of his key clients, when they had assaulted him and tried to get a statement out of him. But how could you give a sensible statement when 30 mouths hurled simultaneously 20 questions at you, so that you couldn't even hear yourself think, let alone understand their questions in that cacophony while evading their microphones shoved into your face? Thankfully security had come quickly enough and his driver had more or less pushed him into the car to protect him. No, as far as Andrew was concerned those ink slingers with a camera in their hands were nothing but vultures and vermin and not worth time or attention and certainly not worth calling themselves journalists. Journalists he knew and respected. Just last year he had sat down with two of them from the Fortune Magazine for a pleasant two hours talk, despite of their hard, intelligent and well-prepared questions. And in the end they had sent him a draft of their interview with him, he and his PR manager had edited it a bit and send it back with complimentary wishes. Two months later it was edited to their mutual satisfaction and published with a flattering photo of him and Olivia.

And despite of how much he disliked Henry this treatment he didn't deserve. They had publicly declared him guilty, though Gemma was still only missing and the only suspect was Bridget herself, who had a fool-proof alibi in a sort of way. But what was to be done about the opening night of the Art Pavilion? Henry might not realise yet what he would get into, but Andrew knew. And he was reluctant to get involved. The sensible thing to do would be to distance themselves from Henry. If „Siobhan" was seen with Henry so shortly after his wife's disappearance, a maid or the bellboy or someone else might make the right connection and remember the regularly visiting couple from the Dandridge Hotel when they saw the TV footage or their pictures. On the other hand they owed Gemma to attend. She had worked so hard for it, had fought countless attacks against her, questioning her competence, the quality of her design and accusing her of nepotism because of her father, for whom even the traffic lights would stop, if he raised a hand just to greet an acquaintance passing on the other side of the road as malicious gossip had it.

And if it hadn't been bad enough that Bridget had left her fingerprints or whatever all over the evidence, she now wanted to get involved even more by hiring a private investigator! How stupid could you get? Siobhan would never have behaved so irresponsible he thought with a fierce pang of longing. He didn't give a good goddamn about Gemma, if it meant she dragged them down! What the hell was Bridget's problem anyway? Didn't she realise how dangerous it was to attract the attention of the police? Did she want to be caught? She had been spot on with her self-analysis. She didn't think about consequences. And she was trouble. Uncharitably he suddenly developed a new understanding of Siobhan's decision to cut Bridget out of her life. He felt the foreboding small tremors of danger approaching, a certain crackle of energy buzzing around him bearing a sharp smell like ozone.

The last time he had felt it this strong had been about a year ago. Siobhan had wished him a good day in the office and there had been just something in her tone of voice... and not two hours later the SEC had stormed the offices of Martin/Charles with a search warrant to claim files and computers. An anonymous tip had set SEC off that implied M/C of inside trading in at least one very specific case. It had unsettled the employees and Andrew and Olivia had been in a cold sweat that the SEC would find evidence of their liberal interpretation of rules to keep the company afloat during the turbulence of the world-wide financial crash. But after a lot of mayhem and going through their national accounts with a fine comb the SEC had given them a clean bill but for some smaller clerical and accounting errors which could be explained easily and satisfyingly – much to their astonishment they had got away! Only the night after the official statement and their apology for the inconvenience, glossing over the image loss of Martin/Charles that had caused this very public search, Siobhan had come forward and presented Andrew copies of the documents the SEC had so desperately searched for in the files that would prove insider trading instead of proving just a healthy amount of good luck and fine-tuned instincts. If he didn't want to hand his wealth over to his lawyers to keep him from being sentenced, he'd be a good boy and keep quiet and appearances up. Otherwise the SEC would find these on their desks and then they would truly tear Martin/Charles apart and leave no stone unturned and all that would remain of his precious empire were some flashy headlines.

But before he could persuade Bridget to drop it and leave it to the police, they had visitors – one flat foot who Andrew immediately discounted as the driver and a slender red head he'd do well not to underestimate he assessed quickly.

Giving off the appearance of being busy he hoped to convey his importance and his station in this city and as British citizen and to remind them subtly that he would not tolerate any "maltreatment" of his pregnant wife by the police. When he learnt that Detective Saldana wanted not only to interview "Siobhan" but also preferred to do it down at the precinct his alarm bells started ringing and he realised, they had no chance of not complying without causing at least irritation and as a result attracted more attention than was commendable. Nevertheless police and FBI better realised who exactly they were talking to.

Caught up in texting Claudine to reschedule his first meeting this morning, he paid little attention to Juliet's sudden and unexpected wish to spend the weekend with a friend. But knowing that the Randolphs were very responsible and strict parents, he eventually agreed to let her go for the weekend, if only to have her out from underfoot. She didn't need to be caught up in the Gemma affair as well. He just had sent off his text message, when Bridget returned and the detective upped the ante. Honestly surprised he learnt that he had been indeed the last person to talk to Gemma the night of her disappearance and naturally they wanted to talk to him as well.

At the police station they separated them and he watched Bridget being led away. A dark haired man in a suit that just screamed Fed followed her, but then he was picked up as well and led down the same corridor to the interrogation rooms. Andrew didn't even find the words to express how displeased he was with the entire situation and shot Bridget a dark look when their eyes met through the window of her interrogation room. He could only hope she wouldn't unwittingly make things even worse.

He didn't know if they were going for the shock value, but they started with showing him a very unflattering mug shot of Bridget. It must have originated from her days of drug addiction. He discarded it as irrelevant. In the short time she had lived with him she had made a remarkable recovery and was as beautiful as Siobhan and looking at least ten years younger compared to this photo and not at all like a woman of her age with years of heroin abuse under her belt.

But what DID shock him was to learn that Bridget was not only a drug addict but also a stripper and a prostitute. THAT he couldn't stomach. All else, even the stripping to some extent on an intellectual level to finance her addiction, but a whore? To think he might or would share her body with hundreds of men before him... It disgusted him. He concentrated again on Saldana and her questions which revolved around that phone call. He told her what Gemma had told him, what Henry had told him. He told them that Gemma had stepped away from the loft project and that she had seemed overwhelmed and was possibly burnt out, that he had believed up to now that she simply had disappeared for a few days to gain a new perspective on things and that he hadn't taken things too seriously. He had known about Bridget Kelly for only a little while, no, he didn't know much about her. And then they were finished and Andrew left with a very bad taste in his mouth.

When this Agent Machado brought back Malcolm Ward into the equation he was fed up for good. All he wanted now was to get away from there hoping it wouldn't leak out that they had been interviewed at the precinct instead of at home, which would have been the courteous and respectful thing to do and most of all would have made them look less involved, less suspect.

Waiting for Bridget in the car, he realised they had crossed the Rubicon. He could have told Saldana that "Siobhan" was Bridget or at least hinted he thought his wife acted very strangely and out of character. He could have told them about Henry's suspicious behaviour that night. He could have told them he suspected Gemma's call hadn't been about the loft as he tried to make them believe as a diversion, but of her trying to tell him who "Siobhan" really was and that Siobhan had cheated on him, probably.

But he had done none of the right and sensible things he could have done to help Gemma, but had selfishly done everything to save his own skin, not in the least because he still didn't know how much Bridget Kelly knew about his part in her sister's suicide.

Bridget could have told the police who she really was. She could have told them about Henry's involvement, however big or small. She could have told the truth and testify against Macawi and put that man finally behind bars.

But watching her step out of the precinct and immediately trying to reach someone on the phone, probably Ward, he realised, she too had done none of the things she could have done to help Gemma and God knew how many innocent future victims of Macawi. She had done everything to save her own skin – as Siobhan Martin.

The dice was rolled and they hadn't taken their last chance to make things right and from now on there was no turning back for either of them. It was a rather sobering thought and he hoped like hell he would not come to regret it as the biggest mistake of his life.

In the sanctuary of his office the let Claudine know he didn't want to be disturbed for the rest of the morning. Despite his dislike of Ward he was worried. This man wouldn't just stop returning her calls. If he wanted out, he would tell her straight on, that much Andrew knew about Malcolm by now. That man cared. And that opened several very unpleasant options as to Malcolm Ward's sudden silence. Had Macawi got the man? If so, how much time had they left before that man or any of his goons turned up in New York looking for them? Did Macawi know about Bridget having a twin sister and most importantly did he know her name and/or her whereabouts? That were the hard questions whose answers their safety, maybe even their very lives depended on. He had ignored the report from Josh, hidden away in his special drawer in the file room. For once he had wanted to trust and do the decent thing. But things had changed so quickly... And now he needed to know everything. And Bridget's unwillingness to come clean was a good indicator that she would never be totally honest with him. She would continue to lie to survive. And he would always have to ask himself how much truth there was in everything she told him. Not a good prognosis for their shared future, he concluded depressed.

So he opened the large brown envelope marked as private and confidential and read the small note attached to the thick file that answered his questions and explained so much of what happened and opened an entirely different can of worms.

Stay tuned!