Chapter 12 – A Window to the Past
'Are either of you two getting a déjà vu feeling, because I certainly am,' Steve says to Kelly and Donna.
Kelly nods and looks around at the room they were locked into and sighs. 'At least it's not a basement dungeon like the last time,' she says.
'I thought we dealt with all of this crap already. Marchette is gone and we've all moved on with our lives. What the hell could this possibly be about?' Donna says with anger and frustration.
'Maybe there was some unfinished business to take care of or something,' Steve says.
'Well, at least we know that the poser that was with Brandon is directly involved. I bet you anything she wasn't too happy to see us when we showed up unannounced,' Kelly says.
'Yeah, she did leave rather quickly that night, but I just figured it was because she was nervous or something, not because this foiled a plan to do something horrible to Brandon,' Steve says.
'This isn't the first time we've been wrong about people that try to get close to us and I'm sure it won't be the last. Although, I'm not sure why any of us trust anyone at this point,' Kelly says, dejected.
They hear a door slam outside of the room that they were in and rush to the door to see if they could hear anything. They hear muffled footsteps and voices, but nothing comes in clear.
'Nina, they're here,' the man that took Kelly says.
'Great, let's get this over with,' Nina says.
'So, please explain to me how this situation became completely and utterly unraveled,' a new voice says.
'Well, it didn't start with us, it started with Beau,' Nina says. 'What happened in London?'
'Never mind that, I'm talking about how you had no idea that you were about to be descended upon by the crew from California,' the voice says.
'No one informed me that they even left California, how was I supposed to know that they were going to just show up? I'm not a psychic,' Nina protests.
'You waited too long with Brandon. You should have had him wrapped around your finger by now and all you have is room full of his friends and suspicions that will prove to be true,' the voice says with anger.
Nina looks at the floor and then back up quickly. 'Look, I didn't sign up for this. None of the things that happened were my fault and you didn't give me what I needed when I asked for it in order to make this work. You're on your own. You can take care of the rest of it from here,' Nina says with indignantly.
'Steve, can you make anything out? I can't understand a word,' Donna says.
'Nope, not a thing; just muffled voices. Damn,' he says, stepping away from the door.
Nina begins to walk toward the door.
'I wouldn't do that, Nina. You signed a contract and you have yet to fulfill it.'
'Leave her alone. She's right, this isn't what we signed up for,' the man says and starts to follow, as Nina reaches the door.
Kelly and Donna jump back away from the door when the sounds of gunshots ring out from the next room.
Steve runs to them and covers them with his body, all the time hoping that the walls of this room were made out of more than drywall.
Washington D.C.
'Do you really think that place is run by the mob, George?' Brandon asks, as they near his apartment.
'I don't know but the source said that they had spotted Spagnolo in there a few times over the last month,' George says.
'The other patrons and the bartender were looking at us kind of strangely the entire time we were there,' Brandon says.
'Yeah, I noticed that too. I'm sure it was nothing. We don't exactly look like their normal clientele,' George says with a laugh.
'Well, it's a start at least,' Brandon says, 'He was in the area recently, which means there may have been some covert meeting of some kind with the deputy mayor. I'll see if I can find out where he's been, maybe that will lead us to something.'
'Okay, I'll keep looking for someone who may have seen him recently and hopefully we can meet in the middle,' George says. 'Goodnight, Brandon.'
'Goodnight,' Brandon says and walks up the stairs to his apartment.
He opens the door expecting to see Kelly, Donna, and Steve waiting for him but he sees no one. He turns on the lights and calls out to them, but hears nothing in return.
He checks for their suitcases and sees that Kelly's is the only one in the apartment.
'Maybe Steve and Donna decided to stay in New York with Brenda for another day,' he thinks to himself.
He grabs the phone and calls Brenda.
New York
Brenda and Dylan had just returned to their hotel room after seeing the vacant apartment with the agent.
'Well, it was nice, but kind of small,' Dylan says as he takes off his jacket.
'They're all going to be on the small side, Dylan. I can't afford anything bigger, I mean, this is Manhattan! An apartment the size that I have in London would be worth a few million here,' Brenda says with a smile.
'I don't think I like New York so much anymore,' Dylan says, pulling her into his arms.
They kiss slowly and wrap their arms around each other. Brenda pulls away suddenly and looks at him.
'Dylan, can I ask you something?'
'Anything,' he says.
'You were living in Beverly Hills, then you came to stay with me in London, then you went to live with Iris in Hawaii,' she starts.
'Uh huh,' Dylan says, not understanding where she was going with this.
Brenda pauses and softens her facial expression. 'After this show, if I don't get another job out here, I would go back to London. Where do you want to go?'
Dylan blankly stares at her for a few seconds. He loosens his grip on her body and takes a step backward to sit on the bed. She joins him and takes one of his hands with hers.
'I never really thought about that, Bren,' he says.
'I left Beverly Hills for a reason and I chose to not return for a reason. Those reasons aren't really valid anymore, but I do have a career to think about now and,' Brenda pauses, stroking his hand, 'and you.'
The phone begins to ring and Brenda sighs heavily with annoyance. Dylan sighs also, but with relief. He had never wanted to be interrupted by anything as bad as he did right then.
Brenda gets up and stomps to the phone. 'Hello?' she says, annoyed.
'Uh, hi Bren, did I catch you at a bad time?' Brandon says.
'Oh, hi Brandon, no it's fine. What's up?'
'I was wondering, did Steve and Donna decide to spend one more day up there with you?' Brandon says with hope in his voice.
'No, Brandon, they left hours ago on the train back to D.C., why?' Brenda says.
'Well, they haven't gotten here yet. Their suitcases aren't here. Kelly stayed behind to hang out with me, I think, and she's not here either,' Brandon says.
'That's weird. They definitely should have been there by now. The train ride doesn't take that long. Maybe Kelly met them somewhere for dinner or something?' Brenda asks, starting to get worried.
'I don't know. If she did, I'm sure she would have called me at work or left me a note,' Brandon says.
Brenda begins to feel her stomach clench and her heart starts beating very quickly.
'Brandon, I'm not getting a good feeling about this,' she says. Dylan gets up and stands in front of her as soon as the words leave her lips.
'Neither am I, Brenda. Are you somewhere safe? I have a feeling the past might be coming back to bite us on the ass again.'
'I'll be fine, Brandon. I'm worried about you. The last time this happened you were taken too, remember?'
'Brenda, what's going on?' Dylan says firmly.
'What was that voice? Brenda, are you okay?' Brandon says quickly.
'Yes, yes, Brandon, I'm fine. Listen, call the police and report them missing, okay? Tell them everything that happened with Marchette and that you're afraid that you might be next. Stay there as long as possible so that you're safe,' Brenda says.
'Bren,' Brandon starts to say.
'No, just do it and do it now. Call me from the police station and tell me what is going on so that I know where you will be,' Brenda says and hangs up the phone.
'Dylan, Donna and Steve never showed up back at Brandon's apartment and when he got home, Kelly wasn't there either. He thinks something bad has happened to them,' Brenda says as she slowly sits on the bed and holds her hand to her stomach.
'What is happening? I thought we were done with this,' she says and begins to cry.
Dylan drops down to his knees and puts his arms around her waist.
'Brenda, I'm sure they're fine. Marchette hasn't contacted any of us nor have we seen any signs that he's watching us,' Dylan says, trying to calm her down.
'Really? What about Beau? What if he wasn't just obsessed with me, what if he was working for them?' Brenda says.
Dylan looks away from her face and considers what she had just said. It's entirely plausible that Marchette had a few lackeys following them, but didn't seem to add up in Dylan's head.
'I'm not sure about Beau, but I'm sure that what happened before Christmas scared him to the core. I don't think it's him,' Dylan says.
Washington D.C.
Brandon hangs up the phone and tries to decide what to do next. He knows that the sensible thing would be to call the police, but there were other possibilities that Brenda didn't' know about yet. What if this was mob related? What if Spagnolo knew who he was and that he may be connected to the deputy mayor and his son?
Maybe the train was delayed and Kelly did leave the apartment to get food or go shopping. What if he was completely and totally overreacting?
Brandon picks up the phone and calls the train station just to make sure the train arrived. 'If the train arrived, then something happened to them.'
He is told by the operator that the train they would have been on arrived on time. Brandon begins to freak out and calls George.
'George, it's Brandon, if you're there please pick up the phone,' Brandon says frantically to George's answering machine.
Brandon hears a click and breathes a sigh of relief.
'Brandon? What's going on? Are you okay?' George says.
'Listen, does anyone else know that we were looking for Spagnolo and what the connection to him is?'
'Well, you know, I know, Jeff from research knows, and Amy knows,' he says.
'Son of a bitch,' Brandon says out loud without thinking.
'What? What's going on?' George asks.
'I'm not sure yet, but I think Amy has something to do with it. Do you know anything else about her?' Brandon asks him.
'I'm sure you know much more than I do, Brandon. Aren't you guys dating or something?'
'Not anymore and I think everything she told me was a lie just to get close to me.'
'Brandon, you're not making any sense,' George says, worried.
'Two of my friends that came here from California are missing. They went to New York to see my sister and according to her, they got on the train to come back here, but never made it. The third friend stayed behind to hang out with me and she is also missing,' Brandon tells him.
'Missing? Brandon, no one knows where Spagnolo is at this time. The mob wouldn't get this involved unless you had something that they wanted and don't you think they'd be after me too?' George says.
'They may be, George. Do you have anywhere else you can stay for the night, just in case?'
'Brandon, you're really starting to freak me out.'
'I know, just be careful okay? I don't know what this is, but if it is related to this story I don't want you to be taken off guard.'
Brandon hangs up the phone and starts pacing around his apartment. He begins to put the pieces together and thinks about how Amy was trying desperately to get him to have dinner with her. Maybe they came to bug his apartment or something and found Kelly here.
Whatever was going on, he had to find out how she was involved. He grabbed his coat and started to walk to Amy's apartment to confront her directly.
New York
'Dylan, what are we going to do? We can't leave Brandon down there by himself?' Brenda says as her resolve begins to quickly dissipate.
'Brenda, I need you to focus. It's entirely possible that this is something completely unrelated to what happened to us already,' Dylan tries to reason.
'Dylan, come on, be serious. The first thing that happened when it became apparent that we were not cooperating was that they kidnapped Donna, Kelly, Steve, and Valerie from our house,' Brenda says.
'I know and do you remember what happened next? They got Brandon and then I showed up and then you showed up. They got us all in one place. They could have killed us all if that was the plan from the beginning. I don't know who is behind this or what connection they have to us, but we got lucky the first time,' Dylan pleads with her.
Brenda thinks for a second about what Dylan just said. He was right in the fact that Marchette knew that if he got a hold of enough of them, the others would come running to their defense.
'So, you're saying that whoever is behind this is trying to do the same thing Marchette did, but the reasoning might not be as clear cut as the first time,' Brenda says slowly.
'Exactly, we have no idea what we're up against this time. We need to stay here,' Dylan finally says.
Brenda nods slowly and lowers herself back down onto the bed. 'I feel so helpless right now.'
Dylan sits next to her and puts his arm around her shoulders. 'I know baby,' he whispers.
She leans into him and thinks about Brandon.
Kelly, Donna, and Steve get up from the ground after the noise of the commotion outside of the door subsides. They stand with their backs against the back wall terrified.
'Clean that up,' the voice says. 'I guess we'll have to finish this ourselves. Do we know where he is right now?'
'He was seen leaving his apartment about 10 minutes ago.'
'Good, let's cut him off before he gets to wherever he is going.'
'Um, what about the hostages?'
'What about them? They're locked up. They'll be fine in there until this is over. We don't want them witnessing it anyway.'
A door slams shut loudly and Kelly, Donna, and Steve jump at the sound.
Donna is the first to venture forward. She gingerly puts her ear against the door and listens.
'Nothing,' she says. 'There is no movement at all out there.'
Steve starts looking around the room to see if maybe there was a way out or something in there he could use as a weapon of some kind.
Washington D.C.
Brandon gets to Amy's apartment building and goes inside. As he knocks on her door, it opens slightly. Brandon slowly pushes the door open and peers inside.
'Amy?' he calls, but hears nothing. He walks into the apartment and closes the door behind him. He starts looking through the drawers in the kitchen and living room with no success before moving to the desk in the bedroom.
He pulls out a book from the top drawer. Two smaller pieces of paper fall from the book as he thumbs through it. Most of the pages are blank, but the ones that have writing on them are just series of numbers and letters.
He opens one of the papers that fell onto the desk and sees a phone number. The second piece of paper has the name of the newspaper that he works for written on it.
He gets up and goes into the living room to turn on Amy's computer. 'Maybe a reference to the phone number will be in here somewhere.'
He searches through recent documents that were opened and websites that Amy had gone to for any reference to the phone number on the paper. He opens the internet browser and puts the number into a search engine.
'What the hell?' Brandon says out loud with confusion. He picks up the phone and dials Brenda's hotel room.
'Brenda, it's Brandon,' he says when she answers.
'Brandon, what's going on? What did the police say?' Brenda asks.
'I'm not at the police station, Brenda, and before you freak out on me, let me explain,' Brandon says quickly.
When she doesn't interrupt him, he continues. 'The girl that I've been seeing is involved in this somehow. I thought it might have to do with the mob here in D.C. because my paper is investigating a story that is leading in that direction, but after what I found, I don't believe that anymore,' Brandon says.
'I found a phone number in her desk and looked it up on the internet. You're never going to believe what I found,' he finishes.
'What did you find?' Brenda asked with anticipation.
'The number is a cell phone from California. I didn't recognize the area code right away, but it's definitely from California and it's probably from somewhere near Beverly Hills. I think we're all in danger again, Brenda. I don't know who is behind it or why they're after us, but I do think that they are after us,' he says.
'Us as in the group of us or us as in you and me?' Brenda asks.
Brandon takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. 'Us as in you and me,' he says.
'Damn,' Brenda says, almost to herself. 'Listen, Brandon, I have something to tell you and I need you to digest it quickly so that I can get to my point, okay?'
'Okay,' Brandon says with confusion.
'Dylan and I are back together. He was in London with me and now he's in New York with me,' Brenda says quickly.
She gives Brandon a few seconds to think about it and then continues. 'Dylan made a good point about this situation and how it parallels what happened with Marchette before Christmas. Marchette kidnapped our friends and then you in order to get what he wanted, which was me, Dylan, and Iris to his house. I think they're trying to do the same thing this time,' she says.
'You and Dylan, huh, Bren? Well, that was predictable, wasn't it?' Brandon says with a smile.
Brenda laughs at his assessment and waits for him to continue.
'Dylan's right, this is exactly what happened last time. Maybe you should stay in New York,' Brandon says.
'I don't know, Brandon, they came after us in London too. I think there may be people here following us as well. We can't stay here and we can't go to D.C., but we have to go somewhere,' she says.
'Brenda, don't jump to conclusions or anything. We're just speculating here, okay? Just continue doing whatever it is that you're doing. If they want to grab you, make sure you and Dylan are together and that you are surrounded by other people at all times,' Brandon says.
'Well, that shouldn't be hard to do in a city of eight million people,' Brenda says.
'Look, Bren, I have to go. If I find out who this number belongs to, I'll contact you, okay?' Brandon says.
'Brandon, be careful,' Brenda warns. 'I love you.'
'I love you too, Bren,' Brandon says and hangs up the phone.
Brenda hangs up the phone and looks at Dylan.
'What did he say?' Dylan asks her.
'He thinks the girl he was seeing is involved and went to search for clues. He found a phone number on a piece of paper in her apartment and looked it up. It's a cell phone from California, Dylan,' Brenda says.
'What? That doesn't make any sense,' Dylan says.
'He wants us to stay in crowded places and make sure that if anyone tries to take us that there are other people around,' Brenda says.
Dylan goes to the door and locks both locks.
'Okay, let's pack up our stuff. If someone is after us in connection with this, we can't stay here anymore,' Dylan says.
'Right, and Dylan?' Brenda says tentatively. 'I think you should call your mother.'
'The door opens in, Steve, you're not going to be able to break it down from the inside,' Kelly says.
'I'm not going to try to break down the door, I'm going to try to break through the wall,' he says.
He picks up a piece of wood that was lying in the corner of the room and starts hitting the wall next to the door with it.
'I can't believe this is happening to us,' Donna says. She brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them.
Kelly kneels down next to her and puts her arm around Donna's shoulder.
'We're going to get through this, Donna. Everything will be alright,' Kelly reassures her.
'You don't know that, Kel,' Donna says with tears in her eyes.
'Yes! It's working,' Steve says as he admires the dent in the wall that he made.
'See, Super Steve is going to save us,' Kelly says with a bit of sarcasm.
Donna can't help but laugh as she lays her head on Kelly's shoulder.