Once again, I'm mildly overwhelmed by the number of people adding this to favourites or alerts, thanking you. So, on the historic day that the UK's next king but two was born (barring accidents, a rise of republicanism in the next fifty to seventy years and the fact that it's gone midnight), here's the last of the three chapters for Episode One. It'll be the weekend at least and possibly next week before I get around to posting Episode Two (I'm halfway through writing it at the moment), so hope you enjoy.

CHAPTER THREE

Emma had only just got up when she had another visitor knocking on her door. This time it was Ted who was there when she answered it. He gave her a warm hug. "Hi, honey."

Emma smiled at him. "Hi, Dad."

"Sorry I didn't come round last night, I just…"

"It's okay. I had plenty of visitors."

Ted looked around the cabin. "I'm sorry you're still out here. I was going to tell Kristin last night. But then…"

"You had a pretty big distraction. I know."

"I'll tell her today…"

Emma shook her head. "She's got enough on her plate right now."

"Knowing about you might make it easier for her. Knowing she's got another daughter to support her."

"I'm not her daughter though, am I? I'm your daughter and I'm Rebecca's daughter but I'm not Kristin's. I'm just some girl that lived with her for a bit." Emma sighed. "Knowing that's not going to make her feel any better."

The guard showed Mads to the booth and then left her to it. Jordan stared at her through the glass. "Thanks for coming."

"Jordan, what's going on?"she asked. "What happened in LA? Did you kill your brother?"

Jordan hesitated. "Yes. Sort of."

Mads looked at him closely. Their relationship had been full of lies and deceptions yet none of that had stopped her loving him and she had a feeling he felt the same way. "Go on."

"It was…a car accident. I was driving. Philip was in the front, three other guys were in the back. It was late at night, we were on our way home, no-one else was on the road. Philip…Philip had taken stuff. He was off his head. He was being loud and messing about, distracting me. Then he grabbed the wheel. I tried to shake him off but I lost control, hit a barrier and we overturned. Me and the other guys just had cuts and bruises but Philip wasn't wearing his seatbelt. He got thrown clear. Broke his neck."

"But…they can't call that murder,"Mads protested.

"Maybe if they knew that was what happened. Rebecca paid the other guys off, got them to say Philip was driving."

Mads was even more confused. "Then you're in the clear?"

"Except now they've turned round and said that I deliberately crashed the car because Philip was getting on my nerves."

"Why would they do that?"

Jordan shrugged. "My guess? More money from Rebecca." He sighed. "She's determined to put me away."

Sutton and Laurel almost made it to the door before Kristin came out of her room. "Girls? Where are you going?"

The pair winced and turned round. "We…are…"Sutton attempted, holding onto each word as long as possible while she tried to think of the next one.

"…going to see Mads!"Laurel offered.

Sutton nodded. "Yes. That's where we're going."

"Oh." Kristin shrugged slightly. "Well, give her my best, will you?"

"Will do." Sutton and Laurel turned back to the door, exchanging pained looks.

Laurel looked hard at Ethan, who had somehow ended up at the cabin at the same time as her and Sutton. "So you're back in the team now?" Everyone looked at her and she shrugged. "Just thought I'd point that out."

"Do you really think Rebecca killed Alec?"Emma asked.

Sutton shrugged. "She can get pretty angry at times. She drove her car straight at me once."

"Yeah but we've all thought about doing that to you,"Laurel told her.

Sutton glared at her younger sister. "I can't believe it took me so long to realise we had the same genes. Your cutting wit has to have come from somewhere."

"But what if Rebecca did kill Alec?"Ethan persisted. "And Derek and Theresa? What does that mean?"

"Our birth mother's a murderer?"Sutton suggested.

"But other than that…that's it, isn't it? I mean, we'd know everything. All solved."

Emma sighed. "Apart from the fact that most of the world doesn't even know I exist."

Thayer sat down in the booth and looked through the glass. "Why did you want me to come here?"

Rebecca smiled thinly. "I want to tell you a story. The story of your life. I've finally figured it out. You were crazy about Sutton for a long time but the one time you got lucky with her she dropped you like a stone. Then you met Emma, the new improved version, and, like Ethan, you wanted to upgrade. Of course, like Sutton, Emma preferred Ethan. And you hated him for it. But then you hated Alec more, for making you feel like you were never worthy to be his son. So, that night at the body shop, you sat outside watching. You saw Ethan threaten Derek, then you saw Alec threaten Derek and this time you managed to take a photo. And you knew that if Derek was killed, one of them would be blamed. So you killed him. Ethan gets blamed and you see a way in with Emma, you help get him out of jail. You send me the photo and the murder weapon, knowing I'll use them against Alec. Would have worked too if Jordan had done what he'd been told. Then you get Emma to comfort you because of his arrest, get close to her. Only Theresa clears Alec and starts looking for the real killer. So you kill her too. And Alec figures it out and tells you to blame it all on me. So you steal that necklace I meant for Emma, knowing that Sutton would recognise it, and plant it at the scene where you killed her." She smiled again. "Am I close?"

Thayer looked hard at her for several long seconds. "What do you want?"he asked.

"Well…Alec's dead. I know that because I killed him. So if we work together, we can make sure he gets blamed for all of this. And then, the two of us will be free to do whatever we want."

End of Episode One...