Shane caught the tail end of Andrew mentioning Christmas in Salem and then Steve looked up angrily and demanded to know, "Just what the hell was going on in that house of yours, Donovan?"

Shane had to think fast. He had no idea what Kayla had told Steve, though judging from his reaction, Shane suspected that she had said very little. Shane raised his hands trying to calm the man. "Steve, it's not what you think."

"Oh?" Steve rose to his feet. "Tell me what I think?"

"Over here," Shane said, motioning off to the side. He walked away from the children. If there was going to be an argument, better it take place away from the kids. Steve followed, and Shane noticed his fists were clenched. When they were a safe enough distance away from the kids, Shane turned back to Steve. "Look, after the explosion, we knew the Jencon people were looking for the evidence you left behind - the videotape of that meeting. And there was an incident-"

"What kind of 'incident'?" Steve said, his voice little more than a snarl.

Shane looked up for a moment. "Would you please just calm down? I promise, I'll explain."

That seemed to calm Steve slightly, but he was still glaring. "So explain."

"I will. Some men harassed Kayla." Shane thought better than mentioning she had been attacked. "And Roman and I thought she'd be safer if she was somewhere more secure than on her own. Stephanie, too."

"So that secure place was your house?" Steve sounded rather incredulous.

"Yes, it was," Shane said. "You may not have noticed it, but my house has top-grade ISA security. It's probably one of the most secure places in Salem. Besides, there was plenty of room for her and Stephanie, and Simmons and Eve were often around, so they weren't all alone."

"You're saying that's all there was to it?" Steve's eyes narrowed as he asked that question.

How did Shane answer that question? He did not want to reveal his relationship with Kayla until she was ready and she obviously had not done so already. Shane hated to lie, so he gave a truthful, albeit incomplete answer. "Steve, the reason Kayla and Stephanie moved into my house was for security reasons." There. That was not exactly a complete answer to the question, but it was true as to a certain time period.

Steve started to pace. "You mentioned the videotape. So that means you found it, right?"

"Yes. Kayla brought it with her to my house and I watched it, hoping to find some clue about what had led to your dea- I mean, your accident." Shane thought carefully about what he should disclose. "I had the ISA do a voiceprint analysis of the man on the speaker-phone, and it matched Lawrence Alamain."

"So we're back to this Alamain dude again?"

"That's right," Shane replied. "Lawrence Alamain, who, for lack of a better term, was the 'prince' of Alamainia, his then-father's country."

"'Then-father'?"

Shane tried to think of how he could explain the bizarre goings on in Alamaina in less than an hour. He decided against mentioning Lawrence Alamain's obsession with movie-style special effects, like the fake gunfire and manufactured earthquakes, and just tried to stick to the basics. He also decided not to mention how Carly Manning lured Bo to the country or how Jennifer Horton had posed as Katarina Von Leuschner because Lawrence had kidnapped Frankie and needed to marry "Katarina" to secure his power. "It's a long story, Steve. The short version is that several of us traveled to Alamainia for various reasons. I went because we wanted to find proof that Lawrence ordered your death, and we managed to infiltrate his house. However, Lawrence tried to kill us by collapsing a series of underground tunnels, but we managed to escape. Lawrence's father, however, was killed when one of the tunnels collapsed."

Steve ran his hands through his hair as if he was struggling to process what Shane had just said. "Did you find that proof?"

Shane shook his head. "Nothing we could use. Just a recording of Lawrence talking with the doctor who treated you at the hospital in Salem, but, as I told Kayla when we listened to it, the exchange made it sound like Lawrence was your friend so there was no point in bringing it back."

"As you told Kayla?" Steve asked. "Are you telling me that Kayla was with you in that dude's country?" His voice rose as he spoke.

There was no way around it, so Shane answered. "Yes. Kayla was with us. But she was never in serious danger." Okay, that probably qualified as a lie, but Shane decided he could live with it. "She had me, and Bo, and Jack for protection."

Steve stopped pacing and stepped within a few inches of Shane. In a low voice, he growled, "You let my wife go to the home of the dude that you thought killed me?"

"I had no choice, Steve," Shane said. "Kayla insisted on coming."

"You should've stopped her, Donovan. Or does that ISA training come with lessons in risking the lives of innocent women."

Shane was beginning to lose his cool, but he fought to remain calm. "Now listen to me, Steve. Kayla insisted on coming and helping with the operation. I tried to convince her to stay in Salem, but she refused. So what I was supposed to do? You know her. When was the last time you stopped Kayla from doing anything?"

As he finished, Shane heard a noise from the direction of the house. He turned and realized that Kayla had just come down from the house. How much has she heard?

Obviously, it was enough, because she asked, "Shane, Steve, what's going on?"