Dance with the Devil: Chapter 24

The morning dawned bright in Port Charles as Blair awakened. She rolled over to find Todd lying on his back, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. “Morning,” she whispered to him.


“Morning,” came the stunted reply.


She propped herself up on her elbow as she played with his hair. “Don’t think about last night. We rushed into things. Look, when you go for a check-up, we can ask about it, if you’re nervous.”


Todd nodded as he said, “I’m sorry. When nothing…happened, I just kinda freaked and it killed the mood.” He turned towards her and saw her smile. “We can try again tonight, if you want to.”


She waggled her eyebrow at him. “We can try now, if you’d like.” She leaned in for a kiss. It was about to deepen when a loud knocking was heard at the door.


“Mom, Uncle Todd, are you awake?” Sam called out. “I’m hungry. When are we going to order breakfast?”


“Please tell me you locked at door last night,” Todd asked.


She nodded. “We’d better get up or he will order everything off the room service menu.” As she got up she added, “That was a real mood killer.”


“At least he didn’t get in here and start jumping on the bed like Starr would do at his age,” Todd commented. “How many times did that happen?”


Blair threw him a look as she opened the door. Sam rushed in and jumped on the bed, grabbing his uncle’s neck in a hug as he clutched the breakfast menu. “Why are you still in bed? I was hoping you’d take me to the park, since Jack’s not here.” Sam said.


“Wait, Jack’s not here?” Blair asked. She ran out of the room and looked in the room where the boys were sleeping. She saw a bed was still made up. As she was going back to her room, she heard the indicator of her phone going off. She picked it up as she went back in. Sam was still on the bed as he and Todd were deciding what to order. The first voicemail was from Starr, tell her that Jack would be staying with her since they got out of the club late. Then she saw she had a text message from John. As she read it, she worked to get Todd’s attention.


Todd could see that she needed to tell him something. “Look, I’ve got a big, important job for you. I need you to order me the pancakes, bacon, sausage, two eggs scrambled and scones and a muffin and fresh fruit salad for your mom. Also have them bring a pot of coffee. Can you do that?” he asked the little boy.


Sam nodded solemnly as he ran to the phone in the living room. Blair called after him, “Just order that and get yourself some cereal and nothing else.” She left the door slightly ajar as she sat on the bed. “John needs to see us this morning. He left me a message saying there’s a break in the case.”


“Good. Maybe these idiot cops have had a better time trying to find that lunatic Heather. Though, the way I see it, they’re not much better than Bo’s Bumbling Bunch,” Todd remarked. “There is, however, one thing the PCPD has that Llanview never had.”


Blair moved to the bathroom as Todd was talking. She heard his last comment and poked her head out the door. “What is that, Mr. Manning,” she asked him.


He gave her one of his charming smiles. “A hot police commissioner,” came his answer, which was met with a towel hitting him in the head.


By the time the food arrived, Todd and Blair were dressed. Shortly afterwards, Starr, Jack and Sarah arrived back at the hotel and Todd noticed the shiner on his niece’s cheek. “What happened to you?” he asked.


“Some chick was making comments about you, so I felt the need to refresh her memory on her own family,” Sarah said. “She didn’t appreciate the reminder.”


Todd looked to Starr, who elaborated. “Kristina Corinthos brought up your rap sheet last night.”


“You got in a fight over me?” Todd said in a curious tone. His face softened as he smiled at Sarah. “You stood up for your old uncle. Thank you.”


“Mom says you shouldn’t hit people,” Sam piped in, giving his older cousin an admonishing look.


Blair turned to her daughter. “We got a message from John, there seems to be a break in the case and he wants to meet with us,” she said.


“Yeah. We all got similar texts,” Jack said as he grabbed a piece of bacon. He gave Starr a quick glance, unsure if he should say anything. Starr merely bit her lip, also unsure, so Jack spoke up again. “Look, we found out something really weird and that’s why McBain--” Jack was cut off in mid-sentence by a cellphone.


Todd looked at his and saw that it was the managing editor of the PC Sun. “Hold that thought for a minute. I gotta take this call.” He wheeled himself off to the side of the room as he spoke into the phone. After a few minutes, he came back. “Well, that is my soon to be former managing editor. There’s some crisis down at the paper that, Blair, you and I need to take care of.” He turned to Starr. “Look, can you have McBain give us the good news down there. I haven’t been at work for a while and I get the sense that in my absence, the paper has gone back into the hole I found it in. I have people to fire, which is always one of the best parts of my job.” With that, Todd and Blair left the kids alone and in silence.


“What did Uncle Todd mean by good news?” Sam asked. Unfortunately for him, no one knew how to answer.


It was another knock at the door of the room that stirred them. Starr went to answer it and found John and Natalie there. “Are your parents here?” John asked.


“You just missed them,” Starr informed him. She looked back at Sam and threw Sarah a look. Sarah picked up on it and hustled Sam to finish his breakfast and get dressed. When he left the room, Starr had them come in. Indicating that all those present had a heads up to what may have happened, she asked, “Have you gotten confirmation?”


“We’d rather not say until we can get everyone other. Just that, repeating the story could lead to further confusion of an already confusing situation,” John said.


“Has anyone heard from Tea?” Natalie asked. “We left her a message, but she hasn’t returned it.”


Starr shook her head as Jack also indicated that he had heard nothing for their aunt. Starr pulled out her phone and called Tea’s. It was Daniella who picked up. “Hey, when did you get to town,” she asked her sister.


“I’m still in Llanview. Mom came home really early this morning. She said she couldn’t stay there any longer,” came the answer.


Starr lowered the phone from her mouth. “Tea’s back in Llanview,” she told John.


Daniella was getting curious when she heard Starr on the other end. “What’s going on there? Is it something with…” She didn’t even know what to call the man who was in Port Charles.


Starr heard the tone of her voice and didn’t know how to answer. Finally, she said, “No, Dad’s alright. He even went back to work today. Actually, John McBain asked if anyone had seen Tea. It’s something to do with the case and he want the family here for it.”


The next voice Starr heard was Tea’s “Look, tell John that I really have no interest in Todd’s shooting. I just need to get away from that town. I hope Todd does make a full recovery, but I have no further interest in him.” With that the line went dead.


Starr held the phone away from her ear. “She hung up on me,” she said in a state of shock.


John sighed. “Alright, look, let’s at least get the rest of the family together. We have some things to discuss--” he said as Viki and Tina walked into the room.


“Has there been a break in the case?” Viki asked. John looked at the two sisters, unwilling to answer.


It was Jack whose voice was heard next. “It’s not about Dad‘s shooting, is it McBain?” he finally asked. “Look, if it’s what I think it is, you might as well just tell us here and now and we’ll let Mom and Dad know later.”


John looked at each person in the room and finally indicated for them to stay. Natalie pulled out a tablet she was carrying and, as John was explaining Molly Lansing-Davis’ incident at the park, she was pulling up the video. “We managed to enlarge the images and this is what we have.”


Viki and Tina looked at it closely as Jack and Starr hung back, knowing what they were supposed to see. Finally, it was Tina whose voice was heard. “Call me crazy, but that looks like Victor in the wheelchair. But that’s silly. Todd killed him, right? I mean, there was even a body?” she asked, looking from John to Jack and Starr.


Viki’s hand was at her mouth, as she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “That is Victor! But, how?”


“We don’t know the answer to that, but we do know who has him,” John said. The image zoomed in on the woman with the wheelchair. “Allison Perkins.” He looked back at Viki. “We need to tell Todd this, but I’m not sure how to even broach the subject. He still has a clear memory of killing Victor, but as this video indicates, somehow, Victor is alive.”


“My daddy’s alive?” came a question from the other side of the room. Everyone turned to see Sam standing there. “But Uncle Todd was sick and made him go to Heaven, right?”


Starr went over to Sam and picked him up. “We don’t really know what’s going on, Sam, but John is going to find out, right John?” she asked. When he nodded, she turned back to the little boy who was both her cousin and brother. “Did you know that when I was a baby, Uncle Todd was lost, like we think your daddy is lost?” she asked, trying to simplify it for him.


“Your daddy went to Heaven and came back?” Sam asked, wide-eyed.


It was Viki who answered him. “Yes, your mommy was pregnant with Starr and Uncle Todd had to go help someone. We were told that there was an accident and he was gone. It made us all very sad. But he surprised us all and came back a few months later and your mommy and Starr were both so happy about that.” Viki smiled at the memory of the first time her brother had held his little girl. She looked back at John. “If you need someone to go with you, I think I’d better come. Knowing my brother, he could react in any number of ways to this news.”


Starr and Jack stepped forward. “We’d better got too. We need to keep Dad as calm as possible,” Starr said. She then said to her aunt, “Look, we may also need for Dad to talk to a psychiatrist. Something he said at the hospital makes me wonder if there more going on with his memories.”


The family prepared to leave, John with the Viki and Manning kids to tell Todd and Blair and Natalie, Sarah and Tina with Sam to the park to try to distract him as much as possible. This would be hard on all, but they didn’t know what else to do at the moment.


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