""Are you sure?" Stuart asked Adam's attorney. Barry was sure alright. He explained that his network of investigators had failed to turn up any evidence that would prove that Marian had left Pine Valley. Adam's suggestion that Marian had used a pseudonym made sense, but Barry explained that Marian still would have had to pay for a trip with her own money. He then noted that none of Marian's credit cards had been used and that her bank account showed no activity in the past few days. Adam asked if Marian kept cash on hand at her home. Liza nodded, but indicated that her mother never keeps more then twenty dollars in her purse. Twenty dollars could have been enough to buy a tank of gas, but Marian's car was still in her garage. Barry also was forced to confess that the investigation team had also failed to locate Lee Hawkins. Liza could see that they were getting nowhere fast. If she had any doubts before, Liza now knew that something definitely was not right. Adam wondered if "John" had dumped Marian, causing her to crawl off somewhere to "lick her wounds." Liza looked at Stuart and smiled. She told Adam that she honestly believes that there is only one man in her mother's life. Stuart offered what should have been taken as a big clue, but his statement was disregarded as dribble by his brother. He noted that when Marian disappeared, Camille's ashes as disappeared. The connection was there, but no one saw it. Liza suffered another bout of lightheadness. She dropped her purse and a home pregnancy kit fell out. She scrambled to tuck the kit back into her purse and to minimize Adam's imminent questioning.
At the Pine Valley International Airport, Lee strutted to a ticket counter and asked for a ticket on a flight that would take him as far away from Pine Valley as possible. The ticketing agent looked curiously at Lee. The odd behavior was definitely a tip-off. Lee decided on a final destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina. The agent asked the typical questions---what class, when did he want to leave, and would the trip by a round-trip? Lee decided that first class was the only way to go because "you only live once." He then stated that the trip would be one-way and that the passenger would be his wife, Joy. It came time to pay for the ticket and Lee forked over a credit card he'd taken from Marian's purse. The observant agent told Lee that the name on the card was Marian Colby, not Joy. Lee smiled coolly, saying that his wife's name was Marian Joy Colby.
Back at Chandler Mansion, Barry burst into the room and announced that a plane ticket had just been purchased with Marian's credit card. The flight was scheduled to leave in less than half and hour, so Stuart and Adam knew that they'd have to act fast. They dashed to the airport, with Adam telling Liza that he'd have his private jet fly to Argentina if it meant getting Marian back safely. When the Chandler brothers arrived at the airport, they'd missed the flight by only a few minutes. The ticketing agent refused to stop the plane from taking off and he also refused to give them any information on passengers' name or whether or not Marian was on the plane. Stuart start to panic, but Adam told him that his plane was ready and that they could head to Argentina immediately.
At WRCW, Liza took a deep breath and advised her secretary to hold all of her calls. She hung up the phone, took another deep breath, and then walked down the hall to the ladies' room. She prepared to take her pregnancy test, making sure that she did everything exactly right. Five minutes passed and Liza looked down to see if a little blue mark had appeared on her test. Her head fell back and she looked up at the ceiling. Where, she asked herself, was her mother?
Allie was dumbfounded by Palmer's offer to have all charges against her. She knew that there had to be some strings attached. Palmer smiled wryly and assured Allie that her wanted nothing in return---except for her silence. Allie could not believe her sudden change of fortune. For weeks, she had been moping about her room thinking about her many problems. Now, she had "two gift horses" offering to help her deal with the problems she faced. Allie tried to tweak Palmer a bit by stating that Adam would be "grateful" if she told him that she'd found Palmer skulking around the mansion. Palmer didn't enjoy being out over the barrel. "I've been winning the game long before you were old enough to read the rules," Palmer snapped. Jake returned home from his shift at the hospital and headed directly to Allie's room. When he walked in the room, he immediately saw Palmer and Allie engaged in a tense stare of. He demanded to know what was going on. Unlike the way she'd handled Liza's sudden appearance at Chandler Mansion during her chat with Adam, Allie was quick to come up with a fast lie. She told Jake that Palmer had dropped by with an offer to get the charges against her dropped. Jake laughed. He knew that something had to be up. "Judge not lest ye be judged," Palmer told Jake. Palmer put on his most sincere facial expressions and told Jake that he had no ulterior motives. Citing Allie's medical assistance after the explosion at Holidays, Palmer said that he now knew that Allie's dream was to be a doctor. Palmer sadly said that he did not want to be the one to take that dream away from her. Jake was paged away for a few minutes and during his absence, Palmer hoped to seal the deal with Allie: dropping the charges in return for her silence. Palmer decided that he needed one final bit of persuasion to win Allie over. He told Allie that while Adam might be able to get her her medical license back, he could not get the charges against her drop. And, he added, it would be awfully difficult to practice medicine from behind bars. Palmer reached his hand out to Allie. She hesitated for several minutes before taking his hand and sealing their agreement. Jake returned and Palmer quickly waddled of. On his way out the door, he thanked "Doctor Doyle" for everything she's done for him. Allie chirped giddily. She hugged Jake and told him that she was on her way back to practicing medicine. Several times, Allie mentioned that she would "not be left behind" and that she and Jake would have a bright future together.
Getting Judge Foster to accept the safe deposit box into evidence was the first hurdle for the defense. Trevor called Alfred Vanderpoole to the stand as the first step in presenting the mysterious contents of the box. In the back of the courtroom, Dixie whispered to Opal that Tad should be there to see what is going to happen. On the stand, Alfred explained that he'd come across the purchase order for the box while doing some routine paperwork. When he recognized Jim's name from the newspaper headlines, he immediately contacted Trevor to tell him that the box had been located. Also in his testimony, Alfred stated that the signature card that showed ownership of the box matched Jim's signature. On cross-examination, Keith asked Alfred why he'd contacted Trevor instead of the police. Alfred said that he knew that Trevor was a valued customer of the bank and that he had many years experience as a detective. The assistant district attorney also got Alfred to admit that he had never seen Jim putting anything into the box. Alfred quickly noted that he had, however, seen Jim in the bank on many occasions. Derek was the next witness called. He swore that since discovering the box, he had not let the box out of his sight. He also assured the court that he had taken the proper steps in securing the box, steps that included obtaining a court order. With that, Trevor displayed the contents of the box. "If a picture is worth a thousand words," Trevor said, "then these ten pictures are worth ten thousand witnesses." One by one, he placed photographs of young children up on board in the front of the courtroom. A chill went through the courtroom. The pictures were all of young children, children enjoying the amusement park or a walk in the park. The final picture provoked the most emotion. "Oh my God! That's Amanda!" Janet screamed as she leapt to her feet." What was that pervert doing with a picture of our daughter?" Judge Foster banged his gavel and asked for order in the courtroom. He granted a five minute recess so that Trevor could calm his wife down. During the break, Phoebe remarked that here is a "special place in hell" for Jim Thomasen, Myrtle commented that sometimes she feels that she's "lived too long and seen too much." Trevor managed to comfort his sobbing wife, but before he knew it the recess was over. The lawyer learned over and told his client that "this one's for all the marbles." The next phase of testimony consisted of identifying the children whose photos were found in the box and showing that there was no parental consent to take the pictures. On cross-examination, Keith hammered home two strong points. He got Derek to admit that photographers take their work seriously and that it was normal for some to squirrel away photographs in places where the pictures would not get harmed. It was also learned that the pictures had no fingerprints on them. Derek, however, minimized the damage done by explaining that photographers handle the prints with tongs and gloves and that it was not uncommon for there to be no fingerprints. Keith asked if there was any proof that would show that Jim had actually taken the photographs. Derek stated that the negatives were found in Jim's office at Tempo. That was all Keith had to hear. He asked Derek if he had ever thought about the possibility that Jim was working on a piece for Tempo. Trevor quickly recalled Edmund to the stand and got him to testify that Jim was not working on a project that would require him to take photographs of young children. And if her were, Edmund assured Trevor that the magazine would have required Jim to get parental release forms. When it came time for cross-examination, Keith was confident that he could nix any gains that Trevor had made with his line of questioning. He asked Edmund if it was possible that Jim was freelancing for another company. Edmund looked Keith square in the eyes. "As per the terms of Jim's contract," Edmund said, Jim's services were exclusive to Tempo. In short, Jim was not allowed to be doing work for any other publication. Keith quickly backed off an said that he had no additional questions. He knew that he'd just shot himself in the foot by asking a question to which he had not known the answer. In the crypt, Marian poked her head into the burial vault and found that it was empty. She struggled to crawl into the vault. This, she thought, would be the perfect place to hide from Lee. Marian was exhausted from lack of food and water and she was still sore from the beating she'd received. She knew that she had to close the vault door, but that created a bit of a dilemma. She couldn't reach the door from her position inside the vault. She managed to grab hold of a ling metal pole and used it to pull the door closed. The door slammed with a loud thud and Marian was hidden inside. Lee returned a few seconds later and went ballistic when he saw that Marian was missing. He warned her that when he found her, he would make her sorry. He opened the door and raced out. Inside the chamber, Marian could tell that Lee had not closed the door behind him. That meant that freedom was dangling like a carrot in front of her face. She pushed on the cement vault door to get it to open---it didn't budge. Marian was forced to face that fact that by hiding, she might have sealed her fate: she was too weak to get the door back open."
- Soap Central