Episode 82 - Kidnapped

"Dad!"

Lawrence came to on his office floor with Artie crouched over him, shaking his shoulder. The back of his head was throbbing.

"What happened?" Artie asked once he saw his father was awake.

"I don't know. Where's the nanny?"

Lawrence tried to pull himself up, but a wave of dizziness made him take pause.

"She said she was going to the store and took Lance and Lorna with her. She made me stay behind."

"When did they leave?"

"Just now."

Lawrence fought through the pain and dizziness, pulled himself to his feet, and stumbled to the front door. He reached it just in time to see a car pulling out of the driveway. He tried to call out to them to stop, but the car sped away. He collapsed against the doorframe. Artie was at his side to steady him.

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Artie asked with concern. "Ms. Parker hasn't seemed like herself this afternoon."

"Yes. Go get my phone. I was trying to call the police when she knocked me out."

Lawrence rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes a moment as he let the doorframe support him. A moment later, Artie returned with the phone.

"She insisted they go with her, Lorna especially," Artie explained hastily while his father hit redial.

Before the call could go through, a police car pulled up to the house, and Detective Frederick stepped out. Lawrence cancelled the call.

"I got your call, but we were cut off. What happened?"

"She took my children."

"Who took them?"

"The nanny. Jolene. Lauren. I don't know, but she looked just like the woman who has been watching my children these last few months. Just like the woman I identified in the interrogation room."

"Do you know where they were going? Which direction? What vehicle were they in?"

"You must have just passed them." Lawrence pointed down the street and described the car they left in. "There are surveillance cameras outside the community center across the street. They might have caught the license plate."

The detective called in on the radio as Lawrence staggered back to his office and logged into his computer to access the surveillance footage.

"Are you okay, sir?" the detective asked once he had called in the description of the vehicle and its license plate number. "Do you need me to take you to the hospital?"

"I can wait. First, take me back to the station. I want to talk to the woman you brought in."

* * * * *

As soon as the detective opened the door to the interrogation room at the police station, Lawrence barged in to confront the woman he thought was his nanny and who was still speaking with her lawyer.

"Who are you? And who is the woman in my house that looks just like you?"

"And who are you?" Dustin spoke up. "What authority do you have to question my client?" He turned to the woman across from him. "You don't have to answer anything he asks."

"She took Lance and Lorna," Lawrence continued, disregarding the lawyer. "We need to know who she is and where she might have taken them."

Paige's expression went from bewildered to concerned. Once she knew the children were potentially in danger, she could not remain silent. "My real name is Paige DeVille. The woman that you saw was probably my sister, Lauren. She escaped from a mental institution about seven years ago, and I have been looking for her ever since. I knew she had been fixated on you in the past, so I came to Bay Pointe to try and find her. I was sure she would come back here to be close to you."

As the detective furiously jotted down everything she said, Paige continued without pausing to let anyone ask any questions or to let her lawyer object.

"I hadn't heard anything from my sister, aside from one letter she wrote me years ago, until this morning when she showed up at my apartment as I was getting ready to leave for work. I tried to find out where she's been all this time, but she said very little. We barely had a chance to talk at all before she started coughing. I went into the kitchen to get her a glass of water, but when I came back, she was gone along with my phone, my purse, and my car."

"Did she give you any clue about where she was staying, or do you know of any place significant to her where she might have gone?" the detective asked.

"Sorry, no." Paige shook her head. She looked up at Lawrence, who seemed about to collapse from the strain. "I really am sorry about everything. If I had any idea she would have been around the kids, I would have said something sooner."

* * * * *

"I thought we were going to the store," Lance said skeptically as Lauren pulled into the parking lot of a building. "What is this place?"

"My apartment. I should have some sprinkles and decorations we can use for our cookies." She got out of the car and motioned for Lance and Lorna to do the same.

"We'll just wait here while you get them," Lance said, crossing his arms over his chest and digging in his heels.

"Suit yourself. You can wait here if you want, but I'm not leaving your sister in a parking lot. What kind of nanny would I be if I left my children in the car alone?" Lauren grabbed Lorna by the arm and pulled her toward the apartment building.

Lance sighed and reluctantly followed after them.

"Make yourselves at home," she said cheerfully as she let them into the studio apartment. "I hope you'll like it here. There's not as much room here as at your father's house, but we'll find a way to make it work."

"Where are the sprinkles?" Lorna asked.

"Let me look."

As Lauren looked through the kitchen cabinets, Lance wandered around the room. It was sparsely furnished but colorfully decorated. Above the table and sofa was a bulletin board full of photographs and newspaper clippings. It only took a moment's glance for him to be alarmed. The photographs were all of his dad, taken from a distance or headshots published for his job. The newspaper clippings were all about his dad, his business, their neighborhood, and their mother's disappearance. In the articles that included photographs of his mother, her face had been marked out.

He frowned and drew back, disgusted. When he looked over at the nanny, she was still busy looking through the cabinets and didn't notice that he was looking at the clippings.

"Oops, I guess I'm all out of sprinkles," she said, stepping away from the cabinets with her arms raised in defeat. "I guess we'll have to do something else. Do you want me to make something for dinner? Do you want to play a game?"

"I want you to take us back home," Lance declared. "It's a school night, and we have homework to do. We need to get back."

"Forget about all of that. We can call the school and tell them you need the day off so we can spend more time together. The three of us and your daddy."

"And Artie?" Lorna asked hopefully.

"I guess," Lauren reluctantly agreed with a frown. "If your dad wants him too, I guess."

When she looked at Lance and Lorna, she could see their father, but Lawrence's oldest son favored his mother too much, and his grandfather, the old man who had fired her from her secretarial job all those years ago, which kept her away from Lawrence when she so desperately needed to get closer to him.

"But the four of us are so perfect together. Look," she said, taking off her blonde wig to reveal her short dark hair. "We all have the same hair color, and our names even match: Lawrence, Lance, Lorna, and Lauren," she giggled.

"But your name is Jolene," Lorna said with a frown.

"No, it was Paige," Lance said, confused.

"No, it's really Lauren," she insisted firmly. Then, as immediately as her tone turned stern, it brightened again. "Make yourself at home and get comfortable, and we'll wait for your daddy to come."

* * * * *

At the police station, Paige and her lawyer spoke with the detectives while Lawrence and Artie waited outside the interrogation room. Lawrence had agreed to have an officer with a first-aid kit tend to his head injury but declined going to the hospital, refusing to focus on anything else until his children were away from that psycho.

Detective Frederick returned with an update. "We found the car parked outside of an apartment building. We're sending out a SWAT team now."

"Let me go," Lawrence insisted. "I can't take the risk that she would feel cornered and hurt the children. She might listen to me. Maybe I can talk her into letting them go." Getting Lance and Lorna away from her was the important thing. He wouldn't hesitate to take their place if that's what was needed to make sure they were safe.

* * * * *

"Can we go home now?" Lorna whined.

Lauren was doing her best to keep the children occupied, but they were restless and distrustful of her. She thought it would be fun to have them as her children, but it wasn't going as smoothly as she had hoped, and she was starting to get frustrated. "Just wait. Once your daddy gets here, it will be much better. We'll all be together, and this will start to feel more like home."

"We already have a home. Our dad is probably waiting for us there, so why don't we go back?" Lance said firmly.

"Go if you want, but your sister and I are going to wait here."

Lance frowned and leaned back on the couch. He wasn't going to leave without his little sister.

"Good," she smiled. She went over to the desk and started rooting through the drawers. "Let's see what we can find to entertain ourselves."

While she was still looking through the desk for a deck of cards or some paper and pens, there was a knock at the door. She froze, momentarily panicked, before running to put her ear to the door. "Who's there?"

"It's me. Lawrence. Is that you, Lauren?"

"It is!" She leaned back on the door and put her hand over her heart. She knew he would find her. She knew it was meant to be. For a moment, reality started to creep in. She looked through the peephole. "Are you alone?"

"Yes."

Since the hallway appeared empty, except for him, she unlocked the door and threw it open to invite him in.

"Daddy!" Lorna called out. Both children rose to meet him, but Lauren jumped in between them and their father and held an arm outstretched to keep them back.

"Wait! Let's not get too excited." Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "How did you find our apartment? What is your real reason for being here?"

"I must have passed out because I woke up and you were gone. I drove around looking for your car. Why didn't you tell me where you were going, Lauren? I thought you wanted us to all be together."

"I do! Of course, that's what I want. It's all I've always wanted. I wasn't sure that you did, but now, you're here! You're really here!"

"I am, but I think we should go home now. All four of us. Together."

"No, stay awhile," she insisted as she beckoned him further into the apartment. "Don't you like it here?"

"I do, but there's more room at my house, and I would like a chance to speak with you . . .alone."

"Okay. They can wait in the bathroom while we talk," she motioned to the bathroom door. "Unfortunately, I only have the one room."

"I think we need more privacy than that, don't you?" Lawrence said, keeping his voice low as he slowly stepped toward her, refusing to break eye contact with her. "They can wait outside for a few minutes. It will be alright."

Lauren nodded slowly. Entranced, how could she say no to him? But she was still wary. She darted over to the door. "They go outside, but you stay here, right?"

Lawrence nodded and motioned for the children to go to the door. He touched them each on the shoulder encouragingly as he ushered them toward the door. "Just go out to the car. Your brother is out there waiting."

Lauren tensed in alarm and blocked the door. "I thought you were alone." She started toward the window, but Lawrence stepped in front of her.

"It's just my oldest son. He was concerned about his siblings. He can keep an eye on them for a few minutes while we talk."

Lauren didn't like it, but she couldn't pass up the chance to be alone with Lawrence, so she let the children go while keeping herself positioned between Lawrence and the door so he couldn't leave.

Lance and Lorna looked back at their father questioningly, but he just nodded and motioned for them to go forward. Once they were out the door, Lauren pushed it closed behind them, without taking her eyes off Lawrence.

"Alone at last. I have waited for this moment for so long."

"How long?"

"Since the day we met. Do you remember?" she asked, stepping towards him.

"I remember," he said, edging to the side, hoping to get closer to the door, but not willing to turn his back on her again. "But why now after so long? Or was that you working as the nanny this entire time?"

"No, it wasn't me until today, but I have been watching for a long time, waiting for the right moment. At first, I was so jealous of Paige, being so close to you, in your house every day, but then I thought that might be to my advantage as long as you didn't fall in love with her first. You didn't develop feelings for her, did you?" Her eyes grew wide with panic.

"No."

"Good, good. Of course not. Of course, you wouldn't think of my baby sister that way," she said, more to convince herself than Lawrence. She looked up at him again. "It took me years to get back here and get back to you again. I never forgot about you. Don't worry, I would never forget."

Lawrence just nodded, trying to seem agreeable as he eyed the window where the SWAT team was waiting outside and the door as he looked for a way out of the apartment. He knew he needed to stall for time while the police got Lance and Lorna to safety and planned their next move. Luckily, keeping Lauren talking wasn't going to be a problem.

"This is the closest we've been since the cruise."

That caught Lawrence's attention, and he stopped thinking about the SWAT team outside. "The cruise?"

"Yes. You didn't even know I was there, did you?" she tsked as she motioned to the bulletin board.

Lawrence took a closer look. Amongst the newspaper clippings and photographs, there was a boarding pass for the same ill-fated cruise he and Eileen had been on for their anniversary five years ago, and there was a picture of him aboard the cruise ship with Eileen as they watched the sunset. His heart dropped, and he turned to Lauren in shock.

Lauren just smiled at him proudly. "I had it all planned out. Once she was out of the way," she sneered at the photo of Eileen, "we were going to be reunited. Unfortunately, I hit a snag, and I had to bail, but here we are now-"

"What did you do?" Lawrence growled, his eyes wide with horror.

Lauren just grinned at him.

Before either of them could say another word, there was a loud bang at the door that made Lauren jump and turn abruptly toward the sound. Lawrence took the opportunity to grab Lauren's arms behind her back as the door flew open and the SWAT team swarmed in and surrounded them.

Moments later, Lauren was in handcuffs, still fighting and struggling as she was put into the back of a patrol car.

Lawrence returned the wire he was wearing to the detective and ran to hug his children before taking them home.