Carrie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All that time she’d spent worrying about Austin, wondering where he was, whether he was safe, and it turned out he was home. He was out of jail. He knew how to reach her.
And he hadn’t even tried. Mike tried to calm her down. “I’m sure there’s some logical explanation, Carrie. ”
But she shook her head.
There was only one reason Austin hadn’t contacted her. He didn’t care. For all she knew, he never wanted to see her again. Mike pushed back.
“That’s just not true. ”
“Then what is it, Mike? ” She looked at him, her voice full of hurt. “Tell me the best-case scenario.
That he’s still totally obsessed with Sami and Will? That he’s trying harder to find the real killer? If he can work so hard to prove Sami’s innocent, don’t you think he could pick up a phone and call his own wife? ”
Mike told her she’d never know until she called him.
But she couldn’t. She didn’t think she could take hearing one more time that Sami and Will were his priorities. She just wanted to forget the hurt, keep traveling, never go back. Mike admitted that a part of him wanted that too, a big part.
He felt like he had everything he needed in the world right there with her. Meanwhile, across town, Austin was confronting Marlena. He was furious, and he wasn’t holding back. He knew about the affair.
He knew about Carrie and Mike. Marlena tried to stop him. “You don’t understand what happened. ”
“Don’t understand?
” Austin’s voice rose. “Don’t understand what I saw at Green Mountain Lodge? Don’t understand that Carrie and Mike had a romantic rendezvous at a place that was supposed to be special for Carrie and me? Don’t understand that my life was in danger and my wife was sleeping with another man?
”
Marlena asked if he’d seen them there. He had. He saw them kissing. And then he turned on her.
“What, you’ve known about it? You’ve known all along? ”
He demanded to know how long Marlena had known. She admitted she’d known for quite a while that Mike and Carrie cared about each other.
“How many other people in Salem know? ” Austin laughed bitterly. “What am I, a joke now in Salem? ”
Marlena tried to reason with him.
He had been so busy trying to help Sami and Will. But in doing that, he walked out on his wife. “So that makes it okay that my wife goes out and commits adultery? ” Austin shook his head.
“She can try to use my leaving as an excuse. But you know what? It’s probably a relief to her. No more sneaking around.
She’s free to go cross-country with Mikey-boy. ”
Marlena told him to stop. It was a business trip. “No, it’s more than that,” Austin insisted.
“They’ve had feelings for each other for months now. The second I go out and try to do something good for Sami and Will, she runs right into his arms. ”
“You left, Austin,” Marlena said quietly. “You just weren’t there.
”
“No, no, no! I am not going to take this guilt trip. I did not break my marriage vows. ”
Marlena looked at him steadily.
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. ”
Austin was taken aback. How had he broken his vows? Why should he feel guilty?
“What do you call not being there for somebody? ” Marlena asked. “What do you call abandoning somebody both physically and emotionally? ”
Austin insisted he was trying to protect her daughter and his son.
“Pardon me, but he is not your son. ”
“Okay, fine, not biologically. But, Marlena, I’ve raised him since birth. You can’t break that bond.
I’m never going to stop loving him. ”
Marlena turned it back on him. What about the bond with his wife? He had spent months on the road protecting Sami and Will.
Carrie understood, Austin insisted. She told him she did. She signed the guardianship papers. She led him to believe she wanted to share responsibility for Will.
Marlena told him Carrie did all of that out of love for him, as an attempt to meet him halfway. Austin kept circling back to his anger. “And what about Mike? Doesn’t he bear any responsibility in this?
The second I’m gone, he runs over to Carrie, turns her against me, all the while pretending to be the concerned friend? ”
Marlena insisted Mike would never try to turn Carrie against him. “He sure as hell wasn’t singing my praises,” Austin shot back. “And of course, Carrie was easily turned, obviously, to throw away our future and to ruin any chances I had of getting custody of Will.
”
Marlena said she was sorry he was going through all this. “Are you really? ” Austin’s voice turned cold. “Because all I’m hearing is you sympathizing with Carrie.
But of course you would, because you know what it’s like. You know what it’s like to betray somebody. You know what it’s like to ruin someone’s life. ”
Marlena was stunned.
Austin pressed on. There seemed to be an epidemic in this town. His mother did it with Bill. Marlena did it with John.
And now Carrie was doing it. Marlena didn’t try to defend her affair with John. There was no defense for that. But she told Austin that Carrie, having seen the pain that betrayal caused her father, was determined never to inflict that kind of pain on her husband.
To call it an epidemic wasn’t just unfair, it was untrue. Austin finally softened. “I’m sorry. ”
Marlena told him there was something Carrie had said to her.
Carrie admitted she leaned on Mike emotionally, and there was a certain mutual attraction. But they never made love. “I don’t believe it,” Austin said. “I saw them at Green Mountain Lodge kissing.
And then I saw them again. ”
When? Marlena asked. When Sami and Austin were hiding out at Tracey’s, and Mike and Carrie showed up.
They didn’t see him, but he saw them. Carrie was sick, and she had no qualms about Mike taking her clothes off and wrapping her in a blanket and holding her. Then he called the clinic on the business trip itinerary, and some doctor just went on and on about what a great couple they were. He didn’t need any more proof.
Marlena told him he was assuming the worst, and that wasn’t fair. He needed to talk to Carrie. He should get the itinerary, find out where she was, and call her. She wouldn’t lie to him.
Austin refused. “Why should I call Carrie? I’m just going to hear more lies. ”
“Maybe you want to keep on feeling sorry for yourself,” Marlena said.
“Maybe you want to keep on feeling like you’ve been wronged. I don’t think Carrie lied to you. I believe with my whole heart that she told the truth. I don’t think that she and Mike have made love.
But what really is important is what you believe. ”
In the meantime, Mike was trying to be honest with Carrie. He told her he wasn’t trying to force some sort of reconciliation between her and Austin. That wasn’t what this was about.
He just wanted everything to be clear for all of them. He wanted her to be free to commit to them. Carrie agreed to call Austin. But she had a bad feeling about it.
Mike promised to support her one hundred percent. He always had, and he always would. “And just for the record,” he added, “I’m not giving up without a fight. Because I love you, and I don’t ever want to let you go, no matter what Austin says or does.
”
Carrie was torn. She knew Mike loved her, and she loved him too. But here she was, crying about Austin. How could she be so mixed up?
Mike told her it was killing him to see her torn in two like this. She needed to face Austin and deal with it. Until then, they were all in limbo. Austin needed to know what was going on.
He needed to know how she felt, and he needed to know now. Carrie was afraid. Austin was the one who abandoned her. He’d probably be relieved to know she was in love with somebody else, that he was off the hook.
“Well, maybe, maybe not,” Mike said. “But no matter what, it’s time for him to know, for his sake and for ours. You have to know what Austin feels. And no matter what, I will support you.
I’ll support you no matter what happens. So call him. Call him now. ”
While all this was happening, Eric and Nicole were dealing with their own tension.
Nicole had picked out a beautiful dress, and Eric insisted it was perfect for her. He thought it would be perfect for dinner that night. Nicole suggested they skip dinner altogether and spend the rest of the evening in bed. Eric was planning a family dinner, and he was nervous about it.
Nicole admitted she wasn’t looking forward to it. Eric tried to reassure her. It would be fun. It wasn’t just his family.
He knew that she and Taylor had this sibling rivalry thing, but Taylor wanted things to change. That’s why she was coming. It was a perfect time for everybody to forget their problems and their animosities and just have a good time. Nicole said fine.
Eric asked if she’d called her mom. She hadn’t gotten around to it. She said her mom still needed to rest from her surgery. Eric suggested one night out might do her good.
Nicole was hesitant. Then Lucas showed up. He commented on how happy they looked. “Well, we were, till you showed up,” Eric said.
Lucas looked at Nicole. He reminded her that she had brought a lot of revenue into Titan and sold a lot of magazines. He’d be a bad businessman if he didn’t want to work her to death. But Nicole pointed out that he hadn’t, not for a while.
Lucas said he had other plans for her. Eric jumped in. “Well, you might want to put those plans away, Lucas, because Nicole’s leaving Titan. She was about to give you her notice, right?
”
Lucas asked Nicole directly if this was true. Did she want to quit? Nicole hadn’t made that decision yet, and he knew it. Lucas pointed out that they had a failure to communicate.
Titan was the best place for her career. They could give her perks she couldn’t get anywhere else. Eric called the perks bribery. The two men argued.
Lucas pointed out that Eric was just a dime-a-dozen photographer. Eric said he was staying because Nicole asked him to, because they were a team. “Teams can be disbanded,” Lucas said. Then Lucas announced he had a little something for Nicole, a gift, before she went to work.
He’d also scheduled a photo shoot for her later that day, if her schedule permitted. Nicole was thrilled. She asked who the photographer would be. Lucas said it was her call.
She wanted Eric. Lucas agreed. Nicole thanked him and said now she could go buy that new dress. She left to do just that, and Lucas told her not to be long.
She didn’t want to miss her surprise perk. It would be there any minute. When Nicole returned, Lucas presented her with the gift. He congratulated her on a job well done.
Bella’s magazine sales had reached over a million that month, thanks to her. He handed her a key. It was for a car. A brand new car, parked right outside.
Nicole was stunned. Eric was not happy. “Give it up, Lucas,” Eric said. “Not everybody is as shallow as you are.
Some people actually value honesty and integrity. They don’t care about how thick someone’s stock portfolio is. ”
Lucas just smiled. They were about to see if that was true.
Greta and John were having their own difficult conversation. Greta and Bo had returned from Capri, where they had been trying to find evidence connecting John to Gina’s trips. They had found nothing. John wished he could say he was relieved, except for the fact that he had an actual memory of being there, at the Riviera Capri.
Greta suggested maybe he just remembered the hotel suite because she’d described it to him. The power of suggestion. John insisted it was more than that. He had discussed that possibility with Marlena.
That memory was so real, so vivid. Like the memory he had of waltzing with Greta’s mother. Greta could sense he was holding something back. There was something he wasn’t telling her, wasn’t there?
John admitted he was still trying to piece it all together. But Greta kept pressing. She had hung onto this image of her mother for so long. Cold sometimes, but honorable.
A person who deserved a lot of respect. But now she had this feeling that it was all about to change. The more she learned about her mother’s life, the more she feared she didn’t know her mother at all. Her mother had this cold side, the way she could dismiss somebody with a look or a wave of the hand.
And then there was the Il Grotto, the seedy, dangerous dive where her mother used to hang out. Greta couldn’t believe her mother would go there, much less frequent the place. Bo seemed to think her mother’s death was the result of foul play, and Greta had to agree. John was tormented by the uncertainty.
Was he there? Wasn’t he there? Was he with Gina? Was he a priest?
Under what name? He had to know. The time had come. Greta urged him to let Dr.
Evans hypnotize him again. She could describe the place to him. It worked with the hotel suite. John agreed it was time.
He looked at Greta. “I’m sorry. I know this is tough on you, also. ”
Greta thanked him.
“The thought of my mother being a dishonorable person, I… Thank God I don’t have to worry about that with you. ”
Elsewhere, Bo had come home to Hope, or what he thought was Hope. He had been worried sick about her.
He’d been up all night on a plane. He’d come home to find she hadn’t slept in her bed. He went up to her room, and it was obvious she hadn’t been there all night. But the woman who called herself Hope wasn’t grateful for his concern.
She was annoyed. “What do you mean where the hell have I been? What, am I past my curfew? ”
Bo was taken aback.
He told her he was worried about her. He thought something might have happened to her. “I don’t need another father, okay? ” she snapped.
Bo apologized for losing it a little. Gina told him he was one to talk. He took off to Europe with Greta, which she had to hear about from their son, not from him. Alice tried to interject.
Hope had been asked to go with him and turned him down. Gina wasn’t having it. “Oh, great. Now we’re going to dredge all of this back up.
Thank you very much, Brady. ”
Bo tried to explain. He was on a plane all night. He came home.
Mrs. H. said she hadn’t seen her all morning. He went up to her room, and it was obvious she hadn’t slept there all night.
“What, and that gives you the right to attack me? ” Gina asked. Bo insisted he wasn’t attacking her. He was just very worried about her, that’s all.
Gina turned to Alice and apologized for upsetting her. Alice said she felt just as Bo did. She was just glad Hope was all right. “Of course I’m all right,” Gina said.
“Why wouldn’t I be all right? I wish everyone would just stop being so melodramatic here. This is hysterical. ”
Bo couldn’t believe it.
“DiMera is messing with your life, and you’re coming down on us for worrying about your safety? ”
Gina called a timeout. “Fine, okay. You win.
Worry your heads off if it makes you feel better. I don’t know what to tell you. ”
Bo asked her simply: where was she? Gina said she left a note.
Bo hadn’t seen any note. Gina looked around and found it on the floor. She handed it to Alice, who read it out loud. “Gran, went to be with Lili.
Lucille has the night off, and my friend didn’t want to be alone. See you in the morning. Hope. ”
Alice said that explained it.
Bo seemed satisfied for the moment. Later, Bo pulled out some papers. He told Gina they were dates he got off the computer at the Riviera Capri hotel, showing when she had stayed there as Gina. “Well, then I did stay there,” Gina said.
“Yeah, eight times between 1990 and ’94. ”
Gina muttered about erasing visits. She’d have to change the dates so they wouldn’t connect with the art thefts. Bo asked what she meant.
Gina quickly covered her tracks. “So what are you going to do with these dates? ”
“Feed them into the computer, find out if they correspond with any criminal activity that happened there at the time. ”
Gina looked at him directly.
“And what happens if you find out I did commit crimes? Are you going to arrest me, put me in jail? ”
Bo was taken aback. “Of course I’m not going to arrest you.
You’re my wife. ”
He showed her the dates. “These are the dates I got off the computer at the Riviera Capri hotel of when you stayed there as Gina. ”
Gina tried to explain it away.
Gina spent many visits there. She couldn’t erase every visit after 1990. It would look awfully suspicious. She’d just change the dates so they wouldn’t connect with the art thefts.
Simple. Bo looked at her strangely. She was talking about erasing and changing dates as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she had control over the records.
But he let it go for the moment. Later, Bo tried to reach out to her again. He told her he wanted to get back what they had, what they seemed to have lost lately. He wanted them to be a family again.
He asked where their son was. He was thinking of getting tickets to the Bulls-Miami game up in Chicago for the weekend. Gina said he shouldn’t do that, because Shawn-D wasn’t there. Where was he?
Westborough Academy. Bo was stunned. Why was he there? Gina was excited.
There was an opening, and Shawn-D was so excited. She had to act fast otherwise they would have lost the chance. He got in. Bo could barely speak.
“Are you telling me that you sent our son off to boarding school without my consent? ”
Gina was defiant. “What’s the problem? Oh, I’m sorry.
Is it something your precious little Hope would never do? ”