Season 6 - Episode 4 - IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT...
By Marea67
About: Brothers & Sisters (general)
Rate: Can’t go higher than PG-13, as this is American Television, but I may add a few ‘deleted scenes’ here and there. ;)
Disclaimer: Just escaping from reality here, not created for financial gain
Summary: It is my very own season 6, you guys! Go with it! ;) Don’t complain! If YOU can do better, post your own story! (I dare you!)
Starring:
Also:
Also appearing: Cleo Baxter, Alex Grodin, Max Carter, Dane Kane (producer of Chad'd new movie)
***** Part 1/4 *****
“Kevin… Kevin, wake up!” Scotty shakes Kevin up and Kevin opens his eyes to see it’s just past 2 o’clock in the morning.
“Scotty, I appreciate the thought, but I’m not in the mood for sex.” Kevin replies grumpily from underneath the blankets.
“Neither am I…. Kevin, I’m not waking you up for sex, but because Bill Stanton just got killed.It was on the radio. He got shot!”
“What!?” Kevin is now completely awake.
“It’s all over the news.” Scotty says.
Kevin gets out of bed as well and together they watch CNN and the reports of how Stanton was shot in the garage, that the ambulance was there rather quickly, but that nothing could be done to save Stanton. Kevin feels completely cold inside. Only this afternoon he had planned to shoot Bill Stanton himself and now Stanton is dead.
It is a confusing feeling. Of course, he knows that he didn’t do it, but someone had. Someone had done what Kevin had been too afraid of to do. Kevin tries not to dwell on the thought of who could have done this, but there’s something on his mind and it makes him feel very uncomfortable.
*****
Max Carter can’t believe it. He stares at the corpse on the pathologist’s table. It really is Bill Stanton. Only a few days earlier Alex had warned him that someone, Kevin Walker to be exact, would kill Stanton, but he hadn’t believed Alex and now Stanton is dead. First thing Max had done was find out where Alex had been.
Stupid of course. Alex Grodin had been sound asleep in his cell in a prison-cell miles away from Bill Stanton or Kevin Walker…
“Sir, the list of visitors that Mr Stanton had this week. I spoke to his secretary, but she said that nothing memorable happened this week. No fights, no arguements. Nothing worth mentioning.”
Max quickly looks over the list and there it is. Kevin Walker. 10 o’clock meeting… But there had been other meetings after that and Stanton had still been alive… Max can imagine how Kevin would argue with Stanton, especially if what Alex had told him about Stanton’s connection to Robert McCallister’s death is true.
Maybe, provided Kevin got angry enough, he could have used the gun, that apparently Alex got him…. still, if Alex is telling the truth… Yes, he could see Kevin shoot Stanton in the office, in the heat of the moment…. But that didn’t happen. Kevin left Stanton alive and well.
Now the question becomes if Kevin had it in him to wait for Stanton to go to his car, to then walk over to Stanton and put several bullets into him…? And after that cold blooded murder, he’d walk away, remembering to hide his face and features from the security cameras?
Unlikely. Alex could do that, but not Kevin. Except… Alex could physically not have done it, but Kevin could have….
“We found this is Mr Stanton’s briefcase…” Max takes over the envelop to find something he’d rather not have found.
Inside are several small tapes and Max remembers that Alex had spoken of tapes that had been made of Robert McCallister and Bill Stanton.
“Find a way for me to listen to them.” Max orders, giving back the tapes to his assistant. This might still look bad for Kevin.
The pathologist walks up to him.
“Well?” Max asks, he’s very curious.
“Of course, I haven’t done a full autopsy yet, so I’m keeping all options open, but … at first sight, I’d say, it was a professional job.”
“It was?” Max asks astounded.
“Yes. It must have been done by someone who knew what he was doing. Four of the five bullets are in heart-area, one in the stomach. This was someone who let the bullets follow a body that was sinking to the ground. He or she knew exactly what to do.”
Just as Max had thought. Too professional. Too calculated… Well, that would seem to exclude Kevin and though it does make Max feel better, he’ll have to talk with Kevin too, as he’s on the list of suspects. But just the knowledge that it would be unlikely that Kevin could have done it, makes Max look forward to talking to Kevin.
*****
“Why do you have to get up so early?” Jason moans, but Chad laughs his complaint away.
“Sweetie, it’s past eight, so, it’s not that early and Dane Kane and I are going to have a look at Scotty’s hotel and see if it’s worthwhile to shoot there. So, I’m excited.”
“Want me to come with you?” Jason asks.
“No, I’ll be fine… Better question: are you still here when I came back?”
“In bed? Unlikely…. Unless you give me some incentive…?” Jason teases.
“If you’re still in bed when I come home, I’ll give you more than an incentive.” Chad promises.
*****
“The 5th floor?” Cleo repeats. Tyler nods. “Film there?” Tyler nods again. “On the creepy 5th floor? Oh, my God…. And Chad Barry? Oh, I love him, he’s such a good actor.. So gorgeous.” Cleo still can’t believe it.
“If they accept, we could maybe buy ourselves some more time.”
“So, you and Mr Wandell are interested in keeping this hotel running?” Cleo asks.
“Well, yes, but like I said, we still have to check if it is at all possible and we thought about doing it this coming weekend… But if we already know that the film can be shot at the 5th floor, then it will give us some room to breathe.”
Cleo nods, but when Tyler walks away, her face becomes all concerned. She doesn’t like the idea of people on the 5th floor, not even if it means that she can stay in the hotel she loves so much. She wonders if she should tell Scotty and Tyler what she knows,… but then dismisses the thought. They’d think she’s crazy.
*****
“Hey, Fawn.” Justin greets Fawn when he sees her. Fawn seems surprised but then smiles happily.
“Back again? I hope you didn’t bring in another patient. We already have too many of them already.”
“No. I came here to see you.” Justin ignores her little joke.
“Oh?” Fawn seems surprised.
“Actually I wanted to talk to you about your son…..”
“Why?” Fawn becomes tense.
“I …. I need to know if I’m his father.”
“He doesn’t need a father.”
“Please, Fawn. I want to know. I’ve seen what happened with Rebecca and Ryan when they found out about their father or who they believed to be their father and ….”
“That is their problem.”
“… I just want my son, if he’s my son, to know that I didn’t abandon him, forgot about him or disrespected his mother on any level. I think that what you did was amazing, Fawn, I really believe that.”
Fawn turns away.
“No. I don’t want you involved in my life. Not anymore….”
“Fawn...”
“Damn it, Justin! Did it ever occur to you that I might have actually liked you?!”
This time it’s Justin’s turn to be surprised. Fawn bites her lip as if she realizes that she already said too much.
“I liked you. I really did, but I was meaningless to you…. which is alright…. No grudges. It’s in the past and it should stay there, so I sincerely don’t need you as an added complication, Justin. I don’t need you and neither does my son. Even if he were yours, I don’t want you involved in our lives. Julian and I are doing just fine.”
“Good. I respect that. But don’t you think it would be better to know if I am the father or not?”
“Why?”
“ Take my niece, Elizabeth… My brother and I were sperm-donors because Tommy was sterile. When Elizabeth got sick, we discovered that my brother Kevin was her biological father. We had to find out, because her liver was failing and she need a piece of her father's liver.
If I am Julian’s biological father, then, if anything would happen to him, you wouldn’t have to waste time to find out?” He sees that he hit some nerve and Fawn seems less certain suddenly. “Come on. If it isn’t me then … you’d know you’d have to look elsewhere.” He says softly.
*****
Kitty pushes her hair back and caresses her belly.
“Not now, baby. You haven’t made me sick so far, don’t start now. Mommy still hasn’t figured out how to tell your daddy the truth that you’re still here….” She quietly begs her baby.
“Kitty? What is wrong? Are you sick? I could hear you throw up… I think, Evan finds it a little upsetting…” Seth sheepishly stares at her, not knowing what to do. Kitty slowly gets up from the floor to drink some water. “Kit, are you alright?”
“I just threw up! What do you think?”
“But why? You hardly ate a thing last night and … I hope there are not complications from… you know… what happened yesterday…”
“Really, Seth? ‘What happened yesterday’…? I went there to have an abortion and….”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Seth cuts her off.
“Seth, I have something I should tell you,… I….” But before Kitty can finish her sentence, she turns back and throws up again.
“I…. I think I will leave you alone now….” Seth definitely looks a little green as well.” I guess .. with all the stress and such….”
Kitty can see him back away and leave and she shakes her head, not sure if she should laugh or cry, but she’s glad that he is gone, so she can relax a bit. She tries to breathe more calmly and gently strokes her belly.
“Shh, shh, baby, please, stop making me so sick….” She says softly.
*****
There’s a quick knock on Kevin’s door and Kevin quickly opens the door. Before stands a man, tall and large, menacing, a man who looks down on Kevin as he calmly raises an old bag.
“I have to collect something from you.” He says slowly and Kevin’s eyes widen, wondering what the man is talking about.
“I’m not sure….?” He starts.
“From Alex?” The man’s voice rumbles and Kevin opens the door further to let the man in. He walks up to his filing-cabinet to take out the gun.
“This?” He asks. The man nods.
“Did you use it?” The man asks.
“No.”
“Take it apart?”
“No.”
“Your fingerprints can only be on the outside?”
“Yes…”
“Good.” The man starts to clean the gun on the outside, right in front of Kevin. “You never saw this. You never saw me. I never saw you. We never met.” He speaks very slowly.
Frozen to the ground, Kevin nods dumbly.
“If you speak to Alex tell him that I paid my due to him. No more favors.” He grumbles on and again Kevin nods.
“What will happen to the gun?” He carefully asks.
“Disappear without a trace.” The man says. He gives Kevin one final nod and then leaves. It takes Kevin a few seconds before he dares to move and look out the door. The restaurant is empty. There’s no one. He walks over to the front-door and opens it to look outside. The street is empty as well and Kevin returns to his office, still shaken.
*****
“This is just perfect….” Dane Kane, the producer of Chad’s new movie, stares down the corridor. “Just imagine the shots we can take here… Are any of the doors open?”
“All of them.” Cleo replies, she cannot help but stare at Chad Barry. She can’t believe he’s really here. Tyler is amused by Cleo’s amazement.
Dane walks into the first room he can open. The room is large and empty.
“We have taken a lot of the furniture from here to use to them on other floors. Some rooms are completely empty.” Cleo explains nervously.
“That is great. We’ll need room for make-up, planning, storage… We’ll have to do something about the lights here, but other than that, I can see this place work out for us. And think of all the people that will want to come here, once they know we filmed it here..”
“Do you think so?” Cleo doesn’t seem too convinced. She cannot imagine people doing something like that.
“Really, Cleo, you’d be amazed what some fans will do to be in the same place as their favorite actor had been.”
“Well, that could be good news for this hotel.” Cleo replies happily.
Somewhere a door slams shut and everyone has the same reaction of jumping up at the sound of it.
“There has to be a draft here somehow.” Cleo replies with a nervous laughter and she carefully moves closer to the elevator.
“The crew will love this place… I have to start make some calls and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” Dane laughs.
“That will be great.” Tyler smiles. They all get on the elevator and the door closes behind them.
The silence however doesn’t return to the 5th floor. There’s the sound of door opening. The lights that were shining so dimly flare up with enormous intensity! Then they fade back to normal. Dane has left one of the doors open. It moves back and forth a bit, only to slam shut with such violence that a small crack appears in the plaster on the wall.
*****
End of part 1/4
**** COMMERCIAL BREAK*****