Passion Perfect

Title: Life and Breath
Author: Pink Rabbit Productions
Fandom: Guiding Light
Pairing: Olivia/Natalia
Part: 10
Date: 5 July, 2009
Rating: Personally, I'd call it an R, but some might consider it NC-17 at some point.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations belong to other folks far wealthier, more important (or at least with better lawyers), and hopefully more charitable and kinder than I. They include, but are not necessarily limited to CBS, Proctor and Gamble, and Telenext. The actual arrangement of words, however, remains my own as do any original characters. Meanwhile, there is likely to be all female romantic and sexual activity ahead, so if this is likely to get you, me, or anybody else arrested should you take a gander, please move along. Also, if you find that sort of thing offensive, you really probably shouldn't hang around anyplace I'm posting. Just sayin'....
Archiving: The Pink Rabbit Consortium
Spoilers: Some early scenes definitely, plus anything through the spa trip is fair game.
Timeline: Unlike some folks, I don't have an exact scene where this one takes off. However, it's definitely set after the spa trip, but before Rafe's release from the halfway house.
Earlier Parts: | Part 1 (Prologue) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 |






The label across the top of the manila folder was typed and read simply, E. Sotero.

Its contents were far more complicated.

Emily Sotero was a thief and a con artist. Early thirties, Hispanic, brown eyes, long dark hair, and legs to die for. Black widow they called her, though in fairness, none of her husbands had actually died while she was married to them, and the two who died shortly after she'd done a runner had been in ill health for years. Two other husbands, though not at their mental best—early Alzheimer's doesn't make for great witnesses— were very much alive and had refused to cooperate with the police despite the thousands their families insisted she'd absconded with. She was, both men insisted, misunderstood, sweet, kind, innocent, the sort of person who would never intentionally harm anyone. It was a mistake and she'd run from the police in a panic. They fully expected her to return one day.

That seemed an unlikely proposition at best.

Her talent, if it could be said to be such a thing, was her innocence. She made men want to care for her, protect her.

Made them fall in love with her.

Worse, she made them think she loved them back.

She chose her victims carefully: the old, the infirm, the dying. She cared for them, soothed their hurts and fears, wrapped them in her web and made them the center of her universe. And then, when she owned her victims completely, she took their money, their dreams, their very souls, and left a strange mix of devastation and misplaced loyalty in her wake.

According to the notes in the file, she even plied her wiles on cops now and then. Not for the money, of course—civil servants' paychecks not being worth the effort— but for information, to see if they were onto her or to gain unwitting allies in her games. Who better to vouch for a newcomer in town than the police after all?

And when she had what she wanted, she liked humiliating them. Public breakups, broken marriages, shattered vows, and unfinished weddings trailed along in her wake.

There was no question that she was smart and wily. There were no photos, no fingerprints, no DNA, just a trail of names and lies so convoluted that even the name Emily Sotero was likely just one more alias in the mix.

Like Natalia Rivera.

The real Natalia Rivera, according to the file on Frank Cooper's desk, had been born in Chicago and died in Tucson twenty-five years later. A drug overdose had left her to be buried in a potter's field, her grave paid for by the county. She had no children, was estranged from her parents, and had no family or close friends. There was, quite literally, no one who cared for her at all. Hers was the perfect identity to steal.

And apparently someone had done just that, because her social security number matched the one another Natalia Rivera had given while working for Company.

It could be a mixup, a clerical error, maybe even the dead woman was the identity thief. But that social security number had gone unused for better than a year after her death, something that seemed unlikely if it had been stolen from a woman supposedly living on the edge and trying to support an ill child.

There wasn't enough to take to the DA...at least not yet, but it was there in black and white. Not just suspicions, but something real and tangible that couldn't be denied.

As he sat and stared at it all, Frank didn't quite know how he felt about the whole idea. In one way, it hurt like hell, twisting his guts into angry knots, but at the same time, it was almost a relief. If it was true, she hadn't just made a fool of him, but the entire town. It meant she was just an illusion and all of the fault in their failed relationship lay with her and none with him.

And it meant that Olivia Spencer was just one more victim on her list and not the love of her life, that those dreamy looks between them were just manipulation, not genuine emotion, that she'd chosen Olivia not for any superior appeal or attraction, but simply because Olivia had been rich and dying and he'd been poor and healthy.

Now he just had to prove it was true....