Originally published in 2010 to coincide with the posting of the series’ 600th episode.

Claire Robbins’s father, James, resented how she rejected him after marrying Tim Fisher. What Claire kept to herself, however, was that she had pulled away from James after discovering his heavy involvement in mob activity. A jealous James, suspecting that Tim was trying to keep his daughter from him, had one of his goons confront Tim with threats–but, in the fracas, Tim was shot. He wound up in a coma and awoke with amnesia. Tim’s boss, Diane Bishop, was in love with him and took advantage of his amnesia to sleep with him. Meanwhile, Claire gave birth to their first child, a boy they named Travis. The child’s birth spurred Tim’s memory, and he remembered his life with Claire. James had Travis kidnapped from the hospital and whisked him away to a South American compound. Tim and Claire tracked him down, only to be imprisoned themselves. They were rescued, but not before a terrifying showdown in which Claire had to push her father to his death, into a vat of acid that had been intended for Tim.

Diane announced that she was pregnant with Tim’s child. She gave birth to a daughter, Samantha, but Tim and Claire worked through the shocking situation and won custody of the child. Diane left King’s Bay. Ryan Moriani, a man from Claire’s past, turned up. Claire had previously confessed to Tim that, as a teenager, she had been raped by her boyfriend–Ryan, the son of Nick Moriani, one of James’s mob associates. Ryan seemed to want to reconnect with Claire, but she became fixated on proving his and Nick’s criminal activity. Though Tim was against the mission at first, he eventually offered to assist her. Unfortunately, he interrupted a planned meeting between Nick and some associates, and he was once again shot–only this time, his body vanished from the pier, and he was presumed dead.

As Claire and the Fishers grieved their loss, Ryan insisted to Claire that he had not raped her; his biological father, Stan Lincoln, had done it, and when Claire accused Ryan, he covered for his father. Claire’s memories of the night came back to her, and she realized Ryan was telling the truth. In the aftermath of this revelation, they slowly began to grow closer, much to the Fishers’ consternation. Stan Lincoln arrived in King’s Bay, wanting to be near his son, but Ryan pushed him away and forced him to admit to Claire’s rape. Stan went on a rampage and tried to rape Claire again, but Ryan rescued her. In the fray, Stan’s fiancée, Sally Marshall, was shot and killed. Stan went on the run. On his way out of town, he ran into Paula Fisher, who recognized him from an affair they’d had years before. When Diane Bishop came back to King’s Bay to fight Claire for custody of Samantha, her lawyer exposed the truth in court: that Ryan was Paula’s long-lost son!

Despite this shock, Claire and Ryan began a romantic relationship, and the Fishers slowly came to accept Ryan. Then Tim was discovered alive in a clinic in Vermont, where he was being held under the name “Tom Clayton.” He returned home, and Claire told Ryan that she had to give her marriage a chance. Tim was horrified when he discovered that Claire had been with his newly discovered half-brother. As Tim and Claire’s marriage disintegrated, a desperate Tim and Diane attempted to get Nick Moriani to implicate Ryan in Tim’s kidnapping, but Nick himself was arrested for it. Tim’s scheme was uncovered, and Claire went back to Ryan. Tim and Diane struck up a relationship, as well. To prove himself to the Fishers, Ryan went undercover with the police to bust up a drug ring that Nick was running out of Objection Designs. The sting was successful, and Nick was charged with that, as well.

Ryan proposed to Claire, and she accepted. Tim and Diane’s relationship grew more serious. Nick became fixated on getting revenge against the Fishers for stealing his son away from him, and he crashed his ex-wife Katherine’s charity bachelor auction and ruined it with allegations of impropriety. Afterwards, when confronted, he made a not-so-subtle threat regarding Claire and Tim’s son, Travis. Later that night, Nick’s maid, Lola, discovered him shot in his study–with Katherine standing over him, holding a gun!

Forensic tests showed that Katherine was not the shooter, however. Soon afterward, Nick passed away at the hospital. Suspicion turned to others, including Tim, Ryan, and Claire. After Lola was killed, the police found the weapon in Tim’s trunk and arrested him for both murders. He insisted upon his innocence, but in the face of damning evidence, he had to face the possibility of spending his life in prison. On the day of Claire and Ryan’s wedding, a horde of gunmen invaded Bill Fisher’s restaurant and herded all the guests down to the basement, where an alive but weak Nick Moriani emerged in a wheelchair. He announced that the person who “killed” him was Ryan. Nick had orchestrated Lola’s murder and pinned it on Tim as a ploy to see if Ryan would have the dignity to confess to his crime. Nick announced that the restaurant was rigged with bombs and that everyone inside would be killed when he detonated them.

Tim’s sister, Sarah, managed to escape the basement and nearly had one of the bombs defused when Nick set them off. The blast killed Nick and fashion designer Camille Lemieux, while Sarah suffered a miscarriage and Tim’s brother-in-law, police commander Brent Taylor, was forced to have one leg amputated. The Fishers ostracized Ryan, and Claire cut all ties with him. Claire and Brent became interested in knowing who had helped the very weak Nick carry out his final revenge plot. They interviewed Dr. Domingo, who had run the clinic where Tim was held captive, and Domingo insisted that “Mr. Clayton,” the man who had brought Tim to him, was not Nick Moriani.

They focused their investigation on this mysterious Mr. Clayton, especially after learning that the South American compound where James had held Tim and Claire years before was owned by a company called Clayton Holdings. They briefly suspected that Clayton might be a very-much-alive James Robbins, but a trip to Brazil showed that James’s remains had definitively been found in the acid. Brent made his way to a realtor in Chicago, where he found footage of Mr. Clayton on a security camera. Neither Claire nor Ryan recognized the man.

Then Brent received word from police in New Jersey, where a man holding Clayton’s ID had been killed. He and Claire traveled there and confirmed that the dead man was the same one from the security footage. A passing car fired shots at Brent and Claire, which convinced them they were getting closer to the truth. The man’s real ID revealed him to be named Reginald Carter; after learning that Carter had a daughter in Orlando, Florida, Claire traveled to meet her and discovered that Carter had a strange business relationship with a woman named Loretta. Claire and Brent were convinced that this Loretta must be the key to the mystery.

In King’s Bay, Brent’s car was run off the road with him, his brother Josh, and his young sons inside. Brent’s wife, Molly, was irate with the way that his investigation continued to put their family in danger, and she asked him to move out. A stressed-out Molly took a business trip to the Northeast with Objection Designs’ photographer Philip Ragan, who had come to be something of a confidant to her. They took a detour to Philip’s family home in New Hampshire, where Molly was introduced to his mother… Loretta.

Brent was angered to learn that Molly had gone away with Philip but intrigued when he found out that Philip’s mother was named Loretta. The gap between Brent and Molly widened, and they sought a legal separation. Brent continued to investigate Loretta and discovered photos of her and Nick together at a social function from years before. Brent was unable to convince either local or federal authorities to pursue Loretta Ragan, however. Upon learning that Molly had returned to New Hampshire with Philip for a charity ball his mother was throwing, Brent and Claire decided to travel there and confront Loretta, in order to acquire sufficient information to have the authorities target her.

At the ball, Claire confronted Loretta, while Brent was stunned to see Philip kiss Molly. Loretta lured Claire outside, while Philip had Brent thrown out of the party. Loretta’s henchmen picked him up, too, and Loretta had Claire and Brent thrown in a pen with her attack dogs. She finally explained the reason for her long-standing vendetta against the Fishers: because she blamed Claire for the death of her husband–James Robbins! Claire realized that her father had lived a double life for years and that Philip and his younger brother, Spencer, were her half-brothers. The dogs destroyed Brent’s prosthetic leg and bit Claire, but then Tim arrived with police, having realized what was going on. Claire and Brent were rescued, and Loretta was taken into police custody.

As we reach Episode #600, this story continues to unfurl, spreading out in new and surprising directions…