Elena

After resolving their conflicts surrounding Victoria, Cruz and Eden are engaged again and start to plan the wedding they have been waiting for for so long. They decide to have it in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is decided that Eden will fly there a day before the wedding to "test the ground" and make sure everything is ready for the arrival of Cruz and the guests the next day.

The day before the wedding arrives. Eden drives to the airport, where she is being watched carefully by a mysterious beautiful woman. Eden goes up to the plane - and the woman enters to the same plane shortly after her. The plane lands in Salt Lake City. After unpacking and settling in the hotel, Eden rents a car and drives to the wedding spot. It is snowing heavily. On the way, Eden notices someone on the side of the road, waving her to stop. A woman dressed with clothes that hide her figure, wearing sunglasses and a thick scarf that cover most of her face, is picked up by Eden. She tells Eden that she was lost and Eden follows her orders and drives where the woman tells her. Suddenly the woman pulls a gun and tells Eden to stop the car. Eden is scared, asks the woman not to hurt her, but she hits her hard with the barrel of the gun and pushes her over a snow cliff near the road. The woman takes the scarf and glasses off her and we can see that it's the same woman who followed Eden at the airport back in Santa Barbara. She drives away, leaving an unconscious Eden lying helplessly in the snow, bleeding from the head.

The mysterious woman is heading towards a small airport, wearing a blonde wig. She identifies herself as Eden Capwell and rents a helicopter. She flies over the snowy mountains, while installing a bomb on the helicopter. After the bomb is set, she quickly jumps out of the aircraft, using a parachute. Seconds later, the helicopter explodes in the air.

As the time passes and the helicopter seems to be missing, the airport managers start looking for the plane, and finally call the police. CC gets the bad news in Santa Barbara and immediately flies to Utah with Cruz and Kelly. The search squads find pieces of the plane over the snowy mountains, and after long hours of search, in which they find no clue to Eden or her body, they have no choice but to reach the conclusion than Eden was killed in the crash. Cruz refuses to accept it. He, CC and Kelly go back to Santa Barbara and break the news to the rest of the family. Shortly afterwards, a memorial service is held for Eden.

Meanwhile, somewhere at the snowy mountains of Salt Lake City, Eden still lies unconscious. A strange man pushing a sledge approaches the area and notices her. He carries her to an old and isolated cabin, where he takes care of her wounds. As times goes by and her fever doesn't go down, the man takes her to a hospital, and pretends to be her brother. The doctor who checks her informs the man that Eden is paralyzed. Eden, barely conscious, cries silently when she realizes what the doctor just said. As Eden's condition improves, and the doctors become a little suspicious, the man leaves the hospital with Eden without anyone noticing, and takes her back to his cabin at the mountains. Eden is very weak in the first few weeks, and can barely talk. The man introduces himself as Cain, and keeps telling a miserable Eden that she is going to be ok.

Cruz is handling Eden's death very badly. Julia and other friends try to comfort him, but he just can't cope with it.

Eden gets stronger, but finds out for her dismay that she is paralyzed and can't feel both her legs. Eden is devastated, but Cain tells her that he believes she will be able to walk again with his help. As they speak, Cain reveals to Eden that he was in Vietnam, where he saw worse injuries that were cured using a special therapy. Cain suffered a big trauma in the war, where he had to kill innocent people, and that's why he called himself "Cain", which is not his real name, and he now lives far from humans as he feels he has no right to be among them. Eden tells Cain too about her life, and her love for Cruz. She decides, with the encouragement of Cain, to live in his cabin with him until she will be able to walk again. As time passes, Eden works hard on her recovery, and manages to progress well, but Cain gets more and more attached to her, and starts to fall in love with her. He reads in the newspaper that Eden is presumed dead in Santa Barbara, but keeps it a secret from her.

Cruz finally pulls himself together and decides to go back to the plane crash site to say a final goodbye to Eden. Kelly comes with him. He passes near Cain's cabin, but Eden and Cain are at a lake nearby and he doesn't notice them. Eden asks Cain for a few moments to herself in the lake, and Cain returns to the house. He notices Cruz and recognizes him. Before Cruz sees him, Cain takes his riffle and aims it at Cruz - but finally decides not to kill him. Cruz asks him directions on his way to the crash site, and shows him a picture of Eden, asking him if he ever saw her. Eden left her ring on the table, and Cain manages to hide it just in time before Cruz notices it. Cain helps him out, but doesn't tell him a thing about Eden. When he comes back to Eden, Cain also keeps Cruz's visit a secret from her. Cruz gets to the crash site, climbs on top of a high mountain, where he leaves a red rose in the snow in memory of Eden.

Learning to accept her death, Cruz comes back to Santa Barbara, where he meets an attractive woman - the same woman who followed Eden and almost killed her. He keeps meeting that woman in all sorts of places, starting to wonder if there is more than coincidence to that. Cruz decides to make a change in his life and quits his job at the police force to open a private detective agency he calls "The Last Resort". Pearl joins him, and they advertise a message in the paper looking for a third investigator. The mystery woman comes to the office, and applies for the job. She introduces herself as Eleanor Norris, a very experienced detective who worked also in the CIA as one of their top spies. Cruz decides to check her story and reveals a surprise: Eleanor Norris was indeed a highly experienced CIA spy, but she was recently killed. Cruz is now sure that something is not right with Eleanor, but decides to hire her in order to keep a close eye on her. The new office is proven to be quite successful, and when it gets some publicity in the paper, a man comes to the office looking for Eleanor Norris, and when he went to meet her - she killed him, so he won't blow off her cover. Cruz, Eleanor and Pearl solve some puzzles together and become close friends. But the more time they spend together, the more Cruz and Pearl suspect Eleanor. Besides Cruz, Eleanor also develops a high interest in the Capwells, especially in CC. She offers him a lot of money for the Capwell Hotel previously run by Eden, but he refuses to sell it.

Mason starts getting mysterious phone calls, in which someone tells him that Eden is alive, then hangs up. At first he doesn't tell about the phone calls to anyone, fearing it will cause unnecessary pains to his family in case the phone calls are turned out to be a sick joke. However, things are starting to get more serious as he anonymously receives a photo of Eden. He decides to check the matter on his own, and calls up an expert to find out if the picture was taken after the plane crash, but the expert can't tell. Jeffrey, Kelly and Julia find out about the phone calls, and don't believe that Eden is still among the living. In one of the phone calls Mason is told that if he wants to see Eden alive, he should come to a certain place and make sure nobody sees him. Mason does so, and he is kidnapped on the spot by an Indian gang and taken to an isolated warehouse, where he is tied up and drugged. The captors try to force Mason into signing a paper without letting him read it. Mason refuses, and he is tortured hard, but keeps himself from signing the paper. The captors force Mason to make a single phone call to Victoria and tell her that he went on vacation and he doesn't know when he will be back. Mason notices that the Indians are talking often on the phone with a female who gives them orders. He wonders who she is, and they tell him that she is their boss.

After Gina gave up on the tape proving Kelly's innocence and Kelly is freed from prison, CC divorces Gina and marries Sophia. An unwelcome guest appears at their wedding - Dr. Alex Nikolas, who was the lover of Pamela, CC's first wife. CC threw Pamela out of the house after he found out about her affair with Alex. Pamela and Alex left to Europe, where Pamela got mentally ill and was presumed dead after she was seen jumping off a bridge. He came to Santa Barbara to revenge her death, and tried to recruit Jeffrey for his scheme. Finally he gave it up and concentrated on developing the new serum he discovered that cures a rare decease (that's another storyline, involving Lionel and his second wife Caroline Wilson). Alex was surprised to find a familiar face in Santa Barbara: Eleanor, who turned out to be his daughter, whose real name was Elena. She asks him to keep her identity a secret.

Meanwhile, back at the mountains, Eden starts to feel her legs, and she is recovering fast. She starts talking about coming home to her family and Cruz. Cain is in love with her and tries to kiss her, but she rejects him. He takes it harsh, and starts punishing Eden in all sorts of ways. Eden wants Cain to help her contact her family and inform them of her whereabouts, but he makes up excuses. Eden starts to understand that Cain deliberately keeps her from knowing what's going on in Santa Barbara, and that he is not willing to let her go. In one of the times when Cain goes out to get food, she tries to escape, but Cain comes back and prevents it. He starts tying her up and putting obstacles in the cabin so she won't be able to escape. Finally, after being able to walk again, Eden escapes and heads to Santa Barbara, while Cain is right behind her.

Eden hitchhikes her way to Santa Barbara, not knowing a thing about what happened during her absence. Meanwhile, Elena's attempts to seduce Cruz intensify. Once while being at his house, Elena falls asleep on the couch. In her dream, she is in the Capwell mansion, where CC is weeping over his dead children, who lie in coffins around him. Elena tells him that she is his only daughter now. Suddenly Eden comes, and everything starts to go wrong. Cruz hears her murmuring Eden's name out of sleep, and when she wakes up he demands to know why she said it, and what she knows of Eden. She pretends to be surprised, and tells him she can't remember the dream, and that it was probably her sub-conscience. This incident makes Cruz more suspicious of her.

While a mad Cain is on the run for her, Eden arrives to Santa Barbara, and sees a photo of Cruz and Elena in an article about "The Last Resort" detective agency in a local newspaper. "Who is that woman?" - she wonders. Later she heads towards the beach house, where Cruz and Elena are spending the evening together. Eden approaches the house, and sees Elena with Cruz through the window. Inside the house, Elena confesses to Cruz about her love for him, and suddenly takes off her clothes. She tells him he has nothing to lose, and she just wants to make him happy. Cruz hesitates, and meanwhile an astonished Eden moves away crying. Cruz finally rejects Elena.

When Eden overcomes her fears, and heads to meet Cruz, Cain is already in Santa Barbara, looking for her. Cruz dines with Elena in the Orient Express, when suddenly he notices Eden, who is walking towards him. Cruz (and Elena) can't believe his eyes, but his surprise even doubles, when suddenly Eden stumbles and falls to the ground without being able to stand up, and an armed man barges in, and grabs Eden. A big fuss breaks in the restaurant. "What are you doing here?!" - whispers Elena to Cain just before he escapes to the elevator, holding Eden at gunpoint. CC is having the shock of his life when the elevator he was waiting for opens and his dead daughter is inside. Cain flees away from there with Eden before CC can realize what he has just seen. Cruz and other people start looking for Eden, and they find her with Cain in a barn in the area. Cain holds Eden hostage, and the drama ends when Cruz shoots Cain and saves Eden. Cain is rushed to the hospital, where his life is saved, but he loses his memory.

Elena is shocked to find Cain in Santa Barbara. We find out that she actually knows him, and he took part in her scheme against Eden. Dr. Nikolas notices the stress she is in, and he also starts to realize the things she is doing to the Capwells. Elena reveals to him that she has found out that he is not her real father. She now knows her father is CC, and she is out to get revenge against him. She wants to kill all his children, and take the place of her sister Eden who got everything Elena should have got from CC, but never did. Alex threatens that if she won't start seeing a psychiatrist, he will blow her cover and ruin her plans. Elena fools him by pretending she is meeting with one, but she hardly ever does. (Later it is revealed that she was seeing another therapist).

Elena turns out to be behind Mason's kidnapping, trying to force him to sign a fake will where he leaves all his belongings to her. Kelly and Jeffrey decide to start looking for him in the desert. Elena finds out about their plans and warns Mason's captors, ordering them to kill Kelly, but to keep Jeffrey alive (he was her half-brother, and wasn't one of CC's children, that is probably the reason). Kelly finds herself close to death several times, which gets her panicked, not knowing who would want her dead. She finds a diary who belonged to Jeffrey's first wife Elizabeth, whose death was a mystery.

Elizabeth wrote that Jeffrey was trying to kill her. Jeffrey never told Kelly about her, and Kelly suspects that Jeffrey is behind his wife's death, and might also be behind her murder attempts. When Jeffrey saves her life, she realizes that she was wrong about him. Jeffrey confesses to Kelly that Elizabeth was very mentally ill and that he helped her to end her life to put her out of her misery. They resume their search for Mason, but after finding no clues to his whereabouts, they return to Santa Barbara.

Eden is again paralyzed, causing her great sorrow. She refuses to get back together with Cruz, claiming that she will just be a burden on him, and he deserves better. Cruz tries hard to convince her that she's wrong, and finally succeeds. Eden is surprised to hear that she was presumed dead, and she tells her family and friends everything that happened to her from the day she disappeared. However, when they question her about Cain, she tells them how he helped her and how she was able to walk again thanks to him, but she doesn't say a word about how he kept her hostage and how he started treating her after he fell in love with her. She manages to convince her family to let Cain stay in the Capwell mansion. The Capwells grow fond of him, and he befriends Kelly, who tries to help him gain his memory back.

Elena is afraid that Cain will gain his memory back and destroy her, so she tries to kill him. Pearl almost catches her in the act. He tells about it to Cruz, who keeps taking notes of her strange behavior. Cruz begins to get convinced that she has something to do with what happened to Eden in Salt Lake City. Cain is put in a secret place for protection, and Cruz and Pearl decide to put a trap for Elena. Using the help of Cruz's sister Carmen, they lead Elena to a deserted winery where, as they lead her to believe, Cain is hiding. She fires bullets all over a bed where she thinks Cain is sleeping. Pearl and Carmen lock her inside the winery, but she manages to escape before they come back with Cruz. Later when meeting her, he let her believe that she wasn't seen, and all they know is that it was a woman. Cruz and Pearl are now aware of Elena's capabilities, and they set themselves a goal to nail her.

Cruz and Pearl then try to fool Elena by letting her believe that she is going to die with Cruz, and she falls for the trap, and almost reveals her identity and who her real father is, but later she finds out that she has been set up and realizes that Cruz is on to her.

In the dessert, a weak Mason still insists on not signing the paper, and the Indian and his gang are starting to grow tired of him. They decide to give up on the money Elena promised them and to disappear after getting rid of Mason. Just before leaving, they set a time-bomb in the room where Mason is tied up.

Meanwhile, at his hiding place, Cain starts gradually to regain his memory. A blurred image of a young woman with long black hair who nursed him and made love to him in a hospital where he was staying after getting wounded in Vietnam keeps jumping to his head. He is quite sure that it is Elena. Finally he remembers that Alex Nikolas is her father, and that her real name is Elena Nikolas. Cruz faces Alex with his new information, and Alex admits that he is Elena's father, but lies to Cruz and tells him that she didn't want to be known as Elena because she didn't want to compete with his reputation. Cruz informs Dr. Nikolas that he suspects Elena is behind all what happened to the Capwells lately. Soon after Cruz leaves, Alex goes to warn Elena and tries to convince her to leave the country. Later Cruz confronts Elena, this time they both leave their cards on the table. He tells her about the recovery of Cain, and she doubts that any court will convict her based on Cain's testimony.

Cain himself is starting to remember more and more things concerning Elena. Feeling guilty, he is determined to get her on his own.

Back at Santa Barbara, Victoria starts meeting with a Psychic who claims she has contact with Mason. Jeffrey, Kelly and Julia soon become suspicious of her, and they reveal that she actually works for the kidnappers of Mason. They find a tape recorder with Mason's voice, and a sculpted matchbox among her things, which leads them to the basement of a strip club, where Mason is kept. They manage to neutralize the bomb seconds before it goes off.

Cruz works out a big plan how to put Elena away for good: He gathers all the Capwells and Cain inside the Capwell mansion, and puts guards around it. He intends to replace them with doubles, knowing that Elena will try to make a move soon. Pearl is waiting outside Elena's room, and will notify Cruz on every move she makes. Pearl calls Cruz and tells him that Elena has left her hotel room. Cruz tells the Capwells that he has a helicopter waiting, and that it's time to evacuate everyone. Pearl calls Cruz again, and he tells Cruz Elena didn't go near the Capwell house, she went straight to the airport. Cruz tells Pearl he's on his way there, and he explains the situation to CC. Cruz and Pearl check out the airport and Cruz finds evidence that leads him to suspect that Elena isn't on the plane and is still in Santa Barbara.

Meanwhile, Cain is able to sneak out of the house, and past the security guard. He breaks into Elena's room and while searching through it, he suddenly remembers that Elena told him once that whenever she is troubled, she goes to the beach to relax. He hurries there - and finds Elena. Cain sneaks up behind her, grabs her, and puts his knife against her throat. They have an argument, where he tells her that he won't let go of her until he gets some answers. He wants Elena to tells him how she could convince him to participate in her dirty plans. Elena then asks Cain if he remembers what happened to his men in the Vietnam War. She tells him that he was responsible for the death of his men, and that he never stood trial for what he did. He threatens to kill her, but she doesn't believe that he will pull the trigger. Eventually Elena is able to escape from Cain, and goes to see Alex. After she leads him to believe that she plans to catch a flight out of the country the following day, he gives her the keys to a bungalow near the beach. Alex refuses to tell Cain, who chases Elena, about Elena's whereabouts, afraid of what he might do to her. He calls Cruz and asks him to stop Cain, but Cain already shows up at the bungalow. Elena tells him to get out, because she is expecting a guest. When Cain sees all the candles, the champagne and so on, he remembers that it was exactly like this when she had asked him to commit murder against Eden. Elena tells him that she obviously should have picked someone else for the job, but that she had thought even a coward like Cain could do it. Elena doesn't think Cain is going to kill her, and Cain tells her that he doesn't intend to, but he wants to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone else. Suddenly Elena pulls a gun and orders Cain to move. She pushes him down the stairs to the basement, locks the basement door in a hurry, and runs out. A few minutes later, Cruz arrives and enters the bungalow with a drawn gun, but he doesn't find Elena or Cain. He just intends to open the basement door, when he hears a car starting outside, and runs out to check.

Pearl phones the Capwells and informs them about Elena's trip to the airport. He warns them that there's a slight chance that Elena is still in Santa Barbara, but the tension drops and Eden feels safe to return to the beach house. (At this point Kelly, Jeffrey and Julia also leave on their way to find Mason in the dessert). When Cruz hears about it, he asks her to return immediately to the Capwell house. While Eden tarries, Elena shows up outside the beach house.

Cruz drives back to the Capwell estate, where he is surprised to find Eden gone. Cruz and the family fear the worst when Cruz receives a note from Elena, telling him that if he wants to see Eden alive he should come alone to a mirror house in a local mall. Panic holds the residents of the Capwell mansion, and Cruz hurries to meet Elena. He enters the mirror house with a drawn gun, moving slowly through the glass walls. Suddenly, on a distant corner, he sees a blonde woman sitting still in a wheel-chair. A terrified Cruz runs over to her, but when he touches her - the head falls off! When Cruz realizes it was just a doll, Elena, who came out from her hiding place, is already pointing a gun at him. Cruz hands her his gun, only to reveal that the gun she was holding was a fake laser gun. He demands to know what she did to Eden. She tells him Eden is safe and probably already home, but he doesn't believe her. She starts telling him about how perfect everything was until Eden came, and how everything was going fine. She says that Eden stole her life, and now she realizes that she won't be able to take Eden's place like she wanted. She is in deep trouble, but she thought of something that will fix everything. If she can't have Eden's life, she will make Eden suffer for the rest of her life by taking from her the thing she cares most about: Cruz. Elena plans to die with Cruz by shooting him and then shooting herself.

In the Capwell mansion the tension is very high. A worried CC decides to make a move and exits the house on his way to the mirror maze.

CC enters the maze with full speed, and on his way he fearfully discovers Eden's doll. Elena can hear someone is approaching, and while murmuring something like "It's too soon..." she flees and locks herself in a room inside the maze. Cruz, worried as hell about Eden, shouts at the closed door asking Elena where Eden is. There is no response. He then hears a voice of another man arguing with Elena, when a shot is heard. Cruz panics and starts hitting the door until breaking it. Meanwhile CC arrives to the scene in a hurry. He gets to the broken door, and is shocked to find Cruz standing near Elena, who lies on the floor bleeding. Cruz leaves the room to call an ambulance, and a shocked CC leans over Elena. "What happened? Who did this to you?". Just before closing her eyes for good, she whispers her last words to CC: "Cruz killed me, daddy"...

These events happened after the death of Elena:

Eden was found safe and sound. It turns out Elena decided to leave the beach house without harming her, so after finding her puppy, Eden went to the Capwell mansion, where she heard of the big drama.

Mason came back to the strip club, and killed the Indian with his bare hands. He finds an unsigned paper in the Indian's pocket, that among other things leaves all Mason's belongings to Elena in case he dies.

CC was the first to realize that Elena was his daughter. He mourned her, and Mason also went to her grave after finding out she was his only sister (the rest of his siblings are only half-siblings).

The man who Cruz heard talking to Elena shortly before the shot turned out to be Alex Nikolas. He got there in an attempt to save her and they had an argument, where he tried to talk her out of doing anything wrong and promised to help her, but she wanted him to get out. During a struggle they had, the gun went off. He saw that Cruz was going to break in, and ran away from there.

After her death, Keith blamed Cruz for murdering Elena, and Cruz was found guilty in a trial. Soon afterwards he escaped prison, and together with Eden, they found tapes of the sessions Elena had with a psychiatrist (not the one Dr. Nikolas wanted her to see), where she tells him everything about her. The psychiatrist was murdered, and Cruz was a suspect, but finally it was revealed that Kirk was responsible for it.

He was released from prison a while back, and held Eden and Cruz hostage and wanted to burn them alive, but the police saved them, and Kirk was returned to prison. It was revealed that Kirk supported Elena with her schemes, and convinced her to kill herself and make it look like Cruz murdered her if her plans will totally fail.