a tip-off and receive a ransom note demanding that the police were not to be notified about Laura's disappearance. She obeyed and told Jim she would drop the money herself. Jim "saved" Laura, became a hero in Brooke's eyes. Though she told Brooke that she knew Ricky, the former didn't tell her mother that Jim had been the photographer after declaring a truce with him to keep it a secret between themselves. Wanting Brooke for herself, Jim told Laura that she should move to Boston where no one would know her. Laura would leave Pine Valley after the New Year's in 1998. Brooke was soon notified that there was new evidence in the plane crash. It was a luggage fragment that contained explosives. Despite Jim's warning to leave it alone, Brooke wouldn't let it rest. While in Jim's apartment, she went through his closet trying to find something and stumbled across the same style luggage found in the wreckage. She confronted him, and he explained it with lies. Brooke hired Mateo Santos to do undercover work and find out as much as he could about Jim. The truth about Jim shocked Brooke. She arranged a meeting with him at the Chandler Gallery. She showed him the photos of Laura that he had taken. Jim promised that if she called the police, he would take the same type of photos of Jamie. This drove Brooke over the edge and she took out a gun, shooting Jim several times in the back. Scared about the murder charges and convinced that she wouldn't win the trial, Brooke went on the run with Jamie. Finally, Tad convinced her to return to Pine Valley and stand trial. Thanks to Tad's secret maneuvering, Brooke was able to get an acquittal of murder. However, the event still haunted Brooke. Laura would soon leave Pine Valley to study in China. Brooke began to date Dimitri Marick, again another former love of Erica. Erica succeeded in quickly ending the relationship. After that Brooke began to refocus on her career and raising Jamie. In early 2000, Brooke began working herself to the bone at the community centre. Reverend Eliot Freeman soon found that this was for the guilt she felt about Laura's death years before. It came to the surface when Arlene Vaughan was drunk and crashed her car into a telephone pole that broke through the community centre's wall.