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to the Bahamas with him, saying he was scared to be alone with Howard there. Jackie told him that Howard didn't like her very much and would probably be really mad if she came along. Still, she warned him not to go alone.
       Daniel was under intense stress and told her he wanted to go down to the Bahamas to "save" his mother. He told Jackie, as he would later also tell private investigator Jack Harding, that Howard wouldn't let him talk to his mother and that Howard had cut off communications between them.
       But Howard claimed communications were just fine. He painted the relationship with Daniel much rosier than Daniel had described it to others. "Daniel to me was a great friend, a brother," Howard K. Stern would tell Larry King on September 26, just two weeks after Daniel's death. "I loved Daniel . . . part of me just wishes I would wake up and this whole thing has been an elaborate nightmare."
       Perhaps it was the other part of him that caused Daniel so much angst.

    • • •

    Though Howard suggested during that TV interview that Daniel intended to move to the Bahamas "to stay with his mom and go to school here," even Howard's own friends told me that Daniel never planned to stay there. His plan was to visit for a short while, one to three weeks maximum. Daniel didn't like the Bahamas because he couldn't stand the heat.
       The night before he left, while Ray Martino helped him pack, Daniel asked Ray if he'd go with him, but Ray said he couldn't because of work. Daniel admitted that he was very nervous to go. Ray thought it was just because Daniel didn't like to fly.
       The morning of his flight Ray took him to the Burbank Airport and bought him French toast for breakfast. Before he boarded the flight—from Burbank to Fort Worth, then to Miami for a quick flight to the Bahamas—Jack Harding says Ray told him he gave Daniel "a couple of Valiums" for his nerves.
       "Don't leave me down there," Daniel said.
       "I won't," Ray promised.
       Daniel boarded the plane.
    • • •

    At 10:30 p.m. Howard picked Daniel up in Nassau and drove him to Doctor's Hospital where two days prior his mother had had a C-section delivery. Around 11 p.m. they arrived at the hospital—a modern facility with 72 beds on Collins Avenue in Nassau—and Daniel rushed into room 201 and gave his mother a big hug. Anna introduced Daniel to the baby and handed the little bundle to him, saying to the as-yet-unnamed baby, "Here's your brother, Daniel."
       "Look at her, Momma," he said, his eyes filled with excitement. "She's looking at me!" Daniel was in great spirits. He played with the baby's fingers and held her like she was his own. He was happy, lively, and completely alert.
       Ben Thompson, a former boyfriend of Anna's and the man who owned the Horizons house where she was living, was in the room visiting Anna and her newborn when Daniel got there. He told me that Daniel was "thrilled to death" to be with Anna and to meet his little sister.
       Howard pulled out his camera and took pictures as Daniel and Anna reunited and as Daniel proudly rocked his new baby sister in his arms. "It was great," Howard later said. "It was like one of the best nights that I've ever remembered. I mean Anna was so content. She had her son and her new baby girl, and I was there and it was great."

    Sunday, September 10

    A little after midnight, Ben Thompson left the room so that Anna and Daniel could spend some quality time with each other, and Ben could get some sleep. Shortly after he left, Anna, Daniel, and Howard decided they were hungry. In the Bahamas there isn't much open late at night, so Howard made a food run to a 24-hour mini-mart inside a nearby Esso gas station. He bought chips, soft drinks, and fried chicken strips, Anna and Daniel's favorite. (Ironic, considering Anna had gotten pregnant with Daniel when she was seventeen-years-old and working as a waitress at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia,