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Former known boyfriends : Quinn Armitage (198?-1990), Michael Donnelly (1991)

Profession : Journalist at The Santa Barbara Conscience

Marguerite Hickey :
July 31 1991 (# 1766) to August 12 1991 (# 1774)

This is under the identity of the journalist Debra London that the new schemer of Santa Barbara makes her appearance in 1990. Her real name : Flame Beaufort. Her real motivation : to approach the businessman Robert Barr under the cover of a false documentary to learn from him all his practices and his relations. Because Flame has in her pocket a big secret : she is the mistress of a character that nobody still knows in Santa Barbara, Quinn Armitage, Robert Barr's secret twin brother ! They both fomented a diabolic plan : to get rid of Robert and, without everyone's knowledge, to allow Quinn to take his place and his money.

When Robert starts to have suspicions on the identity of Debra, Flame decides to action the plan and locks up Robert in a cell in her house's basement. Quinn who, thanks to Flame, learned how to act like his brother, starts to take his place in society... and in particular in the heart of Kelly Capwell, then engaged to Robert. But Craig Hunt, in love with Kelly and thus on his guards towards his lover, suspects an affair between Flame and Robert when he surprises them together on different occasions. Feeling that he is not far from discovering the truth, Flame decides to get rid of the real Robert by sending him in New Orleans to her aunt and her cousin, a sheriff. Flame organizes then the transport of Robert to Louisiana in a coffin.

However, what Flame had not expected, is that Quinn really falls in love with Kelly and ends up marrying her. The honeymoon come, full of anger, Flame pushes Kelly from the top of the stairs and this latter gets paralyzed. She then drugs her, and makes her believe that Robert/Quinn has a love-affair with her sister Eden. To do this, Flame does not hesitate to spread Eden's perfume in Kelly's bedroom, or steals one of Eden's negligees. But Quinn takes hold of her and locks her up in the cell of her own house.

Flame manages to escape the evening when Robert, delivered from Louisiana by Cruz Castillo, is back to Santa Barbara. She shoots Quinn whereas Eden Capwell, also armed, shoots in the same time, feeling threatened. Flame then makes an agreement with the district attorney Keith Timmons : she will benefit of immunity during the trial if she can help him to convict Kelly, then Eden of the murder. Whereas she comes to accuse herself of the murder to the police, Eden is victim of a road accident and falls into coma. In a dream on her hospital bed, she understands that the shot came from another weapon than hers. When Flame is suspected, she lies while saying to have shot Robert to protect Eden. But she is finally arrested.

What Flame still ignores is that it is not Quinn whom she shot, but Robert. She eventually discovers the trickery and threatens Quinn to tell all the truth. But he promises her her loss if ever he is arrested for his crimes. Understanding that she does not have a future anymore with Quinn, this latter preferring to try to take up with Kelly, Flame turns to Dash Nichols. She has with him a relationship full of complicity, this latter being then accused of rape and representing, as her, an exile of the society. They remain however friends without ever starting an affair.

It is finally to Michael Donnelly that Flame gets closer. They make love one evening, before Michael pushes her away the next day. Desperate, without any more vision of a future, Flame tries to commit suicide by dashing alone in the middle of a very busy road. Saved by Michael, she is finally arrested after Quinn's true identity was discovered. To help her to escape her sentence, Michael suggests to Cruz to use her services to trap a dangerous German arms dealer, Helmut Dieter. Disguised as Chantal Gutierrez, Flame performs her mission successfully, having however risked death.

Flame finds afterwards a job as a journalist at the newspaper that Warren Lockridge has just created, but she disappears from the show after a few days. Her work of redemption and by there of normalization led her in reality to her loss...

Read also : New Orleans 1990 : Robert Barr's rescue