days ciara scared JJ
Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

Ciara’s caretaker claims Vincent is responsible for her current situation… but we’re not entirely convinced.

Nobody believed that Days of Our Lives‘ Ciara was actually dead. Not mom Hope, who left town in search of her. Not hubby Ben, who has taken periodic breaks from his grieving to wonder if doing so is a waste of time. And certainly not anyone in the audience.

We didn’t need Hope to remind us of the cardinal rule of soaps: If there’s not a body, they ain’t dead. (Heck, that often holds true even when there is a body, as evidenced by Will, Stefano and the about-to-be-resurrected Vivian.) So when Ciara started pounding on the glass wall of her prison shouting “Let me out!” we weren’t in the least bit surprised.

More: What really needs to happen next for Ciara and Ben

OK, maybe the room itself caught us a bit off guard, given that it looked like the kind of 1970s hotel room that seemed really classy at the time but in retrospect is actually on the tacky side. In scouring the briefly-glimpsed room for clues as to where she was being held or by whom, there wasn’t much to go on.

That said, we definitely have thoughts as to who might be holding her hostage. More than a few thoughts, actually. Sure, Rhodes — whom we’ve dubbed Cowboy — declared that Vincent is responsible, but we’re not entirely convinced that’s true.

We’re not saying that headwriter Ron Carlivati has pulled a fast one on us in the past, but… yeah, he totally has. So we can’t help thinking this case might not be as cut-and-dry as we’re being told.

Having watched an awful lot of Law & Order, Criminal Minds and CSI: East Rutherford over the years, we know that the most important thing to discern is motive. Who’d want to kidnap a nice young woman like Ciara and keep her behind glass?

More: Can Chad and Abigail’s marriage be saved?

Or might it be less about Ciara than the man left broken-hearted by her absence? It seems far more likely that someone would be looking to punish the infamous Necktie Killer than Ciara, right? In fact… didn’t we go through something very similar last year when Eve Donovan tried to avenge daughter Paige’s death by having Vincent program the newly-married Ben to murder his bride?

Sure, Eve is supposedly locked up for a litany of crimes, but it’s not like prison bars were able to keep Kristen from Brady’s bedside (or a cadre of criminals from terrorizing Salem every year or two). Even if Eve is still off accessorizing her orange jumpsuit, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have hired someone to do her dirty work.

So yeah, the late Paige’s mom is definitely at the top of our suspect list. However, you don’t make a list with only one name on it, so before visiting the comment section to speculate as to whether you buy our theory that Vincent at the very least has a partner, take a look at the gallery below, in which we’ve rounded up all the usual (and a few very unusual) suspects who might also have been behind the beauty’s disappearing act.