He woke up to morning sunshine streaming from his window. Must be late in the morning already, judging by the position of the sun. He wondered why his alarm didn't wake him, and then he recalled it was Saturday. He probably didn't turn it on last night or Marie might have turned it off. He felt an odd movement on his chest, and when he looked out his window, he wondered why the big oak that had always been outside his bedroom window wasn't there. And then that brought it all crashing back.

The reason the tree wasn't there was because this wasn't their house in River Heights. That house was gone now. This was their new house in Staten Island. Can you believe it? Staten Island... Of all the places in New York to choose to live in...

Marie was gone, and he wasn't Andy Fayne anymore. He was Drew Nance now. And he was a girl.

-----

A little under four months ago, unknown assailants murdered thier housekeeper, her unle, crusading attorney David Fayne and his daughter Jane. That was because David was on track to uncovering a large criminal conspiracy involving high finance and an unknown corporate entity. Before he could, they were murdered. But, before they died, David was able to pass on some of his information to his brother Bill.

But, apparently, David didn’t cover his tracks well enough so the bad guys were able to follow the trail back to his brother Bill, forcing Bill and his son, Andy, to go underground and escape being murdered themselves.

With the help of David’s friend, New York police lieutenant Frank Hardy, Bill and Andy were able to take up their new identities as the Nances – alternate identities that David had concocted for himself and Jane in case they needed to go underground, too. And with the information David provided Bill, he and Andy initiated a long-term plan to continue David’s work, find their murderers and bring them to justice.

Bill and Andy knew that it would probably take a long time, but they didn’t care. And while they were doing that, they would, in the meantime, safely live normal lives as their alter egos. With the plastic surgery provided by a bootleg doctor and his slightly mad nurse, Sally, and Andy’s supersleuthing, their disguises were as foolproof as could be. There was a little complication, however.

Bill easily took over the identity of the fictitious New York legal eagle, Carson Nance, and Andy took on Jane’s alter ego of Andrea Nance. The thing was, Andrea was supposed to be a girl...

-----

Andy padded into the bathroom, sleep shirt flapping around his knees, and opened the tap to the tub. While the tub filled, Andy... or rather Andrea (Drew to her friends)... stood in front of the mirror and brushed her teeth in the methodical manner that her dead cousin Jane used. She didn't bother to look for her razor. No need to shave anymore now: After Nurse Sally's thorough and aggressive electrolysis and laser hair removal regimen, all Drew had left was the hair on her head, her lashes, brows, and pubes (now electrolyzed and trimmed into a feminine shape, and without the little trail going up to her bellybutton).

She then went to the toilet, pulled her sleep shirt up and her panties down, and sat. She listened to the gurgling water filling the tub while she finished. When she was almost done, she heard her Android cell phone ring (she remembered her trusty though now outdated Motorola Razr her gran gave her for her tenth birthday, but that was gone now, along with the rest of their stuff and their old house).

After a quick wipe and wash, she pulled her boy-style panties up and her sleep shirt down, flushed, washed her hands and went to her dresser. She checked, and it was just Iola sending her an SMS text. They had Saturday cheerleader practice *again* (Drew could practically hear Iola sigh) so she would have to meet them at Iola's place tonight instead of them doing their usual Saturday thing.

Drew sent an okay and a cross-eyed emoji, and as she was putting her phone down, Iola texted again and suggested that, since she would have the time now, maybe this was the right time for her to get a new 'do.

Drew giggled. Iola was as one-track-minded as she. Or, rather, as obsessive. They'd been arguing for weeks now about Drew's hairstyle. Iola and Callie had complained that since the two of them met Drew over three months ago, Drew had never changed her style, and that she has been due for a change for a long time now.

But how could she change her hairstyle? It was a wig, after all. Neither Callie nor Iola knew that, of course.

Drew wasn't wearing her wig now. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, at her pretty, feminine face and her near-shoulder-length dark-blonde hair full of split ends. At the back of the reflection, she could just glimpse her closet, where she kept the three wigs she wore alternatingly. Yes - obviously, she couldn't change her 'do' since it was a wig. But, looking at her real hair, it looked like it had grown long enough that she could now do without a wig and still look feminine. Maybe Iola wasright and that she should change her style now. She'd have drastically shorter hair compared to her wig but, if she did, at least the hair would all be real and she wouldn't need to endure the discomfort of the wig, nor the constant fear of it falling off or slipping. She decided to go for it and texted Iola, cc Callie, that she'd be going to Iola's favorite salon later, and that she'd be over at Iola's later tonight to show off her new do. As she finished sending the text, she realized what she was doing and she suddenly burst into silent tears.

Almost four months ago, she was a boy. A young man just finding himself. But he had transformed himself into a girl - one of the popular ones in school at that - one that moved in that rarefied circle that popular girls like Iola and Callie moved in. She used to remember, back in River Heights when she didn't used to play-act at being a girl, how he, as Andy, looked at those kinds of girls and wondered if he'd ever have a girlfriend like that.

Now he was one of those girls.

He, or rather she, locked the bathroom door, skinned the oversized sleep shirt over her head and looked at herself naked from the waist up. Though shapely and well built, she looked far younger than the seventeen she was supposed to be on paper (she supposedly just had her seventeenth birthday a few weeks ago). She was a C-cup now, just like her dead cousin Jane used to be. Drew now had perfect, rounded breasts that had no hint of a sag, and were just large enough to look spectacular yet still look natural.

There were no scars since Doctor Joe used a technique called Transumbilical Breast Augmentation, or TUBA, where the implants were inserted through a tube that passed through a small incision inside her bellybutton (so whatever scars she had would be hidden). He was also able to position them under a thin layer of her pectoral muscles - the only one who was currently able to do this without using a Trans-Axillary approach (he used an instrument of his own design - something that looked like a piece of piano wire permanently bent into the shape of a shallow scythe), and inflated the implants with saline by using the tube. It was a difficult operation, but "Doctor Joe" was the best in his field in the state of New York, probably in the entire United States (although unacknowledged by the medical community), and the operation went extremely well, just like most of his operations.

The advantages of the partial under-muscle TUBA procedure were the lack of scars and a more natural look, but she had to endure more recovery time - Drew remembered the weeks of pain she had to go through even after it had mostly healed, when the simpler, more common over-the-muscle technique would have finished hurting in half the time. But since she practically had no breast tissue, it had to be under-muscle.

Despite this, and despite the need to replace them again in about ten to fifteen years (just like any breast implant) she felt the procedure was necessary for her masquerade.

She continued to look at her breasts as silent tears fell from her eyes. Would that she were still her old self and that she was actually looking at the reflection of someone else and not her... at least that girl would be a real girl...

She ran her hands over her breasts, marveling at their shape and feel as she always did (she was assured by Nurse Sally that the doctor did a good job - her boobies looked and felt like the real thing - no one would be able to tell), and then down her sides, noting how her hands slid inwards as she traced her somewhat-hourglass-shaped torso, and then out again as she reached her hips, these modest curves courtesy of Doctor Joe's liposuction. The hourglass shape was not too pronounced to make her like a porn star, but it was enough that she looked spectacularly feminine. She continued to cry. What was she now? Was she still a boy, or was she a girl?

The bulge that she hid in her panties was the only thing that was incongruous in her all-girl look. Normally, Drew would have hidden it - she had learned to minimize her... "profile" down there with the use of gaffs and other kinds of minimizing underwear, and other techniques she had learned over the net so that there were no outward indications of who and what she really was when she was fully dressed. But when sleeping, she normally didn't do any of that profile-minimizing stuff, even if she wore female sleep-clothes exclusively now (she had no boy clothes anymore).

Despite the feminine curves, implants, lipo and female facial characteristics courtesy of Doctor Joe's operations, she hadn't done any real, fundamental changes to her body. Everything she had had done was all still reversible. No hormone treatments much less a sexual reassignment operation - no drastic stuff. True, she had gone back to Sally, Doctor Joe's little pneumatically enhanced assistant, and had a series of daily hair removal sessions and had all of the inappropriate hair removed permanently. But that was nothing - she was still male, even if she didn't have hair anymore except on her head, eyebrows, eyelashes and pubes.

But, she thought, was she still a "he" anymore? Her behavior as a "she" was by now so automatic that she often wondered if it was all even still an act. She even reflexively used female pronouns for herself now. She cleared her throat and tried humming a few notes in her old guy voice, and she found that she couldn't.

She cursed her thorough nature, but she knew it was necessary. Being found out was so easy - one slip-up could mean suspicion and eventual discovery, so she and her dad had to live and act as the people they were supposed to be now, and do so consistently until it became so perfect, automatic and ingrained that the contrived behavior and responses were second nature. And this had finally happened for her.

The all-or-nothing approach appealed to her almost obsessive-compulsive nature. She had insisted, and her dad had agreed: all the way. They knew that this might save their lives one day, especially since the people that had heir housekeeper, her beloved cousin and uncle killed were still out there, maybe even still looking for them. And they could not afford to die, even slightly (she laughed bitterly at the morbid joke) if they wanted to push through with their plans to bring the bad guys down.

She knew all the reasons, and she knew it was all logically correct. But was it worth it, if the price was the loss of who she really was?

She continued to cry silently as she threw the sleep shirt in the dirty clothes hamper, as well as her Liz Claiborne boy-style women's boxers (it was the closest thing she could find to male-looking women's underwear), turned the water off, poured bath salts in the tub, sloshed the water around, and then sat in the water.

Nowadays, as much as possible, instead of a shower, she always took a bath in the morning, and another before bedtime - it was part of her daily regimen that Sally taught her so that she could keep her now-hairless skin femininely soft and femininely fragrant.

It had paid off a few times: she had caught some people appreciatively inhaling near her, and Callie once said that she had the softest skin, innocently running her hand along Drew's arm. Drew had to labor really hard not to react inappropriately that time.

Most everything that she had done in the past few months had hammered her masculinity into little pieces - her manner of dress, her contrived behavior, her little gestures and mildly flirty demeanor, her choice of new friends, new hobbies and areas of interest, even her peppiness which she worked real hard at to keep up, since she knew it helped keep her dad's spirits up. Everything. And over time it had become automatic and it stopped bothering her anymore. Even sitting in a bathtub full of flowery-smelling soapy water, soaking, lightly wiping down her torso, breasts, limbs and face with a soaped-up terrycloth bath towelette, didn't bother her anymore. And the fact that it didn't bother her just added to her misery. It was all part of a plan, that it was all really just play-acting, necessary to hide them from the bad guys so that, someday, they'd have a chance to bring them down. It was just... sometimes it just gets to be too much.

And was it even play-acting anymore? The fact that she reflexively referred to herself in the feminine now just made her cry some more.

And she had boobs...

With all the water, no one would have been able to tell if she was still crying, but she was. And she sobbed. Great, loud wracking sobs. She couldn't stop herself. Thoughts of her old friends George and Bess sprang up in her mind, and what they would think of her if they could see her now. But even so, the reality that she would not see them again - that hurt even more.

It was a long time coming. Months of suppressing "her" feelings came to this. Her girlish sobs echoed in the closed bathroom as she washed her new breasts.

She heard a knocking at her bathroom door.

"Honey?" her dad called from behind the door.

She stopped. "Yeah, Dad?" she said, clearing her throat and sniffing back the tears.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Even she could hear her lying tone. But she had to, to spare her dad. "Just taking a bath."

"Don't stay too long in there. You might catch a cold. And you know how pruney you get." She was sure even her dad knew how lame that sounded.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Okay."

"And, Andy..."

She stopped again. Her dad hadn't called her by that name in a long time. Not since the start of the masquerade.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"I love you. And I'm very proud of you... Now, finish up so we can have breakfast. Blueberry pancakes are okay?"

Blueberry pancakes were Andy's favorite. Drew had not indulged in any of Andy's favorites since she came into existence.

"Sounds great," she said hoarsely. Oh, Dad...

"Okay. Come on down whenever you're ready."

She had started crying again, but they were happier tears now.

"I'll be down in a few. Thanks, Dad."

"I love you, Andy," he said again, softly, but loud enough that she could hear him through the door. "... And I love you, Drew... never doubt that."

Drew tried to stop her heart from bursting.

Her dad didn't say anything anymore, and she knew he was on his way downstairs now, to make up a batch of his special pancake mix.

She realized she wasn't alone in this, and as much as she was doing it for her and her dad, she was reminded again that so was he. She couldn't believe how arrogant, how self-centered, how self-obsessed she was, that she overlooked her dad's role in this. She nodded to herself. She wasn't alone in this.

She felt like she could do anything now, like she was invulnerable, so long as her dad was with her. And all of this didn't really matter. Him, her - who cares about pronouns? What mattered was that they were family, and that they were together.

She started hurrying through her bath and quickly finished shampooing her hair.

Dad's blueberry pancakes! Boy, oh boy!

-----

After she moisturized and powdered herself all over with the moisturizer Sally gave her and the baby powder that she knew Jane used to use, put on light make-up and arranged her short locks as best she could, she turned to her closet. Hmmm... What to wear...

She decided on a casual kind of look today, so she picked a cream-colored cowl neck tee with a hi-lo back over a tight, rayon-spandex tunic-length tank in a flannel-grey color. She partnered them with a melon-colored tulip miniskirt with front and back ruching to hide any... bumps. A slim fit and an asymmetrical hemline gave the skirt just the right amount of flirty sassiness that her Dad couldn't object to yet still keep her near the top of the school's sexy, well-dressed list. Underneath, she wore a pair of full, thick panties in white spandex-cotton that were almost like bicycle shorts, almost as good as a gaff in keeping things down. At least its color matched her white t-shirt bra. Wearing skirts always made her wary of flashing people and possibly exposing her secret, so it was a full panty this time. At least, with the skirt's ruching, it would camouflage any unexplained bumps if there were any, so she didn't need to resort to a gaff.

The finishing touch was a strappy pair of day-heels in butterscotch. It had a four-and-a-half heel but that included the one-and-a-half platform, so the heels were only three inches. The slightly thick heel would help her with the balancing, but the added height would offset any minus-points the slightly wide heel gave her. With the pair on, she fancied she was almost as tall as her dad.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she noted that the shortish shoulder-length hair actually set the whole outfit off. Because the edges of her hair were ragged (after all, she hadn't trimmed them in months), she deliberately messed her hair up a bit so the uneven ends would look deliberate and chic. There. Just a bit of the skater girl look to contrast with the sexy outfit. She was sure Jane would have approved.

She reached up to the uppermost part of her closet, pulled from its special hiding space the dainty little magenta girly-backpack that contained her folder of paper notes on their "project," the "non-traceable" netbook that they had bought at that pawnshop an eternity ago, its power adapter and the little wireless USB Internet stick that she got along with the netbook. She slung it on, went to her dresser and got a couple of the unused day-long prepaid wireless Internet cards that they bought before, and stuffed them in the backpack.

She then selected a small, snow-white leather purse from her "collection" of purses. Hardly bigger than one of Jane's pocketbooks, she dumped the contents of her purse from yesterday into the chic little clutch, and what couldn't fit she put in the backpack. She slung the purse's strap over her shoulder then walked downstairs.

"Good morning, Pops," Drew said, and bussed her father on the cheek.

Bill Fayne, or rather, "Carson Nance," noted the "Pops." It was Jane's pet name for his brother Dave. They were both dead now, of course. Bill knew that part of the reason his son could play his Drew role so well was because he, now she, used Jane as her template, often copying her speech and behavior almost move-for-move and word-for-word. Her eerily perfect fashion sense, for example, was "inherited" from Jane. So, for her to call him "Pops" meant Drew was back and was emulating Jane. Thank God she'd recovered from that bathroom episode earlier.

He knew that few kids could pull such a thing off, but with his son's, or rather "daughter's" genius mind and incredible eye for detail, it had gone off flawlessly. She had even risen through the ranks of her school's social hierarchy and, according to the school counselor, had become the "it" girl of her junior class. He knew Andy never achieved the male equivalent of this in his old school, and was therefore surprised that Andy was able to do it in the guise of Drew Nance, and all in three months. He was also delighted (and greatly amused) that Drew now had two new best friends - Iola Morton and Callie Shaw, a pair of gorgeous cheerleaders, also in the junior class. Carson could feel her unrequited, un-expressed feelings every time Drew talked about these girls, and who could blame her? Her raging teenage male hormones were trapped. "Carson" commiserated with his daughter-son, but was greatly amused, too - Drew had to settle for being a best friend to these teen hotties when Carson knew she-he wanted to be so much more than that. Drew also had a bunch of boys sniffing around her, but Carson didn't worry about that - being a boy as well, Drew had an instinctive recognition of the boys' intentions and moves, and was able to run rings around them. But it had boomeranged - far from making her a pariah among the boys, this just made Drew more unattainable and, therefore, hotter in the eyes of the male population of her school.

As Drew sat down, Carson put three pancakes on her plate despite her protests. He knew they were just token protests, anyway - Carson knew how much Andy loved his special blueberry pancakes, diet or no diet.

He himself just had one because he knew he was going to the golf club later for a game and a bite, and an afternoon of middle-aged frivolity with his new cronies. Over the months since they moved into their new house, he had worked hard to develop friendships with the neighbors as well as the "who's who" of the local business community. It was his only way to establish his street cred, as Drew would have put it. The new connections would help when it was time to get a job. The rest of the time, he studied up on financial law, which was hard going because, as Bill Fayne, he was a criminal law expert, while Carson Nance was supposed to be some financial-legal whiz with an incredible portfolio under his arm. So most of his days now were spent in the library or on the Internet, upgrading his knowledge and area of expertise. He often said to Drew that it was like he was studying for the bar all over again. In a way, it was like he needed to - he needed to learn the nuances of New York State law, anyway, even if his Carson credentials said he was certified and already an expert.

"So," Carson said, and smiled as he watched his "daughter" stuff herself with his pancakes. "What do you have planned for today? I suppose you'll be doing your usual Saturday thing with the girls?"

Drew took her napkin and burped demurely into it. "Can't. Iola and Callie have Saturday cheerleader practice. Again!" She made a girly gesture of exasperation. So very like her deceased cousin.

"Can't be helped, I suppose," Carson said to Drew. "Didn't you say there are lots of away games for the Foxes since it's near the end of term?" He was referring to their varsity team.

"Actually, it's near the end of the entire season for the school. In fact the next two weeks are gonna be the football and basketball finals, so the cheerleaders have to practice a lot to get ready, even on the weekends. Sheesh!"

"Sheesh," Carson thought - another Jane-ism. But he chided himself that he should quit doing that - comparing Jane to Drew. It wasn't fair to Drew.

"So what are you doing, then?" Carson asked.

"Iola convinced me to have my hair done. What do you think? Is it long enough that I can do without the wig?" She struck a pose.

"I think so. Just make sure to have them trim the cow licks and the split ends."

She gave him a loud and moist razzberry and Carson chuckled.

"Where will you have it done?" he asked.

"I'm thinking of Iola's and Callie's regular place? At the mall?"

Carson thought a while. "I don't think that's a good idea, honey," he said. "The people there will see you without the wig when all they've ever seen of you before was always with the wig. They might suspect, and they're liable to talk with your friends about it."

"But what if I can explain the short hair? I can tell 'em I tried cutting my own hair but I botched it and wanted it fixed."

Carson looked thoughtful. Drew frowned.

"But you don't like it," Drew said, noticing his expression.

"Well, I don't know," Carson replied. "I suppose you can make some kind of explanation for showing up with short hair, but people you know will still ask a lot of stuff unlike strangers, and it's easier to not get caught in a lie if you don't have to answer a lot of questions. Why take the risk of spreading rumors?"

Drew sighed. "You're right... I never even thought of that. You're pretty smart."

"But of course," he said expansively.

Drew gave him another razzberry. "Smarty-pants!" she said, and giggled.

"Okay," she said after a few bites. "I'll go to a different salon to minimize the number of people asking questions. But I'll still tell the girls I tried cutting my own hair but I botched it and wanted it fixed. Just in case."

She got up, went to Carson's study and came back a minute later with a sheet of paper.

"What's that?" Carson said as she sat back down.

"I went on Yelp and printed out a list of some beauty salons in the area. Guess I'll go to this one." She pointed to the printed screen-cap page, at a name with four stars beside it.

"Why not this one? It has four and a half stars."

"That's a tattoo parlor."

"Oh..."

"Not so smart after all, huh?" She gave her dad an evil grin.

Carson grabbed her and started tickling her. She screamed and started giggling. "Stop! Stop!" she cried, and tried to stop laughing but couldn't. "Stop the tickle torture! Dad, nooo..."

Carson was relentless. Drew's tickle spots hadn't changed since he last did this. Andy was, what, eight? A tickle torture was long overdue.

Carson thought Drew felt different. Sure, the breasts and the face. But her skin was softer, her manner so different. Similar to Jane, but not exactly. Was Andy still somewhere inside Drew?

And then Drew let out a peal of laughter that was all Andy. He hadn't heard that laugh in over ten years, not since Andy was a kid. Yes, she was still Andy.

He stopped the tickle torture and hugged Drew. Out of breath and a little panicked, Drew reflexively hugged her dad back, but as she calmed down, her dad's emotions became clearer. She renewed the hug.

"I'm proud of you," he said.

-----

 After Drew had recovered, they finished breakfast - Carson knew Drew wouldn't leave without finishing off the pancakes, and didn't hurry her.

He asked her what she planned after the haircut. She said she'd probably shop a little bit. Carson rolled his eyes at that.

"Also," Drew said defensively, "I'm gonna do some more research on our, you know, project."

Carson nodded soberly. During most of her free time, when she wasn't doing homework, hanging out with her new girlfriends or shopping, Drew continued trying to track down the people who had Marie their housekeeper, Jane and uncle Dave murdered. And when she was done and they finally knew who were responsible, it would be Carson's turn.

Drew did most of her research over the web. She used the little netbook PC that they bought at a pawnshop months ago every time she worked on the "project." By doing so, and by using prepaid Internet access she bought with cash, her Internet activities wouldn't be traceable back to them, or at least make tracing them extremely difficult. They could have used some kind of proxy service, or something along those lines, but Drew decided to use anonymous prepaid access instead.

"Do you have enough Internet cards?" Carson asked.

Drew nodded. "I still have a couple of those twenty-dollar all-day cards. I'm good."

"Where do you think you'll be going this time?"

When they started all this, Drew explained that, though unlikely, despite their precautions, people could still trace her location if they knew to look through the appropriate Internet access records, even if they couldn't identify who she was.

Still, the only conceivable way that this could even be possible was if they knew her little computer's MAC address, or BIA or EHA or whatever they called the computer's unique physical address, and she couldn't imagine any way they could connect it with her. She wasn't Andy: she was Drew - no association whatsoever with the Faynes. And they got the little computer second-hand from a pawnshop, and paid for it in cash - no names at all.

But, even though it was already near impossible, she did one other precaution. For her dad.

She decided to do her surfing at places far away from the house, specifically in various places in New Jersey, so, in that unlikely possibility of someone being able to trace her computer, that person would assume she was from New Jersey instead of New York because of all her traffic history. She'd done this enough times that she had accumulated enough surfing history that this was yet another layer of subterfuge - another wall that the bad guys would have to bust through to get to her and her dad.

When her dad asked the question where again, Drew shook herself out of her reverie and finished the final bite of her last pancake, stood up and went to the big map of New Jersey and New York tacked on the kitchen wall. They kept that map there for the express purpose of selecting Drew's Internet access locations. Drew covered her eyes and randomly stabbed at the map with her pointing finger.

She uncovered her eyes and peered at where her finger was. "Somerset County it is," she said.

"Okay," Carson responded. "Pick a safe place, and keep your phone and GPS handy."

"I will." She reached for the little plastic medicine bottles inside the kitchen cupboard and took the vitamins that "Doctor Joe" prescribed. They were just vitamin and mineral supplements, but manufactured in Sweden and not sold locally, probably because there were already lots of cheaper US-made equivalents. Drew had researched them and found they were just harmless supplements that were supposed to promote softer and smoother skin and shiny, healthy hair.

She had decided to buy the locally-available ones when she found out they were available, but Doctor Joe swore by the efficacy of the Swedish supplements, and Nurse Sally kept on coming by every few weeks or so to get Drew's "prescription" refilled. And Dad didn't really mind the cost, so she continued taking them.

Once, Sally noticed that Drew wasn't taking the supplements, so Sally decided to give her vitamin booster shot versions right on the spot. So, from then on, to avoid being stuck by booster injections, Drew started to religiously take her morning vitamins just as religiously as she did her twice-daily bath-and-moisturizer routine. The brand of the supplement really had a funny Swedish name - "Sats Sju." Sally said that it was pronounced "sats sweoo." Drew didn't care, really, but she still took care to pronounce it right so Sally wouldn't be too irritated with her.

"Listen," Carson said, sipping his coffee as he watched her take her vitamins and then put the plastic bottles away. "When you were in the bathroom - I think I understand. It's hard for me, too. Not as hard as it is for you, I know, but still hard. Thing is..." He looked her in the eyes. "We really have no choice. Please believe me, if we had any other way..." He looked down. "I will understand if you say you'd rather chuck all this. It'll be okay." He looked up again, and gave her a sad smile. "I'm sure Lieutenant Hardy can fix it for us. We can walk away from all of this, start over again somewhere. We have over three million in cash, not to mention the still-uncashed certificates. That'll allow us to start all over again, in style."

"No, Dad!" Drew cried. "We can't let the bad guys get away with it! What about Jane and Uncle Dave? What about Marie?"

"I can't stand what this is doing to you, I..."

Drew leaned down, grabbed her dad and hugged him hard.

"I'm okay, Dad," she whispered in his ear. "I promise."

She felt him about to protest. "I swear I'm okay! Promise!"

He pulled back, held her at arm's length and looked deeply into her eyes. She felt a little scared - it was like her dad was looking into her soul. After a while, Carson nodded and hugged her again, gently this time.

"Okay, then. But we can quit this anytime you say. And you talk to me anytime you want to. About whatever you want. Okay?"

She hugged him back. "Okay," she whispered hoarsely, crying soft tears.

"Okay," he agreed. He smiled at her and handed her some tissues.

She giggled. "My makeup's ruined now." She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"You look like a Goth." They both laughed.

She wiped away most of the mascara. "I'll fix it later." She got her backpack and purse. "First things first. I'm gonna have my hair done."

Drew bussed her dad again and walked to the front door, but just before stepping out, she turned back.

"Dad?" she said.

"Yeah, hon?"

"I love you, too," she said quietly, but loud enough that it carried to her dad. She felt the sting of fresh tears and quickly stepped out the door before they could fall.