Megan Franchino knows her chance for escape is now or never. With school finally out for her son Antonio, and her abusive husband going out of town she just might get far enough away before he starts looking for them. If they fail to get away, Megan knows she will not live to regret trying. There is no choice though, their recent injuries prove that if they stay one or both of them will eventually die from the beatings.

There is only one place she might feel safe to go, but will she be welcome there? Can she even get there? How long can she stay? What then? And if her husband's family does catch up to them, is there any way to keep Tony safe?

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The Legal Stuff: Dollar Runaways © 2014 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface

Like the first four books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I was planning to post it a chapter at a time, but due to some real life events that took place in the last week I am doing two per week instead so it’ll be completely posted before I get too busy with other things! The book has a total of 26 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by early March. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook formatted files).

Several readers have commented on the similarities of the story to Wanda Cunningham’s ‘Incognito Parallel.’ I would reference you all to the ‘Dedication’ in the first chapter where I recognize that her tale most definitely sparked my imagination, and this book! I believe you will find that in the end though this work is its own story.

One caution before continuing through this book; it is darker than my past novels have been. If it were a movie it would probably be rated R for Language and Violence. Much of this novel is just as light as you are used to seeing from me though!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy reading Dollar Runaways!!

Chapter 17: Deceptions

I WOKE UP to the sound of the obnoxious peacocks joining in the sounds of my nightmare and found tears streaming down my face. It was a half-hour before I was supposed to wake up, but I couldn’t take being alone anymore. I opened my door and walked across the hallway to my mom’s room. It was open and so I walked in. Mom was still lying in bed sleeping, so I pulled the covers up and slid next to her.

I must have fallen back to sleep because I felt a hug and Mom asked, “And when did you come in here Princess?”

I felt some tears start back up in my eyes. I was really embarrassed about feeling the need to come sleep with my mom. “I had a nightmare...”

“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay,” She told me and stroked my hair. The alarm started going off and she said, “You ready to get started?”

I nodded.

“Okay then, why don’t you go get dressed in one of the outfits you have that’s the same as a doll outfit, and dress Kaitlyn in the same one.”

I looked at her, but nodded without any questioning. Today was going to be a serious day all day with finishing establishing our cover story. I wasn’t looking forward to whatever fake stuff we had to do in Dallas though. I was also kind of nervous about going back there since I had a feeling people were kind of looking for us there.

Mom gave me a hug and I walked back to my room. I settled on my white, pink, and blue plaid dress and found the matching outfit for Kaitlyn. Because I knew we would be walking all over the place today, I chose some white sandals with a back-strap over the blue ones that matched Kaitlyn’s. Mom gave me a pink Disney Princess backpack last night before bed that I packed with a few outfits for Kaitlyn, a couple coloring books, and a couple Barbie’s just because I thought a normal eight-year old would probably bring them.

Madison came in and saw how I was dressed and smiled. “Want me to do your hair?”

I nodded, “Please.”

She directed me to the chair and worked on my hair for a while before pronouncing I was done. I looked in the mirror and saw the pretty French Braiding and asked her, “Can you do dolls like that too?”

Madison smiled, “When we get to the airport we’ll do it together, both of our dolls, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. It would add to our disguise so I was sure it was a good plan. Mom met us down at breakfast and we had our suitcases sitting in the entranceway. Madison had Mackenzie in her arms most of breakfast too. The whole meal was subdued and both Mom and I received sympathy cards from just about everyone. I noticed some of Mom’s had money, which she tried to give back but they wouldn’t hear of it.

I knew she must have felt guilty about that.

“You heading home then?” Hank asked.

“Yeah, Mom and Dad...” She sniffled, “were very smart about things. The estate should be taken care of by their lawyer. He said that me getting custody of Ashley is a given in the will, so it’s just a matter of appearing in front of a judge...” She sniffled again.

“What are you going to do after this week?” Annie asked kindly.

Mom had a few tears that she wiped away and I didn’t hide the ones forming in my eyes either. “Well, last night Aunt Gloria offered to let me stay on for a couple years... Let me get some experience here before moving on.” Mom looked at Gloria and said, “I think we’re going to take her up on it. At least for a year or so...”

“What about school?” Annie asked her.

“I already have two degrees, the agricultural degree was more of an extra. I’m sure I can find plenty of work out there with my engineering degree.”

I watched one guy cough, Collin I think, “You have an engineering degree?”

Mom smiled thinly, “two actually.”

“How...?”

“I graduated early, I was bored at school and my parents let me.” I knew that was actually the truth for her - it wasn’t even a lie.

“Well we’ll be happy to have you around and happy to help you out with Ashley...” Annie said.

“That’s a large part of why we’re going to come back here... Aunt Gloria can help out with Ashley, and we can work on getting her into a stable situation for a while.”

It felt odd being talked about like this, but I was only supposed to be a barely eight-year old. The old ‘children should be seen and not heard’ line popped into my head. Mom had actually always been good about never doing that to me... Well, at least the last few years.

“Well, are you about finished?” Gloria asked, “It’s time to be getting to the airport for your flight.”

“Yeah, Madison? Ashley?” We nodded and stood up.

There were more hugs given and the several of the guys insisted on carrying our bags into Gloria’s car. Once it was packed up Gloria lifted me into the car seat and buckled me in while Mom climbed into the front seat and Madison sat next to me.

“Be good Madison, listen to Amber and keep an eye on Ashley for her,” Kaitlyn said.

“I will Mom,” she said with a smile.

And with that, we were off!

I watched the landscape go by from my seat and held Kaitlyn tight in my arms. I couldn’t help but notice Madison doing the same next to me. At the airport they took the car seat out of the car and wrapped it up at the counter. I watched from the distance with Madison as Mom got us checked in. Madison had her arms around me and soon Mom had the tickets and was waving at us to meet her.

“Ready girls?” Mom asked.

We nodded and followed her through the security lines. Mom handed over our tickets to the agents for us and we walked through the line. “Ladies, would you please put your dolls in these bins?” A lady asked, “I promise they’ll be just fine.” She winked at Madison. I gave mine a quick squeeze and put her in the box. It was a quick jog through and we caught up with our stuff and I soon had Kaitlyn back in hand. I saw the signs for a Dallas flight and sure enough Mom led us to the seats in the area.

“You want to go ahead and braid Kaitlyn and Mackenzie’s hair?” Madison asked with a smile.

“Okay,” I said in a subdued voice.

Mom looked at us and said, “Madison, why don’t you two sit in front of me and I’ll do your hair like Ashley’s. I’m guessing you’re doing the same with the dolls?”

We nodded and so we both sat on the floor. Madison showed me how to grab the hair and separate the strands. It was really hard, even though she made it look pretty easy. By the time all was said and done, hers looked great and mine looked pretty good. Mom in the meantime had made Madison’s hair match mine perfectly.

A lady sitting next to us smiled and asked Mom, “Daughters?”

Mom laughed, “This one,” she said pointing to Madison, “is waaaay too old to be mine... And this one,” she said pointing to me, “would have resulted in my death by my parents.” She froze a bit there, “She is... was Mom and Dad’s surprise blessing.”

I sniffled too and hugged Mom. We were acting... sort of. I think we both understood losing the parents since we’d both basically done it.

“I’m their cousin,” Madison explained... “I’m flying with them to help them out back home for a week or so.”

The lady seemed to cue in on something not being right, “Is everything alright dear?” She asked Mom.

She shook her head, “I found out yesterday that our parents died...” She wiped a few tears and sniffled, “we’re going home to take care of things and then I’m going to bring Ashley back here and stay with our aunt for a while.”

“You poor dears,” the lady said and I could see she was misting up too, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss...”

“Thanks,” Mom said.

We were left alone from then on though by most people because they couldn’t help but hearing. With Madison’s hair done she jumped back into a chair next to Mom and I found myself sitting in her lap when they called the first boarding groups. They reached our group and Mom had us in line ready to go.

“Wow, I love that your doll and you are wearing the same thing, that’s soo cute!” the lady taking tickets said.

“Thanks,” I said.

It was a quick glance, but I swore I saw a second set of tickets in Mom’s ticket sleeve. I wasn’t sure though. I just figured they must be our return tickets.

We boarded the plane and I placed my backpack under the seat in front of me. I couldn’t even come close to reaching the floor with my feet so I wasn’t worried about legroom! I let Madison put her backpack there too since it wasn’t going to cramp me. Mom was able to stuff her purse and another bag down in front of her too. I sat in the middle between them as the stewardesses prepared the plane to leave.

“Well hello, aren’t you cute?” One of them said to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Flying back home from vacation?” She asked.

I started crying then and felt like I deserved a major acting award. I leaned into Mom and heard her say, “Sorry... We’re flying back home... But it’s early, our parents were killed in an accident the other day.”

“Oh my God I’m so sorry!” She said.

“It’s okay, we’re both pretty frazzled right now.” Mom said.

“If I can get you anything don’t hesitate,” she told us.

“Thanks.”

Mom squeezed my hand after a few more minutes of crying and I sat back up in my seat for take off. Eventually I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew was the plane touching down at the airport.

“Okay, Princess, wake up,” Mom said.

“Ugh... We’re here already?”

“Uh-huh.” She said. Mom then whispered into my ear, “We’re going to go to the bathroom, be ready to change quickly.”

“Huh?” I started to say but nodded. She whispered to Madison too at that point and we headed towards the bathroom stalls. Just before I got into mine she handed me a small cheap backpack with ropes for straps. I knew better than to ask questions so I quickly changed into the pink Princess shirt and the white skort that she had placed in there. I folded my dress and put it inside and noticed the other outfit for Kaitlyn in there. I switched her clothes as well and found Mom waiting for me outside the stall door. She pushed her way in with me and closed the door again. I felt embarrassed as she quickly pulled my hair out of the French Braid and up into two loose pigtails instead.

When I got a look at myself in the mirror a few minutes later I could see I looked a year or two younger and different than I had a moment ago. Mom had added a pair of glasses to her face and changed her hair as well. Madison now sported two pigtails too and was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top.

Mom reached for my hand and pulled me along. She led us along quite the stretch of corridors before pulling up to a flight that said Orlando as the destination.

“Where are we going?” I asked in a whisper.

“To see the Princesses,” Mom whispered back with a smile.

It was loud enough that Madison could hear too and she squealed. “Really?”

Mom nodded, “I’ll explain when we get there.”

I played with Madison while we waited. She showed me a couple clapping game things that I had seen girls play before but had no idea how to do them. We waited for a while then stopped at the restroom one more time before getting on the flight to Orlando. As the plane’s wheels left the ground I couldn’t contain my excitement and squealed quietly. This was going to be fun!!!!!

MEGAN COULDN’T HELP but smile as she looked at her daughter and Madison. The idea of disappearing to have a vacation rather than faking funeral arrangements in Dallas had been a good one. Gloria had liked it the second she’d told her about it! Kaitlyn thought her daughter would enjoy it too, so they were sure it was going to be a nice break. The main thing is that it kept them away from Dallas, which was far more important to her.

Megan had a strong gut feeling that Ray and the FBI had probably tracked her to Dallas. The FBI probably would have found the car by now and, if that was the case, she figured they probably had current pictures of them. It seemed only a matter of time before people found them if they stuck around there. By hopping over to Orlando it would put them in a new place that would hopefully be safe.

‘I hope Madison likes her surprises...’ she thought to herself. Since she had made Ashley the dress on Monday, Gloria had come up with a neat way to say thank you to her.

Megan smiled, this was going to be a safe break from reality that they all needed!

“We are now approaching Orlando and will be landing in about fifteen minutes. We hope you have enjoyed your flight...” The captain said the typical landing spiel and she tuned it out. When she was planning the trip she discovered a big downside to having set her age at twenty-three... Car rental companies weren’t overly accommodating until age twenty-five. She had found one company that would rent to her, but it was a higher price. It was just a necessary evil for her though.

‘There’s no way that Ray would expect us to take a vacation amidst all of this... Disney World is probably the safest place we’ll be for a long time!’ She thought to herself reassuringly. Roger helped her set up a fake obituary to run in the paper and online at a mortuary in McKinney and Dallas. The obituary made it clear that the funeral would be a private affair held at a later date. An address, supposedly their home, had been listed where cards and flowers might be sent.

At the same time Roger was spending some time helping her make it look like the money she was withdrawing on this trip was legitimately from a quick house sale. Besides having fun they were also going to be making a short jaunt down to Miami to pick up the cashiers check from one bank and deposit into another. This was going to be her last step in clearing the rest of the money she had taken from Ray. The check she was picking up was going to show as being from a title company, which would make it look like the house sale. It was also going to be a pretty secure setup because of the way she was doing it. She hoped it would be enough! Miami was a convenient location to do the final transfer onshore from the Swiss banks where she had moved the rest of the money.

‘Ray is going to be so pissed some day when he figures out I know about those accounts too,’ she thought with a giggle.

They unloaded from the plane and began heading for the baggage claim. Once she’d claimed all of their bags with Madison and Ashley they loaded it all with the car seat onto a luggage cart. They then headed out to find the rental car company. ‘I don’t miss that about having a baby... I don’t want us to get pulled over though.’ Even though she’d looked up Florida’s laws and found it to be pretty lenient, only up till age five, she didn’t want to deal with any unwanted attention from law enforcement.

Besides, she was certain that Ashley was probably going to be acting more like her identities age than her real age on this trip. Madison would probably act even more like a kid she figured as well. Megan was looking forward to that with both of them though!

“May I help you?” the man at the counter asked.

“Yes, I have a reservation for Amber Caffrey?”

The man typed at his computer for a few moments. “Yes Miss, I see you have one right here. How will you be paying for this?”

“Debit card,” she said. One thing she’d been able to do the previous week was to establish a bank account and deposited an initial eight thousand into it. Gloria had the rest of her cash in a safe and she was going to slowly deposit that money over a year or so. IRS flags were a big thing she was leery of, the last thing she wanted was to get caught because of them! The title company check would raise flags, but she was certain the IRS would be satisfied with everything as a quick inheritance property sale.

Roger had someone he trusted going through garage sales that week in Dallas and was going to ship a truckload of personal items to them at Gloria’s house. Things that were antiques that they obviously wouldn’t want to part with, old dolls for Ashley, a bunch of size 6 and 6X clothes that an eight-year old wouldn’t wear, but she could still fit into, could go in the back of her closet type things... It was overkill she hoped, but she didn’t want the killing to begin for real either.

“Okay Miss Caffrey, if I could just get you to sign here...?”

She signed in the appropriate places and they were led to the row of cars and they did the typical inspection. The employee helped them load the suitcases in the trunk and she began working on getting Ashley’s car seat in. “Madison, why don’t you ride up front...?”

“Umm.... Okay?” She said and climbed up front while Mom attached her pedal extensions to the pedals. As they pulled out of the airport Madison asked, “Why did you want me to sit up front?”

“It looks normal,” Mom said simply.

I SAT IN the backseat strapped in and felt a little bit annoyed that Mom had Madison sit in the front seat. I wasn’t really that lonely in the back, but I felt even more like a little kid then.

“So are we still just cousins?” Madison asked.

Mom nodded, “Same story basically, but I wanted to treat my baby sister to a great eighth birthday present so we came out here.”

“But no dead parents?” I asked.

“Our parents are still dead, but I’m raising you,” Mom answered.

“Oh,” I said simply.

“This is going to be fun!” Madison said as she saw the first sign for Disney World.

“Have you been here before Madison?”

“Once... My parents took me here when I was really little. You guys?”

“Not too long ago, a year or so,” Mom said, “although I think it’ll be a bit more fun this time!”

“It couldn’t be less...” I mentioned. The last trip with my dad had been a disaster. Mom and I would try and have fun and my dad was uptight about it. Neither of us had that much fun in the end compared to what we could have. One day he had gone on his own to do some work stuff and that day had been a blast! Mom had bought me Mickey ears that day and we’d actually enjoyed the day without him there.

Mom just said, “It’ll be fun,” to end that line of thinking.

I watched the signs go by and the entrance grow into view as Mom drove through the streets and eventually pulled up to our hotel. Checking in was cool with all of the themed stuff around, and I was really looking forward to going to the park. “Amber, when are we going to the park?” I asked Mom.

“Tomorrow,” she answered.

“What are we doing today then?” I asked a little hesitantly.

“Well, first things first, I’m going to need you both to get changed, do your hair for you, and then we’re going to go to a dinner with the Princesses tonight!” She said with a smile.

“Did you say both of us?” Madison asked nervously.

“Uh-huh,” Mom said as she swiped the keycard into our room.

She took one of the two suitcases she had brought and opened it up to reveal my Merida costume that she’d given me before, and a beautiful Belle costume that had to be for Madison. “Oh my God!!!” She said as Mom handed it to her.

“Today and tomorrow I’m going to enjoy walking around with royalty,” she said with a smile.

“But... Aren’t I too old...?” Madison started.

“No, you most definitely are not!” Mom told her. “And I guarantee in that dress there will be a lot of jealous little girls!” She said with a smile.

We both hugged her and Madison asked, “Where did you get this?”

“Your Aunt Gloria made it for you in the last three days after we decided we were doing this. Now go get changed, if anyone asks today or tomorrow though you’re just twelve, okay?” Mom asked her.

Madison smiled, “Okay!”

AGENT KLINE LOOKED at the envelope that had been hand delivered to him directly at his request. Inside he found several DVD’s that supposedly had the footage from the different Wal-Mart’s near the hotel that Megan Franchino had stayed at.

A quick look at his watch though led to a shout of, “Oh shit!” his wife was going to kill him if he didn’t make it home quickly. He took a moment to lock the DVD’s into his safe. They would have to wait until Monday.

MADISON AND I soon changed into our costumes and Mom worked on our hair. She put the tiara on I had received for my birthday onto my head, and had another one for Madison. I was really glad Mom hadn’t left Madison out of this... and I loved how happy she seemed to be. Downstairs we walked to a restaurant that was apparently in our hotel.

“Good evening your highnesses,” a nicely dressed host said to us. “Do you have a reservation?” he asked Mom.

“Caffrey?”

“Ah yes, I see you’re right here...” Mom had apparently pre-paid so he said, “Would you please step over here and we’ll take your picture with Prince Charming in just a moment.”

The three of us all giggled at that and sure enough had a picture with him soon after that. I caught a lot of bemused glances from other people in the restaurant, but there were lots of little girls dressed up as princesses so we didn’t stand out. Madison was by far the tallest, but she didn’t look too old to be doing it. The meal was a buffet and we each filled a plate and returned to our table. Mom broke out the camera and took pictures with us, and all of the princesses that came by, as well as some other characters.

By the time we returned to our hotel we were both smiling. Madison hugged Mom, “Thank you so much, I haven’t had that much fun ever!”

“Well just wait till tomorrow,” She said with a smile. “Remember, you’re twelve!” she reminded her sternly.

I giggled at that and she rewarded me by tickling me.

“Okay, we’re going to be making an early start of it, so both of you need to hang your dresses up and put on your nightgowns.”

“I didn’t bring a nightgown...?” Madison said.

“Of course you didn’t, we took care of that for you,” she said with a smile.

It turned out that Mom and Gloria had planned this little vacation and decided Madison could use it as well. Neither of them had missed the fact that Madison hated literally growing up so fast! So, they had set things up for her to have some fun too. I saw her come out of the bathroom after I had changed and we were wearing identical nightgowns that were a little over the top in frilliness. I slept with Mom that night in her bed and felt safe and loved.

THE NEXT MORNING Mom had us up early, showered, and then said, “I tried to get you two into the Princess Boutique... But they were booked up for like six months in advance. So instead I thought I would take care of you this morning,” she said with a smile. “So go ahead and change into your dresses,” she told us both.

Once we were dressed Mom spent time making my hair curly like Merida. She spent time with Madison’s and it soon looked like the hair from the ballroom scene where her yellow dress came from. I couldn’t help but notice though that while the dress was as long as a gown, it wasn’t gynormously full like the real dress. She should be able to walk around and ride rides in it.

“Is this actually the dress you bought?” I asked Mom while she was painting my nails.

She smiled, “No, Gloria decided you should have something a little bit better made for this week. She made another one with better fabrics based off the play one we gave you.” She hesitated, “I think the original is in pieces in her sewing room…”

I didn’t know if I should be upset or not by that, but just asked, “Oh, when did she do all of this?”

“Last week and this week,” Mom said.

I was a little shocked that they had thought this far ahead and I didn’t have a clue. After a while Mom pronounced us done and we had pictures taken. “How are we going to explain these pictures later?” I asked her.

“Not sure, I don’t care right now. We’re just going to have fun the next few days without thinking about anything else!” She told me.

“You look like the odd one out,” Madison said with a smile.

“Well someone has to be the grown-up,” she said with a wink. The three of us made our way to the monorail and rode into the Magic Kingdom Park. Throughout the day we rode rides, had fun, and enjoyed being treated like princesses by all of the cast members. I laughed when one little girl thought Madison was actually a real Belle because of her height. We managed to find both of our characters and took pictures with them that day. They both stayed in character, but they noted our clothes appeared “more royal than many of the princesses they hang out with.” That resulted in giggles from us!

By the time fireworks came that night I think all three of us were exhausted, and I was falling asleep on my feet. Mom had us both get cleaned up and in bed by about eleven.

THE NEXT DAY we wore our regular clothes to Epcot, but we still wore our tiaras. I was growing quite fond of mine! We had a great time and Mom was going overboard on princess souvenirs for both of us. Madison tried to object at one point but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. By the time we walked to the monorail after the fireworks there we were once again exhausted and barely able to hold all of the bags we had!

“What are we doing tomorrow?” I asked her as we set our bags in the room.

“Tomorrow we have to make a short trip actually... I need to take care of some last things cover wise.” Mom said to me.

“Where are we going?” Madison asked.

“Well we’re going to head to Miami early.”

I groaned, “Miami?” I’d been to Miami once before and it hadn’t been a very fun trip in my memory.

“I think you’ll like most of this trip,” she assured me. “But that means sleep soon!” She told me.

“Okay,” I said.

“Good night Amber,” Madison said as she sat down on her bed. Suddenly she hugged me and said, “Good night to you too Ashley!”

“Good night,” I said as I lay back down and was out!

AGENT KLINE PULLED into his parking space Monday morning. The weekend had been busy with family chores around the house and he had enjoyed not thinking about his active cases every second of the day. He walked through the front doors and immediately had an agent come up to him, “Agent Kline, you’re needed in the bosses office right away!”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, something big going down.”

He shook his head, “So much for getting my own cases taken care of?”

Agent Kline took the elevator up to his supervisor’s office and sat down in the offered chair. “Bob you’re never going to believe what just turned up?”

“What?”

“Well we’ve been searching for Renaldo Escobar for what... Twenty years now?”

He nodded; it was an early case that the two of them had worked on as rookies. One of the mafia families in Chicago was believed to have killed him, but no one had proof or knew anything. “Something new pop up?”

“Yeah, his body!” He said excitedly.

“Where?” And from that point forward he knew he was going to be occupied with this old cold case for the next few days.

MEGAN LOOKED BACK in her rearview mirror at her daughter sleeping soundly in her car seat. On her right Madison was sleeping with her head against the window too. Both of them had their dolls in hand and princess shirts on. Megan had made sure to find plenty of cute Disney stuff for Madison in the shops in addition to going a little bit wild buying for her own daughter. Ashley was the perfect size for almost all of it, because she could choose to have something that fit her perfectly in the little girls sizes, or was a bit long in the regular girls sizes. She had let Madison know to try and keep that discreet from her daughter a much as possible though, she didn’t want her to feel like she was being ‘babied’ anymore than she already knew she was.

All in all the last two-and-a-half days since they had arrived had been a blast for them. She hoped that the two of them would have fun this morning as well before she dropped Madison and Ashley off at a mall while she went to the banks. She’d come prepared with a blonde wig that was closer to her natural hair color. Megan was going to put it on while she did the initial transaction. The second bank would be done as her new identity, so she would lose the wig for that one. She hated that there would be yet one more paper trail of a check leading to the new bank, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Cash amounts of $10k plus raised eyebrows and flags. You couldn’t even do it in small amounts in a week because it would raise the same suspicions. The simple fact of the matter was that she had just barely skirted under those flags for six months leading up to their escape.

Megan felt relatively certain that this transaction would be safe though. The money had originated from Ray’s Swiss accounts and she had transferred it in varying amounts through twenty different spots before sending it over to the Cayman Islands. Once there she did the same over another twenty banks before sending it back to Swiss Banks. Eventually she brought it over to two on the mainland and into this title company. They were definitely a bit on the shady side because they were so accommodating... But she also knew she was safe in dealing with them. The bank had ties to a rival group to Ray’s family!

She followed the signs and the GPS information until she pulled into their first destination. Madison woke up right then and squealed, “American Girl!?!?!?”

I WOKE UP to a loud squeal by Madison and looked up to see what she was squealing about, making my own similar noises. “Settle down girls,” Mom told us.

“But it’s the greatest store ever,” Madison said with a smile.

“Okay, before we go in there some ground rules. I think you both have enough dolls for now...” We both groaned a little bit, “but I will let you both pick out two new outfits for your dolls, one play item with that, and we’re going to have lunch here with your dolls.”

“Okay!” I said with a smile.

“Thanks Amber,” Madison said with a smile of her own.

The three of us walked through the store and oohed and awed at dolls, outfits, and everything there. I loved that all of the store staff treated our dolls like they were real girls too! It made me giggle a little, and smile a lot! Madison and I ended up picking one outfit for the dolls that was the same, and we both found a different outfit after that. I picked out an equestrian outfit that I thought was kind of cool. I also found a horse that looked like Beauty for my play item.

Mom didn’t say she couldn’t pick something out for us, and in fact she found another shirt for me, and one she thought Madison might be able to squeeze into. She was tall, but she was skinny, so they thought she might be able to wear it. We strolled around the store and eventually checked out and went to the bistro for lunch. It was fun with the dolls and I was sad when it ended. We left for the car and sat down, having placed our bags and dolls in the trunk at her request. Mom started the car but didn’t go anywhere.

“Madison,” Mom said, “this morning, and the last few days, I’ve wanted to give you a chance to just enjoy being a kid. After today it’s going to be the same until we go home on Thursday... But for right now I need you to pretend you’re more like fifteen or sixteen.”

Madison and I both gave her puzzled looks.

“I’m going to drop you two off at the mall, I’ll give you both some spending money for whatever you want. I’ll be gone about two to three hours and need you two to be very careful...”

“Okay Mom,” I said and Madison mixed in Amber’s name in stereo.

“Right... Madison, can you turn towards me?” she asked.

“Huh?” Madison said but complied.

Mom dug into a small bag in her purse and began quickly applying makeup to Madison. I was amazed as I watched her work on Madison’s face and how much more mature she looked. Mom kept it minimal in retrospect, but gone was a young but tall girl, and in her place a young woman who looked to be probably closer to eighteen really. The only thing that made her look younger at all was the shirt and her lack of much of a chest yet.

“Okay, put this bag of makeup in your purse Madison so you can touch up if you need to. I know you don’t wear much makeup, but your mom has taught you how?”

Madison nodded gloomily, “I just hate wearing it, and I get hit on all the time...”

“You have your baby sister with you, you shouldn’t have it happen nearly as much,” Mom reassured her. “Usually they’re a real downer if you’re trying to pick up boys,” she said with a wink at me.

“Hey!!!” I complained while Madison giggled.

“Madison, if anyone should ask, tell them that you’re sixteen. If they ask for a license say that your Dad doesn’t want you to get it for a few more months.”

“Umm... Okay,” Madison said nervously.

Mom drove to a mall and gave Madison three hundred dollars in cash and twenty to me.

“How come she gets more?” I complained.

“Because no Mom in her right mind would give an eight-year old girl three-hundred dollars!” Mom said sternly to me, “If you’re good I’m sure it’ll be an even split for both of you. We need to make sure you don’t stand out.”

“Oh,” I said embarrassed, “sorry...”

“It’s okay sweetheart, now have fun and I’ll see you after a bit. Madison, this is my cell number... I have yours already, it’s charged, right?”

“Yes ma’am,” she said.

“Okay, there should be absolutely no need for you to call me, but if you do I’ll try and answer. Be at this entrance at four, no later. If you don’t hear from me open this envelope... Wait until six before you do so though.”

“Okay,” Madison said nervously taking the envelope.

“I’ll see you then,” she said and watched through the rearview mirror as Madison helped me out of the seat and held her hand out to me next to the car. I took it and the two of us walked inside.

MEGAN NERVOUSLY DROVE away from the girls, hoping it was the right decision to split up. She stopped a few blocks away from the bank downtown that she was going to and reached into the trunk. Inside she dug out the blonde wig that Megan hoped would be enough to confuse her husband or the FBI if they got that far.

She sat back down in the car and put her hair up before putting it on. Her grandfather and parents at an early age had taught her how to use wigs. Whatever her parents had done while she was growing up was very much classified, so she never really knew, but she was certain they had been spies. With concern for her safety if they had ever been picked up they had taught her how to disappear if needed. She’d never been more grateful for their lessons than in the last few weeks!

Megan took a large purse with her down the street and briefly stopped in a Starbucks on the corner and went into their restroom. She had stashed a skirted suit neatly inside the large bag and switched shoes and clothes in two minutes, changed her makeup to a more mature look, and headed on down the street to her destination.

“May I help you?” A young receptionist asked when she stepped in the door.

“Yes, I need to speak to Miles Walden please, I have an appointment to see him.”

“Ms...?”

“Megan,” she said.

“Okay then hold on just a moment.” The receptionist made a phone call and said, “Right, just go on up to his office through those elevator doors, fifth floor, turn to your right and he’s the second office on your left.”

“Thanks,” she said and walked to the elevator doors. She’d debated about the name to use outside of Miles’ office and hoped she’d made the right choice.

“Good afternoon,” the gentlemen said a few minutes later after closing the door, “I’m glad to see you were able to come. Over the phone it sounded like this transaction had some... interesting moments.”

Megan laughed, “You might say that.” She passed over an envelope to him containing ten thousand dollars cash, “I assume you’ll find everything in that letter is in order,” she said with a smile.

He hefted it and smiled, “I’m sure I will. Here is your check for the sale of your family’s house Ms. Caffrey, I’m terribly sorry about the loss of your parents.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your discretion.”

“Absolutely, always happy to help stick it to other parties.” He said with a wide smile.

Megan smiled, “Glad we can be mutual in that way. All of the relevant fees have been paid on this transaction, correct?”

“Yes ma’am, and all your state and local property taxes are paid up in Texas.”

“Glad we could do business,” Megan said with a shake of his hand and walked out back to the street. She hadn’t checked the check because she knew Miles would be honest... Well to a point. Ten thousand dollars plus the chance to stick it to her ex-husbands family was more than enough to make him happy. She was also quite certain he probably took an additional commission out of the funds - but she didn’t care.

Megan walked down the street and stopped quickly in the McDonalds that lay on her way to her destination. There she lost the wig and switched back to the shorts and t-shirt she had started the day in. She left and walked next door to a national banking chains large branch office and walked inside.

MADISON LOOKED DOWN at Ashley and couldn’t help but smile. They were having a lot of fun shopping together and she was a little goofball at times. “Hey,” a high school boy with three of his friends said to her. She groaned inside her head.

“Hi,” she said simply.

“I’m Joey,” he said.

She sighed, “Madison.”

“So… babysitting the little sister?” He asked.

“Umm... Yeah, something like that.”

“Your voice, you’re not from around here are you?”

She looked down at Ashley and shared with her a look that said I want this to end. Ashley for her part looked just as annoyed, ‘probably with the babysitting comment’ she thought.

Just as she was trying to think of a way to get away from them, Ashley pulled on her hand, “Maddy I need to go potty!!!”

She smiled at the boys apologetically, “Sorry, have to go. If she has an accident our Mom will kill me!”

With that Ashley pulled them towards the nearest JC Penney store and out of sight from the boys. She started giggling when she was sure they were clear, “Am I good or what?”

Madison giggled too, “I just hope you make it to the potty on time,” she said with a smile.

“I had to think of something...” Ashley said blushing.

“It was brilliant,” She reassured her. “Maddy, huh?” She said with a wider smile.

“You know I normally kill people for calling me that.”

“Why? It’s cute.”

“I don’t know... But the funny thing is I actually didn’t mind you calling me that.”

“Well, it sounded more like something a baby sister would call you,” Ashley said nervously.

“It is, and you should call me that,” she said with a smile. “Now, you mentioned the potty and I actually think that’s a great idea!”

The two of them walked towards the ladies room and she found herself giving Ashley a sideways hug as they walked in.

MEGAN LOOKED UP at the man behind the desk and gave him all of the information that would be legitimate for her new ID. A quick glance at the check had shown it was made out to her correctly and for the amount she had expected... Well minus another twenty thousand. Really she didn’t even mind that, it was just a business expense at that point.

“Okay Ms. Caffrey, I think I have all of your information set here. And you have a deposit today?”

“Yes sir I do,” She said, signing the back of the check with her new signature. Normally Megan signed with her right hand, but since she was ambidextrous, she had started signing all of Amber’s stuff with her left hand. It wasn’t necessarily a guaranteed way of keeping herself safe from handwriting analysis, but it was at least a small hurdle for someone to jump.

She handed over the check for nine hundred thirty-two thousand dollars and forty-two cents to the man.

He looked a little surprised, “Wow...” he said, “this is going to take a few days to clear...?”

She smiled, “I understand, it’s a the check from my parents house... We sold it today,” she added with a pained look in her face.

“I’m sorry to hear that Miss,” he said with a polite expression.

“I’m just glad we were able to take a cash offer on the sale of the house so quickly. It makes it easier for me to move on and take care of my little sister.”

He gave her a kind squeeze of the hand and said, “Here is the information on your online banking access. Your debit card will be mailed to the address you gave me in a week, as well as the checks you requested.”

“Thank you,” she said and took the proffered receipt of deposit from him.

“You’re welcome, and I wish you good luck.”

“Thanks sir,” she said with a smile and walked out. ‘I just hope there were enough steps covering my tracks. This is the only thing that would really lead to us if things weren’t covered enough...’

WE WERE HAVING a lot of fun, and time was flying by faster than I would have expected! We’d shopped in Justice for me and picked up a couple more tops and shorts that were cute. At another store we found some cute tops for her as well. “I don’t know how we’re going to get all of this in our suitcases!” Madison said with a groan.

“I have a feeling Amber will buy a couple of spares to get us home.” I told her.

“Oh,” she said.

She gave me an odd look, “Have you done that before or something?”

I nodded, “Several times on trips. Well, one time wasn’t a choice. The airline lost all of Dad’s luggage...”

I shuddered as I remembered again why I was so glad we had left the suitcases in Dallas.

“What’s wrong?” Madison asked.

“Umm... Nothing... I’m just really glad Amber and I did something, that’s all.”

She gave me a look but I shook my head. It was getting close to four, but she insisted we stop at Claire’s for a few minutes and I wasn’t going to argue! It was fun going through the store because I picked out things that would work for her and she picked out things to make me look cute as an eight year old. By the time we finished there though it was time to be outside. We walked up to the curb right as Mom drove up.

I climbed into my seat, “Good girls, right on time,” she said with a smile. Madison buckled me in and we sat our bags next to me on the seat while Madison returned to the front seat again.

Mom laughed hysterically when Madison told her about my potty statement. “That was perfect Ashley!” Mom told me.

I just blushed.

“What are we doing for dinner?” I asked. The food from the bistro had been good but I was hungry again already.

“We’ll stop in just a bit sweetie,” Mom said.

“Do you have any wipes to take off this makeup?” Madison asked.

“Why don’t you just leave it on until tonight?” Mom suggested.

She sighed and said, “Alright.”

“What’s so bad about makeup?” I asked Madison.

“You haven’t worn any yet?” She asked me.

“Not really...?” I said.

“Hmm... Well it just feels weird,” she said.

“I would think it would be nice, it makes you look even prettier,” I told her.

She wanted to frown, I could tell, but instead she said, “Thank you Ashley.”

The drive continued in silence for a while before we pulled over at an Olive Garden for dinner. “Three please?” Mom said to the hostess.

“That’ll be about ten minutes?” She said in reply.

“That’s fine.” Mom replied and took the electronic beeper.

“I’m going to the restroom,” I told Mom.

“We’ll go with you,” Mom said with a smile.

The three of us went quickly and I waited by the sink for Mom to finish. Madison looked at herself in the mirror, sighed, and grabbed a couple of things from her purse of makeup and touched up some things. She gave me a look and said, “You think you like this stuff until you have to do it all the time.”

I giggled.

She glared at me, put things up, and then started tickling me. “Girls,” Mom said condescendingly from next to us where she was finally washing her hands. She checked her own makeup and we walked back outside to wait. It wasn’t long and we were seated. I groaned slightly because without asking one way or another I was given the kids menu and crayons. I ordered a fettuccine alfredo meal with grilled chicken off of it. The plastic cup with the lid was the only thing that truly embarrassed me about it. Madison just giggled.

Before long we were back on the road and at our hotel. Mom let Madison and I play with our dolls for a while and she made a few phone calls. It was suddenly nine and Mom said, “Madison, Ashley, why don’t you go ahead and go to bed so we can get another early start tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Madison said. The two of us cleaned up, and Madison asked, “Can Ashley share with me tonight?”

Mom looked at her and said, “You want her moving around?”

She laughed, “I’ve never had a little sister before...”

“It’s up to you Ashley...”

“Okay,” I said with a smile. I grabbed my bear and climbed over next to her instead. The next morning I woke up cuddled next to her with her arms around me like a teddy bear.

TUESDAY MORNING AS promised was an early day. Mom had us start off at Animal Kingdom, and then we spent the afternoon at Blizzard Beach enjoying the water park in the heat! We enjoyed ourselves, and I was happy that not a single person noticed anything odd about me! I was treated as a little girl completely without hesitation!

For dinner Mom had us go back to the hotel and shower. From out of nowhere she pulled out two new princess gowns. “Where did you get those?!?” Madison asked, she was as shocked as I was. I could tell they were the high quality Gloria creations again. Madison’s was a blue Cinderella Gown, and mine was a pink Ariel Gown. Gowns were the proper way to refer to these too! The others felt more like play costumes, these felt like something that came directly from the movies!

“Gloria sent them yesterday,” She said with a smile. “She wanted to make sure you both liked the others before she sent them out,” I noticed she was looking mainly at Madison.

“So...?” I asked.

“So...?” Mom echoed.

“When do we get to wear them!?!”

Mom and Madison giggled, “Tonight for dinner. I made reservations for us at a nice restaurant in the park.”

“What are you wearing?” I asked, feeling a little like she shouldn’t be left out.

“Yes, what are you wearing?” Madison said with a gleam in her own eye. She added after a second, “I would be willing to bet ours weren’t the only ones Aunt Gloria sent?”

Mom blushed this time and I said, “She did, didn’t she!?!”

“I’m too old...”

“Uh-uh, this is Disney World, no one is too old to be a princess!” Madison said with a smile, throwing Mom’s statement from a couple of days ago back at her.

She sighed and opened another box that had a Merida costume similar to the one I’d worn the first day, but fuller like ours.

“So I guess we should start getting ready?” Madison said with a smile.

It was a frantic hour and in the end I knew a bit of what Madison was complaining about with makeup. She’d convinced Mom to let her put some on me using a mix of hers and Mom’s makeup since Mom was identical pretty much in skin tone. She’d used a bunch of glittery touches on mine though, including some eye shadow that I really did like. “Don’t touch your face!” Mom caught me a few minutes later.

I sighed. The three of us walked down to the elevator and a Mom with her teenage daughter were already in there. “Oh my God, you all look gorgeous!” The mother exclaimed.

“Wow, I didn’t think anyone as old as me would dress up...” The girl said a little disappointed.

I giggled and Madison said, “Our aunt made these for us, and surprised her big sister with one too. We’re going out for dinner,” she added.

“That is so cool!” the girl said. “If we come back here next year, can I dress up?” She asked her mom.

Her mom groaned, “I thought we’d gotten you past the princess stage?”

“We never grow past the princess stage,” Mom said with a giggle. The funny thing was that with our costumes and the makeup we had on I was pretty certain that she looked to be the same age as Madison. Madison for her part looked closer to being done with high school. I knew I just looked little girl adorable, and that was okay.

The highness comments made to Mom were amusing to both Madison and I. We both fully enjoyed the attention ourselves too as we made our way into the park and found our restaurant. “Caffrey, for three,” Mom told the host. He smiled at us, “Give me just a moment princess, we should have your table ready but I want to check on it.”

When we were escorted back a few minutes later I was amused that some of the waiters bowed for us and we had our chairs pulled out for each of us and pushed back in. I just about gagged at the prices in the menu, but the food was really good. Our waiter took a picture of us together and I knew it would be amazing! Mom actually led us then to a place where we could get our photos taken for a price and also picked up some that had been taken of us walking through the park by their photographers. We meandered through the shops that night after that and returned to our room pretty early.

“Girls, tomorrow is our last day in the park,” Mom told us as we climbed into bed. “We’re going home on Thursday.”

“We’re not going to go to the park before the airport?” I asked, a little disappointed.

“No, our flight is pretty early,” Mom said, “I wanted to make sure our flight back from Dallas is at a believable time. Tomorrow I’m going to have you pack all of your souvenirs into a box and we’ll ship that off through the hotel back home.”

“All of them?” I asked, a little disappointed.

“Yes, except the American Girl stuff, you both can keep that out since there’s the store in Dallas that we went to,” she told me.

“Okay!” I said a little happier.

By the time I hit the pillow I was out that night, swimming always does that to me.

WEDNESDAY I WOKE up from Mom gently shaking my shoulder and decided I wanted to re-wear my Merida costume. Madison and Mom passed on dressing up, but I had fun with it again all day. She curled my hair for me quickly before we left and I had a blast all day long. We spent the day at Hollywood Studios and took in several shows there. The light show at the end of the night was truly spectacular too!

Thursday morning came much to soon and we headed back to the airport to return the car. Everything was done in reverse getting through the process, but after a while we were down to just our carry-on bags again and sitting at the gate waiting for our airplane.

I leaned over to Mom and hugged her, “Thank you.”

“For?”

“For this trip.”

“You’re welcome sweetie, we’ll try and do this again once a year or so if you want.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, I mean you’re eight... I definitely want to come back a couple times before you turn thirteen and grow to old for this stuff.” She said with a wink at Madison who just shook her head. Madison and I both slept most of the way to Dallas and made the frantic gate change there. I realized then that we were using two different airlines and wondered if that was intentional or if it just happened...

MEGAN LOOKED AROUND the gate as casually as she could. She hated the fact that they had to fly through Dallas at all, let alone the way they were doing it. The girls had helped her last night with packing, but she had planted some of her own additions to Madison and Ashley’s bags as well. She knew that there would be a large moving truck arriving at Gloria’s the next afternoon and hoped she didn’t mind storing the supposed ‘family’ stuff until they moved out.

‘I still don’t know when or if we should move on...’

She smiled as she watched Madison and Ashley sitting on the floor playing with their dolls. Unbeknownst to Madison, she had been getting a lot of compliments for being so good with her younger sister. Megan smiled at that, because that was how Madison viewed Ashley, and how she really viewed Madison too. ‘I’m going to get that girl to liking being a teenager in the next week...’ she thought. She’d been planning a few ideas and was looking forward to talking to Kaitlyn about them.

“Now boarding Flight 232 to Albuquerque!” She heard and stood up. They had enough time to go to the restroom once more before boarding.

“Come on girls, let’s go use the restroom real quick before we get on.” She told them.

“Okay,” she heard in stereo and both of them stood up and led the way to the bathroom across the corridor.

She was washing her hands and checking her face when a lady said to her, “Your daughters?” She asked looking over at the two girls standing politely by the door waiting for her.

“Baby sister and cousin,” she answered.

“They’re adorable, especially your sister,” she told her with a smile. “It’s so neat to see a teenager not acting like she’s too old for dolls.”

Megan laughed, “it’s more the other way we have to worry about. She’s had no interest in growing out of them!”

She smiled back at her, “She will eventually! She’ll meet a boy at school and it’ll be over. Enjoy having her sweet and innocent time, no need to corrupt her!”

Megan smiled, “I think you’re right,” she said. ‘Maybe she’s right...’ she added to herself. Feeling a little bit guilty about thinking about pushing her forward.

Chapter 18: Cracks in the Wall

AGENT KLINE FINALLY sat down at a clear desk. The last three days had been very successful for his division, and he had no doubt they were going to finally get a conviction on a major case! Now that he finally had finished his last report he looked at the clock and saw it was only three. ‘I should be able to finally look at those videos from the Wal-Mart’s...’ he thought to himself. He double checked the address of the hotel and chose the Wal-Mart closest to first. The agent had sent over the videos of five that were closest to the hotel, and outwards towards Dallas.

He clicked through the video and saw they had done as he requested, just giving him the morning tapes. He was pretty sure Megan had made it to Dallas that night, so she wouldn’t have dawdled long. Bob wasn’t even so sure why he was looking at these... But he had a feeling that it was going to give him a lead. He decided to focus on the two entrance cameras first. He put the video on at ten times normal speed and focused his eyes for watching.

“There!” He found himself saying aloud in glee!

He had spotted them entering. He reversed it down to see if he could see any detail as they came up to the camera. She had parked out of view of the camera though, and it was impossible to tell anything more than it was Megan and her son!

He quickly pulled up a map of that store off of a PDF that had been left on the disc for him. He quickly printed it, and mapped out the camera views, so he could map out their trip through the store.

Once done, he went to the store view from the side they had entered. He drew a line denoting their path and found the next camera view. Kline watched her pickup some hair dye and other hair items. ‘Well no surprise there... I kind of figured she had to do something like that since we haven’t found her yet. I wish I could tell what color she bought.’ He paused the video and tried zooming in but there was no easy way to tell. He could probably print off a sheet and get an agent to look at the aisle for him. If they hadn’t restocked differently they could probably figure it out... He jotted a note down and then followed her out of view of that camera too.

‘Definitely in a hurry...’ he thought to himself. He found himself a bit confused as they went to the girls department and started shopping there. ‘That is them...right?’ he asked himself. A couple of the looks that Tony gave his mom though made him think it had to be... ‘They were probably that desperate...’ he thought to himself. They spent a really long time in the section and seemed, at least to him, to get an inordinate amount of clothes before they moved out of frame. He jotted down some notes and moved cameras until they stopped next in the shoes.

He almost laughed aloud as Tony tried on shoes that came complete with lights. Even with the poor angle and video distance he could tell they were exceptionally pink too. It was so absurd that he couldn’t help but laugh a little. He watched Megan find some new shoes for herself too before they hustled back out of view. He chased them through camera views until he saw them stop at the girl’s underwear section. The walk to the junior’s section was next he noticed, and wondered if Megan was doing her own disguise differently too. ‘She’s not even five feet tall, and she looks pretty young in the face too... We may be going all wrong looking for someone her real age...’

The pair of them walked to, of all places, the baby section and he noticed Tony putting up the first real argument with his mother. She seemed to say just a couple words though and he stopped. They spent a good ten minutes with her looking at car seats, eventually settling on a pink one that looked like a regular car seat and not even a booster style seat. He went back to his notes and saw that while Tony turned eleven next week, but his height was still listed at 4’1”. He looked back at the date of the doctor’s information and saw that his last appointment was only a month or so before they left and assumed he hadn’t grown more.

‘Well, I remember my wife being pulled over with our daughter when she was about nine and the officer checking to see if she was really old enough to not be in a car seat... She was soo embarrassed. She was probably about the same height then too... I bet Megan didn’t want to attract that kind of attention...’ that made sense to him at least. Of course why they had gone for girls stuff was still a little confusing to him.

He finished watching them shop. ‘Megan was thorough...’ he had to admit to himself as she bought toys that would be normal for a little girl too. Tony seemed to ask something at the books area and they grabbed a couple of coloring books before checking out with cash. He found the right time code for the parking lot and watched them leave.

The phone on his desk rang. “Bob, are you coming home?”

‘Shit!!!’ he thought to himself as he realized it was already six-thirty. “Umm... Yeah, I’m really sorry babe, I just made a break in the case I’m working on and lost track of time. I’ll be there in thirty minutes?”

“Just meet us at Fridays,” she told him.

“Okay, I can do that, see you in a bit.” He was grateful that his wife understood, and even more glad that she hadn’t cooked that night! He would have felt really bad in that case. With a quick sweep of his desk he ejected the disc from the computer and placed all of his notes and the discs back into his safe for the night.

MADISON RAN UP to her mother in the area just past the security checkpoint and hugged her. “Hi Mommy,” I heard her say, “I missed you!”

“I missed you too!” She said.

Kaitlyn led us back to the garage after collecting our luggage and we climbed into her car after Mom installed my car seat. “Lugging that thing around sure gets old, doesn’t it?” Kaitlyn said to my mom after we got in.

“Yes it does. But, I figure for six more months we’re going to keep using it... After that maybe we’ll go to one of the just simple booster seats.”

“This one’s more comfy though,” I said semi-sleepily.

That made Madison giggle, “It must be! You seem to go to sleep almost instantly in it!”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Well, you can’t exactly move around in it...”

She squeezed my hand and I knew she was just joking with me. Funnily enough though it was like an instant sleep pill, because the next thing I knew Madison was undoing the harness and saying, “Ashley, come on sleepy head, time to wake up!”

“Huh?” I said sleepily. “Oh...” I said.

“I told you that you instantly seem to go to sleep!”

I stuck my tongue out at her, “Watch out or a little birdie might come and peck that right off!”

I groaned and she giggled.

She gave me a hand getting down and we carried our suitcases up to the house. Mom and Kaitlyn stayed behind to take my car seat back into Gloria’s car. “Maybe I need to at least start keeping one of the little boosters around,” I heard Kaitlyn quietly say and which prompted me to groan.

‘Being short sucks!!!’ I thought in a very unlady like way.

“Actually, remind me, I have the one that was in this car when I bought it...”

“Okay!”

I was still grumbling in my head when I heard, “How are you holding up?” One of the hands, Collin, asked just inside the house.

I shrugged sadly and answered, “I don’t know.”

He gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, “Hang in there, and remember them and they’ll always be in here...” He said pointing to my heart.

I gave a grim smile, “Thanks, I know you’re right... It’s just...”

“Too soon,” he said. “I lost my parents when I was just a bit older than you... If you ever need anyone to talk to, let me know.”

“Thanks,” I answered and then politely added, “I’m sorry to hear that you had that happen too.”

He gave me a smile and then headed off to his truck to go home. I discovered we had just arrived at the end of the workday. Consetta had made plenty of the green chile chicken enchiladas and the five of us were joined by Gloria to eat dinner. My mom made conversation with Gloria about the non-existent memorial service and our plans to dump our parent’s ashes up near the spring. The idea of having them close would make us happy... She said. Mom was such an incredible actress that I didn’t know how she pulled it off. I later realized that a few of the hands were still around for her performance.

After dinner Madison helped me unload my suitcase and put things in the hamper. In addition to cooking, Consetta did laundry, so it was just a matter of putting it into my hamper in the bathroom. Madison had one for herself too... I really liked sharing with her. We had just finished when I said, “I’m going to miss you when you go home on Sunday...”

“I know! I’ve had more fun having you around than I can say.” She said to me.

“You make an awesome big sister,” I told her with a smile.

“And you make an awesome baby sister,” she said with a grin and I unfortunately had no time to run, even though I knew the tickling was about to begin. I finally managed to get her to stop when I couldn’t breathe anymore.

“That is sooo not fair!” I told her.

She just grinned.

“So what do you want to do now?” I asked her.

“Sleeeeeeep!!!” She said with a tired smile. “I’ll hold off till bed though, I won’t go to sleep then if I do now. Umm... It’s still light out, go see the horses?”

“Okay!” I said.

We stopped by and saw Gloria and got her permission before taking an apple to each of horses. Beauty seemed to affectionately welcome me home and I was glad to see her. I told her all about the toy horse I bought that looked like her. She didn’t seem to be really impressed though... Since I had her right there, what was the point?

I just smiled at her though.

Madison eventually dragged me away to go inside and Mom insisted I go ahead and take a bath and go to bed. ‘If only she was just an older sister sometimes!’ I thought to myself.

AGENT KLINE LAY in bed that night thinking about the footage he had found. He had no doubt that he had just made a major break in their case. There seemed little possibility that the Franchino’s would get hold of that footage too. They should have been just at the end of the cycle of keeping the footage in the store’s computers. By now it should have been transferred to the companies offsite backup, and wouldn’t be easy for someone else to get access to. With the way he had the materials delivered he felt confident that whatever leak they had wouldn’t have caught it.

His wife stirred beside him and he was glad she was there. Many of his friends hadn’t been fortunate enough to have a marriage last. Bob and his wife had been happily married for twenty-nine years and she’d never stopped supporting him.

He sighed, attempted to close his eyes again and hoped sleep would come soon.

RAY LOOKED AROUND the house that seemed so weird to him now. The dishes had piled up in the sink, laundry was everywhere in the bathroom, and more than anything it didn’t feel like it was real. The glass of whiskey in his hand was the only thing that felt normal. He walked to Tony’s room and sat down on his bed.

‘That bitch stole my son from me!!!’ He thought angrily, ‘She’s probably been filling his head with lies about me since they left.’

He looked around the room and couldn’t help but notice that Tony hadn’t taken or even moved the baseball and custom baseball glove that he’d given him at Christmas. The iPad still sat next to his bed charging. On a whim he picked it up, turned it on and looked around. He saw the games that he always saw his son playing on the first couple of screens. He flicked to the screen next to it and saw one icon of an app he used for school. While he meant to go back to the home screen he accidentally swiped over one more and felt a bit of shock.

On this screen were a bunch of games he would have boxed Tony upside the head if he’d seen him playing them. Some Disney based games and things that were decidedly unlike something a middle school Franchino boy should be playing! “What the fuck is this shit Tony?” He said in a rage.

He began nosing through his room and found some things here and there he swore he told him to get rid of years ago. Stuffed animals and things of the like that he said he had to throw away when he was five. “When I find you I am going to make damn sure you harden up boy...”

Ray downed the remaining amount of whiskey in his glass and walked back downstairs to get another drink. “That bitch...”

I FOUND MYSELF suddenly waking in my room.

‘What’s going on?’ I groggily asked myself.

I forced myself up out of my bed and knew something was wrong somehow. I opened my door, hoping to go make sure Mom was okay when I heard the screams... Mom was being beaten, just like so many times. The thud of a fist striking a face, and I threw her door open...

On the ground Mom was bloody from the gashes in her face and her chest was pouring blood. I looked up to see my Dad.

“Just what the hell are you wearing?!?!?” He screamed at me.

“You killed my Mom!” I screamed at him.

“I don’t give a rats ass about that bitch. Now get that ridiculous girly nightgown off right now!!!”

“NO!!!!”

All of the sudden he cut away at my nightgown with the bloody knife and began squeezing on my throat!

I woke up for real, and was sobbing uncontrollably.

The door next to me opened up and I felt arms around me, “Shhh...” Madison said, “It’s okay Ash,” she said to me over and over again.

After awhile I finally managed to stop heaving and looked at her through my tear-stung eyes, “Thanks...”

“You’re welcome Ash... Would it help to talk about it?”

I shook my head and felt her give me another squeeze before saying, “It was about my dad... He found us.” Was all I said.

She squeezed me even tighter and said, “It’s going to be okay Ashley – I promise you!”

“I just want the nightmares to stop... Living with him was a nightmare and I still get these...”

“Why don’t you come sleep in my room tonight? I have a bigger bed. I’ll keep the monsters away, I promise.” She told me with a smile.

I didn’t think about it long. I grabbed my teddy bear and followed her in there. Along the way I saw a clock and saw it was two in the morning. In her room she pulled the covers down and had me jump in before joining me and hugging me. I felt my tears start coming again and she just said, “Shh... It’s okay...”

After a few minutes she began singing the lullaby that went with the book from the previous week. It must have done the trick, because I didn’t remember the end of it.

AGENT KLINE DROVE into work with nothing but Megan Franchino on his mind. He was certain that their disguise involved changing their blonde hair to something else and having Tony pretend to be a girl. ‘Actually, it’s pretty smart...’ he had to admit to himself. He didn’t think most boys would be willing to go that route, and he was certain his dad would probably never ever in a million years expect his son would do that.

He also knew from his experience hunting suspects that something as simple as changing the color of a woman’s hair made it much harder to find them. There were some facial recognition programs he had at his disposal though, and now that he knew more of what he was looking for he was thinking of using them. The biggest problem with that is that he would need to involve one of his techs in the process since he rarely dealt with the software... And that was risky given the likely scenario that they were compromised in some way. Agent Kline sighed, it was going to be a long day working the old fashioned way...

Parking in his reserved parking space he went up to his office and spent a few moments looking at the notes that had piled up on his desk from a shared secretary. Nothing looked immediately pressing so he opened his safe and brought out the videos again. He found one of the two of them at the checkout and really ingrained that into his brain.

“Okay, what colors would she think of going to?” He said aloud to himself. He wrote the main colors down on a paper: blonde, brown, black, and red. He immediately crossed off blonde, she’d bought hair dye and he was certain she wasn’t going to stay in the same color. Black was possible, but not real likely given her light skin complexion, so he crossed that off. That left red and brown... The obvious choice would be brown... Red would make you stand out more in a crowd. He circled red as his guess... ‘Sometimes it’s the obvious that distracts you...’ He thought to himself.

He switched the disc out and brought up the video of the airport cameras from within thirty minutes of the parking stub. ‘Let’s see if I can find them...‘ he thought to himself.

I WOKE UP with a gentle hug from Madison, “Come on Princess; time to go do our chores.”

I was really lost and disoriented for a moment. “This isn’t my room...?”

That earned me another squeeze, “You slept with me last night, remember?”

I shook my head, “Why?”

She sighed and said, “You had a really bad nightmare. I’m actually happier if you don’t remember.”

I tried to think back and couldn’t seem to remember it at all. “You helped?”

“I held you while you cried,” she confirmed.

I blushed, “Sorry...”

“I’m not, you’ve been through a lot. I’d have nightmares too!” She told me. “Now we’ve got to move though, go get that pretty behind of yours dressed in some jeans and go do your daily battle with George.”

I grimaced but got up out of her bed. I really was embarrassed by it and even more so when Mom frantically came through the door adjoining the bathroom, “There you are!”

I grimaced, “Sorry...”

“She had a nightmare last night Amber... I calmed her down and then just had her come sleep with me.”

Mom looked at the two of us for a moment and then said to Madison, “Thank you...”

She looked at Mom and said, “That’s okay, I don’t mind watching out for her. I’m just glad I heard her.”

“What was your nightmare about?” Mom asked.

I kept trying to remember but for the life of me couldn’t… so I shook my head, “I don’t remember...”

Mom looked at Madison, “I’ll tell you later, if she really doesn’t remember I don’t want her to.”

She nodded toward us then and said, “Okay... You two need to get moving on your chores.”

I groaned and moved to my room. It was like I was zombie as I put on my pants and a t-shirt. I kept racking my brain trying to remember the dream but I guess I really was glad I didn’t remember. I climbed down the stairs and walked outside to begin the chores.

By now things had become routine, even with us being gone for a week. I was glad that it had been such a fun week though! It almost killed me to not be able to tell anyone about it!!! I found myself oddly humming the lullaby that Madison had sung to me a week before with the story and wondered why I remembered it. Unfortunately that lullaby led right to the memory of what I had dreamed last night. All at once it came flooding into my brain and I found myself tearing up again.

I grabbed the fence post of the turkey area hard and tried to not cry. I felt so weak in that moment, but I knew it was just a dream. I had to keep moving on in the real world. With any luck Dad would never find us...

Somehow I went on autopilot then and the next thing I knew I was in the shower. With last nights dream back in my mind front and center I began washing and scrubbing my body quite harshly. I only stopped when I realized my skin was becoming raw. I managed to put my bathrobe on, and a towel around my head before sitting on the floor in my room and bawling.

MEGAN WALKED UP the stairs and decided she needed to first check on her daughter. She’d caught Madison and asked her about the dream and shuddered to think about it herself... Especially since it might as well have been one of her own nightmares. She knocked and didn’t hear anything, then opened up the door and gasped. “Oh baby...” She said.

Her daughter was wrapped only in a towel, and she was clutching her teddy bear for dear life, sobbing. She threw her arms around her and began reassuring her, “It’s okay, it’s okay...” for a long time. After a while she sensed her daughters breathing slow down and knew that she had cried herself to sleep.

Madison chose that moment to walk in herself. Megan managed to get one finger up to her lips to warn her to be quiet and then carefully picked her daughter up and sat her on the bed. ‘I guess the farm work is building the muscles back up...‘ she noted. ‘At least I hope it’s the case... I hope she hasn’t lost even more weight...’

She covered her with a blanket and motioned Madison to come out to the hallway with her. “Would you go let Gloria know I’m going to have to take Ashley into town?”

“What’s wrong with her?” she asked, very concerned.

Megan sighed, “I’m guessing things seemed really distant while we were enjoying ourselves in Orlando, and we were too busy moving before then... Now that we’re home though it all came roaring back like a freight train to her. I know... Because that’s basically what happened to me yesterday too.”

Madison nodded, “What do you need me to do besides that?” She asked.

“Just that for now... Maybe bring me a cup of coffee if you don’t mind. I’m guessing she’ll be out for a couple of hours. I’m going to call her psychiatrist and let her know we need an appointment today.”

“Can I go in with you guys?” She asked.

Megan knew how concerned Madison was and it made her feel goosebumps go up and down her spine, “If your mom is okay with it.”

She watched Madison go down the stairs then went back into Ashley’s room and picked up her Kaitlyn doll. ‘It’s so ironic that she gave this doll my best friends name... And she definitely prefers this one to her others...’ she thought. She found herself hugging the doll as she watched her daughter sleep from the not so comfortable chair. She had done the same with her son sometimes when he was a baby and at the moment missed the comfy rocking chair she had in his room then. That thought made her sigh, ‘I guess in theory I am getting an extra few years with my baby... That is if my husband doesn’t find us...‘

Megan sat there unmoving for a while before Madison reappeared with coffee and whispered to her that Gloria said only Ashley mattered today. Ironically enough, she knew this would seem understandable to everyone else on the ranch with the supposed death of her parents...

GLORIA WAS DEEPLY worried about Ashley and Megan. Ashley seemed to have been coping so well… but she had a feeling the young girl had finally hit the wall. ‘It was bound to happen sometime...’ she thought to herself.

“Hey boss, how are the girls doing?” Collin asked.

She sighed, “As well as can be expected, Ashley had a meltdown a little bit ago, Amber’s up there with her. I got them an appointment with a friend of mine who’s a psychiatrist to see if she can help out some.”

“That’s rough... I mean Amber is old enough at least she can take care of herself and is through college, but Ashley’s practically a baby still.”

Gloria smiled, “Don’t let Ashley hear you say that.”

He smiled back at her, “So what are they going to do?”

“Well... Their parents were at least practical and smart. They wrote in the will that as soon as Amber turned eighteen she would be Ashley’s legal guardian if anything should happen to them. One of the things they did this past week was go before a judge to make that official...”

“And now...?” He asked.

“And now it’s just like a certain little boy I knew,” she said with a smile, “I’m going to let them stay as long as they need to. Their parent’s estate and insurance left more than enough money for them to live for a while... Amber could probably afford to basically be a stay at home mom the next ten years if she needed to, but I think this might be the best place for them to heal.”

Collin nodded, “There’s no place like it.” He paused and added, “Uncle Kenneth would have been proud of you.”

She smiled and gave him a hug, “He would have been proud of you too.”

He smiled, “So what’s the plan for today...?” He asked and they set off to get some work done.

I WOKE UP for the second time today and felt really groggy. “You awake now sweetie?” I heard Mom ask me. I opened my eyes more and felt her sit down on the bed next to me and brush my hair back.

“I guess so...” I said. “What’s wrong with me...?” I felt tears begin to trickle down my face a little, but not like they had before.

“Nothing is wrong with you Princess, it’s just that I think everything caught up to you all at once.” She kissed my forehead. “I would like you to talk to Dr. Reynolds about it though.”

“I thought Dr. Reynolds was for my being a girl...?”

Mom smiled at me, “She’s a pretty smart doctor, she’ll be able to help you with the other too. Do you feel up to getting dressed, getting some breakfast, and then getting going?”

I nodded, but asked, “Can you just pick something out for me, I don’t really feel up to picking anything.”

“Of course,” she told me.

I saw her stop and think for a few moments before picking out a pair of bright blue nylon capris I had yet to wear and the American Girl shirts we’d bought in Miami. She found a pair of panties and socks and handed them all to me. When I was dressed she had me go to the sink in the bathroom and wash my face off. I couldn’t believe how red and puffy my eyes were... And my hair was an absolute wreck.

“Here, let’s take care of your hair,” she told me.

It was painful and tough going for a while through parts of it. Luckily it hadn’t completely dried inside the towel yet. “What time is it?” I asked as she pulled on a section with the brush.

“Almost eleven,” she said calmly.

“Am I going to be okay?” I asked, quite terrified.

Mom stopped brushing, hugged me, “You are definitely going to be alright! With the amount of stress you’ve been under I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before now. It’s okay,” she squeezed me again and got back to work.

Mom never asked me what I wanted done with my hair that day. She just chose to put it into two loose pigtails on her own and found some ribbon to match my capris. I grimaced a little at my reflection, “I look like I’m less than eight...?”

Mom laughed, “No, you look perfect.”

I sighed and followed her downstairs. She handed me Kaitlyn before we walked downstairs, but I shook my head and grabbed my teddy bear instead. I’d named her Kari the other day and I wanted something much more cuddly than my doll at the moment. Mom led me to the informal dining area and I found Madison and Consetta already sitting there with some enchiladas on their plate. “You up for some lunch hija?” She asked me.

I nodded and sat down next to Madison. She gave me a hug and it took all I had not to break down again. I ate quietly around my bear throughout the meal and everyone else seemed to oblige my silence. A couple of the hands came in for lunch and Consetta went to set their food out.

‘Well, I’m probably sure convincing them I’m a girl with problems now that her parents are dead...’ I thought. ‘My life would be a lot easier though if my dad was dead.’ I recoiled a bit at that thought but knew it was true. My dad was a bad person who didn’t deserve to have me as a child, or my mom as a wife. The fact that he would probably do what I dreamed of made me certain he was a monster.

I must have been hungry because the food on my plate was gone before I realized I’d eaten it. “Do you want more?” Mom asked me.

I shook my head, “No thank you.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and use the bathroom down here and then we’ll go...?” She suggested.

I shrugged, “Okay,” and walked down the hallway to the downstairs restroom. When I was done I picked my bear back off the counter where I had left her for safety and rejoined Mom.

“You ready Madison?” She asked.

“Sure,” she said.

I looked at her, “You’re coming too?”

“Of course!” She told me with a hug.

We walked out to where our car was, and Madison helped me get in and settled, before climbing in next to me. I held my bear but didn’t fall asleep. Instead I just watched the scenery pass me by.

We reached Dr. Reynolds office about one. I was feeling more than slightly uneasy, even with Mom and Madison there... For some reason when I was holding Kari I felt better though. Mom must have noticed the conflict in my eyes as she helped me climb out. “You can bring Kari with you if you want...”

I blushed.

“It’s really okay,” Madison said with a smile.

I answered by way of hugging her tightly and walking alongside my mom. I eventually shifted her to my right side and grabbed mom’s hand with my left. There were a couple of nurses that traveled in the elevator with us that gave me those, ‘you’re cute!’ smiles.

Mom signed me in and I waited for about ten minutes before she came in for me, “Ashley?”

She smiled at me and said, “Hi Ashley, come on back here.”

“Can my mom and Madison come too?” I asked nervously.

“Absolutely,” she said to me with a smile.

The three of us sat down in the couch and Dr. Reynolds started talking to me. “Your mom said you have had a few bad nightmares?”

I nodded.

“Would you mind telling me about them...?

MADISON HAD BEEN given the heads up by Amber that Ashley would probably not want to leave their sides today. ‘I wonder why with nightmares like that?!?’ she thought facetiously. She had instructed her that if that happened it was okay to go in, but try not to interfere at all with comments. Dr. Reynolds had said hand squeezes, shoulder hugs, were fine, but not to interrupt or add information.

After telling Dr. Reynolds about the nightmares she started talking more about what her dad had done to them. She had tears in her eyes most of the session and none of it had even happened to her! How in the world these two were still alive, and relatively unharmed, she didn’t know. The idea of everything that had been done to them was disgusting.

The fact that she knew them made it even more so.

Ashley was clearly running into some serious issues from the abuse. That was in addition to the fact they were still hiding from her psychopath father, pretending to be several years younger than she was, and the whole gender identity thing. Last week before the trip she’d used her laptop late at night to look up stuff on the Internet about others like Ashley. It struck her that it might be for the best that they caught it so early in her... But it also seemed to be a really painful road if a person went all the way down it. The idea of having surgery like that gave her the creeps… and she wasn’t even a guy!

What Madison knew more than anything though was that Ashley was most definitely a girl. She was one of the sweetest girls she’d ever met, and would kill to have her living around her all of the time. She could only hope that any daughters she had someday would be half as great as she was!

“Ashley, I think that’s enough for today,” Dr. Reynolds said. “I want you to call me if you have anymore breakdowns like that. If they keep happening we might see if we can find some medication to help... But I’d really prefer not to go that route. I don’t like giving drugs to kids.”

Madison agreed in her mind, she knew a few kids on them and one of them had gone way off the deep end for a while before they sorted it out with them. Two others she knew had some major weight problems from them too.

“Now Madison would you mind waiting with Ashley in the lobby? I need to talk with Amber for a moment.”

“Okay, come on Princess,” Madison told her and guided her with her arm around her shoulder. Out in the lobby she sat down first and patted her lap, “Want to sit on my lap?” She asked.

Ashley just nodded and sat down.

With everything that she had been through Madison wanted her to know that she really did love her as a little sister. She just held her quietly and watched the clock on the wall tick its way around. They had walked into the session at about one-fifteen she figured, and it was already three-thirty! Madison watched as four-fifteen rolled around and finally Amber walked out.

By that time she figured out they had a problem - someone had gone to sleep!

AGENT KLINE HAD spent every moment since he had arrived in the office looking at tapes over and over again from the airport. Thankfully due to the time they had come to the parking lot he knew roughly a three-hour window he could look at. Unfortunately that only limited the video he had to watch so much with as large of an airport as DFW was. Even just limiting his search to the shuttles pulling up to the curb there were thousands of people he had to watch pass by. After too much time he had limited it down to ten mothers with a single daughter with them. Four of them struck him as being too young to be the right ones. Two of them struck him as probably being too old and they seemed too tall. The other four had seemed likely, but he had followed them into the airport with the video and discovered all of them were legitimately innocent people.

He sighed and went back to the list he’d made of the things Megan had bought for their disguise. Bob found his pencil tapping on the car seat. He found the four candidates that he had eliminated as two young and found each of them were carrying a seat of some sort. Two of them though were just simple booster seats unlike what Megan had bought. The other two were... Identical...?

“What rotten luck!” he said aloud.

He was just about to rewind and see if there was a good view of either of the faces on those four when the phone rang. “Kline...”

“Oh shit sweetheart, I’m sorry... I’ll be home in thirty minutes or less...” He looked at his watch and discovered that time had gotten away from him again. Not wanting to risk a leak he carefully locked everything back up and logged out of his computer in the hopes that he could keep his progress a secret for now from whatever leak they might have.

“YOU DON’T HAVE to carry her,” Amber said quietly to Madison.

“It’s no big deal Amber, she’s so light I could probably carry her all day.” Madison smiled at her as they waited for the elevator to open. Ashley was out like a light right then, and nothing was going to wake her up as far as she could tell. It was really hard to see her daughter as actually being ten years old right then. She hesitated a moment and asked, “Has she always been like this?”

“Not for a while... I think her father would probably have just...”

Madison wished she had a spare hand free but had to settle with a, “I know... I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, hopefully it’s all in the past now. Unfortunately I think Ashley’s going to be dealing with this for years...”

They both pretty much sighed in unison as the doors opened and they walked through the lobby out to the car. Madison wasn’t kidding about Ashley being light. She was pretty strong too, but with Ashley being under a third of her body weight she didn’t think she was too bad. By the time they reached the car and sat her down though she was finally beginning to have her arms quiver a bit. She strapped her in and had to admit she was very amazed that Ashley never woke up once!

“Madison, why don’t you sit up with me?” Amber asked her.

She shrugged, “Okay, it’s not like she’s awake to talk to anyway!”

MEGAN STARTED THE car and found herself nearly trembling knowing what her daughter had dreamed. Not only that, but what Ashley didn’t realize was she had her own nightmare that night that wasn’t too dissimilar. She looked up at her rear view mirror and took comfort in her daughter sitting there. The car seat that annoyed her daughter so much was a comfort to her as well... It reassured her that at least she was a little safer in some way.

Megan knew one thing; Ashley definitely wasn’t safe in her own mind. For her ten year old brain to have dreamt up something so vivid and gruesome was tough to imagine... all the more difficult due to their ploy of Ashley only being eight. She pulled off being eight so flawlessly that she found herself forgetting sometimes that she really was ten... Well, would be eleven next Wednesday.

More than anything she just hoped her daughter would be okay from the stress. Dr. Reynolds had explained that most of it was just due to the stress building and building, like a volcano, until it all erupted last night. Fairly unsurprising to her in a way, even though she hoped it wouldn’t continue.

The worst part for her was that nothing either of them dreamed was out of the realm of possibility.

She shook her head, “What do you want for dinner Madison?”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Well, Ashley’s pretty conked out... I’ll be surprised if she wakes up in the next hour it takes to drive home actually... I was kind of thinking of just picking up some pizzas in Santa Fe and taking them back with us... Sound good to you?”

“Sure!” Madison said.

“You are way too easy to please,” Megan said with a smile.

She shrugged, “It’s just food to me.”

“I guess...” She shook her head. No one in her family would ever go along with that! “You want to call the house and let your Mom or Gloria know what’s going on? Ask them if they want pizza too and what they want on them...?”

“Sure,” Madison said and began dialing.

“Aunt Gloria?” She said a moment later. “Yes, we’re just now leaving... She’s out like a light right now...” Megan heard her give her a little bit more information before she said, “We’re planning on stopping to pick up some pizzas on the way back through Santa Fe, would you guys like some too?”

She pulled the phone away from her mouth and made some notes on it before saying, “Okay, I got that. Do you have their phone number?” She put it down in the phone and said, “Okay, we’ll see you in a bit, love you!”

“Okay, I’ve got what they want... Want me to order?” She asked Megan.

Megan was a little surprised by her sudden maturity on it, but said, “Sure, put my name down on it. Ashley will just want pepperoni.”

She smiled at her, “Me too!” She giggled quietly, “Mark wants everything though!”

They talked quietly after Madison placed the order all the way to Santa Fe. Ashley never stirred, not even when Madison took the cash Megan gave her to pick up the pizzas and place them in the back.

“Will she wake up at home?” Madison asked her.

Megan bit her lip... “I’ll wake her up there, one way or another, she needs to eat.”

Madison just nodded and after about thirty minutes they were back at the ranch.

I FELT A set of hands undoing the buckles on my seat and I realized I had been drooling in my sleep. I turned red and was embarrassed as I looked up at Mom and asked the stupid question, “Where are we?”

“Back home sweetheart.”

“How? We were just in the waiting room waiting for you...”

Mom sighed and then gave me a big hug, “Ashley, sometimes things happen that make your brain decide to turn off. You’ve been under an unbelievable amount of stress and so I’m not surprised you fell asleep in Madison’s lap.”

“How did I get here?” I asked as I saw Madison grabbing several boxes of pizza.

“Madison carried you down.” Mom said with a smile, “Honestly she carried you easier than I used to be able to carry you as a baby!”

I blushed.

“Okay... Now what?”

“Now we go eat pizza before it gets cold. Then we’ll see what happens.”

I realized I was still clutching Kari in one hand and blushed some more. I wriggled down out of the seat and followed Mom into the house. “What time is it?” I asked as we walked down the hallway.

“About six-thirty,” she answered and put an arm around my shoulder.

“Oh,” I said simply in reply. The day had literally disappeared on me!

I sat down and ate two slices of pepperoni pizza and then realized my eyes were closing on me again. “Come on Princess, let’s give you a bath and then get you into your pajamas.”

I started shaking a little, “I’m not ready for bed yet!”

Mom looked worried, but said, “We’ll watch a movie once you’re dressed. I’m sure Madison will change into a set of pajamas too and we can have a pajama party!” She told me with a smile.
I caught Mark’s eye across the table and he smiled, “Can I join you girls?”

“Why would you want to join a girly slumber party,” his sister teased him.

“Because I want him to!” I said with my own smile.

“Okay then, I’ll join you gals then too,” he said and stuck his tongue out at his sister. Somehow that seemed sillier than any of the rest of us doing it and I giggled out loud.

Mom came upstairs with me a few moments later and sat in my room with the door open while I took my bath. She eventually came and washed my hair for me, insisting that every once in a while she wanted to really make sure it was clean! From out of nowhere she came out with a pretty dress looking nightgown that had a Disney princess emblem in the middle of the collar.

“Ooh!!!” I said with a mild squeal attached, “When did you get that?”

Mom smiled at me, “I bought it a couple weeks ago online and was saving it for a night I thought you needed something special.”

I gave her a hug and said, “Thank you!”

I put it on and was amused that it looked like a gown but was a satin nightgown that felt sooo smooth and soft. It gave me goosebumps as I felt it rub against me and I finally felt a bit better. I thought about taking Kaitlyn downstairs with me, but I decided Kari had been loyal all day long and she should see the movie instead!

We walked downstairs and I asked, “What are we watching?” Mom and Madison were in there already so I was talking to both of them.

“Well... We could watch a Disney movie,” she said as we looked through the bookcase. “Ooh... This one would be good!” She held up a movie called, The Princess Bride, to Mom and I.

“I haven’t seen it before...” I said while looking at Mom. It had ‘princess’ in the title though, so I figured it would be something I would like.

Mom smiled, “She’s right about the right age to enjoy seeing that for the first time.”

I took that for a yes and took the case over to the TV and put it in the DVD player underneath it. Mark appeared in a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and a t-shirt then, “What are we watching?”

“Princess Bride?” Madison said with a smile.

I expected him to groan, but instead he smiled, “Okay, it’s fun!”

Madison had already grabbed the end of one of the couches, Mark had grabbed the other, and Mom took a recliner. I thought about climbing into her lap, but instead climbed in between Madison and Mark. During the movie I wasn’t really paying attention, but I ended up cuddling up into Madison’s side and felt really safe. The movie ended and I was still wide-awake.

“Okay Princess, bedtime,” Mom said.

“Please Mom... I don’t want to go to bed...” I pleaded. I recognized in myself that I didn’t want to go to sleep again by myself and have those nightmares again.

She sighed and looked at me, somehow I felt like she was looking right through me, “Okay, one more movie...”

“Thank you!!!” I said and jumped up and gave her a hug before climbing back onto the couch.

“Well, what are we watching now?” I asked.

“How about Wreck-it-Ralph?” Mark suggested. I gave him kind of an odd look that he would want to watch a kids movie, “What? I like kids movies,” he said with a smile.

I looked at him strangely for a moment but decided, ‘why not?’ in my head. I had seen this one once and my dad had mostly been okay with it until the end. At that point he had grown obnoxious and macho again and said I shouldn’t be watching that “babyish shit” anymore. I felt my stomach twist at the thought of him and decided to keep moving with getting the movie going. When it was done Gloria popped up with some popcorn and I ended up getting squished closer to Mark on the couch. Eventually I ended up with my head on his side... But once again, I was wide-awake through the end.

Mom looked a bit worried at me, but said, “Come on Ashley, time for bed.”

I wanted to protest, but it was almost eleven, I knew there was going to be no more negotiating. I shook a little thinking about the dreams and Madison said, “You want to sleep with me for tonight?” She smiled and said, “I’ll keep the bad dreams away...?”

I nodded and looked at Mom for permission. “Okay... Thanks Madison,” she added.

I went upstairs still clutching Kari and joined Madison under the covers of her bed. “Are you sure you want me to sleep with you?” I asked.

She gave me a hug in response and said, “You’re the little sister I never had before! Of course I do!”

Mom came in and kissed me goodnight and turned the light off for us. I found myself hugging Kari tightly on my side of the bed and soon had Madison hugging me too, “I’ll keep you safe Ashley, just go to sleep.”

“It’s hard though...” I admitted through tears. She hugged me tighter and began to sing the lullaby that was becoming very familiar. I was soon fast asleep.

What did you think? Comments and/or Kudos are always appreciated! Thanks for reading!