TWO DAYS LATER

Gwen, the hair stylist, held up the mirror. "How does that look?"

Amy frowned, trying to be objective. It wasn't a style she would have chosen for herself. She tried to take herself out of the image and imagine meeting a girl with hair like this. Some of the girls here favored pixyish cuts of this type, though not usually quite this short.

She suddenly realized the frown was exactly the problem. Amy had always been attracted to girls who looked as though they were satisfied with themselves as they were.

She looked across at Runner, whose own stylist, Patty, was just finishing combing out her hair, while exclaiming again how beautiful it looked. "And I don't think I've ever seen hair this black. And the way it shines, I thought it would be greasy or oily, but it's not. It just does that on its own." Patty hadn't wanted to make any changes other than to even out the ends, just beyond shoulder length.

Amy smiled to see Runner's continued wide-eyed wonder at everything around her.

There, thought Amy, looking at her own reflection again. I was right. The smile helps a lot.

She had to admit that Gwen had succeeded, in some subtle way, in making her hair look feminine, despite being barely an inch long anywhere -- some had been longer than that, but Gwen had needed to even it up. A man would usually have it shorter on the sides than on top. And Amy's came to a wispy point in front of her ears, where a man would have squared-off sideburns. She grinned at Gwen, who was biting her lip. "Thanks, Gwen. You did a great job with what there was to work with."

Gwen smiled back. "Thanks. You should come back in a couple of weeks, after it grows a little. I can do a bit more with it then." She removed the cloth surrounding Amy's neck.

"I'll do that." She looked across. "Are we ready to go?"

Runner gave her a blank look. "I don't know." She looked up at Patty.

Patty smiled. "All done here."

Runner grinned at Amy. "It didn't hurt! When I saw all that stuff," she gestured at Patty's instrument tray, "I thought it might be like..." She pantomimed Carol drawing blood from her arm with the needle.

Amy smiled and shook her head. "I promise I'll let you know when something might hurt. That doesn't happen very much." She looked up at Gwen again. "You heard we've got a puppygirl, right?" Puppy was with Melissa and Jana, experiencing some new variations on the sexual play she liked, as the two girls cemented their friendship with her.

Gwen laughed. "Yeah, I heard that. Not something I would have expected."

"Could I bring her here in a day or two? She won't exactly understand what's happening, but I can keep her calmed down. Her hair will start out like mine just was. I want you to do this same thing to it." She indicated her new style. "Oh, and I think I can get her to just sit in this chair. She doesn't have a tail."

Gwen grinned. "I'll give it a try."

LATE AFTERNOON

Amy returned from the dean's office, where she had been on the phone to both Detective Reed and Steffi, and found that Jana had moved on from letters for now and was doing numerals with Runner. This was a little different for Runner, as she already knew the names for the numbers from one to nine, and now only had to learn the symbols. Runner expressed puzzlement that none of the shapes of the numerical symbols seemed to have any connection with the amounts they stood for, but accepted the explanation that once she learned them, that would never bother her again.

Runner had discarded her clothes, of course. Earlier Amy had done her best to explain the difference between public and private places, with Runner, as usual, asking endless questions. Runner liked the softness of the cotton, but her strong preference was to be naked, as she had been her entire life until a few months ago. Amy had assured her it was okay in a room with friends -- that counted as a private place.

Runner looked up and grinned at Amy as she entered. "Jana just tried me with some of the flash cards. I knew some of the numbers."

Amy returned her smile. "I think you'll know all of those in a few days." Amy had tried to word that carefully, avoiding implying that Runner would then know everything about all numbers. Wait until she gets to putting the digits together to make bigger numbers, Amy reminded herself. That might take awhile.

Reluctantly, Amy went on, "Are you going to be okay tonight? With me not here?" While Amy hated to leave Runner so soon, her concern was outweighed by the need to get tonight's program out of the way quickly.

Runner nodded. "Melissa and Jana are going to take me to the caf to eat. I can work more on learning to use the..." She hesitated, frowning. "...upencils?"

Amy smiled. "Utensils. The fork and spoon and knife are called that." She had worked on those with Runner at breakfast and lunch.

Runner flashed the grin she always gave for new words. She would probably not forget that one again. "Then after that, Holly is going to work with me on hanging. And I want to show her the Game..." Amy knew Runner was referring to the one with rocks and circles, "...and then I'll sleep with her, and she's going to show me new ways to sex."

Amy was so glad she had three such close friends to help with Runner's education. Runner's thirst for knowledge was more than any one person could possibly quench. Gradually, as Runner came to know more of the girls, the job would be split more ways.

There was more to it than that, of course. Amy was anxious about making sure that all of Runner's needs could be taken care of when Amy was gone for good. Amy had not yet told Runner that she was planning to die within the next couple of months. She wasn't sure yet how to bring that up. Any woman in Amy's world was happy to see a friend or lover achieve a satisfying snuff, but Amy was uncertain how Runner would see it. Luckily Runner had learned in childhood of a woman's need to be eaten, but Amy suspected Runner might picture that happening in an indistinct far future time. Amy knew she needed to feel out Runner's understanding of the subject soon.

Through the window to the courtyard, Amy could see Melissa with a frisbee, playing Fetch with Puppy. Puppy showed no interest trying to catch it in her mouth, as real dogs seem to do instinctively. It was just as well, as the human jaw wasn't ideal for that. But Puppy seemed to be learning to anticipate where the frisbee would land, galloping each time to that spot to snatch the frisbee off the grass in her teeth and running back to Melissa with it. Once Melissa took it, Puppy would bark at her until she threw it again. Puppy sounded happy.

Like Runner, Puppy's needs had to be addressed. Unlike Runner, Puppy would not be able to anticipate or understand Amy's permanent departure. Amy felt optimistic, though, about Puppy's future. Puppy still showed a strong preference for the company of Amy or Runner if they were around, but Amy was already seeing signs that Puppy was becoming attached to Melissa. And Runner, of course, would be here a long time.

Amy held out her arms. "I'll be back tomorrow."

Runner sprang off the bed to give Amy a tight hug. As they kissed, Amy reflected on how well Runner had learned to do that -- and suddenly realized it was reminding her just a little of Jana's kiss. Of course, thought Amy. Given how excited Runner gets when she's learning something, obviously she's kissed Jana several times today.

Amy rubbed her cheek against Runner's, brushed her hand down Runner's back and broke off the hug. "When I come back, tell me all about your night with Holly."

Runner nodded vigorously. "I will."

As Amy closed the door, she was startled to find her lip quivering. I was worried about separation being hard for Runner, she thought. I didn't even think about me.

She headed for the dean's office. Detective Reed should be there by now.

Amy sat beside Detective Reed in the second seat of the limo, behind Karl, the driver. She squirmed to straighten her slightly bunched skirt underneath her. She was completely out of the habit of dressing this way -- the dark blue knee-length skirt, the somewhat frilly white blouse. She'd chosen a dark blue slave choker to go with the skirt. To Reed, she said, "I know this restaurant, but I've never been there as a slave. Slaves are okay there, right?"

Reed nodded. "They don't mind, as long as you sort of recede into the background. Until your big moment, of course. I'll order for you. Just remember to speak only to me."

"The hard part will be not saying anything to Andrew. We'd have lots to talk about." She frowned at Reed. "I don't understand why you don't have enough to arrest him already."

Reed sighed. "He had a long time to plan, and he's been careful. We keep running into all these dead ends. We thought we'd got lucky when we traced those two women who took you -- sisters, by the way. They used a stolen credit card and matching fake identification at the limo rental agency, but the clerk was able to describe one of them well enough that we got a good sketch, and we got a call identifying her after her picture was put out on TV. But right away we found that she and her sister were both dead. They'd apparently used the money they got for pulling the job to stage a huge catered barbecue, with themselves as the main course, something they'd always dreamed of -- their dad hanging them together with the whole neighborhood watching. Kind of surprising they didn't ask you for some tips on hanging while they had you." Reed gave Amy a small smile, then sighed again. "Nobody in their family knew anything about where the money was from. They suspected it was something illegal, but couldn't give us anything useful even when we dangled a reward in front of them. And of course, the information that they'd taken you to Purity Island died with the girls too."

Amy shook her head. "But still, knowing it had to be Andrew..."

"Well, you can't say we exactly knew that for sure. But we checked all we could on him. His whereabouts during the kidnapping were easy to determine, and he wasn't anywhere near the action -- he was actually in the hospital waiting room at the time. We checked his phone records, but whatever arrangements he made don't seem to have been done on his personal phone. Nothing actually pointed to him at all, other than what Ms. Bloom passed on to you and your dean. That got us a warrant to search his house and dungeon, which he's now equipped as an exercise room, of all things. We wanted to get at his personal computer, but the warrant didn't cover that -- invasion of privacy and all that. We were only allowed to try to look for your physical presence on his property. We got one interview with him with his lawyer present, and since then they've managed to shut us down."

"I understand Steffi hired detectives on her own. Couldn't they find anything?"

"Oh!" Reed laughed. "I thought you knew. That would be me. And my staff."

"What?" Amy stared at her. "But you're with the police."

"I'm not employed by the police, no. But I've done a lot of work with them in the past, and they trust me. We share ideas and information. When I've been saying 'we' all along, I mean the team of people trying to find you, including police."

"But at the dock... Lieutenant Sims introduced you as 'Detective Reed.' Aren't you... I'm sorry. Isn't that like impersonating an officer, or something?"

Reed smiled. "Not at all. I am a detective. Sims has taken to introducing me that way because it adds an aura of authority. As long as she and I don't actually say I'm with the police department, it's all legal."

"I... please, don't take offense, I'm just wondering... why not have an actual, official police detective doing the work you're doing?"

"No offense taken. But when the trail got cold, I assumed a more active role. The police have other things to do. I don't. They moved on to those other things, and I stayed with this. One thing I've done is have an associate hack into Andrew's e-mail account. Nothing there worth noting. Aside from that, I've been working on learning his habits. That's how I know where he'll be eating dinner tonight. I know who his friends are, who he sees on a daily basis... I've been hoping to catch him with some shady characters, but I suspect that since the snatch, he's severed all contact with his point man, whoever it was."

Amy shuddered. If she hadn't managed to get herself to a boat, with Runner's and Puppy's help, then Steffi, it turned out, had been her only other hope. Nobody else had continued searching. A tear ran from her eye. "Thank you. I really appreciate everything you've been doing. I'll thank Steffi later too."

On arriving at their destination, Karl declined the offer of valet parking and drove into a nearby lot, from which the three of them walked to the restaurant. It was one at which Amy's family had occasionally eaten in years past, including, she recalled, once or twice with her mother. It was one of the best in the city, and Amy suspected Reed couldn't have afforded to eat there without Steffi's expense account. And Reed surely could not, without Steffi's help, have obtained a reservation on such short notice.

On the way to their table, as Amy carried the oversized purse that reminded her of Runner's carry-all bag -- Amy knew she appeared to be carrying the necessities for her "mistress" -- Amy noticed Reed give a brief head-nod to a man seated nearby. Amy looked questioningly at Reed, who nodded back. As they arrived at their table, Reed indicated a particular chair to Amy. Amy, following slave protocol, stood behind the indicated chair and waited for Reed and Karl to take their seats before she did. As she sat, she placed the purse on the floor beside her in easy reach, its top yawning open.

While Reed was studying the menu, she murmured to Amy, inaudibly to anyone else underneath the buzz of conversation around the room, "Andrew's reservation is for a half-hour from now. His table is the one directly behind you." Amy had noticed the "reserved" sign on it. "I'll tap your thigh when he comes in. Absolutely don't turn around to watch at that point." Amy nodded, and Reed went on, "You're sure he won't recognize you from behind?"

Amy smiled and brushed her hand along the side of her head. "I can't imagine how. He's never seen my hair like this."

Reed nodded. "It helps that he'd never expect to see you here. But I just want to make sure we won't tip him off too soon."

The waiter came, and Karl ordered a huge girlmeat steak. Reed opted for a chicken dish, and an artichoke salad for Amy. She explained to Amy after the waiter left, "Hard to be sure we'll get to finish."

Amy nodded that she understood. She wasn't sure about Karl, but she knew no woman would leave a girlmeat meal unconsumed. It was too great an insult to the woman who had died to be their food.

Reed engaged Amy in small-talk while waiting for their meal, but Amy responded absently, and couldn't thereafter recall what they had talked about, except for one question about what she'd eaten on the island. She picked at her salad once it arrived, her heart beating gradually faster.

Luckily she saw Reed's hand moving towards her thigh to make the Andrew-is-here signal before it got there -- she was sure she would have jumped out of her chair if it had caught her unaware. Behind her she could hear the movement, the chairs scraping the floor. She could hear a woman's voice murmur, and clenched her fist when she heard Andrew's laugh in response. It's him! she told herself. He's five feet away from me now!

With a pen on her napkin, Reed completed the diagram she had begun earlier, now showing Andrew's location in relation to Amy.

Amy's heart was thumping hard now, so that she felt sure Andrew must be able to hear it. She tried to still the shaking of her hands. She looked down at the napkin, then up at Reed, who gave her a quick double-blink with both eyes.

Amy forced into her mind an image of Runner, how eager Runner would be to show Amy what she'd learned in bed with Holly tonight. The smile, nearly a laugh, it brought to her face was just what she needed. She swung that expression around to her right, twisting in her chair to face Andrew. Andrew, his eyes drawn to the sudden movement, looked up.

The expression on his face made everything easier. The surprise, sliding down through astonishment into shock as his mind registered the impossibility of what he was seeing. The body frozen, not even breathing. The hand half-lifted off the table and then held immobile.

Across from Andrew, his date, a giggly blonde in a tight red dress showing deep cleavage, looked back and forth between Amy and Andrew. She seemed to grow suddenly irritated, in apparent misunderstanding of the situation.

Amy's nervousness gave way to excitement, the grin spreading more widely across her face, her hands no longer shaking. Andrew hadn't said anything yet, so Amy moved on to the next step in the script. She reached down and scooped her prop for the evening out of the oversized purse -- a satellite phone, slightly battered and grimy, the one Reed had purchased and banged up for the occasion. Amy held it up, shaking it playfully, her eyes still on Andrew, mindful of Reed's warning not to say anything whatsoever at this point, not "Look familiar?", not "Lose something?" -- just show it.

Abruptly Andrew stood up, his chair skidding across the floor behind him, and pointed at the phone. "No!! That's not the same one! You're just..." He choked off further words, his face contorted in an expression that said how much he wanted to call back the ones he'd already spoken, torn out of him by shock before his rational mind had a chance to censor them.

In the now utterly silent and still restaurant, the man to whom Reed had nodded earlier stood and walked over to Andrew. "Andrew Cameron, you're under arrest for grand theft and abuse of property. You have the right..."

As the cop continued speaking, Amy looked at Andrew's stunned blonde companion and whispered, "Is this his first arrest with you, or have you known him awhile?" The girl glared at Amy, transferred the glare to Andrew, threw down her napkin and stormed out.

Amy suddenly realized how hungry she was. The artichoke salad looked very good.

As Karl stopped the limo in the circular drive in front of Steffi's house, the wide double doors at the top of the steps flew open, and Steffi, with a huge grin, walked out and trotted down the steps. As soon as Amy emerged from the car she found Steffi's arms wrapped around her.

Amy hugged her in return. "Thank you so much, for everything."

Steffi released her grip and smiled at Amy. "I heard it went well. Janet called and told me all about it."

Amy gave her a puzzled look. "Janet?"

Steffi laughed. "I guess you didn't get that far into personal details. Janet Reed."

"Oh!" Amy laughed as well. "She was kind of busy telling me what to do and what not to do. She's really good, Steffi. I don't think Andrew ever would have been caught without her. It didn't sound like the police were that interested."

"They are now. Based on his reaction in the restaurant to a phone that shouldn't have meant anything to him, in front of a couple dozen witnesses, they got an unlimited search warrant for his house. They can hold him while they're executing the search, but they'll probably have to let him go in the morning. There isn't enough to put him out of action for any length of time yet, but Janet is pretty sure they'll find something. Let's go inside." She put her arm around Amy's waist and led her up the steps, Karl trailing discreetly behind.

They entered a huge living room, with one of the longest sofas Amy had ever seen, and walls supporting tastefully distributed artworks. Amy turned to Steffi. "Does my dad know I'm back yet?"

"He should by now, I think. Your dean was going to try to reach him before he got the word from Andrew. He knew all along, by the way, that we had suspicions about Andrew. He wasn't happy about it, but he wanted whatever was necessary done to find you." She looked at Amy thoughtfully. "You know, he's not really as cold as I thought when I met him before. He really seems to care about you a lot."

Amy smiled. "He's not real demonstrative about things like that, but you're probably right. Thank you. Again."

Amy found herself drawn to a watercolor painting on a huge canvas, at least six feet by three, done apparently with very fine brushes, that appeared to be of a house party on a country estate, on a well-manicured lawn against a lovely forested mountain background. Based on the clothing styles of the men -- the formal coats, the trousers, the odd neckwear -- it seemed to be set in a time two centuries past. Each of the men was attended by one or more devoted, happy naked slavegirls with gleaming collars, their hair in the styles of the day, either upswept and piled atop the head, or else short in tight ringlet curls. All of the girls, though nude, were decorated with gaily colored ribbons around their upper arms and ankles as well as in their hair.

On the left side of the painting, a game of croquet was in progress, with slavegirls, each kneeling with her thighs parted in an inverted V, serving as wickets, their hands either resting atop their heads or held behind their backs. One of the players, holding a mallet, awaiting his turn, had his pants down, with a slavegirl kneeling in front of him, smiling and ready to service his erection. Near the players another man, apparently not a participant in the game, was sitting on the ground, a slavegirl kneeling on either side of him, one of them kissing his cheek as she cradled his chin gently in her hand, while the other helped him shrug out of his coat. On the right side, a newly-arrived guest was dismounting from a one-man open carriage. The ponygirl who had pulled it, glowing sweat coating her breasts, muscular legs, and taut stomach, was elaborately outfitted in a leather harness that circled her waist, with straps crossing between her breasts, above which they circled her neck to form her collar. She was clearly a show-pony -- her hair, flowing in back and shaved at the sides to form a mane, was dyed bright green, matching the color of her long, hanging tail, probably of genuine girlhair, anchored in her anus. A head-harness, with a wooden bit and leather headband, held a gorgeous headdress of upright feathers above her forehead, again in that same bright green, and the high-heeled boots designed to resemble a horse's hooves were green as well. Looking more closely, Amy saw that the pony's pubic hair and even her eyebrows were of that same green hue, as were her painted nipples. Her posture radiated the pride she took in her service to her master.

In the foreground, two slavegirls tended a cheery fire, their skin reddened by their proximity to it, over which a headless woman was being roasted on a spit. One of the slavegirls was turning the spit while the other ladled honeyed juices over the roasting woman's browned skin. It all looked so real that Amy could almost smell the aroma of girlmeat. Her mouth watered. "I'm thinking I've seen this before." The artist's name, Sarah Cray, done in elaborate script at the painting's bottom right, sounded slightly familiar.

Steffi came up behind her. "It's semi-famous. You've probably run across pics of it, one place or another. I got it for eighty thousand at an auction. Drink? I have some white wine here, or brandy if you want something stronger."

"Oh, just some fruit juice, please. I've got so little experience with alcohol it'd probably knock me loopy in five minutes."

Karl also politely requested juice, no doubt concerned about his duties. Steffi left the room to fetch the refreshments and returned moments later.

While Karl lounged on the sofa at Steffi's invitation, Steffi continued showing Amy around the room. They stopped for a time in front of a built-in bookcase, with hardcover editions showing Steffi's strong attraction to science fiction. A few of the books Amy had read in high school, and she mentioned a few others not present, Steffi making mental notes of their titles for future purchase.

Steffi, at last, looked at the clock on the wall. "It's pretty late already. Karl, let me show you your room, and then I'll get Amy settled."

Amy stopped suddenly in the doorway of a huge bedroom, its walls a very pale blue and its furnishings either of polished, dark wood or of fabric in a darker shade of blue. Her eyes had been caught by the enormous canopied bed to her left that faced window draperies to her right. She whispered, "Steffi, somebody's already sleeping in the bed."

Steffi smiled and said in a normal voice, "Not sleeping, exactly. Go ahead and... well, I was going to say 'meet her,' but you've already met."

Amy gave Steffi a deeply puzzled look, then gasped as she realized what Steffi might mean. She ran to the bed and quickly yanked the cover down.

Linda, of course, still looked exactly like Zoey Hillcrest. A sleeping Zoey, her eyes closed, one hand under her pillow, the other near her hip. But Amy was used to seeing Linda as Zoey. She'd had weeks to adapt to her new look. She'd spent many nights in bed with Linda after her surgery, made love with her as Zoey many times.

Amy reached towards Linda, stopped. "May I touch her?"

Steffi responded with a delighted laugh. "Amy, I'm assuming you'd want to spend the night with her. That's really the reason I invited you here. If you do, I'll sleep in one of the guest rooms." She beamed at Amy. "You've been through too much shit lately. More than anybody deserves, especially you. And I feel terrible I couldn't do more to prevent that..."

Amy shook her head. "Stop feeling that way. You couldn't possibly have done more for me than you did."

Steffi held up her hands. "Just let me offer you this, and I'll feel better." Steffi walked to the bed. Linda's bare shoulder was uncovered by the bedsheets, and Steffi stroked it fondly. "I sleep with her sometimes, when I don't have a partner for the night. The rest of the time I leave her hanging by the neck in the next room. I know she'd like that. They did make her neck extra-strong so I could do that." She straightened up and smiled again. "Well, I'll leave the two of you alone."

Amy, her eyes tearing up, threw her arms around Steffi and held her tightly. "This is just one more thing to add to the list to thank you for. I can never repay you for any of it."

Steffi gave Amy a hug in return, rubbing her back. "Just be happy. And have the hanging you've earned. I want to see that, and we'll be even." She kissed Amy and let go. Seconds later her footsteps clicked down the hallway beyond the door, and Amy was alone with her dearest friend, for the first time in over a year.

She marveled at the wonderful job Full Body Associates had done with Linda. It occurred to Amy she didn't see a seam on Linda's skin anywhere, and then she remembered that it was new skin, grown from Linda's original cells. Underneath the skin, Amy knew all of Linda's meat and organs were gone, replaced with a synthetic substitute. But Linda felt exactly right. Her original bones, now connected with clever hinges, moved easily with just the right amount of resistance. Her skin was a little cool to the touch, but warmed quickly.

Linda had a typical subtle smile on her lips, familiar from long before she was Zoey. Amy gently eased Linda's eyes open with her fingertips. Linda looked as though she were lost in some pleasant daydream.

Amy shed her own clothes and climbed into bed with Linda, and pulled her close, entangling her arms and legs with Linda's.

She had so much she wanted to tell her.

"You're not going to believe where I've been..." Amy gave Linda a nearly minute-by-minute account of her ordeal and rescue from the island, her meeting with Runner, how special Runner was, how close she and Amy had become.

She moved on to her return. "And Runner is going to be a Hanging Girl! The dean wants her to get her education so she can meet the entrance requirements. She's learned so much already! You should see..." Amy described Runner's skills with awe, and how incredibly intelligent and determined she was.

"Oh!!! And you didn't get to see Megan's hanging! It was so great! She..." Amy described every detail.

The hours of the night passed, Amy snuggling with Linda and getting her caught up on everything she had missed. At last Amy drifted to sleep, her breasts and lips pressed against Linda's. They, too, felt just right.

THE NEXT MORNING

Steffi beamed as the freshly-showered and dressed Amy came into the breakfast room. "How was your night?"

Amy leaned down to hug Steffi in her chair. "Thank you so much, again. That was exactly what I needed! And I can see you're taking really good care of her."

Steffi smiled. "Well, she's a very special girl. If you want to see her hanging, I can put her back up before you leave."

"I'd like that. Thanks."

After eating, they returned to the living room, leaving Karl working on a much bigger breakfast than both of theirs combined.

Amy looked at the Sarah Cray painting once more, Steffi's eighty-thousand-dollar work of art. She frowned, looking at the happy slavegirls waiting on their owners. Or perhaps they all belonged to the party's host, and were serving the guests. It was an age when all women were slaves. Like Purity Island, but somehow not at all like it. Amy knew that somewhere outside the frame of the painting, there were work slaves, girls laboring just as hard as the ones on Purity... yet even then in those difficult times, women had other things they could aspire to. Amy was sure the life of a personal serving girl was a little romanticized in the painting, but knew that it really had been considered by women a plum position, one with rewards as well as duties. Women did have the opportunity to rise in the world of slaves to the levels to which their talents and abilities could take them. And to the extent that life was hard for the work slaves, it had to be remembered that this was all two hundred years ago. In Amy's world, that was all in the past. On Purity Island, life was much harder for women, more unfair, and opportunities non-existent, today.

"Steffi..." Amy kept her eyes on the painting for a moment longer, then turned to face her hostess. "You're rich, you live alone, you don't have kids. I know you look for ways to spend your money..." She paused as she saw Steffi stiffen and blink in surprise, and went on hurriedly, "...and I don't mean you're throwing it away, or wasting it, or just spending it on yourself. I'm so, so, so grateful for what you've done to help me, and not just lately. And all the girls at school love the theater you gave us. But... would you be willing to hear an idea about how you could use what you have to change the world, or at least part of the world?"

Steffi seemed to relax, and gave Amy a smile. "Okay, I'm hooked. Listening."

Her eyes lit up as Amy explained.

TWO DAYS LATER

The dean smiled as Amy entered his office, and immediately said, "I thought you'd like to know..."

Amy's eyes widened. "Sir?" She hadn't needed to hear his introduction. Amy could easily read that he was bursting to pass along news. "Something about Andrew?"

The dean nodded. "His home computer had some... useful information," he said, with an air of dry understatement. "He'd had an e-mail account nobody knew about. He'd deleted all traces of it, but of course, deleting something doesn't just make it vanish from the hard drive. Much of the correspondence had been overwritten, but fragments of a few e-mails survived, including the address itself. The City Attorney subpoenaed the entire record of correspondence from that address, and learned quite a lot about how Andrew had set up the kidnapping. There were also records in the computer's Web browser history of searches for information on drugs that can induce heart-attack symptoms, including several pages on Zerlinol, which police believe may have been used on your father. It breaks down into harmless sugars within thirty minutes, so they can't say for sure, but the mere fact of Andrew looking for information about it is incriminating, given the circumstances."

Amy was growing increasingly excited, but automatically continued reading the dean. "There's more."

He nodded. "One thing he apparently couldn't bring himself to delete was a video, hidden in an obscure folder, probably unfindable by anyone not looking for that specific type of file. The one of you waking up on the island."

Amy laughed joyously. "The idiot! He just had to keep that, of course. They can use all of that at his trial, right?"

"No trial. Andrew huddled with his lawyer all last evening, and this morning they reached a plea deal. Abuse of property." That was the term usually used when someone mistreated and/or damaged a slave not belonging to him. "Grand theft charge dropped, but that would have been a tricky one to convict him of anyway, since he never took delivery of you. Six months jail time. Three years probation after that."

Amy jumped to her feet and pumped her arms. "Yes!!! Six months! That's perfect! I'll be dead by the time he gets out! He's in jail for the rest of my life!" She knew the sentence would have been much longer if she'd been a free woman rather than property, but it didn't matter. "Sir -- may I call Detective Reed... Janet Reed, and thank her? This would never have happened without her. If he'd found out I was back, any other way than the way he did, the way she set it up, he would have just junked his hard drive and would have been home free. She didn't give him a chance to cover his tracks."

The dean nodded, and said, "There's someone else who wants to see you first. Down in the conference room."

Amy gaped at him, and stood. "My dad? He's here now?"

He nodded again. "Go ahead."

Amy hurried quickly to the conference room.

As she entered the room, Amy could read little more in her father than that he was in an emotional state she hadn't seen in him before. He didn't rise as she entered, merely looked at her with a shaky smile.

It wasn't really significant, at this point, that she hadn't seen him for nearly four years. The Preston Cameron in front of her was one she'd never met at all.

She bent down to give him a hug, to which he responded vaguely with an arm pat. In a husky voice, he asked, "How are you feeling?"

Amy sat in another of the chairs, on the same side of the room's big table as her father. "Me? I'm doing great. How about... you?" She was shocked to notice a tear creeping down his cheek.

He sighed in answer, not looking at her.

She leaned closer. "Daddy... I'm okay. I'm doing fine."

She realized, suddenly, feeling stupid for having missed it, that this wasn't about her. Not directly, anyway. It was about his only son being in jail, for a crime Preston Cameron had never seen coming, directed against his only daughter. And Preston himself had been used, his health endangered, during the commission of the crime.

He heaved another sigh, looking at the floor, and in that same choked voice, said, "I've never failed at anything before." He absently wiped a tear away. "At least I didn't fail at something I thought I'd be good at."

"What did you fail at, Daddy?"

"Being a father."

Taking on a role she'd never in her life imagined herself in, she moved her chair closer and took both of his hands. "Daddy, look at me."

As if his entire being was stuck in a mud pit, he raised his head with effort and focused his eyes on her. More or less.

"Daddy... I came here to the most selective school in the city. I got in... you know eighty percent of their applicants don't? And I didn't just graduate from the most intellectually and physically demanding academic program around, I'm one of their top students. I was second in my class!" Amy smiled. "And if you'd met the girl who was number one, you'd know what an honor it is to follow her. And now I'm going to put it all to use, as the most valuable kind of slave there is. I'm going to make a lot of people happy and excited, and this school is going to be very proud of me. And you..." she poked her index finger into his chest, "...are my father! Does that sound like you're a failure?"

He sighed once more and shook his head. "Whatever talent, sweetness, and light there is in you, it's all from your mother. I could always see so much of her in you, and I can still see it now."

Amy continued holding his hands, patiently. "Keep looking at me. Do you know how I got to be so good at what I do? It's because when I decide I want something, I never give up, I keep working for it, as hard as I need to, until I get it. Does that sound like somebody else in this room?"

He chuckled at last. "Okay, maybe a little."

She wrapped her arms around him again for a more complete hug. This time he returned it.

As he sat back, she saw that his lips were pressed together. "It's a little irritating that you were back in town a full day before I found out about it."

She frowned. "I know. I'm sorry that happened. But you do know why, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "I guess so. I've been told, anyway. But it's upsetting that Steffi Bloom knew long before I did."

"Everybody was following the request of the detective who was investigating the case. She thought it was better if you didn't know until..."

"Until Andrew was arrested. I know. It's still upsetting. I understand you've even been to Ms. Bloom's house already."

Amy nodded. "Daddy, have you talked to her? I hope you'll call her and thank her for everything she did to help me."

He sat back. "I'm just a bit uncomfortable with that. She and her detective are the ones who got Andrew put in jail." As disappointed and angry as he was with Andrew, Andrew was still Preston's son.

"No!" She took his hand again. "Daddy, before you leave today I want you to tell me you understand one thing. What's happened to Andrew, he did it all to himself. Nobody made him do any of that. Not Steffi Bloom, not me. Not you either. None of us made him the way he is. He decided himself to be that way. Do you see?"

He hesitated, and nodded at last.

She squeezed his hand. "Okay. I just don't want you thinking Andrew being in jail is somehow Steffi's fault, any more than it's yours. It's Andrew's."

He let go still another sigh. "I've talked to Ms. Bloom a couple of times along the way. You know she put up a big chunk of the reward money... well of course, you know that," he said, as Amy nodded. "She really seems to care about you a lot."

She giggled at the deja vu feeling his words inspired. "Some people do." She grinned at him. "Daddy, promise you'll come to see my hanging? I'll make sure you get an invitation."

He smiled back at her. "I'll be there." His eyes narrowed. "What did you do to your hair?"