Maren wasn't understanding it any better a day later. She irritatedly bounced down the penthouse stairs and flopped on the couch, where Stanton was busy attending to paperwork.

"What's up, kid?" he said.

She wrinkled her nose at being referred to as kid. "Oh, I don't know. My dad's dead, my mom's gone, even Mr. Darcy seems to have disappeared."

Royce stopped what he was doing and looked at her, mulling over his options. He put down the file he was working on. "Maren, I think you should know something."

"Oh good, someone's finally going to tell me something about anything," she said.

He smiled in reaction to her flip comment, but then got serious again. "I know your dad didn't want me to tell you this, but he's not around to do it and it doesn't seem to be very high on your mom's priority list..."

"Don't say anything about my mom. She's going through a lot right now. She loved my father very, very much."

"You're a great kid ... uh, a great daughter, Maren. I don't know a lot of people who could look past their own grief at any age let alone yours."

"I'm almost 16," Maren said with childlike enthusiasm.

"I know. What I mean is, you're sort of 16 going on 40. I don't think a lot of teenagers see the world the way you do." She eyed him warily, not sure if she was getting a compliment or not.

"Anyway," he continued. "What I wanted to tell you is that your friend Mr. Darcy ... is me."

"What? No, it couldn't be," she said with total surprise.

"I'm afraid so."

"I don't understand. Why?"

"That's the same thing your dad said. I'm not sure how to explain it except to say I felt very guilty about what happened at the bank, even though I was doing my job. I felt guilty about you and your mom. I have something of a background in psychology and I thought I could help you, but you certainly wouldn't have been interested in hearing what I had to say face to face at that time."

A stunned Maren got up from the couch. "All those things I told you, really personal stuff..."

"That was just between you and me. I would never tell anyone else about that."

"It's embarrassing. You know things about me that I didn't even know I was feeling until I typed them out in an instant message."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Royce said gently. "You didn't say anything that wasn't completely natural considering the circumstances you went through."

"This is great. Another illusion shattered." Maren ran up the stairs.

"I'm really sorry, kid," Royce said aloud, then sat back down on the couch and attempted to distract himself by returning to his paperwork.

In the Caribbean, Mattison was setting Tiffany up with a fan tail launch and driver. He gave her a pair of heels. "Not very attractive," she said.

"No, they're just functional," Mattison said, popping out the heel to reveal a microchip. "All you have to do is push this part of the heel here hard. Then just press the chip and we'll know that it's a 'go' for crashing Popovic's little island paradise."

"Technology can help stop the bad guys, it just can't prevent us from making more," Tiffany said.

"We're working on it," Mattison said for his own amusement. "Don't get into head games with this guy. Frankly, I'd prefer it if you went for the shoe the minute you were alone after seeing him."

Tiffany didn't say anything. "OK, you're not going to do that," he continued. "Just don't wait too long, all right?" Still nothing from her. "Then I can contact the UN and we'll get the ball rolling."

The silence was making Mattison uncomfortable, he obviously wasn't thrilled with putting his operation in the hands of a non-agent with her own agenda. "This is very important. We're not going to be there an hour after you signal me. Even with an emergency session, it's going to take some time for us to get approval to make our move."

"What if the chip doesn't work?" Tiffany said, working out possible scenarios in her head.

"I have another one," he said, pulling it out of his pocket. "Let's put it in your locket."

She reached down and opened the locket around her neck. Seeing the pictures of Sean and Maren reminded Tiffany anew of what was at stake. Mattison deftly removed the one of Sean, slipped the chip in to the locket and recovered it with the photo. "There, can't even tell it's there. Technology at its finest. If you don't see us within a day of when you signaled, then use this one."

"I better get going," she said, rubbing her hand thoughtfully over the locket.

"Be careful," he said genuinely.

"I will. I have to." Mattison helped Tiffany onto the boat and watched it pull away from the shore.

"I hope this was the right decision," he muttered to himself as the boat disappeared from sight.