A/N: Sorry it took so long to put this chapter up, but I've been even busier with working on my other fan fiction, "Something More" (which has nothing to do with "For What It's Worth"), and I am working on my second chapter. I already have the ending planned out for this story, and there are only 3 more chapters left! I think the rest of these chapters will seem like a "surprise" to everyone, especially my nineteenth chapter, but the last one (I promise you) is going to be great! I already finished with the last chapter ( I actually finished it when I began the story, that way there I know what to plan ahead while I'm writing it) and I hope everyone will like it. Well, I hope you all will enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Seventeen: Not to Punish You, But to Protect You

"Dad, don't you think that was a little too harsh on Olivia?" questioned Lizzie after her dad shut her bedroom door behind him.

"Lizzie, that has nothing to do with you. What me and Olivia talk about, whether it has to do with you or not, is really nothing you need to know or hear about."

"Umm, Dad, just to let you know, you were kind of right outside of my bedroom. I could hear every single word you said."

"Well, let's just forget about that right now. We need to have a talk, and let's just pretend Olivia never came here and talked to you."

"Dad, there's a reason Olivia came and talked to me, and you really can't, well, make me forget it or pretend that she didn't come and have a private conversation with me. And, by the way, why didn't you really want her talking to me anyways? All she really wanted to do was protect me."

"Elizabeth, like I said, what me and Olivia talk about is none of your business."

"Dad, I'm twelve years old. I'm sure I'm old enough to understand what you're talking about."

"It isn't that I know you won't understand it, it's just that it's something between Olivia and I."

"Dad, you can tell me, just please. I really want to know the real reason why you didn't want her talking to me in the first place."

"If you really want to hear it that bad, then, well, I guess it won't hurt to tell you. But what I tell you is something between me and you, okay? You don't go and tell anyone else about my opinion, and what I thought about her talking to my daughter."

"Okay, I promise."

"Well, Lizzie, you know how I always tell you and Dickie and your sisters to always be careful?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what I'm most worried about these days is something bad happening to one of my kids. I love you and your siblings, and I would never want anything to happen to them."

"Go on."

"And a lot of cases we deal with today have to do with children and teenagers getting abducted from online. And MySpace and chat rooms are usually the main targets for victims. Lizzie, when I know that my children are doing unsafe stuff online, I'm really the one who would want to talk to them about it. I know that Olivia is a great detective and all, but I still feel that I should be the one to talk to you about what you're doing, even though I know the only reason she wanted to talk to you was to protect you from something bad happening."

"I understand, Dad, why you might have reacted to her talking to me, but, umm, there's another reason why I think she wanted to talk to me about MySpace."

"And what do you think that is?"

"Well, Dad, these days, teenagers don't really count on their parents. I love you and all, but no offense, I would actually prefer talking to someone else about, well, something that I might have done on MySpace. Kids don't really tell their parents that they have a MySpace, anyways."

"Lizzie, should it really matter if everyone else has a MySpace, though. Just because they have one doesn't mean that you have to get an account too. If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?"

"I can definitely tell you and Olivia are partners."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing, just nothing."

"Well, anyways, you are going to delete that account. Lizzie, I'm not going to punish you or anything, because what I'm saying is for your own sake. I really don't want to see anything bad happen to you, because I have no idea how I would handle it. Because dealing with those type of cases everyday is enough for me to try and cope with it, but if the victim was one of my children, I don't know how I'd even be able to live."

"But the thing is, Dad, that-"

"No. There should be no excuse why you went onto the Internet, to go on this stupid MySpace to put all that personal info about yourself! Do you realize how much of a risk you took?" Elliot said, practically shouting at Lizzie.

"Dad, only my friends are the ones that view my profile."

"No. No they're not. If you're profile wasn't public, then why would Olivia had been able to see your profile? Why would she have been able to see all that stuff that you put on there that even got her worrying about you? It doesn't matter if you say only your friends see it, because there could be perverts on your profile right now, probably even tracking you down! Lizzie, you know what my job's like, and you know what me and Liv have to deal with every day, and I still can't come to believe that after what you know about the certain cases we deal with you still go on the website to put all that stuff about you! And I know you see on the news that there are all these kids that get abducted, raped, and even killed because of that stupid website!"

"Dad, can you just calm down for at least one second?"

"No, actually I won't. "Calm" isn't a word that would explain a parent, especially me, after finding out what that their child was doing online without their parent's permission."

"Umm, Dad, no one actually, well, tells their parents that they have a MySpace. You'd have to be considered "lucky" to have parents that let you have a MySpace."

"Yeah, well these days you're considered lucky if you haven't been kidnapped, raped, or killed. And that is what exactly happens to kids who are so careless to what they reveal about themselves on the Internet. Lizzie, the Internet is kind of like an ocean. You swim around all these places, but you just have to be careful for the sharks."

"That is actually a nice way to put it."

"Then if you agree with me then why did you put that stuff on MySpace? And wait till I see your MySpace, because you, my dear, are lucky I actually haven't seen it yet. Because having to hear about it from my own partner is bad enough. And as of right now you are going to walk over to your computer and show me your MySpace, and I am going to watch you delete it."

"But dad-"

"There are no buts about it. March up to that computer right now and do as I just said." demanded Elliot, making his way over to Lizzie's computer as well. It was a flat screen Dell, which was bought about a couple of months earlier. Lizzie hurriedly pressed the "on" button and after about a second or two, Lizzie's desktop popped up. It was a pink background with a couple of pictures of her and some of her closest friends, Kylie, Savannah, and Jen. Then Lizzie scrolled the mouse cursor over to where it said "Internet Explorer" and within a second the homepage, which was MySpace, had popped up. Lizzie then typed in her password (her email address was already remembered by the computer on MySpace), and her MySpace home page came up.

"Show me the profile, Lizzie. Don't try to trick me and say that's yours."

"I know, Dad, just give me a second. I need to-"

"You need to what?"

"It says that I have new friend requests, so I have to click on it and either approve or deny the person who requested me to be their friend."

"Well, I wouldn't waste my time if I were you, because you're deleting it right now."

"I know, just hold on." Then a page appeared that said "You have 2 new requests." Lizzie clicked on both people and approved them, without hesitating to see who the people were.

"Excuse me, missy, but did you know who those people were? All I saw that you were focusing on was the "approve" button. It looks to me that you didn't even take one second to look and see who they were."

"Dad, I obviously know them if they wanted to request me."

"Sure, sure, sure. Say what you want to say, because soon enough you're really going to regret this. Now let me see your profile."

As soon as Lizzie clicked on the "view profile" words which were located underneath her main picture, her profile came up. It had a black layout filled with different sized pink hearts all around it, and the song "Under the Gun" by The Killers playing in the background. To the right of her picture, there was "Female, 14, Queens, New York, USA", and under the "About Me" part, she had all this personal information about herself, even including her cell phone number if "someone needed to call her" and her screen names. She mentioned that she was really 12 and she told everyone what school she attended and that she was in the 7th grade.

"This is, my God I can't even come to explain it. Now delete it!"

Lizzie then returned to the home page, and clicked on where it said "account settings." Then there were words that said "cancel account", which she clicked on, and then it said something along the lines of "Are you sure you wish you cancel your MySpace account", then she had to confirm her cancellation once more.

"Dad, I can't believe you're making me do this!"

"I can. But what I can't believe is that you went out and did this. You knew what you were doing was wrong. And, did you even know that having a MySpace account is illegal if you're under 14?"

"Uhh, yeah."

"Then why'd you get one if it was against the law?"
"Dad, no one, I repeat, no one, follows the law when it comes to MySpace. No one really cares. We don't listen to how old you have to be or anything to get a MySpace, we do it anyways. Who really cares, anyways?"

"I do."

"That's because you're a father."

"Yes, I am; and a father who cares for his daughter. A father who wouldn't want anything to happen to her. Because I care about you, and even though you were stupid in putting all that stuff about you, I still love you. I still care for you. But you just have to be more careful at times! You can't just go out and think that MySpace is a place where you can get away with saying all this personal stuff about you. Because everything you do has a downside to it. You're lucky Olivia actually caught what you were doing, because if she wouldn't have, something could have happened. A random pervert could just happen to arrive at the doorstep."

"Dad, what are the chances of that happening when, like, over a million people have MySpaces?

"They're very lucky, I'm for sure. That's why I came to protect you. This wasn't necessarily about punishment; it was about protection."

"Okay, well, Dad, can I need to talk to you about someone. Someone who I think is in really bad danger."