Charlie and I had a pizza with four meats and extra cheese. It tasted awesome, and the cheese was great.

"So have you gotten any other clients lately?" He asked as we ate. Charlie was always interested in what I was doing.

"Yeah. I was hired to watch a married woman," I told him. "I got some pictures of her with some younger guy."

"Are you going to tell the client?" Charlie asked, scratching his chin.

"I'm going to follow her around tomorrow." I told him.

"What about the runaway?" Charlie asked. "Aren't you in the middle of that case too?"

"I'm waiting for a message from the guy who got her to run away." I said, then I had an idea. "Why don't I see if they've got a website or something?"

"Since when do cults have websites?" Charlie gave me a puzzled look.

"Can't hurt to look, right?" I shrugged, and used his laptop.

"Don, I made an appointment for you at the optometrist," he said as I looked. "For next week."

"Why?" I asked.

"You need to take care of your remaining eye!" he said

"I can't afford to go !" Since I was no longer in the F.B.I, I lacked insurance.

"I'll pay for the visit?" he suggested. I knew he was concerned, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Hey, buddy, I can't have you paying everything!" I argued. "Especially since I'm working now…" When Charlie had taken over my expenses when I got injured, and it had hurt my pride.

"You're not going to be able to be a private investigator if something happens to your remaining eye," he said in a warning tone of voice.

I rolled my eyes, and found, to my disappointment, that there were no messages.

The next morning, I followed the same woman again, took some more pictures, wrote a report, and talked to the distraught and overtired husband. Compared to telling parents that their kids were dead, this actually wasn't too bad, though I did feel for the men or women when I showed them evidence of the cheating.

What's so funny is that I used to make fun of people who did this for a living. Anyway, cheating cases are just my bread and butter until my reputation can allow me to focus on more interesting ones.

I checked my email and phone messages. Sadly they were both empty. So, I thought about how I was going to find that girl. Eventually, this guy was gonna want to set up a meeting. What if I got Amita to pretend to be me? We could arrange for a meeting in a public place, and I'd be nearby the whole time. I didn't like getting civilians involved in this kind of thing, but I had no choice, and we were talking about a young kid. Besides, Megan was to old for the part of Gigi Mann.

So, I went to see Amita. Thankfully, she worked at a different department, though Charlie could be visiting her.

After some searching, I saw her hunched over some papers. Her hair was loose, and she wore jeans

"Amita! How are you?" I asked.

Busy with midterms," she said.

"Maybe you'd like to mix it up a bit?" I offered.

"Huh?'

"I need some help finding a runaway"

" What can I do?"

"See, on myspace, I made up an account, to become friends with the guy who influenced her into leaving home to join the cult. His MO seems to consist of becoming friendly online, then setting up times to meet in person..."

"You'd like me to pretend to play the persona you invented?" she asked. She was a smart girl. "And meet this guy?"

"I'll be nearby the whole time," I promised her. "And the meeting will be in a public place. It's for the sake of a young girl!"

"Like Prita?" she asked.

"Yeah. From what I've seen, this guy does multiple visits before getting them to join the cult."

She paused, thinking a bit, then said, "I'll do it…"

"Great! Just don't mention it to Charlie. Thanks!" I told her.

"Don't worry I won't. When is the meeting?"

"It's not set up yet," I told her. "But I'll let you know."

Now if only I could afford to get Amita wired...things would be perfect! Can't have everything, I guess.

"How old is Gigi Mann supposed to be?" Amita asked.

"Eighteen. She works at Starbucks part time while going to Pasadena City College" I told her.

"Do you think I could pass for eighteen?" Amita asked

"I'm sure you can!" I said. That was always a delicate question to answer.

"I guess I'll do something different with my hair and makeup" Amita mused. "I could pick up a copy of seventeen"

"What's your email, so I can send you Gigi's myspace page?"

Amita wrote it down on a small sheet of paper, and gave it to me.

We said our goodbyes and left.

I went to Dad's office to email Amita andcheck for messages. Finally, there was one

"Sorry I haven't been writing much." the note began "I went on a retreat with some friends. Morlock lead it. He talked about how modern life can suck your soul and lifeif you're not careful. We went somewhere out in the boonies..."On and on it went talking about the wisdom of this Morlock guy. Then, there came a passage of interest to me "I really think that you could benefit from his teachings. Sounds like you could use them..." After finishing this message, I sent one

"I agree! Morlock sounds like a very smart guy! Modern life does suck all too often. I'd love to meet him sometime, or at least maybe you and I could talk about about his wisdom and the crappiness of modern life IRL?You seem like a sweet, smart guy! I can't believe I'm asking for an IRL meeting !LOL. I usually don't do this...anyway. Let me know. Looks like my mom wants to use the phone, so I'll end this message."

That evening, I got another message from Brian.

"I'd love to meet sometime! Is next Tuesday good for you?"

TBC