Right, so obviously I own nothing, being that these are characters created by Janet Evanovich. I am merely boring them for my own... and your enteretainment. Thanks so much for the reviews, i hope there are many more to come.

2:The Realisation

As I entered the kitchen a few minutes later I found Rowena kneading a lump of dough on the large bench in the middle of the room. When she saw me she gave me a grim smile. "Master Ric would like to see you in the entertainment room at one o'clock," she told me, returning to her kneading.

"Why do you call him Master Ric?" I asked, hoping I wasn't sounding too stupid, because chances were the answer was obvious.

"Respect, Miss. It is a sign of respect."

I screwed my nose up. "Don't call me Miss, it weirds me out. Call me Steph for now. We'll think of a cool nickname for you to call me later. So what can I call you?"

She looked at me as if I were stupid; guess I wasn't doing too crash hot in the not sounding stupid department. "You may call me Rowena." Gee, she's adventurous!

"Right, so Rowena, how long have you worked for Master Ric?" I snickered a little as I said it.

"I would appreciate it if you did not make fun of my employer's name. And I've been working here for five years."

"How old are you if you don't mind me asking?"

She gave me a little secretive glance before leaning in and whispering, "I'm forty-three."

"What?!" I exclaimed, feeling my jaw drop and my eye widen.

She giggled a little and touched her nose in a telling nature before moving to the sink to wash her hands. I was fed up with her and decided that I would only interact with her when I needed to. She was making fun of me at every chance she got. Only one person is allowed to make fun of me that often, God. God and God alone was allowed to make fun of me, because I was afraid of God; with good reason, I hadn't been to church in three years… okay it's been five years, but who's counting? GOD, that's who!

I looked at my watch seeing how much time I had before I to meet my death. Half an hour, well that's promising; I wonder what I can do in that time? Run away? Probably not; I wouldn't even get past security in half an hour… I guess I could go fiddle with the instruments in the music room; there was a big stringed one I had been meaning to take a closer look at.

As I skipped down the hall, however, I was distracted by voices coming from behind door number two. Needless to say the snoop within required me to stop and listen. I had my ear to the keyhole and was ready to run if the door were to suddenly open when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I managed to not scream only by biting down on my tongue, which in turn made me want to scream even more. Turning slowly to see who had caught me I felt relief wash over me.

It was only Iggy, the Spanish pool attendant. To be honest, his name wasn't Iggy, but in semiconscious state I had been in the past three days it was way easier to say than 'Ignatius' and he didn't mind.

"I don't think you should be listening Stephie," he whispered helping me up from my position on the floor. "Why don't you come to the music room and I shall teach you a bit."

I shrugged; there was nothing else to do. He sat me down at the Piano and showed me where 'middled c' was on the keys and then showed me a piece of music and the corresponding marking on the page for the note he showed me. I had just grasped the fact that each note had a letter name and they only went up to 'g' when he started to talk about sharps and flats and well, I zoned out. When I became aware of him again he was laughing, and there was a good chance he was laughing at me.

"What?" I asked.

He wiped some drool from the corner of my mouth. Confirmed! He was indeed laughing at me! "Why don't you sit over there in that chair and I'll play something for you?"

Shrugging for what felt like the millionth time that day I moved to the arm chair in the corner. For a moment I watched his slender fingers move over the keys as a beautiful sound filled the room then I was removed from the world entirely, aware only of the music that coursed through my veins. The next thing I knew there was a hand on my shoulder gently waking me.

"Babe," I heard Ranger say very close to my ear. I jumped, banging the back of my head on his face at the same time. I heard him utter an expletive, which was weird because I'd never heard him swear before, not even when he was shot, and I knew I was in for it.

"I'm so sorry!" I exclaimed, leaping from the chair and turning to face him suddenly wide awake. "You startled me, I was asleep and you just- and I jumped- and I'm sooo sorry!" Ranger held up a hand, telling me to stop, but I was unable to bring my ramble to a halt. "I was asleep! Oh no, I forgot about the meeting! I'm sorry, it this house. I'm either unable to fall asleep or unable to keep my eyes open. Do you have some kind of weird gas leakage here or something? Because I swear this is unnatural. Maybe you should get someone out to have the house checked out." Without my noticing, Ranger had evidently left the room and I had followed because I now found myself just inside the door of the entertainment room. "I- I guess we'll be having that meeting now then?" I stammered.

Ranger indicated to a couch on which he apparently wanted me to sit. I did what was expected of me and he proceeded to lean against the pool table near by. Several minutes of silence ensued until I couldn't take it anymore. "Why am I here?" I asked him, for want of a better topic.

There was a slight lift in his shoulders, which I took to be a shrug and he stated, "Why are any of us here."

Great, I thought, Just what I always wanted, a pensive Batman. "I meant why am I here, in this house. In your house!" then it occurred to me, a comment he had made just years before, "The Batcave is forever, Babe." Okay, so those probably weren't his exact words, but that's the general idea of the statement at least. "Oh Christ!" I exclaimed, and suddenly I felt dizzy. I was never going to leave this place! He'd brought me here to kill me! I knew it was too good to be true when he hadn't shipped me off to a third world country! I was as good as dead just sitting here on this couch.

"Babe, relax," was all he said, as if there was nothing-weird going on. How could he do something like this to me? I had always looked up to him! ALWAYS!!