The red glare of the alarm clock said 3:22am. Frank lay awake, staring at the ceiling, Nancy curled against him. He was having what Aunt Gertrude called 'a fit of conscience.'

He had a girlfriend. So what was he doing, curled up here with Nancy? This amnesia business was madness. It was bad enough that he was pretending to be Nancy's husband for a case, but this was taking it too far. Somehow he'd managed to find himself in a situation where he was both betraying Callie and lying to Nancy.

He shifted out from under Nancy, who stirred for a moment before falling back to sleep. Slipping on shoes and his jacket, he snuck through the living room past Susannah and exited the suite.

Unsurprisingly, the hotel lobby was completely deserted at this time of night. Of course, in New York, it was only about 8:30. There was a row of payphones across from the front desk. He pulled his calling card out of his pocket and dialed a number he knew by heart.

"Hello?" Callie answered on the second ring.

He pictured her at home, probably doing homework or reading a novel, or maybe working on one of her many volunteer hobbies—posters for the Red Cross blood drive, leaflets for a political rally, brownies for the Humane Society bake sale. "Callie, it's me."

"Frank!" she somehow sounded both delighted and anxious. "Is everything all right? Did you solve the case?"

He'd been purposely sketchy with the details back when he'd thought he'd be posing as a decoy for terrorists, and he was grateful for it now. "Not exactly." he confessed. "Things here are just, just spiraling out of control. Everything's so complicated. I don't know what to do."

"Hey," she said encouragingly, "What are you talking about? You're Frank Hardy, you love complicated. The more complicated, the better... Or is this not the good kind of complicated?"

"It's a little of both." Frank said, leaning against the wall next to the phone. "I feel like we're on the cusp of a breakthrough with this case, you know? We have all the key players and connections, we're just missing a few motives."

"And the bad complications?"

"Nancy was attacked." Frank said. He had told Callie that part of the case involved going undercover as Nancy's husband, a fact Callie had been none-too-pleased about. "She's got this head injury. I'm worried about her."

"How bad is it?" Callie asked, her voice perhaps a touch icier at the mention of the other girl, although there was a hint of concern that indicated that she didn't want to relive this particular fight just now. Frank had always tried to be honest with her about his relationship with Nancy, but he had a hard time putting it into words... which only led to Callie's being (understandably) jealous of this indefinable connection.

"I think it's bad." Frank said. "She's got amnesia. She thinks her undercover identity is real and she doesn't know who she really is. The doctor said it would come back, but it hasn't yet. It's been a day and a half and she still doesn't remember."

"Amnesia?" Callie repeated incredulously. "I thought that was just for soap operas!"

"I feel like I'm in a soap opera." Frank said, before wishing he hadn't.

"You mean, because she thinks you and she are really married?" Callie asked. "Why don't you just tell her you're not?"

Frank sighed. "I wish I could, but there's a bunch of reasons not to. We're not supposed to put stress on her. We can't prove we are who we say we are. We're kind of on the run."

"And... there's the little fact that you're enjoying it." Callie added in a hard tone. "Go on, tell me you're not enjoying playing house over there with Nancy Drew, learning what it would be like if you were with her instead. And now she even thinks it's real. You're barely even pretending anymore."

"That's not true, Cal." Frank said through gritted teeth. "I've been pretending more since she got hurt than I was before. I hate lying to her like this."

"Well she must be special, because you never minded lying to anybody else."

The accusation burned him. "Callie! I'm not—"

"You're undercover." she reminded him coldly. "That's all about lies."

"Not to you." Frank shot back. "Look, I shouldn't have called like this, I didn't mean to start a fight—"

"Why did you?" Callie asked. "Call? To make me jealous? To remind me that you're halfway across the world with her and there's nothing I can do about it? Or did you and Nancy want my blessing or something?"

"Of course not! No!" Frank denied. "I don't know, I wanted to be honest with you. To let you know what was happening."

"Ha! Well then, why don't you call me back when you're ready to be honest about what's happening!"

She hung up in a burst of righteous fury before he could get another word in. He, too, replaced the receiver in its cradle somewhat harder than was strictly necessary, but he couldn't quite match his girlfriend's righteous anger.

After all, wasn't she right?

Frank came out of sleep slowly, gradually becoming aware of his surroundings—the dawning sunlight, the city noise. The body pressed against him, legs tangling with his. His eyes snapped open.

Bright blue eyes were the first thing he saw, already awake, watching him. "Morning, stranger."

He smiled, but he knew it was her way of telling him that no more of her memories had come back during the night. "Nothing?"

She shook her head, red-gold hair glinting in the morning sun. "Nothing. Sorry."

"It's alright." Frank said. "How did you sleep? Have you been awake long?"

"I slept fine." she said. "The headache's almost completely gone. And I've been awake, oh, maybe half an hour."

"You could've woken me."

"I didn't want to." she said. "I was spending some time just thinking. And you're not too bad to look at, Mr. Addison."

Gently untangling himself from her, he ran a self-conscious hand through his bed-rumpled hair. "Thanks."

"Cole?" she said, stretching leisurely. "How long were we together before we got married?"

Frank tore his eyes away from her, sitting up. "We've known each other for a long time. We've always been close friends, and then recently we started to realize that there was... something more between us. The romantic side of all this is still pretty new for us, I guess."

She accepted the—completely true—statement and nodded. "Was it hard for us?" she asked, "Making the transition from friends to lovers?"

Lovers... the many connotations of that word had Frank up and off the bed altogether, poking through drawers, gathering what he needed for the day. With his hands and eyes occupied, he was able to say "Yeah, it was hard."

"Why?" Nancy pressed, sitting up, biting her lip.

Frank's shoulders slumped and he faced her again. "Falling for you was easy. But I had someone else, and so did you. People we didn't want to hurt."

"But we did?"

Callie's face flashed in front of him briefly as he recalled the angry phone call from last night. "We tried not to, but... yeah. I think we did."

She was staring at nothing now, nodding, absorbing the information. Frank took the opportunity to slip into the bathroom again to change.

By the time he emerged Nancy had already dressed and joined Susannah, Bess, and Joe in the living room. The first thing she did was go straight to Susannah and offer her a hug, which the other woman accepted, perplexed.

"Do you have a picture of Leila you can show me?" Nancy asked her. "I want to help out today."

Bess gasped. "You remembered—!"

But Nancy shook her head. "Cole told me last night. Sorry." She looked closely at the picture of the smiling four-year-old that Susannah handed her, memorizing it before handing it back. "She's beautiful."

"Cole told you." Joe repeated carefully, placing a hand on Bess' shoulder. She nodded her realization of the situation and shook off the hand.

"I told Rebecca that we didn't want to worry her with Darius and Krieger while she was still healing, but she figured out that we were hiding something." Frank explained.

"It wasn't that hard." Nancy said. "Have I always been able to read you like a book?"

Her warm smile had his stomach doing flips. "Always."

"But you didn't remember anything yourself?" Joe pressed. "Nothing?"

"Nothing yet." Frank corrected, seeing the helpless look on Nancy's face. "It'll come back; don't push her."

The look Joe gave him was part worry, part annoyance. Frank knew that Joe's questions were valid— urgent, even—but he couldn't seem to help these protective urges that kept coming over him when it came to Nancy. They all wanted her to get her memories back, but until then, he was the one she trusted. He was the one who needed to keep her safe.

"We were planning on splitting up today, and I think we can still go ahead and do that. Darius' cousin mentioned that he and Leila were planning to try to blend in with the tourists in Luxor, so I was thinking that Cooper and Nikki could hit some of the big tourist attractions around here on the off-chance you might spot them in the crowd." Frank continued. "Susannah and Rebecca and I can see if we can get an audience with Bishara—she probably knows more about Darius than she's saying, and maybe if we explain the situation we can get a little more from her." The original plan had been for him and Nancy to do the sightseeing part, but given the lingering effects of Nancy's head injury, spending hours walking in the hot Egyptian sun was probably not the best idea.

Joe nodded. "I think we can work with that."

Several phone calls to the local news affiliates informed them that, thankfully, Bishara Yasseen was still in Luxor. Susannah eventually managed to get her call transferred to Bishara's news team, but the reporter insisted that she was too busy to see them today.

Frank sighed. Of course she didn't want to meet with them. She was Darius' ex-girlfriend, the woman he had trusted to aid him and Leila in their escape from Susannah. Their last encounter with her had proven it. What reason would she have to agree to a meeting where Susannah might persuade her to betray that trust?

They had to give her one.

Frank had an idea. "Susannah," he beckoned with his hand and she gave him the receiver. "Ms. Yasseen?" he said respectfully. "Listen, we know that you don't trust that we have Leila and Darius' best interests at heart, but we have reason to believe there's something bigger going on here than a custody battle. Something involving why Senator Nasser is revoking his support of the Aquarius Group contract. It could be a big story. You're here covering Nasser's banquet anyway; you might as well get all the facts you can."

"You know why Nasser's not backing the contract?" Bishara repeated, and he sensed that they had been right before: she knew more than she was telling. "Can you prove anything?"

"I think so," Frank said. He didn't exactly have hard evidence at the moment, but they would face that reality when they had Bishara face to face. "We really need to talk to you. Maybe we can help each other out."

They arranged to meet in half an hour at a cafe near the hotel, and Frank hung up the phone to see both Susannah and Nancy looking at him.

"You promised her proof?" Susannah said, looking worried. "I don't have any idea why Nasser revoked his support!"

Nancy, on the other hand, looked impressed. "He was bluffing." she said with a fond smile. "And it worked."

Frank cleared his throat, trying to shrug off the warmth of her praise. "We'd better get down to that cafe. I have the feeling that Bishara has the other half of our puzzle."

"You are wasting my time." Bishara Yasseen flipped her close-cropped black hair at them dismissively, starting to stand. "You told me you could provide proof of the Aquarius Group's shady dealings."

"Hang on." Frank placed a hand over hers to stop her from storming out of the streetside cafe. "If you need proof that Aquarius is into something shady, why don't you just get it from Darius?"

Bishara scoffed at him. "He's far too scared to—" she cut herself off quickly, but the few words were enough.

Nancy picked up the train of thought. "Darius is scared. He's not collaborating with Krieger, he's running from him."

"He must know something about the water exploration contract that Krieger's trying to hide." Frank continued. "Krieger must have threatened Leila if he told—"

"Which is why he kidnapped her from Susannah and left the country." Nancy finished.

Susannah stood up, looking the petite Bishara right in the eye. "That's my daughter. My baby they're talking about. She is four years old." she said determinedly. "If she's in danger, and you know something, anything, about why she is being threatened, you have to tell us. Now."

Bishara sighed, her icy veneer melting ever-so-slightly. "Darius would never allow harm to come to that little girl."

Tears welled in Susannah's eyes. "I know he wouldn't."

"But if Darius is in danger, so is Leila." Nancy said softly.

Bishara sat back down. "Krieger, as the head of the Aquarius Group, is receiving kickbacks from land developers along the Nile to suppress any findings of water in the desert that might move development away from the river and lower the value of riverfront property. Nasser was in on the whole thing; for a cut, he would use his political influence to make sure that the Egyptian government went with the Aquarius contract."

"But, Nasser changed his mind." Frank inferred. "Although we don't know why."

Bishara shrugged. "Could have been greed, maybe they weren't paying him enough. Or maybe he had an attack of conscience. Who knows?"

"But you can't prove any of this." Nancy said.

"I only have Darius' word." Bishara said with some frustration. "He overheard a phone call and got caught by Krieger. No hard evidence. And he can hardly come out and testify, not with Krieger after him and Leila."

"And Senator Nasser probably wouldn't be happy to see this all come out in the open either." Nancy added.

"Depending on whether Krieger or Darius can prove he was originally in on it." Frank continued. His eyes met Nancy's and they both closed their mouths in unison, realizing the same thing at the same time: if no one could link Nasser to the Aquarius conspiracy, then Krieger had no blackmail material to prevent Nasser from exposing him. And as Krieger had demonstrated with Darius, he was not a man who liked leaving loose ends.

"Now you see where I am." Bishara said, oblivious to this revelation. She looked to Susannah. "I am sorry I can't help you. Darius truly didn't tell me where he would be staying in Luxor."

Susannah nodded mutely.

With a quick farewell, Bishara dashed off, leaving Frank, Nancy, and Susannah alone at the table.

"I don't see how all this helps us find Leila." Susannah said sadly.

Frank was forced to admit that he didn't either, although... "But I think it may help us find Krieger."

"And the bomb." Nancy finished.