"Uhh... that guy that gave me the lead, I guess. We are having dinner with him tonight. He’ll tell us everything he knows and we’ll go from there. You sound nervous."

"Just keeping my guard up, that’s all."

"Well, that’s good, but don’t worry. Okay, man. Let’s go." Gary raises his hand to call a taxi so they can meet the guy for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So, that’s everything?"

"Yea, does it help?"

"We’ll see."

"Well, thank you for dinner, but I best be getting back to the bank." he shakes both their hands and exits the restaurant.

"What are you thinking, Cam?"

"He doesn’t look like he is lying. Plus, he gave us a lot of information to look up on, so I guess I’ll believe him for now. Are we going to start tonight?"

"I think maybe tonight we should just hang in the hotel room. Maybe figure out a plan and start early tomorrow morning."

"Ok, lets go." Cameron lays down the tip and they go back to the hotel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amanda was lying in bed watching T.V. She looked at the clock and then the phone.

"He’s fine, ya know. You are being paranoid."

"Hey honey, what are you doing up."

"Making sure you are okay."

"Who’s the mom here!"

"I ask myself the same question." she giggles.

"Well, I’m fine. And I know he is okay. I mean... of course he is."

"You shouldn’t worry about Cameron. He is like, Superman! He’ll be fine."

Amanda laughs and gives Alli a goodnight kiss. Alli goes back to her room and the phone rings. It doesn’t even get finished with the first ring before Amanda answers it. "Hello? Cameron!?"

"A little anxious are we?"

"I’m so happy to hear your voice."

"I swear, I don’t’ know how you live without me."

"I barely am."

"Now don’t be slacking off just because we may find this money!"

"I miss you."

"I miss you too. But I gotta go now if I am going to get any sleep after Gary calls Josie."

"Give him my love. And I love you."

"I will. I love you too. Always and forever." she hangs up the phone and falls asleep. She felt better knowing Cameron was okay, for now. He was fine in Las Vegas, but she wondered how he was doing in her dream......

The doorbell rings at the Cory Mansion and Amanda runs to open it.

"Cam, the door and me are over here." Amanda says to him since he was facing the other way.

"I have some bad news, Amanda."

"What are you doing here, Evan?"

"I just told you!"

"Fine, but make it fast. I’m expecting Cameron."

"That’s kinda why I’m here." he pauses as he walks into her house and sits down on the couch. "I was out just walking around and I saw him and Susan...together."

"Liar!"

"I would never lie to you, Amanda. I swear, they were kissing. Call Susan if you don’t believe me."

"Right, even if it was true, I could just call her up and she’d admit the whole thing!"

"Probably not. But I guarantee she would tell you she went for a walk or something, not knowing I saw the two of them."

"Quit saying that. Cameron and Susan would never do that to me. Now, I want you to leave."

"I will, but just remember who gave you the heads-up. And remember, before this guy darkened your doorstep, you looked to me for what you needed and I want you to know, you still should." he leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek and then left. "Alright Susan, lets hope you are working your magic as well." And Evan continues walking home.

"Cameron? Wake up. Are you okay?"

"Who hit me?" he says as he tightens the grip to his ice pad on his head.

"It wasn’t me." Susan says innocently. "But, since you are here. I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"Before Amanda called you tonight, Evan and I were on our way out and she took Evan aside and kissed him and then asked him to call her."

"I knew it."

"You knew what?" Susan says eagerly, thinking her plan was working better than she ever imagined.

"You wrecked the park dinner on Christmas, didn’t you?"

"No!" she says disappointed.

"But you knew about it, right?"

"Say I did. It was for the good of everyone. I helped out Evan so he and Amanda could finally get together and that leaves you open to experience true love, with me."

"I can’t believe you are doing this to the person you call your best friend."

"I’m not doing anything to her. God, everyone acts like she is a princess! Just for once I wanted something great to happen to me. Not Miss Perfect."

"I’m not something great."

"Oh no?" she starts to lean in to kiss him but Cameron gets up from the bed and walks to the door. He tries to open it but he can’t. He looks over to Susan who is dangling the key in front of her.

"You really think I’m great?" Cameron says as he suavely walks over to her and sits back down.

"How couldn’t I? You are smart, talented, cute." she giggles and scoots in closer.

"What about cool, nice and strong." Cameron says in a tender voice as he grabs her hand.

"Oh yea, all those and more." She takes Cameron’s hands into hers.

Cameron starts to lean in for a kiss. Susan’s hands go jelly and she leans in towards him and closes her eyes. Cameron stops right in front of her. "Thank you." he snatches the key from her hand and leaves. Cameron walks to the end of the street and then pauses. If he turns left, he goes home. If he turns right, he goes to Amanda’s. He stands there awhile and finally turns left. Once he gets home he sees Gary on the couch crying.

"Gary, what happened?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I wonder what happened." Amanda gets up and takes a shower. She goes downstairs to have breakfast. There was a note on the fridge. ‘Went snowboarding with Sean. Be back later. Love Alli.’ Being left in the house alone made Amanda decide to go to her mom’s. She got her coat and walked out the door. She was on her way there when a voice in the back of the car said

"Drive to the airport." Immediately tensing, Amanda did as she was told, seeing as how the person in the rear view mirror was not anyone she knew. "Don’t try anything funny either." he pulls his gun out and dangles it in front of her. Amanda continues driving but her mind going a mile-a-minute. Is Alli okay? Does this have to do with the investigation? Who is this guy? Amanda parks the car and the guy leads her to their plane. They sit down and wait for clearance.

"Please fasten your seatbelts. We are now ready for take off to Las Vegas." Amanda was certain now, this was about the investigation. She assumed Alli was okay, for now, but her gut told her Cameron wasn’t aware that she wasn’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Gary, can we go already!" Cameron says looking at the list of names of guys that our suspicious.

"If you want, you can go scope out a few of the those names. I think I am going to stay here and wok on the paper trail and maybe give the bank a buzz." Gary was barely finished with his sentence when he heard a very antsy Cameron close the door behind him. Cameron walked around town checking out some of the names and was having no luck at all. He was at the last one on the list and was feeling very doubtful of Gary’s PI skills at this point. Regardless, he knocked on the door and asked to speak with the resident. A person that appeared to be a butler invited Cameron in and escorted him to a room.

"Will Mr. Rialcnis be coming shortly."

"Yes, he just stepped out for a second. He is expecting you." Cameron shakes his head but then pauses at the remark. The butler opens the door to the room and from a different door, enters Mr. Rialcnis.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. What can I do for you, sir?"

"I just would like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Rialcnis."

"Sure thing. Take a seat." Cameron walks towards a business chair across from Mr. Rialcnis. "Oh, not that one. It is already occupied. Well, don’t be a stranger, say hello to our guest." The chair slowly turns to face Cameron. Cameron’s face goes white when he sees it is his wife sitting in the chair.

"Amanda!? You son-of-a....."

"Ah-Ah-Ah. I’d be nice to me. For one, your in my court right now." he pulls out a gun to intimidate Cameron but Cameron was focused on Amanda. "And secondly, I could have blown her away to get your attention."

"Let her go."

"Now, why should I? I mean, me and you would have never met if it wasn’t for you and your dumbass brother, who I remember as being the smart one but I guess time changes everyone, right Cam." Cameron not understanding his remark takes Amanda’s hand and brings her to him. "I mean, you brought this on yourself. And I’m sorry, but that money is the only thing I have for my retirement fund."

"But it’s not yours!" says Amanda from behind Cameron.

"Finders keepers. Besides, I resent that. Me, Scott and Carl worked very hard to get that money. And we are certainly not going to have it ruined by..." he looks at Cameron standing in front of Amanda and laughs. "By Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot!"

"Who are you?"

"Call Gary on over here. He can tell you. Besides, I miss that little guy. I mean, who would know the Sinclair brothers would turn out so good as to get knock out girls like this." he points to the door as his doorman brings another blonde into the party room.

"Josie?" Cameron’s face tenses and he dials Gary. "Hey Gary, can you come to that listing with me, I think you were on to something."

"Can’t you handle it?"

"I just need you to get here, fast."

"Ok, I’ll b..." but he stops because he hears the phone hang up on the other end. Gary arrives at the house in about 20 minutes and the doorman escorts Gary to the back room.

"Wow, have you changed!" says Mr. Rialcnis as Gary makes eye contact with him. "A present for you..." he opens the door revealing Josie. Gary stares at her for a minute, proceeds to walk thru the doorway and sees Cameron and Amanda trapped in a jail cell. "Don’t be jealous about the cell, Gary. I made one for you two as well." He points to the other one on the other side of the room and leads Josie in it.

"Why did you do this?" Gary says as he eases his way into the cell.

"Oh come on! You don’t even recognize me?" Gary looks closely. He squints his eyes and then his face immediately changes as if a lightbulb goes on.

"Oh my god... it can’t be?"

"Oh, but it is! How is my favorite nephew?" he turns to Cameron. "Sorry, you were just too young for me to really warm up to you, plus the whole killing my brother thing afterwards."

"But you moved to England. How did you get in on this deal?"

"Scott went to school in England." Cameron butts in.

"And they put you in a spilt for the money?"

"That’s right. Scott and I were friends for a long time before then. My job was hiding the money. But you ass wizards made my job a lot harder when you killed Scott." he turns back to Cameron. "What is it with you and killing people I care about?"

"What is it with you and caring about losers?"

"Wait, shh, Carl is back now, is he still in on this?" asks Gary.

"Apparently, he doesn’t remember and wishes me dead, but whatever! More money for me, I guess." he pauses. "Well, I assume this has been a very eventful day for you all and you need time to reflect and what not so, if you will step in that cell right there and I’ll talk to you tomorrow." says Mr. Rialcnis as he locks Gary in the cell with Josie and leaves.

"So, how are you?" Gary asks Josie as he gives her a hug.

"See, you should have let me come."

"Nah, he saved me the cost of a plane ticket." he says to ease her tension then looks over to Cameron. "How are we going to get out of here?"

"I actually think we should hold off on that. He probably has us under high surveillance right now and besides, if Carl does know about this, he’ll piece it all together."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, eventually Alli will go to the Cory house since Amanda hasn’t come yet, and, Carl’s a smart guy, he knows we went here." Cameron looks at Amanda who is just staring out in space. He encircles her waist from behind to reassure her that he was going to make everything right again. "How’s Alli?"

"I don’t know, I wish I did." she turns to face him. "I’m very disappointed."

"In what?"

"I thought Las Vegas would be more fun than this?" she says to break a smile.

"Overrated?"

"A lot!" He smiles and then sits on the bed and leans against the wall. Amanda lays between his legs and sighs. Cameron takes one of her hands in his and strokes her hair with the other. As she begins to fall asleep, Cameron starts to think about what has happened, and how he should have saw it coming. After thinking himself in circles, he mind trails to his dream........

"Cameron, how does he do it?"

"Who? Do what?"

"He gets away with everything!"

"Dad?"

"I can’t stand it anymore!"

"Calm down, dude."

"I can’t." he goes upstairs and slams the door.

"Maybe sleeping on it will help him." Cameron says to himself as he looks at the clock. He decides to walk over to Amanda’s, hoping it wasn’t too late. He climbs the tree outside her window and jumps in, just in case it wasn’t late for her but too late for the rest of the house. "Dear Diary, my life did a 180 tonight."

"Can you actually read that from here?" Amanda says, laughing at his joke.

"Lucky guess. Can we talk?"

"I think we should. First about that. "She points to the cut on his head and then walks into her bathroom to wet a washcloth. "Here."

"Thanks." he holds it to his head. "But I was thinking more along the lines of what happened."

"Ok, what did happen?"

"I probably should have thought about my response before I came over." he smiles a little and then continues. "Well, my version is that on my way here I get hit by, what I am assuming was a bat, and then taken to Susan’s where she proceed to hold me hostage in exchange for, well, myself, the best ransom of all!"

"Har-Har-Har."

"What happened while I was ‘away’?"

"Well, Evan came over and told me that he saw you and Susan making out on your way over here."

"Amanda," he says tenderly. "your life was a lot more simple before I came into it."

"Not to mention a lot less exciting and not so full of love."

"So, what do you think we should do?"

"Well," she says as she takes the washcloth and gently checks out his cut. "I was thinking a kiss would be nice." she leans in for a passionate kiss. When they finally break, Amanda looks up and stares into his eyes, then starts to unbutton his shirt.

"Amanda, wait..." Cameron says, unsure if they should do this.

"I did. For the perfect guy." she takes his open shirt and pulls on it till the fall onto the bed. Cameron starts to kiss her neck and unbutton her shirt. He trails kisses from her ear, to her neck, to her collar bone, down to her stomach. He never imagined they would get this close, but since they were, Cameron was going to show all the love he had for Amanda. "Cameron, I love you."

"I love you too." he said as he brushed some hair to the side of her face and leaned in for a long, tender kiss. It was perfect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"RISE and shine my puppets of destruction!" says Mr. Rialcnis as he unlocks both cells. "And just a warning for you two, I have my bodyguards right out side this room, so whatever plans you may have come up with last night, forget them. Unless they were about sharing your very lovely wives, then, I’m all in."

"Step closer and you die."

"You really do have an animalistic side, don’t you?"he smiles. "Enough chit-chat. I hate to say it but, I’m going to step closer because I’m afraid I need to borrow this." he takes Amanda’s arm.

"I do mind." and Cameron takes his hand off her arm and steps in front of her.

"Ok, well, I lied, I don’t care. She will come in handy today at the bank."

"Well, you will just have to take me too, or get by me first."

"Very well." he calls in his two bodyguards and whispers something in their ears. One guard takes out a gun and puts it to Gary’s head. The other takes the resistant Cameron out of the room, and the first one follows. Then, a shot is heard. "Anyone else have a problem." he says rather cheerfully. The group stands there in shock. No way that just happened. Amanda’s knees get weak and she falls to the floor, breathing heavily. "No, no, no. You need to come with me."

"How could you.... he’s your blood.... he..." she starts breathing heavily again.

"Enough with the 20 questions, lets go to the car. You guys won’t mind getting back in the cell, I assume. Thanks!" Mr. Rialcnis takes Amanda out of the room and the leave for the bank. Gary and Josie are still in shock about everything. Gary can’t help but to pray that Carl has figured out that they are in danger. Gary was thinking himself dizzy when the door opened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I just wish mom would have left a note or something." says Alli.

"It isn’t like Amanda to leave without telling someone." says Rachel, equally intrigued as to where she could be.

"Maybe she didn’t have a choice." says Carl as he excuses himself and goes to call Joe. Joe arrives and he and Carl go into the study to talk. Carl tells him the whole story about how he got involved in the whole mess and then told him all the information he knew about Mr. Rialcnis. Joe had no doubt in his mind that something was going down in Las Vegas. He called some of his best officers and booked the first flight to Las Vegas, but it didn’t leave for awhile. He hoped they wouldn’t be too late. Meanwhile, on Amanda’s way to the bank, she tried to distract herself with thinking about what was going on in her dream................

Cameron’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at the clock and saw that it was only 5:30 in the morning. He turned his head and saw Amanda sleeping so peacefully. It may only be the first time, but Cameron loved waking up next to her. All of a sudden, her private line rang. Figuring it was too early for anyone who would be suspicious of him answering to call, he picked it up. "Hello?" he whispered.

"Cameron? It’s Gary. You need to get home."

"Why?" he says as he sits up on the edge of the bed and starts to get dressed.

"I’ll tell you when yo get here, just do it fast." and Cameron hears the click of him hanging up. He gets up to get his shirt but Amanda grabs his hand.

"And where are you going?"

"Home, apparently. That was Gary."

"So...."

"So your one and only has to hurry home before his bro beats him up." he says as he lies on his side and pulls Amanda close for a soft kiss.

"I don’t know, Cam. Did you ever stop to think that you were just the first of many."

"Oh." he gets up acting offended and goes to the window. "Well, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with being the Neil Armstrong of the bunch." he smiles he hops out her window. He gets to his house and decides to go through their window, in case the hurry was due to their father. He climbed in and saw Gary packing a bag. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I didn’t mean to."

"What?"

"I killed him."

"Excuse me?!"

"He was drunk. He pounded on the door and I opened it and we yelled and I pushed him and he fell down the stairs. He snapped his neck. He is dead."

"Gary, the cops..."

"They were here."

"You’ll go to jail!"

"No, they think it is alcohol related. They don’t suspect anything. They took mom to the hospital, she was in hysterics."

"But, why the bags then?"

"You aren’t 18. Social services are going to put you in foster care."

"I’ll be 18 in like, 2 months."

"It doesn’t matter. If you are still in high school, you are still a minor. So, I figure me and you hit the road. It will be fun. We can crash in Chicago. A friend of mine got me a job. And you can finish school there." he pauses. "Yea!" he says reassuring himself.

Cameron is trying to put all this in perspective. His father is dead, him and his brother are skipping town. He didn’t want to leave school. It was the only thing that was ever stable in his life. Well, that and....

"Oh my god, how will I tell Amanda?"

Authors Note: The song written in this chapter is by Shakira called "Underneath Your Clothes" on her album, ‘Laundry Service’.