A man is feminized by his wife and his business partner and framed for embezzlement. Can he survive the humiliations his wife intends to subject him to and start a new life?

Thanks go out to Marina Kelly and Kelly Ann Rogers for their very valuable editorial assistance in improving the quality of this story.

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Chapter 14

Reality came back to Rob a little bit at a time. Sleep was a very comfortable place to be and he didn't want to wake up. The smell of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, and formaldehyde stung his nose and gave his mouth a sort of metallic taste. The only sound in the room came from the air vent on the ceiling. It was when he tried to move an arm and his legs that his eyes flew open.

His vision was dazzled for a moment, but the lighting in the room was not all that bright, almost as if it was indirect lighting or just reduced. Memory flooded back as he realized that he had passed out and that the bastard Evan had been involved there at the end.

As he became fully aware, Rob tried to move his arms and legs again. That is when he realized that he was confined to a bed of some kind. Full awareness kicked in when he found that his head was strapped to the bed as well. His eyes wide open, the most he could do was turn his head within the strap that held it down.

The head of the bed was raised enough that he was almost sitting up and he was able to see the door across the room. He struggled to move for a few moments and the shifting of his breasts made it clear to him that he was nude under the sheet and blanket that were fastened over him. A random thought reflected that he was glad that the blanket covered his bare feet, even though they were still pointed down like a ballerina's. A low-grade pain in his hand called for his attention and he was barely able to see that his hand now sported an IV port and was immobilized.

He recognized the room. He had awakened in the same room weeks, or was it months, ago when his world seemed to start going to hell. This was where he had stopped looking like Rob Tanner and Geri had started doing things to his mind. Now…he was back here again. There was only one thing that they could possibly do to him now and he was powerless to stop them from taking the last thing that made him a man. That feeling of helplessness seemed to settle into the pit of his stomach and tears of frustration ran down his cheeks. He prayed, ‘please God let them still be there.”

The door to the hallway was closed. He hoped that someone was around to hear him as he called, "Hello? Is there anyone there? Help me I've been kidnapped! " He hoped against hope that someone might actually come in who would rescue him.

Those hopes died quickly as the door opened and in walked Geri and Evan. The sight of them made the feeling in his gut settle to a sick, sad pulse. They took a couple of steps into the room, followed by a sharply dressed stranger, and Doctor Winters. His wife and Evan stood at the foot of the bed looking at him, tight smiles on their faces, obviously enjoying his predicament.

"Geri! What are you going to do to me now?" Rob questioned, with a cotton mouth, his voice sounded just a girly as before, if not worse. He hoped that they might be preparing to tell him that he some sort of medical condition that required him to be fastened down, but their smiles did not give him much hope.

"Why whatever do you mean…dear?" Geri responded sweetly.

Her answer telegraphed more to him than any long-winded explanation could. It said that the team made up of Rob and Geri no longer existed. It was obvious that Geri and Evan were as close with each other as Rob had thought that he had been with her at one time. All he could do was accept things at face value and try to find out why he was strapped down and how to get free.

"Tell me damnit! Why am I strapped down? What's going on?"

"Well, buddy," Evan said. He was sporting a good-sized bruise on one side of his face that looked like it made it uncomfortable to smile. "You're here for some education and it works best when you can't fight back." Evan's smile lop-sided grew somewhat as he continued. "You see, my wife and I are going to take the assets of your company as well as the money in your trust fund and transfer everything to our off shore bank. But we need a patsy to take the fall while we are in the process of getting out of the country and moving all that money to our own accounts." He hugged Geri to him to make it clear to Rob who he was talking about.

"What do you mean your wife? Geri's my wife," Rob spat. He thought that he must not be completely awake yet.

"That's right, Rob," Evan said, his smile was almost a sneer. "Geri and I are married. For a score this big, she went undercover to become your wife and to set you up. Like I said, we needed a fall guy for everyone to focus on while we leave the country quietly."

"What…what do you mean? I still don't understand," Rob asked. His world was slowly crumbling around him and it felt like the room was spinning or getting darker.

"Moving half a billion dollars out of the country will attract a good deal of attention, so we need somebody to distract the Feds and the SEC. I think that if the president of the company is accused of embezzling the money in his own company to finance his sex change and new life, no one will come looking for us right away. What do you think?"

"You can't possibly think that you'll get away with it!" Rob said in the most authoritative voice he could muster, shocked that the man he thought was a friend was preparing to steal everything from him. Sadly, his voice came out sounding like a school teacher scolding her students.

"Why not?" Evan asked. "We have plane reservations in the name of Diana Tanner to Thailand and sex change surgery scheduled for Rob Tanner to become Diana. Diana Tanner has applied for a passport and has an apartment here in the city."

Rob's helplessness was reinforced as he thrashed about and tried to pull free from the straps that had him immobilized. "You can't possibly get away with it. All I have to do is explain that I had nothing to do with any of it. I'll tell them everything!"

Geri laughed at his threat. "You could, if you could actually think straight. I was trying to get you programmed to be a cute little boy-toy and you would have been completely clueless when the police showed up at that safe house to arrest you. I fact, I was actually thinking of walking you right into the police station to turn you in."

Her voice became harsh with anger as she continued, "But no, you had to be stronger than we expected and you broke free from all the work I had already done." Her lip curled. "So, we brought you home to Doctor Winters and his clinic. We've already made you look like a cute little she-male and now we are going to have him turn you into a big-boobed, airhead who won't be able to turn us in. Call me a harlot, wait until you see how you spend the rest of your life. Terrified he looked between his legs. Geri laughed don’t worry darling we left your little friend, Giving you a real pussy would be too good for you. What I have planned will be to have you pleasing clients with your mouth and ass. Even if the cops even think to ask you those kinds of questions, the new you will have no credibility. By the time we're done, you'll want to suck and get fucked by anything around you!"

Rob's attempts to free himself became even more frenzied and were just as futile as before. "No! I don't want to lose myself!" The tears were running down his face like a stream. He was hardly even aware of it.

Geri smiled nastily and said, "I know…It sucks to be you. But you are going to love it! You won't have any choice." This last sentence was said silkily, with all kinds of cruelty within it. Geri was truly enjoying this. She reached out and squeezed his breasts, not very gently either. "These are all you, dear. I've been feeding you hormones for months and your first visit here was the kick start your body needed to switch over. We've made you just soo cute!"

Evan joined in with Geri's fun and said, "Look at this way, Rob. You always stood up for those twits at work and now you get to join them. You're going to be the first man to ever go through menopause, you'll be famous."

Geri clapped her hands with glee; "I hope you get the whole experience, stomach cramps and hot flashes. I would almost pay to see that."

Summing the courage from somewhere Rob threatened the two, "You're right, I'm going to be famous for capturing you two crooks. Geri, you know I am a man of my word and I promise I will never rest until you two are behind bars!"

She slowly slid her hand down from his tit to rest on his crotch and squeezed his manhood, "I didn't want to deprive you of your only friend. We wanted to make sure that this little guy was still working. You're going to be so popular at whatever prison you're sent to."

She laughed as she said, "I wish I could be there when they're trying to decide where to put you. I'm sure that you'll have all kinds of boyfriends or girlfriends in no time at all." She gushed as if she were actually jealous.

"You might as well stop struggling," Evan said. "You don't want to damage that IV needle. That's where that bag of drugs is going to drain into you." He gestured to an IV stand that was just out of Rob's view.

"Doctor Winters tells us that you won't feel a thing, but the effect of the programming we're having done to you will essentially make you into a whole new person. The real you will just be sitting in a little box in your head watching. He seems rather concerned about not hurting you, it must be that human streak that doctors have.

"You know, when I found out that he was working on the cutting edge of gene research and psycho-therapy, he wouldn't work with us at all? I had to make a deal with the local Mob boss," he gestured to the stranger who had come in with him, "to put pressure on him by way of his family to make him see things our way. Now he's our pet surgeon he will jump through hoops if we tell him. He is going to help us steal your company and your trust fund."

"What do you mean? My trust fund?" Rob asked.

"The money your parents put in trust for you. The vesture date is coming up within the next week and I'll be able to access it through the company accounts. We're taking your 250 million along with the 500 million in the company accounts. We might have to split it with the Mob, but this one score will set us up for the rest of our lives."

The behavior of the people he had thought was his close friend and his wife hurt. Even with the mess of chemicals that Rob knew had to be running through his system, all he wanted to do was to be able to thumb his nose at these monsters. 'Somehow,' Rob thought, 'they can't keep me down, I'll be back. Like an avenging angel, then they'll be sorry.'

Rob laughed at them, feeling like a wolf at bay, and pushed his head into the strap as much as he could.

"I guess you'll have to settle for stealing everyone else's money. You'll never touch my trust fund," he said defiantly. "I'll use every cent be to defend myself and track you down." He paused for a moment and spat, "Vengeance will be mine, and I’ll get you bastards, one way or another. You think what you've done to me is bad. It will seem like a walk in the park after I am finished with you two."

The stranger finally spoke up and said, "Well, I'd better see some money one way or another."

Rob noted absently that Doctor Winters was trying to put as much distance between himself and the other three, trying to remain unnoticed. Not easy considering the smallness of the room.

The stranger looked at Evan and growled, "I want to know when I'm going to see my money, Stevens. I've put out a lot of money so far and it's time for you to start paying back."

Anders had made himself part of the con when Evan had approached a couple of his men for some manpower help. The plan had been reported back to Anders, who had promptly informed Evan and Geri of his new partnership status and, in his mind, that he was the controlling partner.

The upside of the Mob involvement was that the plan had evolved. Anders had known of the existence of the work the clinic was able to do, but had not seen the risk of forcing Winters' co-operation in any of his operations as being worth it. For half the take Evan and Geri had planned to steal, Anders had seen it worth the possibility of coming to the attention of Homeland Security.

He had forced Winters' co-operation by threatening to kill his family. The same threat had been made against the entire staff and there was someone watching each family. Anders even had a mole in the clinic that would report to him and give him a head start on cleanup, if anyone in the clinic got brave enough to try to go to the cops.

But all of that manpower was expensive and his men were only loyal as long as the money continued to go into their pockets. So, he wanted…no he needed, to start seeing some money from this operation.

"Hey, Walt! There's no reason worry to about that." Evan's voice seemed to take on a whiny, submissive tone. Anders gave him the creeps. The man had a reputation for making the people he didn't like go away. Evan and Geri had not wanted to be working with the mob to make this con work, but it had not worked out that way. Now they had to worry about keeping a killer happy.

"My name is Mr. Anders to you Stevens!" This smarmy little shit needed to learn to not be so familiar. Grifters were beneath him. They didn't work with their hands for the money that they took from their marks. There was no honor in weaseling someone into giving you their money. Besides, if they were conning their mark into giving them money, could you really know if and when they might be conning you? Stevens was the worst. He'd kiss your ass while he picked your pocket!

The smile on Evan's face froze into a mask. It was obvious that the mobster was in no mood to be friendly. His thoughts automatically switched over to escape plans and of whom he might blame. What did he need to tell Anders that would let him get away with no additional bruises?

"Yes, sir," Evan said, switching from friendly to respectful colleague mode. Damn it! This was why Evan had not wanted to deal with Anders. Amateurs who did not understand the grifting art wanted their money now…now…now. They didn't understand that conning someone was like investing in the stock market: You had to wait for the right moment to take your money out. Especially if you wanted the mark to stay conned.

"We had to bring Rob back in to work on his…attitude. We ran into a little problem," Evan said smoothly. "It's nothing to worry about." The whiny quality of his voice even grated on Rob.

"You wasted weeks making your friend look like a debutante and trying to program him into a bimbo," Anders snarled. "This is all for your escape and doesn't mean shit to me. You could have sent him on vacation and stole the money while he was gone! I want to know when I'm going to see my payoff!"

Inside, Evan wanted so desperately to tell this thug that he was working on it and that he would get his money when he got his money. However, his wiser side won out when he considered that to tell Anders off might be fatal, definitely painful, or both.

"I have everything ready, Mr. Anders," Evan said, remembering to how him the respect he demanded. "I just need a few days to make sure we have Rob's 250 million." He knew that actually mentioning that amount of money should buy him the time he needed. He just hoped that Rob would be ready by then.

Anders slapped Evan across the face, on his unbruised side, and Geri gave a squeak of fright. "Let me make something very clear. You have two days to get me my dough." He reached down and grabbed Evan in the crotch. "After that, I'm going to cut your balls off and feed them to your wife here." He jabbed his thumb at Geri.

"I know a really good Hollandaise sauce," came Rob's defiant voice.

Anders glanced at Rob and thought, ‘I like this guy, he’s got guts’ A sarcastic smile spread across Anders' face as he looked into Evan's eyes. He could see the fear and frustration in his eyes and Anders knew that there was nothing that Evan could do about it. He smiled at Rob's wisecrack. "Your friend has more balls than you do Stevens. Maybe I should give him or her a job, heh?" He resumed watching Evan trying to hold down his growing anger.

"I work cheap, Mr. Anders," Rob said, joining the 'Humiliate Evan' game. "Just because I look like a bimbo doesn't mean I can't shoot a gun. Maybe you'd let me kneecap Evan?"

Anders looked at Rob, "Sorry buddy we don’t use guns for that anymore. It leaves too much forensic evidence. We prefer a Black and Decker drill with a quarter-inch drill bit. It’s just as effective but ten times as painful. If it comes to that I’ll keep you in mind. "

Finally, Evan broke away from the stare down and looked angrily at Rob, "Shut up you sissy!" He wished that he didn't need Rob. Right now, he was mad enough to beat Rob to death. Rob looked like he was about to say something and then thought better of it. But he let a satisfied smile cross his face, just to let Evan know that he knew that he had hit a nerve.

As Evan turned back to Anders and Geri, Anders looked at him and said, "Two days, Evans, or I pay a visit to the local hardware store." He shoved past his co-conspirators and left the room. Evan and Geri could only exchange sick looks of resignation.

Evan led Geri out to corridor for privacy. "I'm going to go back to office and check on things. I'll let you make sure that Robbie gets set up for his education properly." Geri nodded and they exchanged kisses. Kisses that were lacked passion and looked more like the couple had been married for decades and were tired of each other.

Evan left to go to work and Geri turned to re-enter Rob's new torture chamber.

* * * * *

The parking lot was full when Evan pulled his BMW into the lot. It didn't help that there were two police squad cars taking up spots, one even had the audacity to park in his reserved spot. His eyes narrowed at seeing them, afraid that they might be something for him to worry about. Deciding to play it safe, he parked on the street. As it was during business hours, he walked in the main doors of the building and breezed right through without worrying about security and into an elevator.

As the doors of the car opened onto his floor, he saw uniformed officers and at least one stranger in a suit at the end of the corridor. His sense of self-preservation caused him to stand to the side to avoid being seen as the doors closed. He punched the button for the next floor and waited as the doors opened again. Seeing that the hallway was empty, he hurried down to an unmarked office that he locked behind him once he was inside.

He kicked at the pile of junk mail that had accumulated on the floor below the mail slot in the door. It was a small office, obviously intended to be a short-term rental. In one corner stood a table holding a portable multi-function printer and a high-capacity shredder. He had not needed to use them as yet, but they would be handy in an emergency, like when he needed to destroy evidence or set up a new identity or a bolt hole.

A folding table held a small computer workstation with a cable in the back that arrowed into the ceiling tiles. While it was not as posh as his office downstairs, all he needed was the computer in front of him to be able to complete his work. Everyone thought that he was just a smiling administrator, with no other skills, which is exactly what he had wanted them to believe. As a result, he had been able to use his technical knowledge, and a few late nights, to set up this remote workstation. This was the real reason that he had taken Sally's security administrator tasks away. She wouldn't be able to see that he had created this access point into the company systems.

No one knew about this office either as it had been rented by a fictitious corporation to be a mail drop. But he didn't need to be sitting his office to steal his 500 million. He could even forge the documents necessary to change the vesture day of Rob's trust fund and direct that it pay out into one of his special accounts. The best part of that was that taking the trust would happen after the Feds were done investigating this crime. He'd make sure that Rob didn't even remember having a trust fund, let alone that he had stolen it. He smiled thinly to himself and mentally twirled his black handlebar moustache.

He sat down and got to work. He verified that no one had detected his hidden office or his secret connection into the mainframe. Considering that the police were downstairs, it was entirely possible that they were looking for him and he needed to move fast before his access might be revoked. The first thing he did was pull up the forms he needed to change Rob's trust fund. He already knew Rob's passwords and code phrases, so he filled out the forms and emailed them to the lawyer from Rob's email account. That would add authenticity to the request.

Once that had been completed, he accessed the work station in his regular office. He had all of the wire transfer command files stored there, waiting to be activated. He knew that the activity on the computer would be detected, especially if someone was in the office at the time. He looked over the files briefly and everything looked fine, so he started the wire transfer software and pointed it at all of his transfer command files.

This was the moment of truth. They had been building to this point for almost 2 years and now, with a single keystroke, he and Geri would be 500 million dollars richer, well 250 million dollars actually. Anders would want his half of the money and it rankled him that they had to give him half of the money that they had worked so hard to steal. It had grated on him to watch his wife be with another man for 18 months as his wife. All Anders had to do was spend some cash, Evan and Geri were the ones who had done all of the hard work. Of course, the trust fund would be gravy for himself and Geri.

He reached out, his hand was surprisingly steady, and pressed the Enter key on the keyboard. Immediately, the transfer software took off with its processing. The commands in each file were pulled in and sent to the company's mainframe before then being blasted out into the world-wide banking network to move all of his millions of dollars from one bank to another, before it finally would end up in his secret off-shore accounts.

At least that was the plan. Evan watched in horror as one transfer command after another was rejected by the mainframe and then by the world banks. He was sure that he had set everything up correctly in the files, so what had happened? He didn't have the information handy to work through each command and figure out what he had done wrong. Had he used the wrong account numbers? Put a comma or slash in the wrong place? Those commands looked like so much gibberish if you didn't have the manuals to interpret them.

He started to shake from fear as he realized that he had nothing to give to Anders. The man wouldn't accept excuses; he would just kill them both. In his near panic, he realized the irony of the situation; that Rob, albeit as the bimbo Diana, might be the only one to live through this. He fumbled for his cell phone and punched Geri's speed dial code.

"Where are you and are you alone?" He kept his voice steady, but the tenseness came through anyway.

"Yes, I'm alone. I'm still at the clinic, making sure that the doctor knows what we want him to do with Rob." She was quick to pick up on the 'off-ness' of Evan's voice and said slowly, "What's happened?"

Quickly, Evan filled her in on what had happened when he had triggered the transfer orders. He had either set the commands up wrong or they had been tampered with. Either way, the plan was shot and they needed to get out. Get out before the Feds arrested them or they were killed in some barbaric way by Anders. After explaining the situation, Evan hung up to head to their own safe house that they has setup up weeks ago. They would need to stay out of sight until they could get out of town, preferably out of the country.

Geri glanced around her to make sure that she was still alone in the corridor. Satisfied that no one could have overheard her conversation, walked calmly down the hall to the restroom. She took care of business and called for a taxi before she dumped her cell phone in the trash as she left the room. The likelihood of the phone being found was low, but it would still give her several hours before anyone tracking her cell phone signal would realize that she had not left the building. She strolled out of the front door and down to a waiting taxi. She gave instructions to drive to where she had a car parked and disappeared down the street.

* * * * *

Sally sat behind the desk in Rob's office thinking about her friend, it was a little lonely right now without him. The two boxes that held everything that she had taken from her desk outside of Evan's office sat just inside the door. In response to her report of possible fraud, the FBI and SEC representatives had come and gone throughout the day.

She watched while everything in Evan's office was photographed, dusted for fingerprints, and boxed up. The FBI arrived with search warrants that they tried to use to seize everything in sight. However, she had called the corporation's legal counsel right after calling the FBI and SEC and they had arrived before the forces of the law. The government's attempts to take everything had been blunted to only allow the contents of Evan's office to be seized. It was agreed that additional searches might be necessary, depending upon their findings.

She hadn't cared about what they did with everything in Evan's office. She had used the flash drive that Pete had prepared as soon as she had arrived this morning and she had done that from her own desk. Sally was glad that she had done so, because she had been monitoring the activity on the mainframe when she saw the wire transfer system activate and begin processing a mass of instructions.

She could see that the source of the instructions was Evan's computer and she watched as each command failed, one after the other. She could almost imagine the frustrated expression on her former boss' face. The man had been so rude to everyone else here that she wished that she could be there to hear him swear and tell him that she was the one who had stopped him. Well…she did have a little help.

Evan's office had a glass wall to the hall and she was able to see Evan's workstation from where she sat. He hadn't wanted that loss of privacy, but he had no choice. He had resorted to putting large plants in the way to provide some concealment. Sally could still see through to the desk and could see that no one was near the computer to have started the transfer process, which meant that Evan was accessing his computer from a remote location.

It was only a few moments before one of the agents noticed that the computer was actually doing something. By the time they had disconnected the computer from the network, it had finished trying to submit all of the transfer transactions. For all she knew, Evan had wiped the contents of his computer as well. That wasn't a problem for her, Pete was sure that he had gotten a copy of Evan's personal files and was home right now, still reviewing it all.

Finally, Evan's office was stripped and boxed. It was then that the ever attentive officers of the law discovered the extra connection into the office that indicated that there was a second location in the building from which someone had been able to access the computer. She left it to them to track down Evan's other computer, because she had been asked to meet with members of the board and the corporate counsel to explain to them what she knew.

The meeting did not go badly at all. They had originally been told that Rob was on vacation and that Evan had been given operational authority. Sally did not think it wise to tell them that Rob's absence might be due to another cause entirely, mainly because she was not sure what that reason was. The attorney backed up her story that Evan had removed authority from everyone who might have had a chance to know what he was doing, so Sally was not held accountable for her actions.

The major concern the board had was need to keep the company operational until Rob could be notified and told that he needed to return to work. No one, including the SEC, wanted to bring the company under SEC supervision until Rob returned.

This was why Sally was now sitting in the CEO's office, preparing to take charge of operations. Everyone in the office had been concerned about why there were official-looking individuals flitting around the office throughout the day and tensions had rumors getting started. There was speculation that the company was going bankrupt and that Rob had disappeared with all of the money. Another rumor said that they were being bought out. Another said that Evan had been embezzling and that was why the FBI was there.

Once the board had arrived upon a plan of action, everyone was called together and told a version of the truth. Rob was on vacation, but was unreachable. The company was fine and business would continue as usual, except that Evan was under suspicion for stock fraud and had been removed from the company. Sally was now the acting Chief Executive Officer until Rob Tanner returned from vacation.

Everything was to continue as normal, with the approval of the SEC, and no one was about to lose their jobs. Any information regarding Evan and his legal difficulties was to be considered confidential information. If it were leaked to the public, the company could be in trouble and then people would be fired.

So…Sally was sitting there, still coming to terms with the responsibilities of her new job. A wry smile crossed her face as she reflected that it was too bad that Evan had disappeared, maybe he could bring her coffee for a change. She decided that she would worry about what to do with the stuff from her old desk tomorrow; she turned off the light and headed for home.

* * * * *

It was a repeat of last night's conference as Sally, and Pete gathered around her dining room table with Chinese, with the exception that Sally's friend, Jim Freeland, had been added in. Pete had suggested to Sally that she might want to notify the police because he had found more information in Evan's files after he had bypassed the remaining encryption.

"We're going to need to cut back on this food, Sally," Pete said. "There's too much salt in here for our own good." He grinned with a silly expression. "I hate it when I retain water. It makes my butt look big."

"Hey! You were the one who told me that this was important," Sally replied smiling, she liked Chinese. "I don't see that you tried to cook anything for dinner."

Jim watched the exchange, grinning. The brother and sister got along well and it was fun to see that kind of closeness. He missed it for himself, but he could tell that Sally had moved on and had someone else on her mind.

"Well…It was either Hamburger Helper or work on everything that I copied off your boss' computer," Pete tossed back. "Besides, I fixed breakfast. I'm not Betty Crocker you know."

Sally pretended to be confused. "Who's Betty Crocker?"

Playing into the game, Jim said, "Wasn't she that lady who wrote all of those cook books?"

"No!" Pete said. "She is the character who represents products like the Hamburger Helper you wished I had fixed."

Sally and Jim both shuddered. "Working on the computer was fine," Sally said in a mock rush. "What did you find?"

Pete gestured to a list of some the information he had printed off.

"This guy must have either been paranoid or really afraid of being caught. He had his email account set up to encrypt all of his communications and it took me most of the day to decrypt everything. Hurray for new computers."

He held up several sheets of paper. "I found some really interesting items. There were several personal, I mean really personal, messages that he had archived. According to what I found, your boss, Rob, is married to a bigamist."

Sally looked at Pete in surprise. "What?"

"It would appear that Geri Waters married Rob Tanner about 19 months ago, but she married Evan Stevens almost 4 years ago. The messages that she and Evan exchanged indicate that she knew all about what Evan was up to. That makes her an accessory to whatever Evan was planning to do at your company."

Sally and Jim exchanged looks as they thought about Rob and where he was.

"So Rob isn't legally married to Geri then," she said. Even though she was worried about Rob's safety, all she could think about was that Rob wasn't really married. Her heart began to pound as she thought about it.

Jim nodded. "But I didn't see anyone who looks like your friend when I was watching that house. There's something else going on."

Sally bit her lip. "I know. The person who called me on the phone sounded more like a bubbly co-ed, but she claimed that she was Rob. She knew things that only Rob could have told her too." Jim and Pete watched Sally's emotions go from hopefully happy, to fear, and to end in horror as she contemplated what might be happening to Rob.

Sally looked at Jim with a very determined look on her face. "Jim, we need to save my friend. Now."

* * * * *

The rescue mission was delayed by the realization that Rob could be in real danger from Geri and her newly discovered husband. Jim had convinced her that they should wait until morning before they went to the house on the west side. It would be too easy for a neighbor to see them moving around in the dark and to have to explain themselves to the local police.

The big problem was that Jim still had no official standing with the department, but his captain was actively working to get him re-instated. It looked like there were things going on around Jim that might mean that he would need the power and authority that the department would only be too glad to throw behind him. Right now, they could end up being arrested for a day or two. And they could not afford that.

Even worse, a neighbor might panic at the thought of an intruder and start blazing away with their automatic weapons that they kept for protection. Jim had learned that lesson by hard experience. It was also why he had broken it off with Sally in the first place. It was too easy to be killed by a law-abiding citizen these days and he wanted to spare her the grief of losing him that way.

* * * * *

It was early morning when they reached the neighborhood of the house. Jim slowed the car somewhat and they cruised slowly past the house. They saw no activity in or around the house, so Jim turned around at the end of the block and came back to park across the street from their objective.

Because Geri knew Sally, she remained in the car, crouching to remain out of sight from the house. Jim openly got out of the car and crossed over to the house. Knocking on the front door, he waited a few minutes before deciding that he was not going to get an answer. He walked around the house to the back and disappeared from sight. It was several minutes before he reappeared and waved at Sally to come along. At the back door, Sally found that it was open. Jim just smiled at her questioning look and said, "I learned how to pick locks in my first year in the department. There isn't anyone here, so let's see if we can find anything."

Jim led the way into the house. There was obvious evidence that people had been living there, with unwashed pans and dishes in the kitchen and the dining room. Whoever had been here had left in a hurry as there was still food on the plates in the dining room. They found that there had been two people in the house, both women.

It was while Sally was searching a bureau in one of the bedrooms that they realized that one of the women had to have been Rob. Calling to Jim, Sally spread the before-and-after pictures of Rob out on the table in the main room.

"What's going on Jim?" Sally asked, totally confused. "Rob never seemed to be into this before. When he called me, he sounded like a woman and he said something about being in hiding."

"I'm not sure. There are a couple of people here in town that Rob had contact with when he went into town. I got the impression from the conversations I was able to overhear that he was running errands for his wife. In one case, it looked like he was sent to a beauty parlor where they really screwed him over. But I saw him later and he looked really good."

Not finding any evidence of where Rob and Geri could have gone, they left the house and decided to track down the people in town that might have information for them. Jim confessed that he had no idea where the woman lived that Rob had been spending a great deal of time with, but he drove to the garage that Jake operated.

They found Jake just opening for the day and the two of them went in to speak to Jake.

"Hi. Can I help you?" Jake smiled at his customers.

"Hi. I'm Jim Freeland and this is Sally Olsen. We're looking for somebody and we hope that you can help us." The two men exchanged handshakes, but they could see that Jake was on his guard.

"Jake Adams. I can try. Who are you looking for?"

"Well…This is a little awkward to explain. It's a friend of ours, but we don't know what name she is using," Jim said. He took out one of the pictures they had found in the house, which depicted a very feminine Rob, and held it out to Jake. They could see that Jake recognized the feminine-appearing Rob.

"Yes. I know her that's Diana, she’s a good friend. May I see some identification?" It was obvious that Jake wasn’t going to just tell them what they wanted to know.

Both of them held out their ID's. Jim spoke for them both. "I'm a detective with the Baltimore Police Department, but I'm on suspension at the moment. We think that our friend could be danger and we're trying to track her down before something happens."

"I can try to call her," Jake volunteered. "I gave her a cell phone to use." He stepped over to the service desk and dialed a number. He listened for a few moments before he hung up. "It went straight to voicemail. Diana must have her phone turned off."

Sally kept her mouth shut, but she picked up on the fact that Rob had obviously been presenting himself as a woman named Diana. More importantly, the man before them was not aware of the fact that the woman he was discussing was actually a man.

Jim nodded. "That's too bad. If it were turned on, we could have tried to track down where it is. Look…We think that our friend, Diana as you know her, is in some danger from the other woman she was living with. Can you give us any idea of where they might have gone?"

Jake shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. She never really shared much of her past with me." He realized that he had been on two dates with Diana, but he really knew nothing about her. "Tanya, a mutual friend of ours, might be able to tell you more."

"I'm afraid that we don't know how to contact Tanya," Jim said. "Can we arrange to meet with you and Tanya to explain what is going on and why we need to find Diana?"

"Why don't you go over to the mall? I'll arrange it with Tanya to meet you there in an hour or so."

Jim and Sally moved the car over to the mall and sat down for coffee in the food court. It was about an hour later that they saw Jake coming toward them accompanied by an attractive brown-haired woman. The way the two of them were walking made it obvious that they were more than just friends. This was obviously Tanya and they stood up to greet the newcomers.

The four of them exchanged smiles and handshakes as introductions were made. Once everyone had coffee and they were all seated, Jim began his explanations.

He took a deep breath and rattled off, "Diana is our friend from the east of the city. We think that she is in danger and that the woman she was living with is part of that danger. All we know is that they were living in a house here in town and that they are not there now. We're hoping that you might be able to give us an idea of where they might have gone."

Jake and Tanya exchanged glances. It was obvious that they had already talked and were not surprised. Jim continued, "As I told Jake, I'm on suspension from the police department in the city. I was involved in a police raid on a Mob brothel a few weeks back and I'm under investigation. We need your help and I'm perfectly willing to tell you anything that you want to know or go with you to the local police if you want to check me out."

Jake waved his hand in dismissal as he said, "Diana was pretty close-mouthed about her past, but she never mentioned anything about being worried about any kind of trouble or danger." Tanya nodded in agreement.

Jim and Sally exchanged looks and Sally nodded. "We have things to tell you about Diana that might shock you." Jake looked at them in surprise, but Tanya's expression was more expectant, as if she knew or suspected something.

Sally took a deep breath and searched for how to tell her story. Finally, she just jumped in. "Our friend's name is not Diana. It's Rob."

The other couple just looked at Sally in shock, Jake more so than Tanya. A slow smile spread across her face as Sally's revelation set in. "I thought that might be the case," Tanya said.

Jake looked at her and asked, "What do you mean?"

"I told you about the spa date that we had. Remember? You laughed off what I thought I saw and you thought that it was my imagination." She looked at Sally and asked, "What's going on?"

"Okay…In a nutshell, the woman that Rob, or Diana, was with is actually Rob’s wife. We think that Rob has been forced into being disguised as a woman, we just don't know why. We do know that the woman Rob believes is his wife is actually a bigamist and is married to Rob's business partner. They just tried to steal the assets of the company that Rob controls. That's why we think that Rob is in some kind of trouble and that they may be setting him up for the crime."

Jake regained control of himself and said, "I would never have guessed it from talking to her, I mean, him. There was never a clue that Diana was anything other than a refined lady. I was actually interested in her."

"I was interested in her too," Tanya said quietly. "I was prepared to actually be gay, but I guess it's you who was going to be gay instead." She nudged Jake good-naturedly.

Jake shrugged and said, "I don't really care. Diana is a good person. Whether she is male or female, I'm happy to have met her and to have had her in my life."

Tanya nodded. "Yes, she is a good person. I never saw her act selfish or mean in all of the time I was able to spend with her. She would have made a good mother. I wish that we knew something that could help you, I really do."

Sally and Jim nodded sadly at the realization that the only trail they had to find Rob had gone cold. They chatted with their new friends until they had finished their drinks and they returned to the city to report their failure.