Megan Franchino knows her chance for escape is now or never. With school finally out for her son Antonio, and her abusive husband going out of town she just might get far enough away before he starts looking for them. If they fail to get away, Megan knows she will not live to regret trying. There is no choice though, their recent injuries prove that if they stay one or both of them will eventually die from the beatings.

There is only one place she might feel safe to go, but will she be welcome there? Can she even get there? How long can she stay? What then? And if her husband's family does catch up to them, is there any way to keep Tony safe?

---

---

 

---

 
The Legal Stuff: Dollar Runaways © 2014 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface

Like the first four books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I was planning to post it a chapter at a time, but due to some real life events that took place in the last week I am doing two per week instead so it’ll be completely posted before I get too busy with other things! The book has a total of 26 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by early March. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook formatted files).

Several readers have commented on the similarities of the story to Wanda Cunningham’s ‘Incognito Parallel.’ I would reference you all to the ‘Dedication’ in the first chapter where I recognize that her tale most definitely sparked my imagination, and this book! I believe you will find that in the end though this work is its own story.

One caution before continuing through this book; it is darker than my past novels have been. If it were a movie it would probably be rated R for Language and Violence. Much of this novel is just as light as you are used to seeing from me though!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy reading Dollar Runaways!!

 
Chapter 2: Redheads
 
MOM WOKE ME up by undoing the harness buckle on the car seat and nudging me awake. "Come on Ashley, time for lunch." I heard.

`Who's Ashley?' I thought for a moment.

"Come on Princess," I heard again.

Suddenly I remembered where I was and nearly screamed when I looked down at the dress I was in. "Okay," I sheepishly said.

Mom had stopped at a Burger King. Before we went to order she grabbed me by the hand and led me to the bathroom. She pointed me to a stall and I pulled my dress up, panties down, and sat down. I didn't take long to go and pulled everything to where it should be. I washed my hands and stared at my reflection. Before I had woken up, Mom had put one of the new barrettes in my hair. It had a pink flower on it and coordinated well with the dress I was wearing.

"I really do look just like a little girl," I said quietly to myself.

Mom came up from behind me right then and said, "Princess you can't stare at your pretty face all day silly."

I giggled a little bit as she poked me and we walked out to order food to go. I ordered a kids chicken meal. Mom ate quickly in the car, tossed her trash, then pulled out of the parking lot while I continued to eat. "At least this seat has a cup holder," I said aloud.

"You actually look like you're more comfortable in that than you normally are," she told me.

I blushed, "Well... I fit in it... But I'm only doing this because we're pretending I'm little!" I told her.

She laughed at me and we talked a bit here and there about different things I needed to be careful of. It made me blush when she talked about needing to be careful of how to sit with my dress. I was well aware of how close I had already come a couple times to showing off my panties!

"Where are we stopping tonight?" I asked.

"Hopefully Dallas. I'd like to stay there tonight and tomorrow night. We can do some more shopping and hopefully I can get in touch with Gloria."

"Who is Gloria?" I asked.

Mom sighed, "Gloria is the aunt of one of my friends from high school. My friend Kaitlyn and I spent a summer there between our sophomore and junior years. We both needed to get away from our parents desperately "“ and Gloria was more than willing to take us in."

"What's she like?"

"Well, she's older now of course, this was twenty years ago... But she was probably only in her forties then. Picture a stereotypical cowgirl... She was tougher than nails and had to be to run the ranch her family had left her. Gloria still had her husband then to help out though. They had a really large tract of land and a ton of cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, you name it they had it!"

"Sounds weird," I admitted from having grown up in the city.

"For you it would be, but where I grew up I had friends with similar places. I had helped them with their farm chores often and done enough horseback riding that I fit in at the time."
"So you never went back after that?" I asked.

"Kaitlyn and I stopped being as close the next couple years... Boy problems," she said with a thin pained smile like she was communicating something I should understand. "We ended up getting a bit closer in college again when I came home one summer, but neither of us went back together to the ranch after that."

"Why are we going there?"

Mom sighed, "I know Gloria would be more than willing to help hide us there. It's rural and it's not an obvious place. Your dad has never met Kaitlyn or Gloria... and I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned that summer to him. I also don't have any pictures from the two of us there anywhere..."

"What about Grandma and Grandpa?" I asked.

"They won't tell him anything Ashley, Mom never liked your dad and I should have listened to her."

I sat silently for a bit and realized I was quickly becoming bored. I couldn't reach the coloring books, but I could reach the baby doll and picked it up by the arm. Mom saw me and smiled while I blushed. I looked at it with curiosity, pulling up the dress and seeing that it had a realistic disposable diaper on underneath. I noticed that mom had put the little bag that came with her also just within reach and I managed to get the strap with my hand. Inside I found several more diapers, a bottle, some packets of `baby-food' and a bowl and spoon.

"She's neat, she's just like a real baby, she'll eat and everything," Mom said to me. "You can be a real mommy!" She said to me like she was talking to a four-year old.

I glared at her, but turned the doll on in back. I immediately wondered if that was a good idea because she was noisy. Somehow though I got totally engrossed in playing with her. "Do you have any water I can put in her bottle?" I asked, curious if it would really use the diaper.

"Next time we stop," she said with a smile as she looked back at me.

I felt self-conscious as she stopped at a gas station not long after. She helped me out of my seat and grabbed my hand. "Let's go potty while we're here," she told me. Just the way she did it embarrassed me. I swore she was treating me like I was much younger than even eight! When we were both done she grabbed a few couple bottles of water and told me to pick out some candy, which I did, and then she paid for all of that and gas. After she filled up the car, she went back for her change and helped me back into the car seat.

"Can you give me my coloring books and crayons?" I asked her.

She smiled at me and did so. "Where's your baby's bottle?" she asked me.

I grimaced, but I was curious. "In the bag," I told her.

She filled up the little fake bottle with water for me and placed my doll back into my arms and handed the bottle to me. "Hold her like this," she insisted to me as she showed me how to give the bottle to the baby properly.

She drove off as I fed the baby doll her bottle. I found myself actually pretending she was a real baby and talking to her for some reason.

"Don't worry, my Daddy won't find us..." I said to her softly. Mom had turned the radio on up front and I didn't think she could hear me.

I jumped a few moments later when I realized she had wet and she told me about it. I looked at Mom with embarrassment.

"Well aren't you going to change her diapee?" She asked with mock horror.

"I guess I should, shouldn't I," getting into the spirit of play a bit. I laid the doll across my lap on her back and undid the diaper. Sure enough it was actually wet! I reached into the bag that came with her and grabbed another diaper to put on her. Once I did that I pressed her bracelet and she said, "I love you Mommy," and I blushed.

Mom smiled back at me like I was the cutest thing in the world and I felt really self-conscious. I hid my face into the doll and tried to pretend Mom wasn't there!

I kept running through her sounds and watching her do things like close her eyes when I laid her down for a while before her batteries ran out.

"Those didn't last long, did they?" Mom said from up front.

"No..." I said, sort of sad. I mentally smacked myself though and sat her next to me and began coloring. It was almost painful to realize that my options for everything now were girly, girlier, or girliest. I found a picture of Merida from Brave and began coloring her. I still hadn't seen the movie yet because of Dad... I blushed as I thought about the fact I was about to have the same hair color tonight when Mom got around to it.

We seemed to drive forever before Mom pulled off the Interstate at dinnertime. "I need a break from driving, how about TGI Fridays?" Mom asked me.

"Okay..." I said, really not caring where if I could get out of the car!

I was attempting to undo the buckle and was still figuring out the trick on it when Mom came and helped me. She grabbed me under the arms and helped me get up while also handing me my doll. "Do I have to?" I whined quietly.

"Girly girl, remember?" She insisted with a whisper.

We walked into the restaurant and were quickly seated just before the dinner rush hit. "Don't forget to smooth your dress underneath you," she whispered to me as we took seats in a booth across from each other.

I held my doll in my lap and stared at the waitress as she left the menus and asked, "What would you like to drink sweetie?"

"Water please," I said politely.

"Same for me please," Mom told her.

I looked at the kids' menu that had been left in front of me and sighed again. The menu said ages ten and under, which I would have probably gotten anyways even before I was dressed like this, but it just seemed to emphasize my pretend age. I decided a hamburger and fries sounded as good as anything.

"What's your dolly's name?" the waitress asked as she returned with our drinks. Moms looked like she was afraid something was going to be wrong all of the sudden.

I just smiled and said, "Her name is Kaelye!" I held her up like a baby so she could see her.

"Well she's a very pretty baby," the waitress told me in that patronizing voice always used with young kids.

"Thank you," I said while mentally beating myself up. `This is sooooo wrong!' my mind screamed. `I can't risk us being found though!' I reminded myself.

"Well, what can I get for you ladies?" She asked Mom. I think she started with her because she wasn't sure I was old enough to order on my own or something. `Come to think of it, Mom may think that too...'

"I'll take the Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad, and she'll take..." She led off to me.

"The kids hamburger and fries please," I said while maintaining the little girl voice that seemed appropriate.

"Would you like cheese on that?" She asked.

"Yes please," I said with a smile.

"I'll have that right out." She told us.

"Mo... Amber I need to use the bathroom," I said. `I almost said Mom... I can't do that!'

"Okay Ashley, come on." She grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom. I brought my doll under my other arm since I figured if I was attached enough to bring her into the restaurant I probably wouldn't want to leave her alone at the table. We took care of business with Mom holding Kaelye for me while I went, and then returned to the booth.

The waitress returned with our food and found me sitting with the doll and waving her arm around a bit. "They're so cute with their baby dolls, aren't they?" She said to my mom.

"Yes she is, but I figure she'll not want to play with them much longer..."

"You know my oldest is a bit older than her and we got her one of those American Girl dolls - and she loves it! She's eight and I think she and her friends will probably still play with them until she's into middle school."

I blushed as I listened, `She doesn't think I'm eight even...'

"You know I might think about getting one of those for her. There's a store in Dallas, right?" She asked.

"Yes there is, just be warned it's dangerous taking them in there! It's pure little girl heaven." She said with a smile. "Well, eat up sweetie."

I placed my doll down next to me, asleep, and began eating the hamburger. `If I ever see my dad again I may kill him...'

MOM AND I climbed into the car again after dinner and another trip to the bathroom. She once again insisted on helping with the harness and then we were off. She stared back at me for a moment in the rear view mirror, "Had you already named her Kaelye?"

My face burned red, but I answered truthfully, "Uh-huh, I figured a real girl would."

"You're right, they would." Mom said, "You definitely convinced the waitress you were real."

I snorted, "But she didn't think I was as old as her eight-year old daughter!" I felt like crying actually. I was supposed to be eleven in two weeks after all.

"No she didn't, which means I think we were right to do it this way," she told me.

I just sat and stared for a while. "Were you serious about that other doll type?" I asked.

"Well, she's right. At eight it's possible you would still play with baby dolls, a lot of girls do, but I know those other dolls are a lot more popular with older girls."

"Oh." I said simply.

"Are you okay?" Mom asked with concern.

I felt the tears going down my face and shook my head, "How can I be okay, my dad is an asshole and I have to pretend to be a little girl so we can get away from him... Because if he finds us..." I stopped speaking.

"Don't use that language Ashley... But if he finds us he'll probably kill me," Mom said without breaking eye contact with the road.

That just made the tears stream more.

"Do you need me to stop sweetheart?" She asked me.

"No, keep driving," I said through a rough voice. I picked up Kaelye and clutched her tight to my chest. I must have gone to sleep at some point because the next thing I knew she was waking me up.

"Wake up Ashley, we're going to try this hotel." She told me.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"In the suburbs just outside of Dallas," she said.

We walked into the hotel office of the Holiday Inn that she pulled into and I found myself standing next to her, holding my doll with one arm and leaning into her side on the other.

"Do you have any rooms available for two nights?" She asked.

"Yes ma'am we do," the man with a thick Indian accent answered. "We'll just need your drivers license and a credit card and we can get you all setup."

Mom looked sheepish and said, "We're traveling and I lost both of those a few days ago when I was mugged. I've got cash, could I just place a deposit instead?"

He looked at her skeptically, noticing the bruise under her eye makeup, and then looked at me. I gave him a shy smile and said, "Hi," before hiding back into her side. I'd seen some of my little cousins do the same and thought it might help if I was too cute to say no to.

"We're not really supposed to..." he said with a grimace, "if you'll put down an extra hundred dollars per night though we can do it."

Mom sighed in relief, "Thank you." She pre-paid the deposit and the room rate and he handed her a packet of key cards.

"Let me know if you need anything else." He said.

We parked and then went in through the lobby a few minutes later with her pulling our two suitcases behind her. I tried my best to keep up with my doll and a few of the bags from our shopping trip.

"I'll be right back," she told me as she left me in the room for a few minutes. I knew she had gone back downstairs to grab the other bags. I climbed onto the bed and turned on the TV. I was just channel surfing when she came back up and gave me a big hug.

"I'm so proud of you Tony," she said to me. "You've been amazing today, and I know it's not easy..."

I felt some tears and shook my head, "We need to get away from him, and I think it's just a matter of time before they're really looking for us." I sniffed lightly and said, "I'm Ashley though, don't forget."

She hugged me tighter, "How could I forget my little sister's name?"

All of the sudden she began tickling me, I couldn't breathe and I finally said, "I'm going to pee my pants if you don't stop."

I giggled but ran to the bathroom as soon as she stopped. I'd always had a problem as a little kid if I was tickled too much. One time when I was six one of my older cousins hadn't stopped and we'd both ended up wet. She'd just laughed about it though! I was going to miss her "“ she was who Kaelye was named after.

As I wiped and pulled my dress down Mom said, "Let's get our hair dyed, I really am worried about someone recognizing me especially now that it's likely they're looking for us."

"I don't think they would even without the dye Mo... Amber." I told her.

"Why do you say that?"

"You aren't dressed like you normally are. Dad had you dressing like you were an old lady."

She nodded numbly and said, "You're right, he didn't want me to look pretty for anyone but him."

I gave her a hug and we began looking through the directions. It was a pain, and I had to really control myself as my scalp felt weird.

"Hold still, baby, and close your eyes. I'm going to swab just a bit of color into your eyebrows," she said as she came at my face slowly with a Q-Tip. Before I knew it we were both rinsing out the dye and looked unrecognizable with our now red hair. Well, it was more of a strawberry blonde for me and a little more vivid red for her.

"Whoa..." was my first response.

"Yeah, you and I look a lot different now!" she said with a smile. "Actually you make a really cute redhead!"

"You do too," I told her. With her hair a different color and different clothes I wasn't sure Dad would recognize her if he saw her in front of him. She almost looked like a stranger to me. With my new appearance in my brightly colored dress I was certain he wouldn't recognize me at all! Mom had done a good job, as neither of our hair looked like the bad dye jobs like I remembered seeing on a couple of friends last year.

"What now?" I found myself asking her a little later.

"Well... I never bought pajamas for us."

"Do you want to go buy some now?" I asked. I looked at the clock and it was nine already.

"Yes, you know Kohl's is probably still open and we passed it not too far back. We could go there and get a few other things that we need too. Let me try and call Gloria first though..."

Mom reached into her purse and grabbed a post-it note that was wrinkled up like she had been grabbing onto it a lot. She took a deep breath and started dialing the number on the hotel phone.

"Hello, is Gloria there?" she asked.

"Umm... Gloria, this is Megan Dale," I was a little bit surprised to hear mom's maiden name spoken.

"It's good to hear your voice too," Mom said and she was on the verge of a breakdown. I sat down next to her and hugged her.

"Well... I hate to do this... But..." She stopped, "I'm sorry yes there is something wrong. I'm trying to run away from my husband right now with my son. He's been... abusing both of us for a couple years now..." she took a deep breath in and let it out; meanwhile tears were streaming down her face.

"Well it's not that simple Gloria... He's not a nice guy and I'm worried he's going to be looking for us. We've disguised ourselves and I've bought a new car, but we can't stay on the road forever..."

"You really mean that? I was hoping you'd say that. I'm really sorry, I..."

"Yes ma'am." Mom said looking like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Well we dyed both of our hair red just now, and Tony is pretending to be a younger girl named Ashley. We're saying I'm her older sister Amber."

"I know, I'm surprised too, but he's been making a big effort and no one has caught on so far. I think it's safe because his father would never consider it..."

I continued to listen to the one-sided conversation for a while, before Mom said, "Thank you so much Gloria. We're going to go shopping tomorrow and then we'll hopefully be able to drive all the way to your place the next day."

After another pause, "See you soon too," and she hung up the phone. Immediately my mom burst into tears and sobbed and the two of us held each other for several long moments.

I looked at the clock and saw it read 9:40 already. It was a Monday, but I didn't know how much later Kohl's would be open. "Mom if we're going to go..."

"Right..." she said. "Let me just fix my makeup really quick." Mom hurried and we managed to both clean our faces up and get into the car in a few minutes time. We would only have ten minutes inside the store, but Mom was on a mission. She went to the girls department and quickly picked out a purple Merida nightgown that featured a big picture of her on the front. She held it up to me and smiled, apparently sure that it would fit.

Mom grabbed a short-set and t-shirt on it that had Rapunzel on it too, and then grabbed my hand to walk to some sleepwear in her size. "We're going to have to come back tomorrow for some dresses," she told me quietly.

She had just picked out a ruffled baby doll short set of her own when the announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen the store is closing soon, please bring your purchases to the front and check out at this time."

Mom sighed, "Let's go then," she said. She paid quickly and soon we were back in the hotel, and I was in my new nightgown. It felt very much like the dress, but different all the same. I kept looking at myself in the mirror as I watched Mom take the makeup off her face.

"You like that one, don't you," she said to me.

I started bawling immediately. The truth is I loved it, and I had enjoyed pretending to be a girl more than I should. Mom held me as I cried, "Shh baby, it's okay."

"I'm not supposed to like this though..." I sobbed.

"I know baby, but it's okay, you're doing this so we can get away safely, it's all okay." I didn't remember going to sleep, but I must have eventually.

Chapter 3: Fooling No One

I WOKE UP gradually the next morning and tried to figure out why I felt so warm and comfortable. Safe, was as good of a term as any. It was then that I realized I was holding onto my new teddy bear, and someone else was holding onto me. I squirmed a little because I needed to go to the bathroom. I also noticed that my nightgown wasn't covering my panties anymore and then semi-screeched.

Nightgown.

Panties.

Mine.

I felt a gentle squeeze before I could get upset though and Mom said, "Good morning."

"Morning," I said back to her. I felt her move her arm and she pulled my nightgown back down before squeezing me one more time.

"I guess we should get going sweetie, we have a big day of shopping today."

"Shopping?" I asked dumbly.

"Remember?" She asked but looked concerned.

I nodded and looked down at my feet, but caught myself instead looking at the upside down picture of Merida on the front of my nightgown. She kissed the top of my forehead and said, "I'm going to take a shower and get dressed, and then I want you to do the same."

"Okay... can I go pee first?" I said.

"Sure!"

I hurried into the bathroom and came out quickly after taking care of my urgent need. Mom stood and looked at me before asking, "Do you want me to pick something out for you to wear, or can you do that?"

"Are eight-year old girls allowed to dress themselves?" I asked sarcastically.

"When they're not back-talking their mommies... I mean older sisters." She said back.

For my part I put on the most angelic face I could and she started giggling. "Pick something out then, I'll let you know if it's a bad choice."

I went through the sacks of clothes we had bought and really wanted to wear a pair of shorts and a normal t-shirt, or at least one of the more normal looking ones... But, I sighed and looked instead at a purple skirt with butterflies all over it and tried to figure out what shirt would go with it. Either I stared for a really long time at my choices, or Mom was really quick in the shower because she came up and asked, "Are you trying to decide what to wear with that?"

I nodded.

"How about this top?" She asked while holding up a light pink top with more butterflies on it.

"Okay, that was one of the ones I thought might go with it." I sheepishly admitted.

"Well this white top would probably work too... And this spaghetti strap top would work too..." She held the others up to me too.

"I think the pink one looks best." I admitted.

She smiled at me and pointed towards the bathroom, "Be quick please," she told me.

RAIMONDO DROVE UP to his house wondering why the hell his wife hadn't answered any of the phones. "I'm going to teach that bitch a lesson for good if she keeps this shit up," he grumbled as he pulled into the driveway and pressed the garage door opener.

`Her car isn't there...' He noticed, `well I'll just have to wait and teach her when she gets back. Dad's going to be pissed when he finds out I came home before everything was done up there... But I can take care of this shit and get back up there to finish figuring out what's going on tomorrow.'

Ray looked around the house and went up to their room to take a shower. Something wasn't right...

`Why the hell is the closet open?' he grumbled, `Probably that wussy son of mine was playing some weird game again. I really should send him to Greg's so he'll spend some time with his boys... Maybe they'll make him man up.'

As he closed the door it hit him that something was wrong. He opened it again and saw that the suitcases were missing.

"What the hell?" He said aloud.

He ran into their bedroom and found a chunk of his wife's closet had been cleaned out. Going down the hall he found the same out of his son's drawers.

"That BITCH can't do this to me!!!" He said angrily punching a hole in the hallway wall. Ray walked downstairs and walked to the fridge to get a beer. On the fridge though he saw a note with his name printed on it in his wife's handwriting. He angrily ripped it open and read,

Ray,
I have taken Tony and left, you have hit the two of us for the last time. I know you will try to find us, so I won't bother telling you where we are or where we are going. My hope is that neither of us ever sees you again. I used to love you, but there is no love anymore, only fear and hatred. The best thing for all of us is for you to let us go, but I'm sure you won't.. Don't worry, I'm not going to bother filing for a divorce anytime soon, not until at least we are somewhere safely away from you. If you leave us alone I probably won't even bother,

Megan

He couldn't believe it, "Nobody does this to me!!!!" He threw a handy kitchen knife across the room where it stuck satisfactorily in the door.

He grabbed the bottle of beer next, opened it, and sat down to think. He could call the cops and say she kidnapped their son... But that would probably cause more problems. She'd show him her bruises... Hell Tony probably still had some on him from last time still. Little brat just couldn't keep his mouth shut sometimes!

Without thinking much more on it he called, "Pops, I need to see you now, where ya at?"

I HAD JUST walked out of the bathroom having put my new panties, skirt, and top on with my hair wet when I looked at Mom. With her new red hair, and the clothes she was wearing, she was looking more like a teenager. I was amazed at how different she looked with just those few changes. She definitely looked like she was too young to be a mother, and I hoped people would buy the idea that she was my big sister.

"All done in there?" She asked me as she set a curling iron onto the counter.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Do we need to do something different with my hair?"

"Is it wet?"

"Yes," I said.

"Okay, first thing, come here," she told me. From somewhere she grabbed a towel and I soon had it wrapped around my hair like I had seen her do a million times with her own. "Okay, now just be a good girl and let me finish getting ready?"

I nodded and sat down on the bed and watched her. This hotel room had the bathtub and toilet in one room and the sink outside. I could watch her work from the bed and just sat down for a moment. After a second I decided though to go ahead and grab my doll and held her while I watched her.

Somehow though time got away from me and Mom said, "Come sit over here sweetie," and I sat down in a small uncomfortable wooden chair that had been by the desk, but she had moved it closer so she could use the hair dryer in the room. "Sit up so I can do this," she told me as she unwrapped my hair. Mom spent a few moments combing it through with a comb to get the tangles out. She stopped for a moment though and combed the front of my hair into my face. I started to move my hand to move it back, but she said, "Just hold on..."

I patiently waited and discovered she had a pair of scissors. Mom cut my hair in front to where the annoying hair felt just above my eyebrows. "What are you doing?" I asked. Panicked a little bit that she would start cutting my hair and ruining my disguise.

"Giving you bangs," she answered.

"Oh." I said. I was a boy, but of course I knew what bangs were. I had a feeling it was going to be weird to have them. Mom then grabbed a hairbrush and the blow dryer and started finishing my hair. When she pronounced it dry I thought maybe she was done, but she said, "Hold on..."

I felt her pull my hair to two sides and shortly after I wanted to scream, "That hurts," I complained.

"You're going to have to get used to this occasionally," She told me.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm braiding your hair into two pigtails," she said with a smile as she peeked around from behind to look at my face for a moment.

I grimaced and at the same time felt a little excitement to know what I was going to look like. What I saw wasn't as pleasing as I thought it might be with as much as mom was smiling. "I look even younger!!!" I complained.

"No, you look cute, there's a difference," she reassured me.

"This is going to be so embarrassing," I wanted to cry right then. She had tied the ends of the pigtails with some purple hair ties that had a plastic butterfly on each of them.

"No, it's going to be safe," she told me as she forced me into a hug and kissed my forehead. "I don't want to lose you..." she told me as I could feel her shake a little.

I returned the hug and sighed, "You won't lose me. Just promise me that when we get to where we're going I can be closer to my age?" I begged.

"Okay," she said, "I promise."

"No one at school would ever believe this one on a back to school writing assignment," I fairly muttered. Mom handed me a pair of white socks and the Barbie shoes. "I can't believe my feet are small enough to fit into these..." I griped as I closed the Velcro.

Mom squeezed my shoulder again and said, "Okay little sister, we have a nice big city and lots of shopping to do!" She held her hand out to me and I grasped it knowing that it would look even more normal for my hand to be held now. "Let's go get some breakfast and then we'll head off. Do you want to bring Kaelye?"

"I probably should?" I asked.

"Probably, and we'll get some new batteries for her while we're out today. Let me see her for a second." Mom picked her up and looked at the back to discover the Phillips screwdriver would be needed just like I had earlier. "Okay, we'll get both of those at a stop later."

I grabbed onto her hand again and held onto my doll. As the elevator door opened downstairs an older lady looked at me and smiled. "You're such a cute little girl, aren't you?" She asked me.

"What do you say Ash?" Mom asked.

"Thank you," I said coyly.

"She's going to be a heartbreaker when she grows up." She told Mom. "Is she... Yours?"

Mom blushed and shook her head, "She's my little sister. I'm taking a trip with her to spend some time with her. Our parents are on a cruise and needed someone to watch her while they're gone."

"Well she's adorable." She looked at me, "So are you going to be going into first grade this year or kindergarten?"

I looked at her and had to keep from screaming, I'm a boy!!!! And I'm going into middle school!!!!

Mom knew I must have been coming to a blowup because she answered, "Second grade actually."

"Wow, you're tiny for a second grader. I taught second grade for many years. I'm sure you'll have fun though. I'm sure you both need to be off, have a good day and it was nice meeting you!"

The lady walked off and I found myself leaning into my mom. "This is soooo not fair."

"I know sweetie," was her only response.

With that we turned into the room where the hotel had set up a Continental Breakfast. I had a bowl of cereal and a pastry while Mom had some toast. I noticed a teenage girl staring at me from where she was sitting with her parents. She looked to be not much older than my real age and I wanted to shrink underneath the table. She smiled sweetly at me and I buried my head back into my food.

Mom finished finally and we got up. "She's so cute!" the girl said to mom.

Mom poked me, "Thank you," I said.

She giggled and said, "You're welcome." Then she walked away and I was left feeling like I was less than my four feet in height! Mom led me out to the car and helped me into the seat.

"You know I could do this by myself..." I told her.

"I know, but you seem less likely to be an almost eleven year old boy this way." She muttered to me.

I sighed, "Sorry for being a pain."

"You're not being a pain sweetheart, this is just really really weird!" She told me with a warm smile and climbed into the drivers seat.

I watched from the back seat as she drove into the parking lot of Kohl's again. She walked in with me hand in hand again and we began looking through racks of clothes. "Would you rather be a Barbie girl or a Disney Princess kind of girl," Mom asked me quietly as we found tops and such for both.

That was a no brainer to me, "Princess" I told her without hesitating. I shamefully admit that I loved all of the Princess movies I had seen way more than the action movies that Dad would force me to watch with him. Well, at least the ones I had managed to see without Dad knowing about it...

"Oooookay," she told me. We began a whirlwind of collecting clothes, a lot of them with Disney stuff, and some just pretty little girls' clothes and taking them into the changing rooms. I was really embarrassed that Mom insisted on going in and out with me, but I didn't have a choice. The pile of `keepers' grew a lot before we walked over to the Juniors section where she was now shopping for herself.

I was pushing the basket along behind Mom while she went on her own spree of terror. I could tell she was actually having fun, so I didn't mind waiting patiently on a bench right outside the changing room.

A girl who looked to be in high school looked at me and smiled, "Hi, I'm Kelly," she said to me.

"Hi, I'm Ashley," I replied. This girl was gorgeous and I knew she had to be way older than me.

"I like your shoes," she said pointing at my Barbie shoes and making me blush.

"Thank you, I like yours too," I said. She had on some pretty sandals that really did look nice.

"Yeah, but yours are cooler because mine don't light up! How old are you?" She asked me as she decided to sat next to me for some reason.

"I'm eight," I told her.

"Really?" She asked, genuinely sounding surprised.

I sighed, "Really. How old did you think I was?"

"Six..." She said a little sheepishly. "You look a little smaller than my seven year old sister. Granted, she's taller than most of her friends."

Mom chose that time to come out. "Ash, I think I'm done here, are you ready?"

"Sure Sis," I told her with a smile. I hoped it conveyed the, please save me from this embarrassment!

"Thank you for keeping my little sister company," she told Kelly, "I think she got tired of waiting in the stall while I tried things on!"

She laughed. "I thought so, I just wanted to make sure she was okay since she was all alone. It makes a bit more sense now that I know she's a big eight year old, but I thought maybe she was younger."

Mom looked at me and said, "We both get that a lot. Our parents are both really short!"

After a couple moments we managed to get away and she led me to the shoe department. "Ooh, they have some Princess shoes in your size," she told me excitedly.

I wanted to groan, but I noticed Kelly was nearby again, "Ooh, really?" I said excitedly. Five more pairs of shoes made it into the basket somehow and we began making our way out of the store. Mom came to a halt again suddenly though and headed to the luggage. She picked out a new set of pink luggage and said softly, "You know, I don't think it should matter... But I want our old luggage gone just in case your dad thought of something with it."

I froze for a moment and wondered if he would have thought of that. `Anything is possible...' I thought to myself. Mom checked all of our stuff out and we headed back to the hotel.

"Sweetie, I think I want to go ahead and switch hotels today... And then we'll leave the luggage in the dumpster somewhere."

"Okay..." I said.

It took us an hour to take all of the tags off of our new clothes and Mom switched into something else then too. "Wal-Mart clothes are not cool at my age," she told me.

"They're not at mine either!" I griped at her, but I wasn't going to bother switching. We made sure everything we had brought, except for the paper bags of cash, went into the old suitcases and everything else went into the new ones. Not everything would fit in the back now so she just put the old suitcases next to my car seat and drove off. Mom had checked out and retrieved the deposit money, figuring we could easily check-in somewhere else. Mom found a dumpster outside of a Denny's that she quickly put the luggage into.

"We're going to need to stop at Wal-Mart again for things..." Mom said resignedly. "I didn't want to risk keeping anything, just in case," she said.

I sighed and held Kaelye tightly, trying not to want to strangle her.

"HI POPS," RAIMONDO said as he walked up to his father and greeted him in traditional Italian fashion.

"What's the problem? Why the hell aren't you in Vermont?" His dad asked accusingly. He was pissed, the operation there was beginning to finally pay off big, but there was something off up there. Giovanni was hearing of a possible leak and that was the last thing he wanted to deal with. His son was supposed to be working to make sure security was solid, and that all of the dividends were going to the family like they should.

"I called home the other night and couldn't get Megan to answer." He said.

"So...?" He asked, his eyes glaring.

"So I tried all night that night, and all day yesterday... I had a bad feelin' and decided to come home and check out what was going on. I was worried about them."

"So you came home, you've seen them, now get your ass back to Vermont."

"They're not there. They left." He tried to fake emotion in his eyes, like it was tearing him apart, but his dad knew better. While he would personally take care of any people that got in his way, he'd always seen his wife as someone to be kind and caring with. His son was never that way though - to him, his wife was an object and nothing more.

"Well maybe you should have treated her right," his father fairly spat at him.

"What the hell, you're going to take her side on this? What about blood?"

"What about it?" His dad asked.

"I want to find them."

"Then what do you want to do with them once you find them?"

"I just want to talk to her," his son lied.

"Riiigght," his father told him.

Raimondo was pissed, this wasn't the way this conversation was supposed to go. "Damnit! I need you to help me here!

His father looked thoughtful and sighed. "We'll find her, but if she doesn't want to come back I think you should let her go. This is only going to get ugly son."

Raimondo looked at his dad with a vindictive glare, but nodded. "Alright."

"I'll make some calls." Was his father's last statement before he said, "But get your ass back to Vermont, I have my own funny feelin' about that operation."

I FELT LIKE Mom and I had raided just about every Wal-Mart now between Columbus and Dallas. She had to buy curling irons, a blow dryer, and lots of other things to replace what she had in her toiletry case. She bought me a couple new hairbrushes as well before going back to the electronics and grabbing a GPS. I looked longingly at the iPads since I was desperately missing mine. Mom correctly interpreted my staring, and I watched her get the clerks' attention to pull a new one from the display, and a cover for it. She also grabbed a pre-paid cell phone too. Finally as we were checking out Mom grabbed one of the refillable credit cards at the checkout and had them put a thousand dollars onto it.

As we walked out of the store I gave her a questioning look, "Why did you buy that card?"

"I'm hoping it'll make it easier to get a hotel room." She told me.

"Oh." I said simply. "Where to now?" I asked as I reached in and handed her stuff out of the cart to put into the trunk. She went slowly though, because she started packing things straight into one of the new suitcases.

"Well, it's about lunch time?"

I nodded, "Lunch would be good..."

"Well, how about we hit a mall food court and then we can do a little bit more shopping afterwards."

"Then?" I asked. Shopping was beginning to get a bit old for me.

"Well, I figured we could check into the hotel and then go check out that American Girl store."

I blushed, "We don't have to do that..." I told her.

She helped me into the car seat, and gave me a slight tickle as she finished buckling it. "Yes we do. I want to go, even if you don't!" She smiled at me and closed the door.

I sighed and waited for her to come into the car. She had pulled the GPS out of the box and mounted it on the windshield after running the cord from the cigarette lighter. I watched as she programmed it to take us to the mall she mentioned. As we pulled away she asked, "Are you okay?"

I nodded, "I'm just tired of shopping."

"Well we've gone a little overboard this morning," she admitted.

"A little?" I asked.

"Is that all that's bothering you?"

I shrugged and said, "Well, it's not like my entire world didn't get knocked upside down in the last two days Mom. I thought I would be playing games and stuff on my iPad, or riding my bike, or I don't know... Not pretending to be a little girl I guess."

"We'll try and figure something else out when we get to Gloria's sweetie."

"I know we will, but the problem is this is probably the smartest plan." I hated saying it. "They're going to be looking for us, and honestly we were pretty easy to spot at first."

I sat there for a moment in silence and then asked, "Mom, are we going to go ahead and switch cars again today?"

"Why sweetie?"

"Well... I'm sure the lady we bought it from won't say anything - I think she could see your bruise on your eye - but what if they found video of us somewhere before we changed our clothes and hair?"

Mom gasped, and said, "You know you're right..." After a few more moments she pulled off the freeway we were on and stopped in a grocery store parking lot.

"Why are we stopping here?" I asked.

"I want to see if they have a circular with car ads," she said simply enough.

She unbuckled me and we walked quickly to the front of the store, found what she was looking for, and then back out to the car. Mom started scanning the listings and said, "This would work..."

Mom spent a few minutes undoing the packaging on the pre-paid phone she'd bought. It took a few minutes for the car charger that came with it to give it enough juice. She spent several minutes setting up the phone, and when she had it ready she called the number.

"Hi, I'm calling to see if you still have the Honda Civic you had listed for sale?" Mom paused and said, "Good, you do?" She took a breath and then asked, "Would it be possible for me to come by in two hours and check it out?" She paused, "Okay, three p.m. will work just fine. What's your address?" Mom wrote down something on her hand, "Thanks!"

"What year is this one?"

"2008, and they claim it's only got 70,000 miles on it. It should look like a good college kid car," Mom added the last part and I began to think some more.

"What are we going to do with this one?" I asked.

"Well... I was thinking we could go park in the airport long-term storage lot. It's in the same general area of town, and then take a taxi again."

I sighed, "I guess that will work. What about our stuff?"

"I thought we could go ahead and check into the hotel first and drop our stuff off."

"Won't that put our license plate back on the map on their cameras?" I knew paranoid was big here.

"Yeah, it could..." She thought for a moment and said, "We'll park at the airport and use the Taxi to take everything with us to the hotel, then go pickup the car."

"We're going to have to hurry, aren't we?" I suggested.

"Yeah, do you think you can live without food for a bit?" She asked me.

"Sure." I told her and sat back in my seat while she drove. I couldn't do much else with the harness keeping me in place. I watched the signs for the airport grow more common, and finally Mom pulled into the long-term lot.

"Are you flying out ma'am?" The man asked at the front.

"Yes sir," she told him with a smile.

"Well follow that cart on back, don't forget to take your ticket with you, but leave this on the dash."

"Thank you sir," Mom responded and drove off towards the cart as directed.

"Okay, let's get everything out of here, including your car seat sweetie," Mom told me. "Don't leave anything..."

The two of us scrambled then and packed her new GPS, phone, pedal extenders, and everything else away in the empty luggage cases. She unbuckled me and I helped her as much as I could outside the car, but to keep up appearances I decided I probably shouldn't be moving the car seat. Instead I held my baby doll like a good little girl and waved at the driver of the bus that pulled up to help us.

He loaded everything on the vehicle and asked Mom, "Which airline?"

"Southwest," she said.

"Okay, just a few minutes."

He drove us from the lot to the curb and helped us with our stuff. "Thank you!" I told him with a smile. He just patted me on the head before climbing back into the bus.

Mom found a cart to put our luggage on and began a trek to find a cab. She'd found another hotel not far from there that we were going to check into and jotted the address down really quick before going up to the taxi stand.

"Where are you ladies headed this afternoon?" The gentleman asked.

Mom gave him the address and he waved at a minivan cab. The driver helped load our stuff in the back; including my car seat that he said we wouldn't need right then. I clutched Mom's hand as he drove through traffic and dropped us off at the hotel.

"Okay Princess, almost done with this fun..." she said, clearly ready for this all to be over with.

The new hotel was a nicer one than we'd stayed in so far, and I hoped it would be a bit more comfortable for us. Mom told me later she picked the hotel because she thought it would be easier to get a cab from. She walked to the front desk holding my hand and asked, "Do you have any vacancies available for tonight?"

The lady looked at her and said, "Yes ma'am we do, we're running a special of one-hundred forty dollars tonight."

I was shocked at how much they wanted, but Mom said, "Okay, I'd like to pay in cash if possible."

"We can do that, but we'll need a credit card to authorize for incidentals..."

Mom handed over the Wal-Mart card and I think we both held our breath until she said we were all set. It didn't take her long to give us our keys and we went up to our room with all of our baggage.

"I should have gone with the smaller car seat," she grunted as she picked it up to move it off the cart we borrowed.

"We could have gone without it altogether..." I whined right back at her.

"No, it's been smart, if anyone sees us no one would believe that you're who they're looking for. Let's go call a cab and get the new car," she told me as I rolled my eyes in disbelief.

"Won't we need the car seat to come back here?" I asked.

"The law is under eight... Make sure you tell them you're nine if we get pulled over. But not ten, they'd never believe it right now."

I stuck my tongue out at her and waited for her to call the front desk. On a whim I decided to quickly switch from my tennis shoes to a pair of sandals. We went downstairs where she messed with my hair a little bit since the tie on my right hand braid was loose. As soon as our cab was there the front desk clerk pointed the driver towards us and we set off to the address we'd been given.

RAIMONDO COULDN'T BELIEVE it when his dad called him an hour into his drive back to Vermont. He'd driven all night to get home and now had an equally long drive ahead of him to get back there. `I'm going to have to stop and stay the night somewhere' had been the thought just before the phone call. Even though it was only about three in the afternoon he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

"Raimondo, I have some news for you, but you ain't gonna like it kid."

He grunted, "Why am I not surprised?" He sighed, "What's the word?"

"Well we went ahead and traced your wife's car via the Onstar feature. Jay went and found it in a commuter lot near Dayton."

"She switched cars?!?" Raimondo couldn't believe she'd have the brains to do that.

"We think so. No idea what they're driving now. Since she left her cell phone at home that's not going to be much help either. I've got guys looking at airports, hotels, and the dollar stores for people with their description, but it's going to be a needle in a haystack. I think we may have a hit on her debit card being used though."

"Stupid bitch! That should help us find her easy then!"

"Maybe"¦" his dad hedged. "Say, did you ever put in those tracking chips into the luggage like you planned?"

"Shit, yeah I did. I got tired of those freakin' airlines losing my luggage. I'll have to get online and see if I can track it down. I'm guessing she wouldn't think to drop the luggage somewhere, and I hid that tracker really good inside the lining."

"Yeah, it would be a good way to check up on her," his father agreed. "Any ideas where she would have gone?"

"Well until you said she dropped the car I figured the worst she would do would be to run to her parents... But now I don't think so. I have no idea where she could go other than friends from college."

"Well, let's wait and see what you find out about the tracker. If you can get me the information on it I'll see if I can't get someone from the family nearby to check in on them. Hopefully with that and the fact she is still using her debit card we should be able to find her by tomorrow."

"Thanks dad."

"I need to go." His dad hung up and he knew they had said probably more over the phone than they should. Supposedly these new phones he and his dad were using were using an encrypted app, but you never knew. The FBI and others could just be too damn clever sometimes.

"Bitch left the car... How in the world could she just leave the Beamer there?!?!?"

He found a hotel and checked in so he could get online and check the trackers.

"I'll find you..."

I included an extra chapter today due to concerns about whether I'll have time to post another chapter on Thursday like I had originally planned. (Thursdays and Sundays are going to be the days for this to be posted) Some real life stuff may get in the way this week. Hopefully it just means an extra chapter will have been posted this week! I hope you enjoyed it!

What did you think? Comments and/or Kudos are always appreciated! If it pertains to later chapters, and contains a possible spoiler, please give people a "Spoiler Alert" warning. Thanks for reading!