"Looking for something?" Lizza asked from the door. ((Yes, I do mean Lizza, not Lisa.))
"Yeah. Any evidence of Lisa not being on our side"
"I....I guess y-you're right, b-but its just so hard to accept that I-I killed somone....did you have to shoot someone?" John asked calming down slightly
"Do you have a reason to doubt her?" Lizza wondered.
______________________________________
Ryan grimaced at John's question. "Yes... yes, I did. Though in the way of being shot at, I was certainly more lucky than you."
"Does it ever hurt to check?"
Lizza smiled. "No... how can I help?"
David gave her the cell phone.
"I'd be grateful if you could crack this thing's code. Meanwhile I'll keep searching around here."
Lizza took the phone and sat down on the bed. She started with 1, 1, 1, 1. Then, moved on... on impulse, she said, "Hey, David. Check her ID. Tell me what year her birthday is."
David checked and told her
Lizza tapped in the numbers and frowned. "Ok, what about her Social Security number... is that in there? Try the last four digits of that."
"So she's not too smart," Lizza remarked when those numbers worked. "Checking recent calls... well, well, will you look at this? A call to Gary Winston's home two days ago. And another four days before that..."
Lizza swore softly. "I don't want to speak to soon, but I think we've found the reason my sister got shot."
She locked the phone and stuck it back in the purse. "She'd better have an explanation for this." A pause. "But we can't confront her..." She gritted her teeth. "As much as I want to, I know we can't. I'll program the house to keep an eye on her. We'll know everything she does."
With that, she stood and left the room."
David quickly dismantled the phone, installed a small microphone inside and put it back together again. Then he left the room.
When Lisa returned to her room, she didn't notice anything different. Her phone was still locked... wait... where was the piece of paper she'd had in her purse? She shrugged it off, figuring she'd taken it out somewhere. Everything appeared to be in order.
Milo entered the room. "Hey, Lisa."
"Hi, Milo," Lisa answered. "When do you think that writer will get back to writing?"
"I don't know," he replied. "He's had a harder day than either of us. Don't worry, this'll all be over soon enough."
"I'm tired," she suddenly said. Milo nodded and left the room. When he was gone, Lisa took out her cell phone and hit redial...
_____________________________________
Meanwhile, Danni, Lizza, and David had gathered to talk about what Lizza and David had discovered about Lisa.
"I just knew her arrival was a bit too convenient," Danni muttered.
"So we know she's working for Gary again," Lizza said. "There has to be some way to trap her..."
"Hey guys," Milo said, walking into the room. "How are you handling this?"
"A little stressed," Danni admitted. Milo nodded.
"Lisa's pretty stressed too," he said. "She's starting to drive me up the wall... but she's resting now."
____________________________________
Meanwhile, Lisa was upstairs on the phone. ((JM, is it safe to assume that David's microphone is picking up the entire conversation... perhaps even recording it to something?))
"Hello," Gary said. "Good news?"
"Very good news, Gary," Lisa answered. "The Protector Sisters are out of the game... one got shot twice and is on the road to recovery and the other is really torn up about it. The Little Playwright is currently clinging to the Actor and demanding answers, shouting something about being a murderer. The Lovebirds are occupied with... well, each other. Milo's busy seeing to it that I'm handling the whole thing ok."
"Good," Gary said. "Glad to hear things are working out. Keep me informed."
Lisa giggled and promised to do just that. Then, she decided to follow through with what she originally told Milo she'd do and rest.
David recorded everything, then, after making sure lisa was resting, he called a meeting in Kelli's room.
"What's this about, David?" Milo asked as he entered. Danni, Ryan, Lizza, Kelli, and John were already there, but David had refused to tell any of them why he'd called the meeting.
"Lisa's resting," he went on. "Or I'd have brought her too."
"You would've brought her I would've called it off. This was recorded 10 minutes ago." He played the tape, but he had deleted the part about him and danni. He didn't want her to know that Gary knew about them.
"This better not be a joke," Milo said through clenched teeth.
"It's not. Go upstairs grab her phone, dismantle it. You'll find my microphone and transmitter inside."
"Damn," Milo said softly. "And I was willing to trust her..."
"We all were at first," Danni told him.
"But we were willing to suspect that she might still be working for Gary," Lizza added. "Before you say anything more, Milo, I have the house watching her all the time. This time, we have her under our watchful eye, just like Gary had you when you worked for the old NURV."
"Keep me posted," Milo said.
"I will. Meanwhile I suggest we feed her fake information, if we're all suddenly silent she'll get suspicious."
"Good idea," Milo said. "John, you'd best work on two scripts. One's the real one. The other's the one we'll let Lisa see. Lizza, can we program the house to alert John to whenever Lisa might be coming?"
"I don't know," Lizza answered slowly.
"It's possible," Kelli said from the bed. "But it'll take a little bit of working."
"David and I can help with whatever programming might need to be done," Danni suggested.
"Get on it," Milo said. He left the room.
"Looks like we've got to get busy again. Let's go."
John was more calkmed down now, but got nervous again when he heard the message, or so it seemed.
"uhm, is there a washroom around here?" John asked.
"Sure," Lizza said. She gave him directions. Danni stood and followed David. Lizza led them to the central computer room of the house and set them up to edit the programming.
"What do you think?" Danni said when Lizza had left them. "Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, right?"
John snuk up to Lisa's room and knocked.
"We need to talk."
Lisa's eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling. "What is it?"
"Nope, but let's say it's taking longer and see if we can get some priva- What's this?"
He pointed at a camera, showing John outside Lisa's room.
"So much for the privacy you wanted..." Danni muttered, finishing his sentence. She looked at the camera feed and watched as John entered. Lisa didn't seem particularly thrilled that he was there, but she did not send him away.
"Turn the sound up," Danni ordered. David complied just in time to hear Lisa say, "What is it?"
"Ssh!" Danni hissed, cutting David off. "I want to hear this."
"Shh, not here, lets go" John said.
Lisa sat up and stared at him for a second. Then, she nodded and stood.
Meanwhile, in the computer room, Danni stared wide-eyed at the screen.
"I don't like this," she whispered. "I don't like this at all."
"Is there somewhere in this house without cameras or microphones?" Curt whispered.
David heard John's question.
"****!" He turned to Danni. "Please tell me the answer's no."
"How would I know?" Lisa demanded in an angry whisper. "I haven't been here much longer than you have." She glanced around. "Come on... let's go out to the back yard."
She walked casually down the stairs, deftly avoided Milo and slipped outside.
In the computer room, Danni's eyes were riveted to the screen. "Did you see that?" she whispered. "She just..." She was at a loss for words.
"Crap, do we have any cameras out there?"
"I'm not really a writer, i mean I'm ok at it, but not really. Gary sent me as well, he called me and gave me quite the offer, so i said yes, and i found a way to get myself in with these guys, and by the way, they know you're with Gary, and now they probably highly suspect i do too. But i have my ways, I'm telling you this just so you are informed of who's on what side and to tread softly." John said as they walked down a path.
"How should I know?" Danni demanded. "It's not my house!"
"Relax and talk," Lizza said, coming into the room. "What's going on?"
"It's beginning to look like we lost our playwright," Danni answered angrily. "Do you have cameras in the yard?"
"Of course," Lizza answered. "We like to be able to keep an eye on everything that happens here... inside or outside."
Danni breathed a small sigh of relief as Lizza reached forward and changed the screens to the back yard cameras.
Lisa swore softly. "How did they figure it out?" She rolled her eyes. "Of course! That little...." She shook her head. "LoverGirl distracted me while LoverBoy checked my room..."
In the computer room, Danni stared at the screen. She turned to David. "LoverGirl?" She swore softly. "They know about us."
Lizza chuckled. "Who in this house doesn't?"
"What will we do now? We've got no playwright, Lisa knows we know...."
"We act like nothing's happened," Milo answered firmly as he entered the room. "Lisa may know we know about her, but they think we only suspect John. Danni, didn't you mention once that you had a little writing experience?"
"Well, yes, but..." Danni began.
"You're the new writer," Lizza said. "We'll still have John writing his two scripts. That way, he'll still think we trust him. But you'll be writing the one we actually use. When John finishes his two, he'll send both to Gary. But he won't know about the one you're writing."
"But he'll know what Ryan looks like," Danni objected. "We can't do this now..."
"A little alteration of physical appearance goes a long gway," Lizza pointed out. "We can outthink them."
"But there's going to be a hell of a lot more risk for Ryan now."
"Naturally," Milo agreed. "But like Lizza said, we can change him. When we're done with him, he won't look like himself any more. And if he's as good an actor as Danni's been boasting, he'll be able to disguise his voice well enough."
"I'm still not sure about this. Gary's going to be a lot more paranoid about anybody who suddenly shows up."
"Maybe so," Milo agreed. "But Ryan won't simply be showing up."
"What do you mean?" Danni wondered.
"Hey," Milo said, "you're the writer. That's for you to decide... he needs a good reason to be there and it can't be like what we did to get into Gary's house the first time."
"Now we go back into the house as if nothing happened." John said as he went back inot the house and into the room where he was writing the play. The bodies were stil there, he grabbed his knife and cleaned it off and put it back in the leg holster. He then ran from the room and tried to find someone.
"uhm g-guys, there are still d-dead b-bodies in the room I was i-in."
Lisa slipped back up to her room, unaware that Lizza, Danni, Milo, and David were watching her. Ryan heard John's comment and went to him.
"Your room and just about every other room in the house," he said. "Here, use my room for now. I'm sure Lizza will take care of them soon enough."
"By the way milo, we need to be more careful. She slipped past you....pretty damn easily."
"I can see that," Milo muttered as he watched Lisa return to her room. Then, he turned to Danni. "Get writing."
She nodded and went to the room she'd taken.
((Yes, this is a very large house... in fact, it should more be called a mansion.))