After a wonderful day of sightseeing, they had returned to the hotel for dinner. The restaurant was not large, but elegant and its patrons the wealthy... sophisticates of the French capital. As Mioki was finishing her chocolate souffle, two well dressed men she had never seen before, approached the booth."Ah, gentlemen," smiled Darius, "Mioki I want you to meet Franz and Raphael. Gentlemen, Mioki."She smiled, but the two seemed to ignore her."Is the amount satisfactory?" asked the taller of the. Rather than slam the door, she decided to gently close and latch it before proceeding further into the house. Carefully, she tip-toed into the kitchen to look for her mother, but the woman was nowhere to be seen. “Weird…the car’s in the garage,” she whispered to herself. “I bet she’s upstairs taking a nap.” The assumption wasn’t too far off base. She’d found her mother knocked out more than a few times. The older she got, the more sleeping she seemed to do. Which was alright by her,. I know Father: He looks for friends and allies, not puppets. But whatever happens, happens; no sense in worrying about that now. So anyway, tell me what all has been going on. Our trip is going to be easy and probably boring; I'm kind of sorry to be missing the excitement."They talked at length about this and that as Lavender stood to the side partly listening but mostly watching. She knew their trip would be anything but easy. At the very least it would be dangerous and possibly deadly,. She didn’t think I would agree & I didn’t think she would lock her clothes in the trunk, even if I did agree, but she did and then I was stuck. I could not go back on the deal after she had done her part. So, we drove around town (with her naked) and several people saw her at stop lights and on the highway. Her time was ending about dusk, so I drove her to a not-so populated park and made her walk (unwillingly… BTW) across to the other side, where I picked her up again for the grand finale. .