As Adrienne steps into the familiar front entrance, she is greeted by a large muscular man in a tuxedo who she has never seen before. "Good evening, madam. May I see your invitation please?" he inquires in an accent that sounds Mexican or Spanish to her.

She smiles at the fellow while pulling out Penelope's invitation, then belatedly realizes her features are hidden by the mask. "Ah, ya! Here iss invitation!" she gruffly gets out, hoping she doesn't sound nervous. "Who in the world is this guy?" she wonders. "He certainly doesn't look like one of Veronica's goons!" She puts it out of her mind as he directs her to the stairway leading up to the second floor ballroom.

She slowly ascends the stairs, noticing that other guests are still arriving so she figures she's timed her arrival quite well. "Perhaps Veronica won't notice me and I can slip away unnoticed to do my little job!"

Hopes of that happening are quickly dispelled as she strolls into the large room, trying to act casual. Veronica is standing right by the doorway, greeting all her guests as they arrive.

Before she even has a chance to think about it, she finds herself staring into Veronica's grinning face.

"Good evening," she warmly says, a slightly puzzled look crossing her face. "Welcome to my little party! I'm sorry, you are, ah... "

Adrienne surprises herself by smoothly slipping into her false identity. "Veronica dahlink! I am surprised you not recognize me, I am Lady Demonika! Disguise too good, perhaps! Hahaha!"

"Oh! Er, of course!" Veronica blurts out. "How silly of me not to recognize you! Well, enjoy yourself tonight. If you require anything, my maid will bring it." She gestures toward the dark silent woman who is standing at her elbow. "Lady Demonika, let me introduce you to another friend of mine, Senora Consuella Cordoba, who is visiting our fair city this week."

"Cordoba?" Andrienne silently wonders as she takes the woman's limp hand. "Isn't that one of the names on Veronica's list?" She shudders involuntarily under the woman's silent appraisal and thin smile. "My God, I've seen warmer faces on frozen fish! This lady gives me the creeps!" She quickly reclaims her hand and nods to the still silent woman. "Ah, I am pleased to meet you, Senora."

As Adrienne/Demonika moves off to make way for the guests coming behind, the woman murmurs to Veronica, "What strange friends you have, Senorita Veronica. But it is not necessary for you to spread my name around like that. And I am not your friend, I am merely a business acquaintance. You would do well to remember that."

"Uh, yes, yes, of course!" stammers Veronica, silently wishing Consuella would wander off for a while. She loves the money she makes from dealing with this woman, but frankly, she gets very nervous in her presence. She again wonders if the rumors are true, that Consuella had slit her own husband's throat to gain control of his cocaine empire. "Better off not knowing anything about that, I think!"

Adrienne wanders off into the crowd of guests, trying to stay as far away from Veronica as she can. "Good Lord, I thought I was going to pee myself there! Meeting Veronica was bad enough, but that other one was even worse somehow!" She wanders around a little, trying to bring her heartbeat back down to ready herself for the next part of the meager little plan. "At least I'm not burdened by a lot of complicated details!" she silently thinks to herself.

She soon spies Sarah, busily rushing around taking drink orders, but sees no way of getting her aside at the moment. She had seen Sarah earlier while talking to Veronica and her strange friend, chatting earnestly with some guest in a long dark dress and veils. "Another of Veronica's weird friends no doubt! Well, I'll have to get Sarah out of here later somehow. If I don't find anything to expose Veronica, I'll have to convince her to take off with me. I'm afraid we'll be running for a very long time!"

 She turns to start working her way back toward the set of stairs that lead to the third floor and nearly runs into Veronica standing right behind her.

"Ah, Lady Demonika, I just thought I'd ask if you enjoyed my little soiree last weekend. I'm sure the other ladies who attended were quite impressed by your bondage demonstration. Perhaps later, you could repeat some of it, If you're willing. Some other guests expressed an interest in seeing your techniques. We'll use the same sissy as before, and don't hold back anything! Give her the full treatment this time. I know she'll just love it!"

Adrienne, who doesn't know a slip knot from the Gordian knot, replies, "Ya, dot vould be fine vit me. But later on, OK? I vant to enjoy party first!"

To herself, she angrily thinks, "So you're thinking of using 'Demonika' to get your revenge are you? You vicious sadist, I'd love to 'demonstrate' on you. I'd leave you dangling by your toes all night and see how you like that!"

Veronica, looking a bit nervous, continues, "Um, I was also wondering if you and the others have made a decision on my membership in the Ladies Club yet?" She expectantly awaits Demonika's reply.

Adrienne doesn't have a clue about that. Penelope never mentioned anything about that club or the other women who were present that night. Oh well, what's one more deception now? "Committee hass not made official decision but... " she lowers her voice and leans closer, "You are in, I guarantee! I put in lofly report on party, I make sure you get what you deserving! Don't tell though, big secret for few more days!"

"Oh, that's wonderful news!" Veronica gushes. "I promise I won't tell a soul! I'll talk to you later!" She soon vanishes, nearly floating on air.

"Thank God she's gone!" Adrienne sighs in relief. "Now back to the job at hand." As casually as possible, she makes her way to the stairs. She knows that there is a washroom upstairs and has seen several people going up to use it. This is her excuse for getting to the third floor and she now heads in that direction.

As soon as she's out of sight of the throng below, she takes a turn away from the bathroom and quickly runs down a poorly lit corridor to the back of the mansion. As far as she knows, this part of the place is rarely used. She was up here only once when she took a wrong turn while looking for Sarah's cramped room.

After trying several doors and finding nothing but dusty little rooms obviously neglected for years, she begins to panic. "Calm down, girl," she says to herself. "You know that the room with the safe has to be here somewhere!"

She finally comes across a room that shows recent use. It was once used by staff as a common area and contains a pool table and some old upholstry. There's also a more modern touch, a computer and desk against one wall. In a corner, there's a cot that looks recently slept in.

"Who in the world would be staying up here?" Adrienne wonders. "I've never seen anyone else here except those two guys in the kitchen the other day."

Unaware of the activity upstairs, Veronica is standing quietly in a small lounge next to the ballroom, pondering the night's events. "The party seems to be running fairly smoothly, even without that insolent Adrienne. Where is she anyway? She should be here by now! I'd better send the boys over to her apartment now and grab her."

"Damn, if she's already run off, that will really mess up my plans! I really should have had her staying here under my control like Sarah. But that stupid book project at work couldn't be foreseen, so what else could I do?"

Her thoughts then turn to Demonika and her news about the club membership. "Oh, how wonderful to know that I will soon have the repect of my so-called peers in our little community! I'll quickly have the dead wood cleaned out of that pompous committee and they'll be doing my bidding!"

She begins to look a little puzzled. "Hmm, speaking of Demonika, there seemed to be something a bit different about her tonight, but I can't quite figure out what it is! She insists on running around with some sort of silly mask on all the time, so I can't read her expressions at all. I wonder why she does that? Hehe, maybe she's ugly or scarred and doesn't want to show her face! Or maybe there's another reason... Oh well, who cares! Soon I won't need to bother with her at all; everything will be under my control as it should be! Heehee!!"

Meanwhile, Adrienne breathes a sigh of relief as she sees the safe before her. "Finally!" I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to find it, but here it is just like Vicki said. Now to get it open!"

She recalls the numbers and quickly dials them in. She then tries to turn the handle, but nothing happens. "Oh no! Did she change the combination?" Beginning to panic, she tries again, entering them in reverse order but that doesn't work either.

She takes a deep breath to try and calm herself then tries to think about the numbers. "Hmm, Vicki said it was her birth date, 11, 21 and house #33. Hey, this is #39... I remember that from the card Veronica gave me that first day! The city must have renumbered the street at some time! I wonder..."

At that moment, Veronica decides to rejoin her party and starts to move to the door of the lounge. "Damn, still no Adrienne! Well, that does it! I'll have to call the guys and tell them to find her quick! If she's not at her apartment or still at work, she's probably running as fast as her chubby legs can go! Maybe the bus depot... God, I've been really careless lately! I need a stiff belt to calm myself..."

She suddenly stops, a stunned look forming on her face. "Belt! That belt Demonika was wearing! Adrienne was wearing a belt just like that the first day I saw her! Could it be... I thought Demonika's voice sounded a bit different! But why the disguise and what could she want here? This would be the last place she'd come, unless she wanted something very badly."

Veronica continues talking to herself, "Hey, I wonder if this has anything to do with the cab stand last night! Bill said the door frame was cracked and he thought someone had tried to break in. But there's nothing much there of value and everything was untouched. I don't even leave either set of books there anymore; they're locked in the safe upstairs, along with my diary."

"Talking to yourself is a very bad habit, Senorita," a cold voice murmurs directly in her ear. "You never know who could be listening."

Veronica lets out a little shriek and whirls around to find Consuella standing right behind her. "I agree that you have been very careless, Veronica. In my type of business, that can be fatal. I do hope you are not becoming a liability. If I discover that you have mentioned any of our, ah, dealings in this diary of yours, that would be very bad for you, I am afraid. My pet jaguars are very hungry and they will quickly devour any tidbits... perhaps your ears and nose, after I have my men remove them. Of course, you will be... invited to watch!"

"Now I strongly advise you to locate this Adrienne person immediately and deal with this matter firmly or I shall call my bodyguard at the front door and he will firmly deal with all concerned! Comprende?" she grins savagely.

Veronica feels stark terror for the first time in her life and feels a dribble of pee escape down her leg. "Ah, yeah, er yes, I understand... immediately!" she babbles, then dashes through the salon to the back stairs and bellows down to the kitchen, "Ralph! Ralph! Where are you, Godammit! Get your head out of the fridge and get up here! Now!!"

Adrienne stands gazing into the safe, amazed that she actually got it open. "That sly bitch! She nearly stumped me with that simple combination. And that house number switch, if I hadn't remembered that I'd be standing here until the next millenium! Now let's see what's here..."

She pokes around in the safe, pushing aside a few bundles of cash and a bit of jewellery. She finds several passports from different countries with various names, but all with Veronica's picture staring back at her. "Ewww! One photo of her is too much! This must be her insurance policy!" she mumbles.

At the bottom Adrienne finds two bundles of computer printouts and a small leatherbound book. "Ahah!" she exclaims, "This looks very promising!" Putting the papers under her arm, she opens the book. The pages are filled with cramped handwriting, but she has no trouble making it out.

She immediately discovers that this is Veronica's diary, but only for the current year. "Who knows where the rest are. If she's been keeping diaries since she was a kid, there must be a stack of them stashed somewhere!"

She hears some distant shouting but it's too far away to make out. "The party is getting wild!" she thinks, and flips back through the pages, looking for a certain date.

"That rotten bitch!" Adrienne spits out, focusing in on a page from five days ago. "She was lying about having a secret recording of me the whole time! And that threat concerning the police chief is just something she made up on the spur of the moment. She's even gloating about it in here! This is what I suspected but couldn't prove! I bet she has nothing on Sarah either. There must be a lot more good stuff in here. This is definitely coming with me!"

"Hmm, this looks like two sets of printouts from an accounting progr... Wow, the taxi books! Look at the difference in the figures. Wouldn't the government tax boys love to have a look at this!" She gathers up the papers and the diary. "Time to move," she realizes. "I can look this over later, I still have to find Sarah and get away from here!"

Adrienne peeks out into the hallway, then moves quickly toward the back stairs. "I'll find somewhere to hide this stuff outside, then come back for Sarah." As she turns to descend the stairs, she spots some movement in a doorway beside her. Before she can react, something large and wooly clamps over her mouth and she is nearly pulled of her feet. Then she feels a sharp pain behind one ear and everything fades to darkness.

"Haw haw! Dat's funny, boss lady!" rings out a gruff voice from behind her. "Whachoo want me to do wif her? Can Ralphy keep her? She's real purty!"

"Oh, my aching head! What happened? Where am I?" Adrienne wonders, not able to focus her mind or her eyes. All she can make out is a large dark red shape in front of her. She realizes that she is on her knees and is being held upright by her hair. She can't move her arms and there is something stuffed in her mouth.

"No, Ralph my pet. I'm afraid there are other plans for dear Adrienne. Hmm, we do have a couple of hours to dispose of before we have to meet Li's men down at the docks. I'll let you play with her until then. She's not really a girl, but then you aren't too fussy, are you, Ralph?"

The shape comes closer, then Adrienne receives a blow on the other side of her face. "There, that will even out the swelling on your face! Well, Adrienne, you nearly pulled off your little plan! I didn't realize what you were really after until Ralph showed me the books you stole, and also my diary. That would have caused me no end of troubles if you had managed to get away with those items! I really don't know how you found out the combination for my safe. I've underestimated you, but it's not going to happen again! I do hope you like rice and enclosed spaces, my clever little queen... it's a long voyage to the Orient in a shipping container! Hahaha!!"

"She's all yours, Ralph. Just don't mess her up too badly. I want her in usable condition by the time she gets to her destination. I don't want to get a discount price for her from Mr. Li because of broken bones. Just put my things back in the safe after you're done and I'll move them to some place safer later on." The blurry shape starts moving away. "I must return to the party now. Oh, collect the other one when you've had your fun. I'm not taking any more chances with these two. The caterers can clean up the mess."

"Oh Lord, no!" Adrienne thinks as her scrambled brain starts to function once more. "I've been caught red-handed and it was all for nothing! I'll never get out of this mess now and I can't do a thing to help Sarah either!"

Then a big rough looking fellow comes into view and Adrienne cringes away from him. She doesn't like the look of him, or the unpleasant odor coming from his direction.

"Oh, goody goody! Boss lady is real nice to Ralphy! I do what she want and she let me have fun with the rubbery girly!" he says, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve. "I tie her up tight so she not run away and put gag in her mouth so she not make all those screamy noises! Hurt Ralphy's ears, they do!"

"Wow, this guy is clearly no Harvard graduate!" Adrienne thinks, as she tries to squirm away from him. He chuckles and grabs her by the hair again, and starts to move toward an old door leading into a garage, clearly looking for some privacy to begin his 'fun'. Although not being particularly religious, she suddenly decides praying for some kind of salvation might not be such a bad idea at this moment. Somebody just might be listening after all!

Her sight is still fuzzy and at first Adrienne doesn't believe what she's seeing behind Ralph. She spies something moving and then a dark figure silently comes into view. Arms come up, holding a... golf club? "This can't be real," she thinks, shaking her head.

It is real. Suddenly, the club comes down, and makes a sharp hollow sounding noise. She hears a low exclamation, "Fore!", followed by a giggle. Ralph stands for a moment with his mouth hanging open and his gruesome teeth showing, then his eyes roll up in his head, and he goes over backward like a falling tree. He's still hanging on to her hair and she gets pulled over to lay helpless on the ground, knocking her head again in the process.

Adrienne is only semiconscious as she senses some movement around her, then she feels some hands grabbing her behind the shoulders and knees. Amid some mumbled curses, she is lifted off the ground. "Jeez, you're heavy! Maybe we should have left you to sample Veronica's rice diet!" a familiar voice whispers.

After a few moments, she's set down in some soft grass. The gag is unfastened and she forces the evil thing out with her tongue, retching a bit. Then the ropes binding her arms and hands tight are removed. Someone bends down in front of her to remove the binding on her ankles. "Huh? Penelope?" she mutters, trying to sit up. "You're not supposed to be here in my nightmare! When did you grow long hair?"

"Snap out of it, silly girl!" Penelope smiles down at her. "We're all here, and quite real! My, you must have received a really nasty crack on the head! We shouldn't be moving you, but I feel we should vacate the area immediately before dear Ralphy wakes up or some other undesirable comes along."

Adrienne is helped to her feet and stands there unsteadily, staring at the people around her. Besides Penelope who is holding a long wig, there is Gloria, who is just tossing away the golf club and removing her own shoulder length wig. Vicki is also there, dressed in an elaborate long dress, standing next to a masked girl. "Wha...? You and Gloria were at the front door! I thought you were some of Veronica's lesbian friends!"

"Very funny! I suppose we did appear that way though!" Penelope chuckles. "It was Vicki here who planned this little get together. She felt so guilty after she learned that you were going into Veronica's lair alone so she called and convinced me to come and keep an eye on proceedings. Gloria wanted to come along too for the excitement, I suppose! I had one extra invitation that was supposed to be for Hans and she wanted to use it to go inside, but Vicki insisted that it was her job since she knew the layout better than any of us."

Penelope continues, "I told Gloria to go watch around the back and it turned out to be a good move. I guess she got her bit of excitement after all, teeing off on Mr. Ralph's head! Oh, she also recovered some papers and what I hope is Veronica's diary."

"It sure is,"Adrienne says, spying the diary and printouts in Penelope's hand. "All that stuff will make for some very interesting reading, I think!" She suddenly looks shocked. "Sarah! I have to go back and get her!" She nearly falls over turning to go back to the mansion.

A hand reaches out and steadies her. "Easy, easy! It's alright!" says the strange girl, removing her mask to reveal Sarah's smiling face. "I'm right here! Vicki took me aside while I was serving and told me what was happening. I was to be ready to leave at any time. She smuggled in this outfit under her long dress and stashed it with all the guests' coats. Then there was some sort of disturbance and we could hear Veronica yelling. That was our chance and Vicki got me into the disguise; we just walked out the front door together and I was free!"

Suddenly, the sounds of a very loud argument come from the house. Then there is a piercing scream, followed by two loud bangs. Soon, there are guests running out of every exit, screaming and crying.

"It's about time to leave, girls!" cries Penelope. "Those were gunshots and I fear that something terrible has just occurred! Vicki, Gloria, help Adrienne back to the car. You go too, Sarah! I'll hang back to make sure we're not followed. I'll meet you later at Vicki's. Get going now!" She turns and ducks into some bushes.

"My God, I wonder what just happened!" Vicki inquires, as she and Gloria grab the still disoriented Adrienne by the arms and start to lead her away.

"I have no idea," says Sarah, following behind. "But you can always count on one thing from Veronica. Her parties always end with a bang!"

"Well, Penelope will find out what happened," Vicki replies. "But right now we'd better get Adrienne to a doctor. She doesn't look good. We'll take her to the clinic that I set up for my TS sisters' use. They're very understanding there and will look after her, no questions asked."

Gloria speaks up, "Well, I think you two sissy maids can hang up your aprons now. If that diary is as full of juicy tidbits as I think it is, she won't bother you for fear of you making it known to any interested parties! And those cab books are just the icing on the cake!" She picks up the pace. "But right now, let's boogy! I think even I have had enough excitement for a long while!"