Just as she was about to head back into the house, Frank pulled into the driveway. Taking a deep breath and hoping he wouldn’t pick up on her nervousness, she waited for him.

"Hey." She smiled at him as he emerged from the car. "You’re home early."

"I know. Can you believe it? Apparently there is no crime in Bayport today." He joked, scooping her up into his arms and hugging her tightly. "I missed you."

"Mmmm. I missed you too." She returned the hug. Pulling back, she looked at him and smiled, hoping her eyes wouldn’t give her away. Frank could read her like a book and always seemed to know when something was bothering her

"You ok?" he asked softly, touching her cheek.

"Fine." She lied. "Just tired, that’s all. I still haven’t recovered from trying to keep up with Joe and Vanessa last weekend."

"You?!" Frank exclaimed. "You weren’t the one who got conned into racing my little brother to the top of the Statue of Liberty!" As he steered Callie towards the house, he kissed the top of her head. "I’m looking forward to two days of relaxing with my beautiful wife."

"I hope you told the criminals you were taking the weekend off. Somehow they always seem to know when you’re looking forward to some downtime." Callie joked, walking through the door as Frank held it open for her.

"Don’t worry, I circulated a memo. Oh…" he stopped short, looking at Callie a little apologetically. "I know we planned to spend the entire weekend alone together but Mom wants us to go to dinner at their house tomorrow night. I sort of told her we would. I think everything that’s happened lately really spooked her. By the time she asked me, Joe had already said yes…"

"What a surprise." Callie said, dryly. "Like he’d pass up a chance for one of your mother’s home cooked meals."

"Yeah, well, since he had already agreed I couldn’t really say no. Sorry, Babe."

"That’s ok. We’ve still got most of the weekend to ourselves." She said wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. "So let’s not waste a minute of it, all right?"

"You read my mind." Frank replied returning the kiss.

As he pulled away and stared silently into her eyes, Callie felt as if a knife were being plunged into her heart. His eyes shone with love. Even if she showed him the pictures immediately and explained everything to him, even if he did believe her, he was only human. His initial gut reaction to the pictures would be hurt and betrayal and she never wanted to see that look in his eyes. Never wanted to be the cause of it. Yet, if she failed in her attempt to steal the file, he would see the pictures anyway and be faced with her deception. An even worse scenario.

‘Now I understand what it means to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.’ Callie thought, wondering why life’s good fortune had suddenly stopped shining on her.

*****

Later that evening, Callie and Frank sat on the couch, snuggled together watching one of Frank’s favorite news magazine shows before heading up to bed. Staring at the screen in stunned silence, Callie couldn’t believe her ears.

"Next up, a behind the scenes look at the government’s highly secretive Witness Protection Program."

All evening Callie had been trying to think of a way to pump Frank for information on the Witness Protection Program without arousing his suspicions, which she had concluded would be just about impossible. Not one to pass up the opportunity luck had just dropped in her lap, she turned to look at Frank.

"So have you ever had to put anyone in the Witness Protection Program?" she asked hoping she sounded appropriately naïve. Holding her breath, she waited for Frank’s reply knowing he was never supposed to reveal any information about such incidents.

"Only once." He said, without hesitation.

Keeping her face neutral, Callie felt as if something inside her had died. Frank trusted her so completely he had answered her question without thinking twice about it.

"Hmmm. How does that work? I mean don’t you have to give the person a new identity?"

"Yeah, that’s basically it. They get a whole new identity and a whole new life. They always have one person, though, who knows about both their old identity and their new one. Although in our case it’s two people - Joe and me."

"But if the point is for them to no longer exist and start a whole new life as a completely different person, why do they need to be able to have a contact for their old life?" Callie asked, hoping she sounded only mildly interested.

"Sometimes they may be put in the program to protect them from one person. If that person dies, they can go back to their old life. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances where information might need to be passed to or from a family member they left behind."

"Oh. So how do you keep track of all that information? You can’t possibly keep it all up there." Callie smiled, tapping a finger on Frank’s forehead. "Can you?"

"No." Frank laughed. "I have a file on the guy. Half a file, actually."

"Half a file? What good does half a file do?" Callie asked, puzzled.

"It doesn’t do any good. And that’s the point. It’s for security purposes."

"I’m confused."

"I have a file that contains half of the information on this guy. Joe has the other half. Even if someone managed to steal one of the files, it would be useless to them without the other half."

"Wouldn’t it be kind of obvious that only half the information was there?"

"No. A lot of the information is in code. If you read either file, it makes perfect sense and appears to be complete. So even if someone stole one of the files, and somehow managed to break the code, it still wouldn’t do them any good."

"I see. Pretty devious. So this is a computer file?" Callie pressed, hoping she wasn’t making Frank’s radar go off.

"No. Believe it or not, it’s an old fashioned paper file locked in the file cabinet." He smiled.

"Really! Why is that?"

"Hackers!" Frank laughed. "Too easy for the enemy to find it on a computer!"

Callie winced inwardly at Frank’s lighthearted comment, realizing she was now the enemy. As Frank returned his attention to the television, increasing the volume slightly, Callie felt an ache deep in her heart. Frank obviously trusted her completely and unconditionally.

‘How can I possibly go through with this?’ She thought, studying Frank’s handsome features, as he concentrated on what the announcer was saying. Suddenly the images of the pictures she had received flashed across her mind. ‘How can I NOT go through with it?’