[Veritas]

"Okay, okay, let's not panic here," Criss said, trying to keep himself calm. "Cos, you're sure you left them on my desk yesterday?"

"I'm positive," Costa insisted. "That was the last place I saw them. I gave them to you with those pictures of Dad. I laid them right on your desk."

"Maybe one of the office staff took them," JD suggested.

Criss shook his head. "No, no, no, they couldn't have. No one's allowed in my office unless I tell them to, and I didn't tell anyone to go in."

"Was the door locked when you left?"

"I never lock my door, you know that!"

"Then there's only one explanation," JD said. "Someone broke into your office and stole them."

Criss sank into the sofa. "Oh, that's just great!" he groaned. "There's an envelope full of nude pictures of me out there somewhere, and I'll bet anything they're gonna end up on the Web! It's the YouTube thing all over again, only worse!"

"They also took those photos of Dad as well," Costa reminded him.

Criss groaned again. "Oh, God, that's even worse!" he wailed. "The ones you took of me, yeah, those can be replaced, but those picutres of Dad--no one can replace them!"

He shot up from his seat. "Look, I don't care about the ones about me," he said, "but we gotta get Dad's back--if only for Mom's sake. I mean, she'd want those photos more than anything, right?"

JD sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled on his lips as he silently analyzed the situation. "Okay," he said finally, "the first thing we do is go up to the security office and see if they have any videotaping of someone going into your office. If we spot someone carrying two big envelopes, we got our man!"

"Or woman," Costa added. "There's a lot of female fans out there who'd love to see you in the buff, Criss."

"Whatever!" Criss snapped. "Let's just go and check out the eye in the sky and see what they got. Meantime, I'm going to report this to security. Someone breaks into my office and steals my stuff--they are so gonna get their ass kicked!"





While Criss and Costa went to the video surveillance office, JD and George scoured the entire Production Office for the missing photos. When nothing could be found, they questioned the office staff about what they knew, which, it turned out, was practically nothing.

"Are you sure you didn't see anyone go into Criss' office?" JD demanded.

"No one," Jennifer, one of the assistants, replied. "Just Criss and Costa later on."

"How about you, Aimee?"

"Zip."

"Zach?"

"I was on mail duty that day; I didn't see anyone."

JD sighed in frustration. "Let's see what the tape has to say, okay?" George said. "We'll get those pictures back."




"Okay, so you say someone broke into your office and stole some photographs from you desk," Chief of Security Macaffey said gruffly. "What do they look like?"

"Eight by ten black and white glossies in Manila envelopes," Costa explained. "One envelope had pictures of our dad, the other had ones of Criss."

"And you discovered them gone when?"

"Ten minutes ago."

"And they were in the office since...?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Anything incriminating in them?"

Criss and Costa exchanged nervous glances. "The ones of our dad are about forty years old," Criss told him, "so they have more sentimental value than anything."

Macaffey nodded sympathetically. "I understand."

"The ones of me, well...they were for a private project Costa here's working on."

"Okay, we'll be on the lookout for 'em," Macaffey said confidentally. "We'll have the video guys go over the surveillance tapes from yesterday to see if we got anything."

"Thanks, Macaffey," Criss said gratefully.

"No prob."

Criss and Costa left. "I'm gonna scan the Web to see if anyone downloaded them yet," Costa said. "If we do find the culprit, we can have him arrested for theft and unauthorized use of material."

"Yeah, you do that," Criss said. "Meanwhile, I'm gonna keep looking for those photos. Maybe they'll turn up somewhere around here."

"Wishful thinking," Costa mumbled. "Look, I'm sorry I got you into this, Criss."

"Cos, there's nothing to be sorry about."

"No, no, no, I should have taken those photos with me in the first place. It was my personal project, and now someone's gone and turned it into a cyber-peepshow!"

Criss laid a hand on Costa's shoulder. "Look, Cos, what's done is done. Really, I don't care about the ones about me anymore, though I would be embarrassed if they did get on the Web. You can replace those. I just want the ones of Dad back at least. Those mean more to me than all the pictures of me in the world." He patted his shoulder. "Now, come on, let's see what the eye in the sky saw yesterday."