Splitsville (Unedited Draft)

Chapter Seven- Mary-Anne Apart

THE FUNERAL HOME...

Anne woke in a strange room, feeling very, very cold. Every part of her ached, especially her head. Oh and especially her belly. And her shoulder. Okay it was everything. She tried to remember where she had been and the shocking pain she\'d felt in the alleyway- the phone and Agent Culpepper and the cobblestones- oh shit what had happened to Mary? Anne searched for Mary\'s memories of the same time and Oh! Moores- that prick! How the hell was he still alive and why the hell was he after them? Anne wanted to kill him for hurting Mary like that. That was her Mary- he had no right to touch her! She tried to remember what had happened to Mary after that, but there was nothing. Mary didn’t have any memories after Moores- the coward of a prick of a shitty, little-peckered asshole- no memories since Moores attacked her.

Anne seethed for a few more minutes before she tried unsuccessfully to sit up. There were tubes sticking out of her arm and there was one in her nose. She pulled them out and sort of rolled, kinda fell out of the bed. Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow, shit, ow ow ow, fuck that hurts, ow ow ow! Anne\'s body protested her trying to stand upright and walk across the hard, cold floor of the darkened room she was in. The room was dark, but it didn\'t seem all that scary- it wasn\'t a dirty, dank, spooky basement or anything of the type. Except for the large heart monitor-y looking thing beside the bed, it seemed more like her Granny Pearl\'s bedroom from before she had to move to the home because she broke her hip, than a place to be held while kidnapped. The bed was a double four poster and it, as well as most of the room, was covered in doilies and calico. Anne couldn\'t figure why Moores might have her there, especially since he\'d tried to kill Mary, but she couldn\'t imagine that anyone else would want to hold her except the FBI and then she\'d be in a hospital bed, wouldn\'t she?

After way longer than it should have taken to cross the room to the door, she crossed the room to the door. Between the observation room in the lab and Professor Drake\'s office, locked in was getting to be a very familiar concept, so Anne was mildly surprised to find that the door knob turned easily when she tried it. She eased the door open just a smidge to see who or what might be waiting for her outside. The small part of the hallway she could see through the thin strip of doorway revealed nothing and no one. Anne opened it further and confirmed that there was no guard- unless an invisible or barely existent Moores was there being all imperceptible like he apparently could. Still wary, she stepped into the hall. It seemed like any hall in any house- she kept expecting Granny Pearl to show up and offer her chocolate chip cookies and milk and you know- that would have been really good just then. Too bad the more likely person to pop up was a crazed, quantumly unstable, dweebish grad student who had it in for Anne and her other self.

There was a stairwell at the end of the hall and Anne aimed for it, taking a slow and wavering but determined path. Every step made her ache, but she kept on. At the top of the stairs, she leaned on the newel post. It was a good study newel post- she was really loving its ability to keep her upright. Some time later, Anne girded her loins- ow! That hurt. She promised herself not to gird anything for a few more days. But, she girded her loins, took a deep breath, flipped her hair back and descended the stairs. She didn\'t meet anyone on the way down, but she heard conversations from behind a closed door next to the bottom step. It sounded like two men talking, maybe more. When she drew even with the door, she could make out snatches of conversation-

You can\'t cook a respectable ravioli without nutmeg. What are you a savage.

I\'m just saying a little variety might be nice- maybe cumin based instead.

Cumin? What are you smoking, you whack job. You can\'t do that to the semolina- it\'s sacrilege.

Anne had been kidnapped by fussy, fussy men who cooked? Anne had been taken hostage by gay men? She reminded herself that she had conked her head pretty hard and let it go. It didn\'t matter- what mattered was finding her way out without alerting the Julia Childs in the kitchen that she was leaving. After another not brief enough and yet not long enough rest, Anne made her way through the lower floor away from the sound of the voices. She found what seemed like the front door and tried the knob. This time it was locked.

\"Oh, eh. Look who\'s up?\" a voice behind her said, making Anne cringe. So much for the stealthy escape.

***

ST. ROMAN\'S HOSPITAL...

Mary found that constant beeping really annoying. It pulled her from her really deep underneath. Somebody was saying something nearby, something that didn\'t make much sense- no it made sense- she knew it made sense- it just didn\'t make sense to her. That\'s right- it was physics. Someone was reading subatomic theory to her in a syncopated rhythm with the annoying beeping. Mary wondered if he knew he was following the beeping meter or if Matt- it was Matt- if Matt had fallen into the cadence without noticing it.

\"Shh-\" Mary tied to say shut-up. Matt but she didn\'t get past the shh.

\"Maryanne?\" Matt\'s voice sounded loud and hopeful in her ear.

\"Shh,\" she shushed louder. Didn\'t he know how bad her head felt?

\"Oh, sorry,\" he whispered. Mary squinted her eyes open. Yup. It was Matt. He was sitting next to where she was lying. Why was he there and Annie not? \"I\'ll go get the nurse,\" he stated and disappeared from her line of vision.

A few moments later her hospital room- that was where she was in a hospital hooked to three or four machines- her hospital room was a flurry of activity as several nurses and a minimum of three doctors were checking her over. She was still groggy and cranky and everything ached and Anne was watching some cooking show or something Mary couldn\'t make out and Mary just wanted them all to go away, so she pushed herself up- Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow, shit, ow ow ow, fuck that hurts, ow ow ow! She pushed herself up and told them all to leave her alone.

For a minute they all stared at her in amazement and then they resumed poking and prodding and asking her questions with even more vigor. She was some kind of miracle case and they were fascinated that she seemed to be not brain-dead. They were already planning papers on her recovery. Mary could see Matt standing in the far corner, unable to get any closer through the throng of overzealous medical types. He gave her an eager smile and a thumbs-up sign. Mary smiled back at him. He really was a sweetheart.

***

THE FUNERAL HOME...

Anne couldn\'t run- there was just no way her body would do it, so she turned around to see who the man who\'d spoken was. The man who stood there was short and wide- muscled, not fat- and he was smiling in a way that wasn\'t the kind of creepy Anne would have expected.

\"It\'s Maryanne, ain\'t it?\" he asked with a slight lisp. \"You look like death, you should be laying down.\"

\"Uh- I don\'t feel that bad,\" Anne answered, trying to figure him out.

\"Why don\'t I help you back to a chair and I\'ll have Nunzio make you a nice bowl of minestrone,\" he offered. \"Hey, you shitheads,\" he yelled back towards the door with the voices, \"the Little Girl\'s up.\" He stepped over, caught Anne gently but firmly by the elbow and guided her back in that direction. When he pushed through the door, he repeated himself, \"The Little Girl\'s up and you knuckleheads didn\'t even notice.\" The two men in the room jumped up from their places at a large round table- the room was the kitchen- they jumped up and then there were three of them bringing her over to a chair and settling her in it. The two other guys looked almost exactly like the first one- they had to be family.

They were all taking at once and Anne couldn\'t tell what if any part of the conversation was directed at her. They kept referring to her as the Little Girl and contemplating what she should have done for her, but they didn\'t seem to be asking Anne. A bowl of soup was spooned from a large pot and placed in front of her. It smelled really good, but she didn\'t dare eat because- what if it was drugged? She had to admit, these guys- Nunzio, Little Sammy and one they only called Ya Mook- these guys didn\'t seem to be out to do her any harm. They were much more like Granny Pearl than Anne could have ever expected from their appearances, but they were still holding her captive. She couldn\'t eat. Ya Mook, ladled out another bowl of the soup and sat down next to her to slurp it down. Well, if he was eating it, it must be okay, Anne figured and dug in.

Not too long after Anne came into the kitchen, she was able to get a memory of Mary in a hospital room being checked over by what seemed like a thousand doctors. It was reassuring and also explained better how they had recovered- Mary had gotten expert medical attention almost immediately after Moores had attacked.

***

ST. ROMAN\'S HOSPITAL...

Matt watched the doctors and nurses flocking around Maryanne\'s hospital bed. He\'d been by her bedside all morning, listening to the reassuring beep of her heart monitor and reading Matrix mechanics to her- not because it was something she\'d understand, but because he found it soothing. He was going to have to leave for the airport soon. He was meeting her parent\'s flight. He\'d talked to them the night before at the request of the same nurse who\'d been so understanding, while Matt had fretted during Maryanne\'s surgery. Maryanne didn\'t even know they were coming and they didn\'t even know if she\'d be alive when they got off the plane. Matt was glad that he would be able to give them good news. Matt checked his watch- he had to leave. He decided against wading through all the medical personnel to tell her he was leaving, so he just smiled at her, gave a thumbs-up sign and slipped out.

THE AIRPORT...

The Twombly\'s flight was on time. Matt would have called it amazing, but he\'d seen and heard so much lately that qualified for the adjective, that a plane landing on time was nothing. The Twomblys looked haggard and worried when they stepped up to Matt in the terminal. He\'d made a makeshift sign with their name on it because neither he nor the Twomblys would know who to look for. It was out of some pages from the owner\'s manual of his car because he hadn\'t thought about needing it until he was parking the car and that was ll he had in his glovebox. He hadn\'t needed it- Maryanne looked just like her mother- just twenty some years younger.

\"Matthew Godunov?\" Mr. Twombly asked.

\"Yes, Sir. How are you? Mrs. Twombly?\" Matt greeted them and took the carry-on from Maryanne\'s mother. \"Maryanne is doing very well. She was awake when I left the hospital just an hour ago,\" Matt beamed.

\"Oh, thank the Lord!\" Mrs. Twombly sighed and pulled Matt into a grateful embrace, while Mr. Twombly gave him a too hard pat on the back.

\"That\'s great to hear, son. We were afraid we were coming into town to deal with the plug issue- you know to unplug or not,\" Mr. Twombly said.

\"Oh, Ed!\" Mrs. Twombly scolded, releasing Matt and smoothing his shirt collar down. \"Don\'t even joke about it. I\'m sorry, Matthew. Ed used gallows humor to cope with stress.\"

\"It\'s all right- my uncle\'s the same way. So, is this it or do you have other luggage?\"

\"This is it, son. Lead on,\" Mr. Twombly commanded and they headed towards Matt\'s car.

They drove straight to the hospital and Matt felt out of place as Maryanne and her parents had a happy reunion. Matt reminded himself that he\'d only had one date with her. He\'d been letting himself think of her as his girlfriend, but there hadn\'t been any formal declaration of it- the injuries to Maryanne had come too fast together since their date. Matt hadn\'t had the words to ask her about it when she was recovering from the gassing and in the hospital had been out of the question.

He figured that the Twomblys would appreciate him giving them some space- and they had his cell phone number for when they were ready to go to their hotel, so he went back to his new workspace in the Brunii Building to work on his theory about how Moores had disappeared.

***

THE FUNERAL HOME...

Carrie had had a knock down drag out with Dunstan over their continued presence on campus again that morning. And really, he was right. Carrie was sure that Matthew Godunov had nothing to do with the explosion of the particle accelerator or any of the subsequent incidents. She was even starting to believe the part of his story about Moores disappearing into thin air. And, whatever she was going to find out from the strange woman she had secreted away at the Bronxes funeral home wasn\'t going to be anything she could put in an official report. Even though she couldn\'t rule Miss Twombly out as a suspect in the sabotage, it would be far better to hang it on the missing and presumed dead grad student and figure out the problem of Maryanne on her own. So, she signed off on the report naming Moores as the prime suspect and Dunstan went back to Maryland, while Carrie put in for a few weeks off.

Carrie pulled into the drive at the funeral home, got out and retrieved some packages from the trunk. She knew it should still be days or even weeks before Miss Twombly was up and ready to answer questions, but what with all she had seen in the alleyway, Carrie had gotten her a few changes of clothes and other essentials anyway. Going in the back entrance, she heard the usual merry arguing from the kitchen. The Bronxes were always arguing and nearly always in the kitchen, so most debate centered around food. It had taken a while to get used to how they were when Carrie had been protecting them for all those months three years earlier, but now it was comforting and familiar- if the Bronxes were fighting over the proper utensil to beat an egg with, then all was right with the world.

Carrie bypassed the kitchen and headed directly upstairs to check on Miss Twombly. Nunzio, who was a decent backroom surgeon, had done what he could for her. Amazingly, the Bronxes had had a heart monitor, some oxygen tanks and a plethora of antibiotics on hand with which to treat Miss Twombly. Carrie hadn\'t asked, but Nunzio had promised that they only kept those supplies on hand for emergencies- he was in no way shape or form performing elective plastic surgeries on wanted felons without a license. Carrie should have busted him- there was enough evidence, but arresting someone in the witness protection agency was a moot point. They never got punished unless it was murder. The higher ups just didn\'t want the headaches.

Carrie stepped inside the small bedroom where Miss Twombly was sleeping and quietly went over to the bed. The empty bed! Carrie checked that she wasn\'t hiding somewhere in the room- not under the bed, not in the closet, not behind the door- nowhere. Carrie searched the rest of the upper floor and, finding nothing, went down to the kitchen to get the Bronxes to help.

As soon as she got into the kitchen, she was able to breathe a sign of releif- Miss Twombly was sitting calmly at table and eating a hard roll, while Little Sammy was extolling the virtues of olive oil to her.

\"Hey, Culpepper. Look boys, Culpepper has joined the party,\" Nunzio announced from his post at the stove. He was stirring something that was giving off waves of steam that smelled heavenly. Miss Twombly looked up at her warily.

\"They say I\'m not a prisoner here, Agent Culpepper. Is that so, or they mistaken?\" Miss Twombly asked her, sounding much stronger and coherent than she expected.

\"Of course she\'d not a prisoner, right Culpepper? Harmless little thing like her, no reason to keep her tied up,\" Little Sammy answered for her.

\"Well, technically, I\'d have no charge to keep you on, but really you\'re in no shape to go anywhere. I do have more than a few questions for you, though,\" Carrie told her.

\"But I\'m free to leave?\" Miss Twombly double-checked.

\"You betcha, Sweetheart,\" Nunzio assured her. \"Culpepper, sit down already, you must be starved.\" He ladled out a bowl of soup and set it at the empty chair on the other side of Miss Twombly from Little Sammy.

\"Oh. Thank you.\" Carrie sat down. She really didn\'t want Miss Twombly leaving, but the Bronxes didn\'t look like they\'d help Carrie keep her against her will and Carrie had no idea what else the woman could do. She decided to play it cool and wait for her opportunity to take control of it all again.

***

ST. ROMAN\'S HOSPITAL...

The doctors had only just decided to let her rest- there would be a whole spate of tests later- they decided that she needed rest and finally let her be. Shortly after that, she settled down to sleep and enjoy the nice full tummy Anne had provided for her. She still hadn\'t honed in on where exactly Anne was, but Mary could tell she was safe because she wasn\'t panicked and she could tell that the lovely warm taste in her mouth was some kind of tomato soup. Anne closed her eyes to let sleep take her. A moment later, she opened her eyes because she couldn\'t sleep through all that whispering.

\"Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?\" Mary asked, sleepily.

\"Oh, sweetheart, where else would we be when something so terrible has happened to you?\" Maryanne\'s mother answered, leaning in to plant a kiss on her forehead and hug her too hard,

\"How you doing there, cupcake?\" Maryanne\'s father asked, squeezing her hand.

\"I\'ve been better, but they think I\'ll be all right.\" Maryanne\'s mother started walking around the room and fussing with things- fluffing her pillows (Ow!) and straightening the no longer in use chords and tubes from the machinery Mary had been hooked up to. \"You really didn\'t have to come. I\'m gonna be fine.\"

\"No more of that talk. We\'re here, just as we should be. Now, I want to know what you need. Are they feeding you well enough in here?\" Maryanne\'s father asked.

Mary responded by holding up her right arm and showing them the IV that was attached to it. \"They don\'t want me eating for another day or so.\"

\"What nonsense. I\'m going to go find your doctor and talk some sense into him on that front. How are you going to heal without any food in your tummy?\" Maryanne\'s mother ranted and went out the door.

\"Uh- I\'d better make sure she doesn\'t get us into trouble with her mother-henning.\" Maryanne\'s father told her before bending over Mary\'s bed and kissing her on the cheek. \"Glad to see you\'re getting better, cupcake.\" He followed his wife out into the hallway.

Mary knew that it would be a while for Maryanne\'s father to talk her mother down from her mood, so she tried for sleep again. There was a tapping on the door before she drifted off and a man wearing a uniformed police officer came in. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

Mary had been able to get by on telling the police that she didn\'t remember the attack at all- the doctors had mentioned that she might have memory loss from the trauma. She didn’t like lying to the police, but she was starting to think it might just become a regular thing her Anne and herself- Anne was doing it herself right then, too.

***

THE FUNERAL HOME...

\"So, Miss Twombly,\" Agent Culpepper began, \"Let\'s talk. Let\'s talk about how it is that you seem to be immortal.\" They were up in the bedroom Anne had woken in- Agent Culpepper had ostensibly helping Anne change her clothes because she couldn\'t yet raise her hands above her head without severe pain. Anne knew that helping her had just been an excuse to get Anne away from the protective environment of the kitchen, where the three brother were. She was ready for the question.

\"You know, Agent Culpepper, I\'m so very thankful to you for taking care of me. I\'m sure I would have been a goner if you hadn\'t been there,\" Anne answered.

\"I\'m not so sure about that.\"

\"Oh, believe me, I am. I feel awful. You definitely saved my life with your quick thinking,\" Anne rebutted.

\"Come on, Miss Twombly, that was the second time you should have been dead- you were dead. I couldn’t find a pulse and I swear, half the blood in your body was out on the ground. Then you just started breathing and I saw- I saw some invisible thing stitch you up!\" Agent Culpepper insisted.

\"I don\'t have any idea what you mean.\"

\"Miss Twombly, Maryanne- look I\'m on your side. I don\'t think you\'ve done anything wrong and I know you have some sort of special ability. I think you could use some help and I\'m in the kind of position to be of help to you,\" she bargained.

\"I don\'t know what you\'re talking about. I don\'t have anything special about me and I don\'t need help. I just need a few days to recover from that nasty fall I had in the alleyway,\" Anne told her.

\"Nasty fall! Miss Twombly! There is no way you will make anyone believe that you got severely gut wounded by turning your ankle and falling.\"

\"Who would know? Anne raised her shirt to show the scarring over cuts. These are from a car accident I had last year. They weren\'t as bad as they look- I didn’t even go to a doctor.\"

\"It\'s only been three days. What the hell are you?\" Agent Culpepper demanded.

\"I\'m just your normal everyday average coed, honest injin,\" Anne swore, holding up her left hand- which, by her calculations, would appear to be her right hand to Agent Culpepper.

\"I can help you if you trust me,\" Agent Culpepper pleaded.

\"I can\'t trust you. I\'m sorry.\"

\"Why not?\"

\"Roswell.\"

\"You\'re an alien?\"

\"No! I\'m human- I have parents and everything. I just can\'t trust someone who works for the government. I\'m sorry.\"

\"Don\'t think I\'m going to take no for an answer,\" Agent Culpepper warned.

Two days passed, during which, Mary had gotten examined and reexamined and declared a miraculous recovery before being released from the hospital. Anne had taken the same two days to recuperate in the bosom of the Bronxes protection. Yes, she had to keep putting Agent Culpepper off, but as long as she hung out in the kitchen when Culpepper was there, she didn\'t have to lie too much. Even if there was a funeral going on, at least one of the brothers was still there to run interference. Anne decided that she really liked the brothers and she didn’t really care what it was that they had done sometime in the past- they were good people.

Agent Culpepper was off doing something federal- Anne just hoped it didn\'t involve either Mary or Matt- Agent Culpepper was out when Nunzio stood at the kitchen counter with a rolling pin and a big bowl of ricotta making tortellini and said, \"So, Maryanne, when you gonna give ol\' Culpepper the slip already?\"

Maryanne looked up from the pine nuts he had her hand grinding for pesto and answered, \"You serious?\"

\"Of course I\'m serious. You know, me and the knuckleheads have a certain amount of loyalty to Agent Carrie Culpepper, but what she\'s doing- it ain\'t right. You, my friend are not a criminal. I mean, really, when did being a quick healer get to be against the law? No, Little Girl, you need to be out of here before Culpepper decides that you are healthy enough for her to start pressing harder on ya. The question is, how far do you need to go? \'Cause me and the boys, we\'re kinda set up for disappearing acts, if you know what I mean.\"

\"I can\'t disappear- at least not completely. There\'s someone I have to stay with. And I\'m sure that Agent Culpepper can\'t prove anything- everything is my word against hers.\"

\"That\'s good to know- there\'s a lot of reasonable doubt in only having one person\'s word against you. You sure there\'s no other incriminating evidence?\"

\"I really haven\'t done-\"

\"Say no more. I don\'t need to know, I don\'t want to know- it\'s your own business if you\'ve done something,\" Nunzio interrupted. \"So, what do you need? A little cash flow, maybe some transportation?\"

\"Just a ride to campus.\"

\"That\'s it?\"

\"That\'s more than enough.\"

\"Hey, Ya Mook!\" Nunzio yelled out the kitchen door. A muffled reply came from somewhere upstairs. \"Ya Mook, drive the Little Girl over to the college and pick up some mascarpone on the way back. The stuff Little Sammy bought on Tuesday\'s turned already.\" Another muffled reply came, quickly followed by rapid footstomps on the stairs and Ya Mook came into the kitchen jingling the keys to the hearse.

***

MARYANNE\'S DORMROOM...

Maryanne\'s parents drove Mary back to Maryanne\'s dorm and saw her inside. Then Maryanne\'s mother fussed over her for the forty-five spare minutes they had before Matt was to drive them to the airport. Finally they kissed her goodbye and Mary promised to be very careful of strangers and ruffies and ducks- don\'t ask- and they went back home. In some ways it had been a comfort for them to be there while Mary had felt so poorly, but in some ways it was just strange. They were the parents she remembered, but the memories were Maryanne\'s. Mary still loved them, but it was sort of the further off love one feels for a favorite fictional character instead of the love she should have felt for her parents. Sending them home allowed her to stop feeling guilty about not loving them enough.

After they left with Matt, Mary flopped down on the bed and marveled at how much it didn\'t hurt. Anne was coming. Mary had remembered Nunzio\'s offer and Ya Mook\'s appearance in the kitchen and she could feel Annie getting excited to be coming home. Mary couldn\'t wait to pull Annie close and feel the familiar buzz of when their bodied overlapped. To sooth her nerves, Mary ate some of the brownies Maryanne\'s mother had provided before she left- Mary had no idea where she had found a kitchen to work in, but she had, and she\'d left Mary a full mini fridge and some extras that had to be eaten in the next day before they went bad. Mary had started loving Maryanne\'s mother just a little bit more when she did that.

Anne\'s key jangled in the lock and Mary met her at the door. \"Fancy meeting you here,\" Anne said, but Mary didn\'t say anything back- she just grabbed Annie by the arm, guided her into the room, slammed the door and planted a thankful-horny-worried-chocolate-flavored-deep-wet-needy-God-I-missed-you kiss on Annie\'s sweet, sweet mouth.

***

THE FUNERAL HOME...

Carrie came in the back entrance and made for the kitchen. She could hear Little Sammy singing something operatic and Nunzio heckling him. Miss Twombly had been spending all her waking hours in the kitchen with them, so Carrie didn\'t even bother to try upstairs- she was surprised to find that Miss Twombly wasn\'t sitting at the big kitchen table and laughing amiably at the brothers quarreling.

\"Oh, eh. Culpepper\'s here,\" Little Sammy interrupted his own singing. \"Look, Nunzio, Culpepper\'s here.\" He quickly left the kitchen.

\"Hey, Agent Carrie, you want some tortellini? Sit down, it\'ll be ready in two shakes,\" Nunzio told her.

\"No thank you. Is Miss Twombly not feeling as well, today? Why is she upstairs?\" Carrie questioned.

\"Yeah, about that- she\'d not as upstairs as you might expect.\"

\"Nunzio, what the hell does that mean?\" Carrie inquired, getting a really bad feeling that somehow she\'d missed that moment- the one she\'d been waiting for- the one that she was supposed to seize in order to take control of the situation- that moment must have come and gone without her seeing it because Nunzio answered:

\"She\'s not upstairs.\"

\"Then where is she?\"

\"Personally, I can\'t say. She just took a powder, that\'s all.\"

\"You can\'t say or you won\'t, Nunzio? You owe me- I protected you-\"

\"And you got exactly what we promised- we testified and Big Sammy went inside. You got what you worked for. And besides that, we been keeping this thing with the Little Girl nice and quiet for you. By my accounting, you\'re the one who owes us, Culpepper.\"

\"I haven\'t turned you in for all the illegal medical equipment you have-\"

\"Equipment, you solicited use of to take care of Maryanne.\"

\"And if I looked around I\'m sure I could find evidence that you\'ve aided and abetted more than one fugitive.\"

\"And you committed kidnapping, or at least false imprisonment. You can\'t take us down without taking yourself down with us. Carrie, come on- the Little Girl didn’t do anything. I don’t think she even knew whatever it was you wanted to get out of her- she was just a slip of a thing.\"

\"You have no idea what she is! You have to tell me where you sent her. Oh God, you didn’t put her under the knife did you? I\'ll never find her if you changed her face- and she\'d recover in just a few days- or maybe just a few hours. Nunzio, you have to tell me where she went.\"

\"Nothing doing.\"

Carrie pulled her weapon- she knew she was losing the Bronxes as a resource and as friends, but finding Miss Twombly was far more important. Nunzio looked at the revolver in her hand, shrugged and turned back to the stovetop to stir his pesto. Carrie raised the gun to his temple and cocked the hammer.

\"You think your little pop gun scares me Agent Carrie? I crossed Big Sammy Lagumba, Every day I wake up knowing that this might just be the day my brothers and I end up like all those poor schlubs we plant in the ground- this might be the day that bullet with my name on it finds me. You ain\'t gonna hurt me, and even if you do, I\'m ready to meet my maker anytime, anywhere.\"

Carrie lowered the gun. \"Shit!\"

\"Sorry. It\'s pretty hard to scare an Italian, you know.\"

\"Yes, I know.\" Carrie sat down dejected. \"But there is someone I cane scare, who might be of some help,\" Carrie added and hurried from the room to see about finding Matthew Godunov.