Chapter Five - Visitor in the Night

Angie Sullivan's Brooklyn Brownstone - 32 Hours Missing

The early morning hours drew near and Angie was restless. She couldn't sleep, even though she had just worked nineteen straight hours at the hospital. She slipped quietly from her bed, wrapped an afghan around her shoulders and gazed out the window across the Brooklyn Bridge at the Manhattan skyline. For as long as she could remember she had wondered if her life was to end in tragedy the way both her parents, and now maybe her brothers, had. If she told the F.B.I. what she knew about her family and things didn't go according to plan, her uncle would come after her without giving it a second thought. The demons she had been running from for most of her life were finally catching up to her. And the one person who had always protected her was gone.

Silently, Angie padded downstairs and into her kitchen. She pulled open the refrigerator door, peered inside, and shook her head. The vast assortment of half empty take out containers screamed back at her that a single woman who works too much and has no social life lives in her house. Her mother, a fabulous cook, was probably looking down from Heaven and shaking her head in disgust.

Heating up some leftover Beef Lo Mein, Angie flopped down on her overstuffed couch and turned on the television. After flipping through channel after channel of infomercials, she finally settled on a rerun of an early Gilmore Girls episode. Angie snuggled up in her afghan, ate her Chinese food, and settled into the zany world of Rory and Lorelei Gilmore. It wasn't long before the antics of the make believe mother and daughter team on the T.V. screen had Angie missing her own mother. The tears began to well up in her eyes and she suddenly found it hard to swallow.

Her mother, Rose Sullivan Caruso, had fallen in love with Paul Caruso when she was only seventeen and, like Theresa, knew exactly what she was getting into. She knew that Big Pauly, her father's nickname, led a life that was dangerous and deadly, and it was the only life he knew. He would never leave 'the family.' It's who he was. But Rose's brother, Frankie, was a cop and when she fell in love with Big Pauly, Rose had to make the choice between the two worlds. At first she chose the world of the Caruso family...exciting and like something she had only seen in the movies. But Big Pauly spent most of the next twenty years in and out of jail, leaving Rose to raise Angie and Eddie at the Caruso compound. But she didn't like what her children were learning there, so when the kids were young she moved them in with Frankie and his wife, Mary, in Hell's Kitchen. They spent the next six years with the Sullivan's, but moved back to the Caruso compound when Angie was 11, for reasons that were still unclear to her. It was one of the big mysteries of her childhood...why they had ever returned to her Uncle Tony's estate. Three years later her father was back in jail and six months after that he was dead. When Rose died the next year, Angie had finally had enough death to last her a lifetime.

The pounding on her front door pulled Angie's thoughts back to reality. She glanced at the clock on her VCR. It was a little after 5 a.m. Who could possibly be at her door at this hour? Pulling the afghan tightly around her silk pajamas, Angie looked out her peep hole to see a shadowy figure standing on her stoop.

"Who is it?" She asked cautiously into the darkness.

"Agent Danny Taylor." Came the reply, which startled Angie. "We met yesterday at the hospital."

"What do you want?" Angie felt her heart begin to race, and not just because she remembered how handsome Agent Taylor was. Why was he at her home? And why was he alone?

"To talk to you." Danny said, then waited through the silence that followed. "Please let me in, Dr. Sullivan. I don't mean any harm."

Angie flipped on her outside light and opened the door, but didn't move aside to allow him into her entry foyer. "What are you doing here?" She asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I was in the neighborhood." He smirked, taking in the sight of the cool and confident doctor in her pajamas, fuzzy slippers, and an afghan wrapped around her shoulders. He had to remind himself that it wasn't supposed to matter that she looked both adorable and sexy at the same time...he was here on business.

"At 5 o'clock in the morning?" Angie asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

Danny looked around at her tree lined neighborhood and, never missing a beat, said, "I was jogging."

"In a suit and tie?" Angie almost had to grin, but she remained stony faced. He was very charming.

Changing his tactic, Danny said, "You lied to me. And to my partners."

"Yes I did."

Whatever he was expecting out of this conversation with her, that wasn't it. Her honest answer to his accusation threw him off his game for only a moment before he said, "Maybe you should let me in so we can discuss the ramifications of lying to federal officer."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No." Danny shook his head. "But it is cold out here and I would like to have this conversation indoors, if that's ok."

Angie stared at him for a few moments and then in a silent gesture, stepped aside so that he could come into her home. She was not at all sure that this was a good idea.

Danny stepped into her living room and glanced around. "Nice place."

"Thanks." Angie glanced around nervously and said, "I'd offer you some coffee, but I haven't made any yet."

"Because coffee and lo mein don't mix?" He teased, picking up the almost empty carton she had been eating out of and grinning at her.

Angie returned his grin and said, "Something like that." Her tone turning serious, she asked, "Why are you here again?"

"To find out why you lied." He answered.

"Haven't you heard? I'm a Caruso. Lying is one of our many talents."

"But you seem to be the only redeemable one out of your family. So, here's your chance to redeem yourself." Danny crossed his arms and looked at her. "When was the last time you saw your brother?"

Angie took on the challenge he was presenting and met his steady gaze, while her options whirled around in her head. Should she trust him? Even though she had an inherent feeling that he really wanted to help her, he was a Federal Agent. She was raised to distrust Federal Agents and old habits die hard. She decided to play it coy. "How do you know I won't just lie to you again?"

Danny's tone softened as he said, "Because I think you want me to find your brother. I think that even though everything within you is telling you that he's dead, you are dying for some shred of hope to hold on to. Some little piece of evidence that proves that the only person you have left in this world hasn't been taken away from you."

Angie turned away from him, shocked that he had hit so close to home. "What do you know about it?"

"More than you think." Danny said quietly. "I know what it's like to feel that you are all alone in this world. I know the loneliness that hits you like a freight train in the middle of the night as you realize yet again that no one is there. I know the quiet desperation that comes from working every holiday because you don't have any family to celebrate with. I know that it can drive you to the very limits of your sanity."

"Agent Taylor..." Angie began, but he cut her off.

"Call me Danny."

"OK, Danny." Angie started again, sarcasm dripping from her voice to hide the pain that he had stirred up within her. "You may be an expert at loneliness, but you are not even close to being an expert on me. You know nothing about me."

"I know that you met your sister-in-law in the park yesterday." Danny said, causing Angie to glare at him. "The sister-in-law who you couldn't possibly know if you haven't seen your brother in 15 years because he only married her seven years ago."

"Were you following me?" She asked incredulously.

"You were in the middle of a public park." He countered.

"It was safer that way." She said, turning away from him to take her empty food container into the kitchen. She braced herself against the counter and took a deep breath. She needed to collect herself. Agent Danny Taylor had caught her completely off guard and she didn't like to be off guard. Mary Angelina Sullivan was used to being in complete control.

She heard him follow her into the kitchen, but she didn't turn around. He had an uncanny ability to see through her and she needed to regain the upper hand in their conversation. Quietly he asked, "When was the last time you saw your brother, Angie?"

Angie sighed and turned around. She was going to have to tell him the truth. "Last week. We met for lunch."

"Why is it a secret?" Danny wanted to know.

"That's not important." Angie said, walking past him back into the living room.

"Why don't you let me decide that?" Danny said, following her. She pulled the afghan tighter around herself and sat on her sofa. Danny looked at her for a moment and thought she looked like a little girl, lost and scared.

But that look was gone when she turned to him and said, "You don't get to decide what is important to my life. You have no idea what you are dealing with here. What my family is capable of."

"We can't help you if you aren't straight with us." Danny said, his tone gentling. She was scared. He could see it. Under that tough attitude, the fear was evident in her eyes. But what was she afraid of? Why did she believe her family would hurt her?

"You came to me." Angie said. "I didn't ask for your help."

"Theresa did." He reminded her.

"Theresa is naive. She still believes that this can have a happy ending." Angie's words were so cold that Danny was sure he felt a chill run up his spine. The pain in this woman's life ran deeper than any of them could imagine. She trusted no one.

"What did they do to you, Angie?" Danny asked softly, resisting the urge to comfort her. "Why did you really leave the Caruso family behind?"

For a moment, Angie looked like she wanted to tell him everything. To unload the burdens she had been carrying for so many years. But that moment passed and the wall of protection that she had so carefully constructed so many years ago was back. Angie stood up and walked into the hallway. "You need to leave now, Agent Taylor. You never should have come here."