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Title: Just Between Friends
Author: speedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Expecting her second child and caught up in a mafia war, Carly Corinthos has a secret that will change the lives of everyone she knows.
Disclaimer: I'm not the Rat, so obviously the characters aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for awhile.
Notes: Just moving this over from my now defunct website. This veers off canon right before the panic room fiasco in 2003.
Chapter 26
"How could you find nothing? Someone had to pay that hospital bill."
Frisco's fingers immediately went to his temples and began to rub. He was at Luke's, sitting at the end of the bar and talking on his cell phone. The club hadn't opened yet, so it was empty, except for Luke. The rest of the staff was in the back, preparing for the day.
This wasn't the update he'd wanted. The agent in Florida had no more answers than the last time they'd spoken.
"What about her family? Did she have any contact with them?"
He laid his head on the bar. He wasn't hearing this. Their only leads were not evaporating.
"How the hell does an entire family just disappear?"
He didn't notice when Luke set a drink down next to his head.
"Do whatever you have to do, but track them down. They have to be somewhere. And forward me what you've got."
He hit the end button and let the phone drop from his hand, not lifting his head.
Luke leaned on the bar. "Not going well, secret agent man?"
"The Roberts family moved out of Florida several years ago and haven't been heard of since."
"How big of a lead could they really be?"
"No one at the hospital remembers Charlotte."
"That complicates things a bit."
"The only records for her that I can find here are Carly's."
"So the imposter was smart and used an alias."
"But I have no idea what it was."
"Maybe she was using my niece's name."
"She didn't. I checked."
"Is that all you've got? Her family and the hospital?"
Frisco lifted his head. "She was good at covering her tracks."
"Why? It's not like she was on the run. And the accident was just that, an accident. Nothing criminal."
"I don't have enough information to piece together a why that actually makes sense yet."
"Why didn't you guys check that out in the beginning?"
"Somebody did, but we didn't have a reason to think she was dangerous or involved in this case at the time. Our focus was on Luis Alcazar." He shook his head, picking up the glass and taking a drink. "She's done a damn good job of covering her tracks."
"So what's the next move?"
"My agent is tracking down the family. We need to know if Charlotte's been in contact with them." He sighed. "I'll tap her cell phone and see if I can get anything that way."
"And just how are you going to do that?"
"Echelon."
Glass in hand, Frisco slipped off the bar stool and walked back to the office.
Carly came bounding into the office, smiling and in an unusually good mood. Frisco was staring at the computer screen, as he had been for the last half an hour.
"So, how are things going in Florida?"
His eyes never left the computer screen. "Not good."
Her smile faded. "That agent found something, right? He had to find something."
"Nothing's panning out."
"Oh."
"What are you doing here anyway?"
"You said you'd take me shopping for a Nurse's Ball dress. You don't want me going alone and running up the credit card again." She wandered around the desk to see what he was looking at. "What are you working on?"
"Echelon. I'm trying to get a lock on Charlotte's cell phone."
"Are you sure she has it on?"
"Yeah. I sent Luke over to there to annoy her, just to make sure." He clicked a few keys, but it was futile. "I shouldn't have any problems locking onto a signal."
"Could she have some sort of scrambler on there? I bet Sonny and Jason have stuff like that."
"That wouldn't make a difference to Echelon. It'll pick up anything, that what's it's designed to do."
"Sonny has a lot of connections, are you sure he doesn't have some technology to cover the signal or whatever?"
"Absolutely not. The technology to avoid Echelon belongs to only a few groups, all government or related agencies. It's closely protected. That technology gets out, there are agents all over it. Maybe the top criminal organizations might have the right equipment, but no one at Sonny's level would. Sonny probably doesn't even know what Echelon is."
"You don't give Sonny much credit, man."
"The mafia doesn't usually concern itself with matters of national security. Echelon is strictly used for intelligence, not for criminal prosecution."
"Like Scott Baldwin wouldn't milk this system for all it's worth if he could gets his hands on it."
Frisco stifled a laugh, a big grin on his face. "He'd give his left nut for five minutes in the system."
"So if this is such a big deal," Carly said, watching him kit a few more keystrokes, "how did Charlotte get her grubby little hands on it?"
He had that "Frisco" look. He was obviously contemplating her question.
"She must have a backer."
"Like who?"
"Good question."
Carly looks at her husband, confused. They were supposed to be shopping, but instead of driving into downtown Port Charles, he drove into a cemetery. She'd been here once with Tony; Tania and BJ were buried here. Her anxiety kicked up a notch.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
Frisco stopped the car and put on the parking brake. "You're going to learn how to drive."
"This is a cemetery!"
"So traffic won't be a problem," he said lightly.
She looked into his face. He was completely serious. "You expect me to drive in a cemetery?" she asked dubiously.
"Would you rather learn on the freeway?"
"No," she replied, shaking her head insistently. "I'm not doing this."
He didn't answer her. He just reached around the driver's seat and pulled out two small bouquets of flowers from the back seat floor. The flowers matched ones from the large vase that Alcazar had sent her. He must've poached a few for himself, not that she cared. She'd wanted to put the flowers down the garbage disposal; he was the one that liked them enough to keep them.
She watched, flabbergasted, as he got out of the car and walked through the rows of headstones. She jumped out of the SUV and followed him.
"Hey! Where are you going?" she shouted incredulously at him.
He turned his head, but kept walking. "To visit my sister-in-law and my niece."
"What about me?"
"You're a big girl. You can stay all by yourself for five minutes."
She stopped when he did, still several feet away from him. He kneeled and put the flowers on each grave.
Carly turned away and looked around, giving him a little privacy. The place creeped her out. Cemeteries always did; they reminded her of the best friend she'd once lost and her loneliness afterwards.
Frisco strode past her. "Let's go," he said.
"Finally," she said, following him back to the car.
To her surprise, he climbed in on the passenger side. "What are you doing?"
"I told you, you're going to learn how to drive."
"I don't think so, man."
He shrugged. "Fine. We'll just stay here."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to be the one driving us out of here. Either you get behind the wheel and learn or we will sit here all night. Your choice."
She was fuming. She hated when he did this to her. She stormed around the SVU, climbed into the driver's seat and turned the key.
Nothing happened. The dashboard lights came on, but that was it. The engine was silent.
"Lesson one," Frisco said, snickering. "On a manual transmission car, the clutch has to be engaged for the car to start."
She shot him a dirty look. Bastard thought this was funny.
"Clutch is the pedal on the left, the brake is in the middle, gas is on the right."
"I can figure that out on my own."
She pushed in the clutch and turned the key again. This time the engine roared to life.
"Keep your foot on the clutch and push in the brake, then release the parking brake."
She did as he told her to.
He grabbed her hand put it on the gearshift. "Now you shift into first gear." He guided her to the first gear. "First is forward to the left, second is back to the left. Third is straight forward, fourth is straight back. Fifth is forward to the right, reverse is back to the right."
"Just like it's printed on the shifter."
"Take your foot off the brake and put it on the gas. Slowly release the clutch when you put in the gas."
She slammed down the accelerator, letting off the clutch, and the car took off with squealing tires. She missed the turn and clipped the curb. She overcompensated the steering and the car jerked to the side.
"Hey! Do you mind not killing me?" Frisco shouted angrily.
Carly slammed on the brakes. The car stopped, throwing them forward against the seatbelts, and the engine stalled in the process.
"Do that again and I'll kill you," he said slowly, holding on to the door and the seat.
She smirked. This wasn't so funny to him now.
"Same thing again, but this time, be gentle. I'd like the car to stay in one piece if possible."
She started the car again and did as he'd instructed her. She let off the clutch too quickly, the car stalled again. They repeated this until she could get moving without stalling.
"Good," he said, once she finally got moving. "Keep an eye on the speedometer and the tachometer."
"Tachometer?"
"The gauge next to the speedometer, with the big numbers. When that gets to about 3500, shift into second gear."
"Okay."
Frisco directed her around the cemetery several times, managing to get her into third gear at one point. He even taught her to park.
"I can't believe I'm driving!" Carly said excitedly, a huge grin on her face.
"I told you it wasn't hard, Carly. Ready to try it on real streets?"
"Yes!"
"Good! Let's go to Wyndam's."
Carly pulled another dress off the rack. It was probably the twentieth one she'd looked at, butt ugly and three sizes too big. But she wasn't going to get a little thing like that get in the way of her fun.
"What do you think?" she asked, holding the dress up to her.
"Now I know you're being ridiculous. The dress is hideous and you know it."
"I think it's very..." She trailed off, searching for a good adjective.
"Monstrously ugly?" Frisco suggested.
"You have no sense of style," she said haughtily, putting the dress back.
"No, you don't if you actually like that dress." He leaned on a nearby rack. "I know what you're doing and you can stop now."
"What am I doing?"
"Trying to annoy me. Mission accomplished."
She decided to drop it, satisfied that he was annoyed. "Okay. What did you think of the black one?" she asked, moving to another rack.
"Which black one?"
"With the asymmetrical strap."
"It was okay." He lowered his voice and moved closer to her. "How far did you get in the files?" he asked quietly.
"Not very," she answered, switching to another rack. "The files are huge. It's going to take me a couple days to get familiar enough to get anything out of them. Did you come up with anything on Charlotte?"
"No. There's no record of her in Port Charles at all."
"What? How did you guys find her in the first place?"
"Mostly witness statements, I think. I didn't do the initial investigation," he told her. "She had an apartment down near Cortlandt Street, but I couldn't find any records of it. She must not have used her address there."
"Cortlandt Street? Must've been a dump."
"It was."
"Was?"
"It was demolished last year, on AJ Quartermaine's orders."
That got her attention. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. "AJ?" she repeated, not bothering to mask her hostility.
"He worked with the planning commission for a few months. Had some big real estate plan for the area that fell through."
"How convenient," she said dubiously.
"Coincidence," he told her, with no doubt.
"Come on, you don't believe in coincidences," she reminded him. "AJ hates me. He'd do anything to get Michael. And I'm supposed to believe him demolishing Charlotte's apartment building is just a coincidence."
"Then why didn't he or the Quartermaines make a move on Michael?"
Carly couldn't answer that.
"He lost his parental rights and according to the files, under suspicious circumstances. That's how Sonny was able to adopt Michael."
"What circumstances?"
"Don't know exactly, but AJ was crying foul. He told anyone that would listen that Sonny had threatened him." He shrugged. "It was AJ. No one took a word he said seriously, not even his own family. He couldn't contest the adoption without some support. If he'd been involved, he would've used her to get the kid. He wouldn't have been forced into signing away his rights."
She had to admit he was right. "That's one hell of a coincidence."
He shrugged again. "It happens on occasion."
"What about the owner of the building?"
"The owners were slumlords and the leasing company went out of business shortly after the building was condemned. I made some calls, but records are going to be hard to get a hold of at this point."
She excitedly grabbed a pink sequined dress and held it up against her body. "Ooh! What about this one?"
"Too shiny. You'll blind everyone."
"You are so helpful," she said with a sardonic smile, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Carly wandered quietly through the racks, occasionally stopping to pull a dress off the rack for a closer look. She picked out a few to try on and headed for the fitting room.
Two she immediately took off as soon as she put them on. Although they looked nice on the hangers, they looked horrible on her. She put on a black dress. It passed the initial mirror examination, so she walked back out into the front.
A three-way mirror was against a wall, near the hallway to the fitting rooms. Frisco was leaning on a clearance rack, bored out of his mind. A couple other men were standing around, looking just as bored.
She held her arms out and slowly spun around. "How does this look?" she asked her husband.
"It looks nice."
She glared at him. "Nice? That's it?"
The other men snickered. Frisco shot them a commanding look and they turned away uncomfortably. "If you wanted a detailed opinion, you should ask someone else." He shrugged. "I think it looks nice on you."
She rolled her eyes and stomped back to the fitting room.
Carly tried on two more dresses, both in different shades of purple, and received the same response. She looked to the other men, but their answers weren't any more helpful. She should've brought Liz along. At least she was capable of giving an actual informative opinion. Men were obviously useless when it came to choosing clothes.
She came out in the last dress and went straight for the mirror. She turned to each side, looking at herself. The dress was red satin with dark silver lace overlay and had clear plastic straps for a strapless look. It was very low cut in front, had a lace sash in back and hugged her figure.
She wasn't sure which one she wanted. She went back into the fitting room and changed back into her regular clothes.
She came out, dresses in hand. "Okay," she said, facing Frisco, who was now alone. "Which one?"
"The red one," he answered quickly.
She held the dresses up, flipping between them. "I don't know. I like the dark purple one, too."
His voice is slightly more urgent. "The red one."
"The red dress?"
He licked his lips nervously. "Yeah."
A smirk appeared on her face. "You're sure?"
"Absolutely."
If a dress could have this kind of effect on Frisco Jones, it was a dress she wanted to have. "Okay, red it is." She handed him the other dresses. "Put these away for me. We have one more department to go."
"One more? I thought all you needed was a dress."
"This dress is practically strapless! I can't very well wear a bra with straps with it, can I?"
Carly turned and walked towards the lingerie department, missing the almost panicked look on Frisco's face.
"A bra?"
Carly flipped through the bras, looking for her size. She snuck a look at Frisco. He was standing nearby, a hand in his pocket and her dress over one arm. He looked as uncomfortable as she'd ever seen him, shifting his weight between his feet and glancing around.
She found her size and pulled it out. She wandered around, looking at others, even though she had what she needed. She was enjoying this far too much.
She grabbed a matching bra and panty set and held them up. "What do you think?"
He just glared at her, with more than just annoyance in his eyes.
She put the set back and stuck to looking at the strapless bras. "I got a look at something besides the Alcazar files today."
"Oh yeah?"
"The FBI knows about the kidnapping."
Frisco stiffened. "How'd they..."
"Sonny's," she clarified. "Not mine."
He relaxed. "That was quick. Anything we should be concerned with?"
She knew he was referring to himself. "You weren't mentioned at all. Not even that Jason had any outside help."
"Interesting."
Carly chose a bra and put the others on the closest rack. Frisco paid for the clothes and they walked back out to the car in silence.
"I couldn't quite figure out where the feds' source is," she said quietly, getting in on the passenger side. "Obviously not high up in the organization or in the PCPD, otherwise they would've known about you."
He put the dress in the back seat and climbing into the driver's seat. "Not necessarily. What else was in the files?"
"They suspect Lorenzo Alcazar is trying to take over Sonny's territory. Any raids or arrests have been put on hold for the time being."
"Standard operating procedure. They're waiting to see what shakes out. Mistakes tend to get made during mob wars."
"So, what are you thinking?"
Frisco shook his head. "They know nothing about the Alcazars."
"You don't think Lorenzo is after Sonny's territory?"
"The Alcazars run in bigger circles than that. They don't need anybody's territory. That's not how their organization works."
"Oh."
"Did they files say if that was the assumption Sonny and Jason were making?"
"No, nothing about any reaction."
She thought as they drove through the streets of Port Charles. She thought about her time with the Alcazars, what Frisco had told her about Lorenzo Alcazar, about the last few days' events relating to Sonny. None of this made sense to her, as if she were looking at a puzzle with too many key pieces missing to actually see the picture.
"If this wasn't about territory, what was it about?" she asked thoughtfully. "Luis is dead, it can't still be about Brenda."
He hesitated before answering her. "I don't know. I feel like there's some piece of information we're missing." She turned her head to look at him. She could see him reach a decision. "I need to talk to Jason."
She snorted. "What makes you think he's going to tell you anything?"
"Silence can say a lot. All I need is a lead. I can figure it out on my own."
"I still don't think you're going to get anything from him. You don't call him the Borg for nothing."
"We'll see."
Carly shook her head. Frisco was deluding himself if he thought Jason would give away anything about the organization. He'd kill himself before betraying Sonny in any way.
Chapter 28
Author: speedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Expecting her second child and caught up in a mafia war, Carly Corinthos has a secret that will change the lives of everyone she knows.
Disclaimer: I'm not the Rat, so obviously the characters aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for awhile.
Notes: Just moving this over from my now defunct website. This veers off canon right before the panic room fiasco in 2003.
Chapter 26
"How could you find nothing? Someone had to pay that hospital bill."
Frisco's fingers immediately went to his temples and began to rub. He was at Luke's, sitting at the end of the bar and talking on his cell phone. The club hadn't opened yet, so it was empty, except for Luke. The rest of the staff was in the back, preparing for the day.
This wasn't the update he'd wanted. The agent in Florida had no more answers than the last time they'd spoken.
"What about her family? Did she have any contact with them?"
He laid his head on the bar. He wasn't hearing this. Their only leads were not evaporating.
"How the hell does an entire family just disappear?"
He didn't notice when Luke set a drink down next to his head.
"Do whatever you have to do, but track them down. They have to be somewhere. And forward me what you've got."
He hit the end button and let the phone drop from his hand, not lifting his head.
Luke leaned on the bar. "Not going well, secret agent man?"
"The Roberts family moved out of Florida several years ago and haven't been heard of since."
"How big of a lead could they really be?"
"No one at the hospital remembers Charlotte."
"That complicates things a bit."
"The only records for her that I can find here are Carly's."
"So the imposter was smart and used an alias."
"But I have no idea what it was."
"Maybe she was using my niece's name."
"She didn't. I checked."
"Is that all you've got? Her family and the hospital?"
Frisco lifted his head. "She was good at covering her tracks."
"Why? It's not like she was on the run. And the accident was just that, an accident. Nothing criminal."
"I don't have enough information to piece together a why that actually makes sense yet."
"Why didn't you guys check that out in the beginning?"
"Somebody did, but we didn't have a reason to think she was dangerous or involved in this case at the time. Our focus was on Luis Alcazar." He shook his head, picking up the glass and taking a drink. "She's done a damn good job of covering her tracks."
"So what's the next move?"
"My agent is tracking down the family. We need to know if Charlotte's been in contact with them." He sighed. "I'll tap her cell phone and see if I can get anything that way."
"And just how are you going to do that?"
"Echelon."
Glass in hand, Frisco slipped off the bar stool and walked back to the office.
Carly came bounding into the office, smiling and in an unusually good mood. Frisco was staring at the computer screen, as he had been for the last half an hour.
"So, how are things going in Florida?"
His eyes never left the computer screen. "Not good."
Her smile faded. "That agent found something, right? He had to find something."
"Nothing's panning out."
"Oh."
"What are you doing here anyway?"
"You said you'd take me shopping for a Nurse's Ball dress. You don't want me going alone and running up the credit card again." She wandered around the desk to see what he was looking at. "What are you working on?"
"Echelon. I'm trying to get a lock on Charlotte's cell phone."
"Are you sure she has it on?"
"Yeah. I sent Luke over to there to annoy her, just to make sure." He clicked a few keys, but it was futile. "I shouldn't have any problems locking onto a signal."
"Could she have some sort of scrambler on there? I bet Sonny and Jason have stuff like that."
"That wouldn't make a difference to Echelon. It'll pick up anything, that what's it's designed to do."
"Sonny has a lot of connections, are you sure he doesn't have some technology to cover the signal or whatever?"
"Absolutely not. The technology to avoid Echelon belongs to only a few groups, all government or related agencies. It's closely protected. That technology gets out, there are agents all over it. Maybe the top criminal organizations might have the right equipment, but no one at Sonny's level would. Sonny probably doesn't even know what Echelon is."
"You don't give Sonny much credit, man."
"The mafia doesn't usually concern itself with matters of national security. Echelon is strictly used for intelligence, not for criminal prosecution."
"Like Scott Baldwin wouldn't milk this system for all it's worth if he could gets his hands on it."
Frisco stifled a laugh, a big grin on his face. "He'd give his left nut for five minutes in the system."
"So if this is such a big deal," Carly said, watching him kit a few more keystrokes, "how did Charlotte get her grubby little hands on it?"
He had that "Frisco" look. He was obviously contemplating her question.
"She must have a backer."
"Like who?"
"Good question."
Carly looks at her husband, confused. They were supposed to be shopping, but instead of driving into downtown Port Charles, he drove into a cemetery. She'd been here once with Tony; Tania and BJ were buried here. Her anxiety kicked up a notch.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
Frisco stopped the car and put on the parking brake. "You're going to learn how to drive."
"This is a cemetery!"
"So traffic won't be a problem," he said lightly.
She looked into his face. He was completely serious. "You expect me to drive in a cemetery?" she asked dubiously.
"Would you rather learn on the freeway?"
"No," she replied, shaking her head insistently. "I'm not doing this."
He didn't answer her. He just reached around the driver's seat and pulled out two small bouquets of flowers from the back seat floor. The flowers matched ones from the large vase that Alcazar had sent her. He must've poached a few for himself, not that she cared. She'd wanted to put the flowers down the garbage disposal; he was the one that liked them enough to keep them.
She watched, flabbergasted, as he got out of the car and walked through the rows of headstones. She jumped out of the SUV and followed him.
"Hey! Where are you going?" she shouted incredulously at him.
He turned his head, but kept walking. "To visit my sister-in-law and my niece."
"What about me?"
"You're a big girl. You can stay all by yourself for five minutes."
She stopped when he did, still several feet away from him. He kneeled and put the flowers on each grave.
Carly turned away and looked around, giving him a little privacy. The place creeped her out. Cemeteries always did; they reminded her of the best friend she'd once lost and her loneliness afterwards.
Frisco strode past her. "Let's go," he said.
"Finally," she said, following him back to the car.
To her surprise, he climbed in on the passenger side. "What are you doing?"
"I told you, you're going to learn how to drive."
"I don't think so, man."
He shrugged. "Fine. We'll just stay here."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to be the one driving us out of here. Either you get behind the wheel and learn or we will sit here all night. Your choice."
She was fuming. She hated when he did this to her. She stormed around the SVU, climbed into the driver's seat and turned the key.
Nothing happened. The dashboard lights came on, but that was it. The engine was silent.
"Lesson one," Frisco said, snickering. "On a manual transmission car, the clutch has to be engaged for the car to start."
She shot him a dirty look. Bastard thought this was funny.
"Clutch is the pedal on the left, the brake is in the middle, gas is on the right."
"I can figure that out on my own."
She pushed in the clutch and turned the key again. This time the engine roared to life.
"Keep your foot on the clutch and push in the brake, then release the parking brake."
She did as he told her to.
He grabbed her hand put it on the gearshift. "Now you shift into first gear." He guided her to the first gear. "First is forward to the left, second is back to the left. Third is straight forward, fourth is straight back. Fifth is forward to the right, reverse is back to the right."
"Just like it's printed on the shifter."
"Take your foot off the brake and put it on the gas. Slowly release the clutch when you put in the gas."
She slammed down the accelerator, letting off the clutch, and the car took off with squealing tires. She missed the turn and clipped the curb. She overcompensated the steering and the car jerked to the side.
"Hey! Do you mind not killing me?" Frisco shouted angrily.
Carly slammed on the brakes. The car stopped, throwing them forward against the seatbelts, and the engine stalled in the process.
"Do that again and I'll kill you," he said slowly, holding on to the door and the seat.
She smirked. This wasn't so funny to him now.
"Same thing again, but this time, be gentle. I'd like the car to stay in one piece if possible."
She started the car again and did as he'd instructed her. She let off the clutch too quickly, the car stalled again. They repeated this until she could get moving without stalling.
"Good," he said, once she finally got moving. "Keep an eye on the speedometer and the tachometer."
"Tachometer?"
"The gauge next to the speedometer, with the big numbers. When that gets to about 3500, shift into second gear."
"Okay."
Frisco directed her around the cemetery several times, managing to get her into third gear at one point. He even taught her to park.
"I can't believe I'm driving!" Carly said excitedly, a huge grin on her face.
"I told you it wasn't hard, Carly. Ready to try it on real streets?"
"Yes!"
"Good! Let's go to Wyndam's."
Carly pulled another dress off the rack. It was probably the twentieth one she'd looked at, butt ugly and three sizes too big. But she wasn't going to get a little thing like that get in the way of her fun.
"What do you think?" she asked, holding the dress up to her.
"Now I know you're being ridiculous. The dress is hideous and you know it."
"I think it's very..." She trailed off, searching for a good adjective.
"Monstrously ugly?" Frisco suggested.
"You have no sense of style," she said haughtily, putting the dress back.
"No, you don't if you actually like that dress." He leaned on a nearby rack. "I know what you're doing and you can stop now."
"What am I doing?"
"Trying to annoy me. Mission accomplished."
She decided to drop it, satisfied that he was annoyed. "Okay. What did you think of the black one?" she asked, moving to another rack.
"Which black one?"
"With the asymmetrical strap."
"It was okay." He lowered his voice and moved closer to her. "How far did you get in the files?" he asked quietly.
"Not very," she answered, switching to another rack. "The files are huge. It's going to take me a couple days to get familiar enough to get anything out of them. Did you come up with anything on Charlotte?"
"No. There's no record of her in Port Charles at all."
"What? How did you guys find her in the first place?"
"Mostly witness statements, I think. I didn't do the initial investigation," he told her. "She had an apartment down near Cortlandt Street, but I couldn't find any records of it. She must not have used her address there."
"Cortlandt Street? Must've been a dump."
"It was."
"Was?"
"It was demolished last year, on AJ Quartermaine's orders."
That got her attention. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. "AJ?" she repeated, not bothering to mask her hostility.
"He worked with the planning commission for a few months. Had some big real estate plan for the area that fell through."
"How convenient," she said dubiously.
"Coincidence," he told her, with no doubt.
"Come on, you don't believe in coincidences," she reminded him. "AJ hates me. He'd do anything to get Michael. And I'm supposed to believe him demolishing Charlotte's apartment building is just a coincidence."
"Then why didn't he or the Quartermaines make a move on Michael?"
Carly couldn't answer that.
"He lost his parental rights and according to the files, under suspicious circumstances. That's how Sonny was able to adopt Michael."
"What circumstances?"
"Don't know exactly, but AJ was crying foul. He told anyone that would listen that Sonny had threatened him." He shrugged. "It was AJ. No one took a word he said seriously, not even his own family. He couldn't contest the adoption without some support. If he'd been involved, he would've used her to get the kid. He wouldn't have been forced into signing away his rights."
She had to admit he was right. "That's one hell of a coincidence."
He shrugged again. "It happens on occasion."
"What about the owner of the building?"
"The owners were slumlords and the leasing company went out of business shortly after the building was condemned. I made some calls, but records are going to be hard to get a hold of at this point."
She excitedly grabbed a pink sequined dress and held it up against her body. "Ooh! What about this one?"
"Too shiny. You'll blind everyone."
"You are so helpful," she said with a sardonic smile, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Carly wandered quietly through the racks, occasionally stopping to pull a dress off the rack for a closer look. She picked out a few to try on and headed for the fitting room.
Two she immediately took off as soon as she put them on. Although they looked nice on the hangers, they looked horrible on her. She put on a black dress. It passed the initial mirror examination, so she walked back out into the front.
A three-way mirror was against a wall, near the hallway to the fitting rooms. Frisco was leaning on a clearance rack, bored out of his mind. A couple other men were standing around, looking just as bored.
She held her arms out and slowly spun around. "How does this look?" she asked her husband.
"It looks nice."
She glared at him. "Nice? That's it?"
The other men snickered. Frisco shot them a commanding look and they turned away uncomfortably. "If you wanted a detailed opinion, you should ask someone else." He shrugged. "I think it looks nice on you."
She rolled her eyes and stomped back to the fitting room.
Carly tried on two more dresses, both in different shades of purple, and received the same response. She looked to the other men, but their answers weren't any more helpful. She should've brought Liz along. At least she was capable of giving an actual informative opinion. Men were obviously useless when it came to choosing clothes.
She came out in the last dress and went straight for the mirror. She turned to each side, looking at herself. The dress was red satin with dark silver lace overlay and had clear plastic straps for a strapless look. It was very low cut in front, had a lace sash in back and hugged her figure.
She wasn't sure which one she wanted. She went back into the fitting room and changed back into her regular clothes.
She came out, dresses in hand. "Okay," she said, facing Frisco, who was now alone. "Which one?"
"The red one," he answered quickly.
She held the dresses up, flipping between them. "I don't know. I like the dark purple one, too."
His voice is slightly more urgent. "The red one."
"The red dress?"
He licked his lips nervously. "Yeah."
A smirk appeared on her face. "You're sure?"
"Absolutely."
If a dress could have this kind of effect on Frisco Jones, it was a dress she wanted to have. "Okay, red it is." She handed him the other dresses. "Put these away for me. We have one more department to go."
"One more? I thought all you needed was a dress."
"This dress is practically strapless! I can't very well wear a bra with straps with it, can I?"
Carly turned and walked towards the lingerie department, missing the almost panicked look on Frisco's face.
"A bra?"
Carly flipped through the bras, looking for her size. She snuck a look at Frisco. He was standing nearby, a hand in his pocket and her dress over one arm. He looked as uncomfortable as she'd ever seen him, shifting his weight between his feet and glancing around.
She found her size and pulled it out. She wandered around, looking at others, even though she had what she needed. She was enjoying this far too much.
She grabbed a matching bra and panty set and held them up. "What do you think?"
He just glared at her, with more than just annoyance in his eyes.
She put the set back and stuck to looking at the strapless bras. "I got a look at something besides the Alcazar files today."
"Oh yeah?"
"The FBI knows about the kidnapping."
Frisco stiffened. "How'd they..."
"Sonny's," she clarified. "Not mine."
He relaxed. "That was quick. Anything we should be concerned with?"
She knew he was referring to himself. "You weren't mentioned at all. Not even that Jason had any outside help."
"Interesting."
Carly chose a bra and put the others on the closest rack. Frisco paid for the clothes and they walked back out to the car in silence.
"I couldn't quite figure out where the feds' source is," she said quietly, getting in on the passenger side. "Obviously not high up in the organization or in the PCPD, otherwise they would've known about you."
He put the dress in the back seat and climbing into the driver's seat. "Not necessarily. What else was in the files?"
"They suspect Lorenzo Alcazar is trying to take over Sonny's territory. Any raids or arrests have been put on hold for the time being."
"Standard operating procedure. They're waiting to see what shakes out. Mistakes tend to get made during mob wars."
"So, what are you thinking?"
Frisco shook his head. "They know nothing about the Alcazars."
"You don't think Lorenzo is after Sonny's territory?"
"The Alcazars run in bigger circles than that. They don't need anybody's territory. That's not how their organization works."
"Oh."
"Did they files say if that was the assumption Sonny and Jason were making?"
"No, nothing about any reaction."
She thought as they drove through the streets of Port Charles. She thought about her time with the Alcazars, what Frisco had told her about Lorenzo Alcazar, about the last few days' events relating to Sonny. None of this made sense to her, as if she were looking at a puzzle with too many key pieces missing to actually see the picture.
"If this wasn't about territory, what was it about?" she asked thoughtfully. "Luis is dead, it can't still be about Brenda."
He hesitated before answering her. "I don't know. I feel like there's some piece of information we're missing." She turned her head to look at him. She could see him reach a decision. "I need to talk to Jason."
She snorted. "What makes you think he's going to tell you anything?"
"Silence can say a lot. All I need is a lead. I can figure it out on my own."
"I still don't think you're going to get anything from him. You don't call him the Borg for nothing."
"We'll see."
Carly shook her head. Frisco was deluding himself if he thought Jason would give away anything about the organization. He'd kill himself before betraying Sonny in any way.
Chapter 28
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