find he had a Southern accent. “Mrs. Miceli, put the gun down.” He pointed a gun, produced magically from a back pocket, at her.
She trained the gun on him. “Franco, you know why we’re here. Now let me kill them and then we can go home.”
“Put the gun down, Mrs. Miceli.”
Gianna turned and looked at us and then back at Franco, deciding what to do. “I’m not putting the gun down, Franco. Get in the car, please, before I call Mr. Miceli and tell him what a pain in the butt you’ve become.”
“I’ll say it one more time, and then I’m going to shoot you, Mrs. Miceli: put the gun down.”
Crawford got back to the apartment in record time, thanks to his police escort. Fred was already there, as well as just about every cop from his local precinct. He burst into the living room and found the lead detective, John Galvin, a guy he had gone to the academy with, organizing the other detectives.
“Anything, John?” he asked, panting from the exertion of running up the stairs.
The detective put a note in front of Crawford’s face; Crawford wasn’t wearing gloves, and Galvin didn’t want to taint the evidence with another set of fingerprints. “Does this mean anything to you?” he asked.
There was only a name on the slip of paper, written in Bea’s looping, Catholic-school handwriting: “Gianna Miceli.”
Crawford looked at Galvin, confused. “Gianna has them?”
Fred walked in at that moment and looked at the note. “What the hell does that mean?”
Crawford walked over to the kitchen. “There must have been a struggle. There are coffee beans everywhere.”
Fred looked around. “Yeah, but nothing else.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “Why would either of the Micelis kidnap Bea and Alison?”
Crawford had no idea. He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know.” He looked up at Galvin. “Do we know anything else?”
“No.” Galvin handed the note to the crime scene technician who appeared beside him. “Give me a full description of your aunt and the woman with her.” Galvin jotted some notes as Crawford described Bea, then Alison. He smiled when Crawford finished. “I think I’ll leave ‘beautiful’ out of Alison’s description. With this crew,” he said, hooking a thumb at the uniforms, “that’ll be open to interpretation. Johnson over there might bring back a Twelfth Avenue hooker,” he said, attempting to joke Crawford out of his black mood.
Crawford got up from the couch. “I feel like I should be doing something. Anything.” He looked at Fred. “What should we do?”
Galvin held up a hand. “You’re going to stay here and do nothing. We’ve got it under control. Every cop in the city will have these descriptions in about two minutes.” He reached up and put a hand on Crawford’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them.”
Crawford ran his hands over his face and looked at Fred. Fred didn’t say anything, but the intensity of his gaze let Crawford know that he was worried, too.
“Fred,” he said, his voice cracking, “if anything happens to them…” Then he stopped. He didn’t know what he would do if something happened to them and that was the saddest reality of all.
Chapter 29
Franco repeated his request but didn’t make good on his promise to shoot her if he had to ask again.
Gianna looked at Franco, her back to us. “What?” she asked.
“Put the gun down, Mrs. Miceli.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “You are under arrest.”
Gianna’s face was a mixture of surprise, anger, and shock. The gun waved back and forth in her hand and she put her left hand under it to steady it, pointing it now at Franco instead of me and Bea.
“You’re under arrest, Mrs. Miceli,” he said, keeping his gun pointed at her chest. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and produced a badge. “I’m with the FBI.”
Gianna let out a breath of air that sounded like the air coming out of a balloon. “Don’t be ridiculous. I think I would have known if you were with the FBI. You’ve worked for us for five years.”
“And I’ve been with the FBI for twenty,” he said. “Put the gun down.”
Bea reached over and grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the scene. We slipped around to the front of the limo and crouched beside the front driver’s side, our eyes barely over the hood so that we could see what was happening.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Gianna screamed. “You’ve worked for us for five