The sleek black limousine pulled up the alley slowly, coming to a stop in front of the doorway of 256 Brewery Lane. The handsome young man in the back seat abruptly ended his phone call and looked out at the building through the smoky tinted windows. He took a deep breath as he stepped out of the car and knocked loudly on the big green door.

He could hear the tapping of heels on the cement floor as someone rushed to answer. The door flew open and he found himself face to face with a small latino woman with big liquid brown eyes and greying locks. He smiled warmly as he scooped her up and hugged her.

"Aunt Mira. How are you? It's been too long, Detective."

"That's Captain to you, Mr. Ramirez. How was the flight from L.A.?"

"Long and boring. Got to watch myself and the the young Mr. Gibson in "The Hunt" again."

"Well, that movie did make you a star, Manny. And if I remember correctly, People Magazine nominated you "Sexiest Man Alive" because of your performance."

The tall man with the sparkling blue eyes and wavy brown hair smiled shyly and shrugged. His new status as a sex symbol was overwhelming and embarrassing.

The older woman smiled at him. "I'm sorry Manny. I don't mean to embarrass you. Please come inside."

The young man stepped into the depths of the loft and looked around at all the computer equipment and special effects gadgets. "I feel like they'll walk downstairs any second now."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Your sister is not taking it well. You know how close she and your mother were."

"Is she here?"

The latino woman nodded as the actor called out his sister's name. "Christina?"

He found himself blinking back a tear as a petite blonde woman with crystal  blue-green eyes approached him, clutching a photo album to her chest. Her face was tear-stained and there was an emptiness to her gaze. He moved towards her, amazed at the resemblance.

"Christina, you look just like her," he whispered.

The young woman continued to cry, looking briefly at her Aunt. "That's what Dad always said," she replied softly.

Manny stretched out his arms and she stepped into his embrace, overwhelmed by her grief at the difficult loss of her parents. He whispered into her ear as he held her, "I'm sorry I couldn't be here sooner." She nodded, her head against his chest.

Captain Mira Sanchez cleared her throat. The pair looked at her. "I'm sorry. I have to go pick up Frank and his family at the train station. And you two should really leave soon for the memorial service."

"Of course. Thank you Aunt Mira." The small latino woman slipped out of the loft quietly.

Christina Tyler went to the bathroom to freshen up as her brother Manny looked around the loft that had been his childhood home. He noticed the photos of his parents and his grandfather, as well as family friends. He was gazing at one of him as a child sitting on his father's lap in front of a computer playing a video game when his sister approached. He smiled sadly, took her hand and they stepped out of the loft to the waiting limo.
 

The sidewalk in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was mobbed with mourners and television news crews. Manny wondered angrily as he looked out the window of the car whether they were there because it was a black day for the movie and theatre worlds or because the explosion that had killed his parents had been labeled suspicious. He refused to believe they were here because he was. He asked the driver to pull around to a smaller entrance on the side of the massive stone building.

He stepped from the limo with his sister. They were escorted into the building by two uniformed officers. The first thing they both noticed was just how crowded the large church was. Standing room only. They were escorted to the front row as the service began.

"We are here today to honor in death the lives of two special people, Rolland Tyler and his wife and partner Angela Ramirez Tyler..."

The priest droned on about their accomplishments, but the young man and woman hardly noticed. They were both in too much shock.

Manny was called up and began to speak, not quite sure where the words came from. When he sat he could not remember what he had said, something about his parents love of life and their concern for family and friends, how their genius and creative minds had changed the face of movie making and in his mother's case, theatre. In her later life she had looked to slow down
from the heavily sequenced action events and had started a prosperous theatre set design subsidiary of Tyler FX that her daughter had become a very big part of. Christina was very moved by the speech even though Manny could not recall what he had said.

They returned to the loft where Mira and Frank and others had gathered. The day was a blur, food was delivered and people came and went, giving their condolences to the Tyler children. Reporters were kept at bay down the block by officers from the precinct. The atmosphere at the loft was subdued even though there were hundreds of mourners. Manny, who had made a good
life for himself in California at the ripe age of 18 - using the stage name Ramirez rather than his given last name in an effort to prove his talent without any help from his father - was shaken by the sheer numbers of people that had been close to his parents. Christina, always having been
incredibly talented as well as introverted, had stayed in New York to be close to her mother.  Although the spitting image of the beautiful blonde with the downtown attitude, she had never developed the self-assuredness that had been Angie's. She had relied heavily upon her closest friend, her mother for support and guidance. Rollie had always warned his wife that she was too overprotective of Christina, but Angie just chalked up her shyness to her incredible gift. She could paint like no other Angie had ever seen and her ideas for sets were revolutionary. Although it was Rollie's name on the masthead and Angie's hard work that produced the Broadway sets, it was Christina's vision that won the awards. And the entire family knew it.

When the last of the mourners finally left, the loft was quiet. Christina, Manny and Mira sat talking quietly in the lounge. They discussed what to do with all the equipment and the masks. The reading of the will would take place in the morning at the loft. Rollie's and Angie's lawyers as well as attorneys from the firm representing the business would be in attendance. Manny offered to have his driver take the two women home. They accepted gratefully, Christina  picking up a photo of her parents and taking it with her. She looked at it sadly on the drive to her apartment, but would not open up to Manny in the car.
 

Manny Tyler Ramirez ran his key card through the reader and opened the door to his hotel room. He walked down the short hallway into the sitting room of the 15th floor suite. He put down his suitcase and looked at the two people sitting side by side on the couch.

"Well?"

Manny looked from the tall man in the black sweater to the blonde woman beside him on the couch. He took a deep breath as he took off his jacket and loosened his tie. "Christina is devastated. Frank's wife was really upset and little Kimmi wanted me to put this on your grave." He handed his father a beanie baby. The woman looked at it wide eyed.

"Rollie, I don't like this. It's not fair to our friends and family."

The man put his arm around her. "You know it's the only way Ange. We talked about this a lot before..."

"I know but what about Chris? I want to tell her."

"I'm sorry. We can't take the chance. "

"He's right you know, mom." The young man moved towards the door as he spoke, opening it for the latino detective waiting outside. She sat in a chair facing her two closest friends of over twenty years. Angie broke the tense silence of the room by getting bottled waters for all from the small refrigerator in the corner.

Angie looked angrily at the woman as she handed her the cold drink. "My daughter?"

"Angie!" Her husband glared at her.

Mira waved him off as she stood. "Angie, you know this is for your own protection. She is taking it very hard, but you know as well as we all do that knowing will only put her in danger. We talked about this. You said you were okay with it."

Angie turned from the window. She looked at the detective, then at her husband. She said in little more than a whisper, "It's just harder than I thought it would be." Rollie stood and came up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He stood next to her looking out at the Manhattan
darkness. "She's going to be fine, sweetie. Manny will look after her while we're gone. And Mira. Nothing is going to happen. I promise."

"That's what worries me the most."
 

Manny was the first to arrive back at the loft in the morning. He noticed Blue did not bark as he opened the door. The place was in a shambles as he walked in. Masks were in the middle of the floor. The cushions from the couch were overturned. Papers were everywhere. Jaz and Zip disks
littered the floor of Angie's clean room. Even some of Christina's paintings had been removed from the walls and were on the floor. He stared at the mess in shock. Christina plowed into him as she entered the loft, looking around.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I don't know."

He knew that the tapes the thieves were looking for were safe, although only his mother knew where they were. He wondered absently if his father knew as he stumbled through the wrecked studio. Although he and his father had never seen eye to eye he knew how much danger they were in and feared for his parents' lives.

He turned from his private thoughts of his distance from his father as he saw his sister break down in the middle of the floor. He wanted to tell her so badly, his baby sister, that the only person she cared about was okay, but that would only put her in danger. So he knelt down next to
her and tried to console her.

"Why, Manny? Why would someone do this? They're dead."

The young man just held her.
 

The man in the thick wool coat shivered as the wind blew in through the broken window. He continued to peer through his binoculars towards the interior of the loft across the alleyway. He watched the young man step through the mess surveying the damage and the girl crumple on the floor in tears. He watched the man try to console her and the detective and the lawyers enter but stop just inside the door. When he heard sirens down the block, he gathered his gear, the binoculars, the long range camera, the long-range rifle with the high-tech scope and the listening devices. His men had not found what he wanted and the people in the loft had given no clue as to why the place had been ransacked. But he could not take the chance of the police checking the surrounding area.
 

Angela Tyler lay on the bed, her hands under her head. Her eyes were closed even though she was not tired. She listened sadly to the raised voices in the the next room. Rollie and Manny were arguing again. She knew it was about her. But it wasn’t really. It was just the reason they needed to fight.

They had started fighting when Manny hit his teens. He seemed to turn into a rebel overnight and did everything in his power to torment his father. Rollie had always been so easygoing. But her husband had told her once that Manny reminded him of his own father. A fast talker with a smooth attitude and the looks and charm that could talk someone out of their last nickel. He didn’t want to see his son grow up to be like his old man. So he had tried to keep the boy on a tight rein. But that had backfired in his face. Manny had started hanging out with a rough crowd, stealing and carrying a gun. Rollie had tried to get his son to work for him, but he just wasn’t interested in the special effects and makeup. He took advantage of his status on sets harassing the girls and horsing around with dangerous equipment. He dropped out of school at sixteen and the day he turned eighteen he packed and took off for the bright lights and party scene that was so much a part of the Hollywood movie business. Angie had cried as the cab pulled off down the alley. Rollie had stormed into his chamber and not so much as said good-bye.

Angie had fallen into a light sleep when she was startled awake by the door to the hotel suite slamming. She heard the door to the bedroom open quietly and felt the bed shift as her husband lay down next to her, curling himself around her body.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I don't know, Ange. What did I do wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Rol," she said as she rolled over to look at him. "He's just got too much of your father in him. He's still young. He'll grow up."

"Before I kill him?"

She smiled at the last remark. It was their private joke since Manny had gotten his first tattoo at fourteen.

She placed a hand on his cheek, touching the scar he had had since she could remember. "You've done some pretty stupid things in your day, old man. If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead by now. You're lucky I've kept you alive this long."

"This time it's all your fault." He kissed her neck.

"Rollie, I'm scared."

"I know. But this is too big. You saw what happened when Mira brought the tapes to the FBI. We can't take that chance again."
 

The tall man in the black wool coat sat down in front of the desk and looked at the man across from him.

"Where is it?"

"It wasn't at the loft, Senator Moore. My men searched everything."

"Damnit Connors!" he said, slamming his fist into the desk. "I need that tape. If I don't get it, my whole political career is over! And the contract was for their deaths AND the tape. Find it or the deal is off. And you can kiss your freedom goodbye. You hear me?!"

With that he waved the man away. Body guards escorted him out of the building.
 

The old man with the beard sat on the bench playing with the end of his tattered and frayed scarf. His clothes were holey, his fingers showing through the worn ends of his woolen gloves. He was singing to himself softly, drinking occasionally from a can inside a brown paper bag. He waited for some time like that, watching people come and go. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Francis Gatti and a small Irish man sat on a bench behind the drunk bum. Although he continued to sing, the bum listened carefully to the conversation.

"Look, Gatti, you ain't even a cop no more. Why should I tell you anything?"

The former detective swatted the man's leg with his cane. "Just because I was shot doesn't mean I don't still have good connections, Lucky. I can have you put away  so fast it'll make your head spin."

"But this has nothin' to do with you."

"A personal favor for a friend. Just tell me what you know."

"What do I get?"

"It's what you don't get that counts, Lucky. You're trying my patience." The Italian ex-cop absently rubbed the side of his knee where he had been shot in the line of duty a few years earlier.

"Fine, fine. Word on the street is Senator Moore was snagged on tape having relations with Marciano's wife...Marciano the crime boss."

"Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don't know."

"Marciano set them up to get caught because Moore wouldn't back that gun bill. He was using his wife to get what he wanted from Moore, but when Moore got nailed with his pants down it all flew out the window. He dumped the Marciano bitch like a hot potato. Marciano tried to pop him but the Senator beat him to it. Now the Senator is trying to clean up the loose ends as quick as possible. He's worried about his re-election."

"And.."

The man leaned over and whispered in Gatti's ear. "The movie guy's wife caught the whole thing on tape. That's why they torched her."

The bum on the next bench winced, but it went unnoticed. He knew his wife was safe in hiding, but hearing someone talk about her like that still made him shudder.

"Alright, Lucky. Don't make me come find you next time," he yelled as the small man loped off through the park.

Detective Gatti slid over on his bench.

"Still doesn't explain the FBI showing up on Mira's doorstep and trying to confiscate the tape the day after the murder, Francis."

"I know, Rollie. I got a bad feeling about this. It's not safe for you to be in public right now."

"I can't be in the hotel any more with Manny. He drives me nuts. Besides I want to check on Christina. "

"Rollie," Frank said in a warning tone, "don't let her know it's you."

"No worries, Frankie."

"Angie's gonna kill you when she finds out about this."

"How can she? I'm already dead." He smiled and walked away from the man with the cane.
 

Rollie went to her apartment first but she was not home. He checked the park near her home where she often went to draw but she was not there either. So he went to the only other place he could think of, the loft at Brewery Lane. He snuck quietly in the back through the phone booth. He was shocked to see how trashed the place was. In all his years of helping the cops, his place had been ransacked numerous times, but never like this. He heard movement from the kitchen, and ducked behind a computer as he watched his daughter sit down with a cup of coffee and a photo album.

He recognized the cover as she gingerly opened it and began to leaf through it. It was the one Angie had made for him for Christmas the year they had finally started dating. It was falling apart after so long. It contained photos of them with her father, notes Rollie had written her right after
her father's death, e-mails, crew passes, concert and museum stubs, etc. It was a compilation of their friendship of thirteen years. Rollie knew every inch of that book, the photos, the words of the notes by heart. He watched his daughter leaf through its tattered pages, the letters and e-mails spilling out of it after so much time and abuse.

Rollie was so lost in his thoughts of his past that he did not hear the armed men enter the building through the front door and sneak into the lounge. His robotic dog, Blue was still disabled and Rollie was not in the habit of listening for intruders. One man had a gun to his daughter's head
before he knew what was going on. The other man dumped the contents of her bag on the table, looking for the tape.

"Where is it?" the big burly man asked.

"What? What are you talking about?" the frightened young woman asked.

"The tape! Where is it?"

"What tape?" Her voice was rising.

Rollie could see that his timid daughter was starting to shake. He took the PDA out of his pocket, remotely turning on the Annex. He said a silent thank you as he heard the computer boot up. He uploaded an audio file of sirens and played it back, hoping it would scare the men. But it only
caused the man with the gun to Christina's head to cock the trigger, terrifying her.

Rollie felt he had no choice. Still dressed in his ragged street clothes, he charged the man holding Christina from behind. They fell to the ground, struggling for the gun. Christina was so terrified, she stood there immobilized. She heard the bum yell, "The Gun!" at her, but she could not seem to make her body work.

By the time the man got through to her and she moved towards the gun, the other man was down from the clean room, his revolver pointed at the men struggling on the floor. He picked up the gun from the floor, pointing it at Christina.

"Enough, or the girl bites it," he screamed at the struggling pair. They stopped fighting, standing up slowly. Before Rollie could say a word, the man he had been fighting with pistol whipped him with the butt end of his revolver. Christina stared at the figure out cold in front of her. Now that he was still, she recognized the mask and fake beard for what it was. She stared in disbelief for a moment before her world went black.
 

"Missing!? What the hell do you mean MISSING, Frank?"

"I'm sorry, Angie. He wanted to check on Chris, and now no one can find either one of them."

"The deal, Frank," the angry woman stated to him, "was that he would accompany you to the park. That was all. He was supposed to come back to the hotel. You promised me." The last sentence was soft, making the former detective feel all the more guilty for letting his friend leave him. "How could you let this happen?"

"I'm so sorry, Ange. Mira will be here any minute and we can figure out what to do then. At least we're pretty sure they're together."

"Why does that bring me no comfort, Frank?"

Francis Gatti looked out the window, away from one of his closest friends, whom he had failed. He prayed silently that Rollie and Chris were indeed together and they were okay.
 

When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring up into warm liquid brown eyes. She closed her eyes, trying to grasp what was happening to her.

"Christina..." She heard him whisper gently into her ear. She felt his fingers brush the side of her face. "Hey, open your eyes. I need you to focus on me."

She opened her eyes again, looking at the man above her in disbelief. She tried to turn her head away, but pounding in the back of her head started.

"Pop?"

"I'm right here, Chris. How do you feel?"

"I must be dreaming."

"You're not dreaming. It's really me." She touched his face. "I don't understand..." She tried to sit up. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders to help her. "You're dead."

"No, I'm not." She looked up into her fathers' eyes, trying to comprehend. "It was a set-up. Our deaths were faked in order to protect your mom and catch a killer. It's a long story. I'm sorry we lied to you. It was for your own protection. We didn't want you to get caught up in it. It doesn't seem to have worked, though," Rollie stated, looking at their surroundings.

Christina sat in silence for a moment, letting the things he had just said sink in. Then, like the temperamental woman she was, she flew into a rage, pacing around the small windowless room. Her agitated gestures and loud voice was disturbing to Rollie. He had believed this crazy plan was so perfect, that it would keep his daughter from harm and his beautiful wife safe with him until the perpetrators were flushed out and caught.

But now he realized that perhaps this was not the best course of action he could have taken. Christina was so angry she felt that her head was going to explode. The more she screamed at her father, the angrier she became at him for trying to hide the truth from her. She could not seem to get her emotions under control. When she started to pound the wall with her fists, he grabbed her, trying to hug her, trying to protect her from herself. As he hugged her, he felt the anger slowly diminish and give way to hysterical crying. He knew it was all the pent-up hurt and frustration from their "deaths" as well as fear of what was happening to her now. He tried to calm the young girl as best he could, but she could not seem to get her breathing under control.

She looked him in the eye and said quietly, "If you ever pull a stunt like this again, I'll never forgive you."

Rollie hugged his daughter warmly. "I won't. I promise."

"Don't promise it. Just do it. I've heard you promise my mother a million things and you haven't kept your word."

Rollie looked away from Chris, remembering so many times that he had not come through for Angie the way he promised her. The times he had said he would not get involved, but did. The times she had been hurt because of the risks he was so willing to take for the thrill of the chase. He sighed. He knew Chris was right. Angie had asked him a million times to stay away from the dangers of helping the police. But he thought it had never affected their relationship more than her being upset for a while. They always kissed and made up. She always forgave him. He didn't think it mattered, but the way his daughter was looking at him now made him wonder about how Angie really felt about his antics.

His thoughts of his family were interrupted when the door to the small room was opened and he was grabbed roughly by the shoulders and pushed outside. When Chris tried to follow him, a gun was thrust in her face. She immediately backed up and the door was slammed in her face. She cowered into the corner, wondering what they were doing to her father.
 
 

Manny Ramirez sat quietly as he watched his mother pace from one room of the suite to the other. She had a course mapped out, into the bedroom around the bed, past the bathroom through the living area around the couch and past the window.

"Ma! Stop!"

She glared at the young man. He fell silent.

Captain Mira Sanchez stood up from the couch. "Angie, he's right. Pacing around here like a caged animal is not going to solve anything. And don't look at me like that."

"We're not kids anymore, Mira. This is not a game."

"I know. I have my best people working on it. We'll find them. I promise."

At that, the grey/bonde special effects artist's eyes turned red, tears welling up. She turned to look out the window, thinking of the times he had said those same words to her. She had quietly accepted his promises, knowing he would not keep them.

She thought about her husband, the man who meant the world to her, and her daughter, the beautiful result of their love. They were from the same mold, Rollie and Christina. They were so much alike. But where Rollie was so focused on his art to disregard of all others, Christina was incredibly perceptive. She saw right through Angie's support of her father and his charades with his police officer friends to the stoic reserve of her mother's anger and worry about his safety. It was what had tied Angie and Christina so tightly all these years.

Angie stood at the window and closed her eyes, trying not to lose her composure. Christina was the only person that had ever comprehended her fear for Rollie. She could remember the day like it was yesterday. She had just finished making up Francis and Rollie for a sting operation and
watched them walk out the door together, lost in conversation. Rollie had forgotten to say goodbye to her again. Angie turned from the door trying to check her feelings when her young teenaged daughter approached the makeup table cautiously. Angie had looked at her but immediately looked away.

"If it hurts you so much, why does he still do it?" Angie would never in her life forget that simple question from an innocent girl of 14. She didn’t know what to say. She had turned from her daughter and replied, "It’s important." But Christina just stood there looking at her. They sat
down together then and Angie had found herself telling her daughter how difficult it could be to watch him go off with Detectives Gatti and Sanchez. How much she feared for his life. How every time he left she worried she might never see him again. The conversation had been short, and Angie had managed not to cry in front of the girl, but in those few minutes, their relationship changed for good and Angie came to rely on her daughter's support and understanding of her fears more than she ever would have dreamed.

Even when Angela made the decision to leave movies and start working in theatre, Rollie did not see her decision for what it really was. She knew he loved her, but he also loved his work and she could never compete with that.

Angie’s thoughts of her husband and daughter were interrupted by her son, her father's namesake who was anything but. His birth had been extremely difficult and he had remained difficult growing up. She turned to look at the young  man. She had never felt for Manny what she felt for Christina. She had tried to understand him and be there for him but he was too difficult. And it wasn’t genius getting in the way like it was with Rollie. Her son was the kind of person she would not have given the time of day to. But he was here now, trying to be supportive.

"Ma?"

Angie looked up in to his sparkling blue eyes. She thought to herself, "That's why you get away with so much, those eyes." But she only smiled at him sadly.

"I don't know what's going to happen, but I know Pop and even though he hates me, I'll do whatever it takes to find him and get him back in one piece." The young man smiled disarmingly. "Hey, whether I like it or not, he taught me everything he knows."

Angie placed a hand on her son's arm and looked up at the stunning young man. She knew it took a lot for him to say that. She felt a tear drip down her cheek. "He doesn't hate you Manny. He just doesn't understand you. You know you remind him of his father who was never there for him. Sometimes he sees more of Dingo than you when he looks at you."

They both jumped slightly as they heard Mira’s cell phone ring.