Past Lives Could Never Come Between Us

78

Now

"Put that down." Luigi orders when he sees her holding the urn. "That's Molly Turner."

"Oh pardon me." Marilyn looks down at it, tells it, "Scuse me miss, didn't mean to disrupt your beauty sleep.", then sets it down.

"So who's this girl you blew everyone off to go meet?" Marilyn asks as Luigi rejoins her on the couch.

"An ex. Ex-fiancé, kind of, to be exact." Luigi says. "I only tracked her down because I had some things I wanted to ask her."

"Clean break?" Marilyn asks.

"That was the idea." Luigi agrees. "I didn't bother sugar coating it."

Earlier

"Luigi!" Destiny says as she greets him. "So glad you called!"

But as she goes to hug him, Luigi pushes her away. "You can drop the act now, Destiny. I know you're spying on me for my uncle."

"Your uncle?" Destiny looks confused, but Luigi's way past the point where anything she does can fool him.

"Please for once, just tell me the truth." Luigi sighs. "My uncle Arthur is wanted for high treason. If you're on his payroll or know something about where he is that you haven't mentioned, you could go down with him."

"I have no idea what any of that means." Destiny insists, but again, Luigi isn't fooled.

"I know you're lying. You know everything, including where he is." Luigi gets up in her face. "If you felt anything for me, at all, before my uncle swooped in, just tell me where I can find him, and you'll never hear from me again. I'm begging you."

But instead of saying anything in reply, Destiny just walks away.

Now

"Well? Did it work?" Marilyn asks.

"Too soon to tell." Luigi shrugs. "But hopefully I should be hearing something any day now."

Neither of them is aware of Destiny spying on them through the window from the building across the street.

Earlier

"Great! You're here!" Clark greets Luigi as he comes into the lab. "We just brought Francesca in."

Luigi's phone goes off, and upon seeing this Clark demands, "What happened?"

"Nothing." Luigi says. "All good."

Clark's not buying it, so Luigi confesses, "My uncle has a daughter named Marilyn. I'm meeting my cousin."

"The Zeekeeper's not gonna like that." Clark warns.

"The Zeekeeper isn't gonna know." Luigi says. "Because you're not gonna tell him."

"Of course I didn't make Frankie do it!" Francesca denies. "My father can be an unreasonable man, but he loves me. He'll come around to our marriage eventually."

"You really think he'll just 'come around' to the fact that the man he hand selected to take over the business married his daughter without telling him?" Luigi points out.

"He will if I tell him to." Francesca says. "My father has always been soft when it comes to me."

"Isn't that what every daddy's girl says right before daddy cuts her off?" Clark says.

"Not my father." Francesca shakes her head. "I wanted Frankie to turn down the job, but he thinks my father won't let him."

"Maybe he's onto you." Mario suggests.

"No." Francesca shakes her head. "Frankie's been so paranoid, he'd leave nothing to chance. My father doesn't know anything."

"You seem pretty sure of that." Luigi says.

"Because I am." Francesca says. "Frankie would never be so sloppy as to leave complaints written on Pianta stationery. In fact, he didn't. I did."

"Why?" Clark demands.

Now

"So apparently despite Francesca's insistence that her father would come around to their marriage, deep down she agreed with her new husband, and they orchestrated the plan together." Luigi summarizes. "But Frankie would only let her write the complaints. He didn't want her getting hurt."

"Jeez, love really makes you stupid, doesn't it?" Marilyn says as they munch on chips. "You really think Frankie would do all this to get away from his wife's father?"

"Careful, you keep talking like that, my agency might recruit you next." Luigi warns playfully. "Clark's always saying thinking like that is what's gonna lead me to solving any case we're hired to solve."

"Is that how you tracked down Frankie?" Marilyn asks.

Luigi thinks on it, then nods, "Yeah, pretty much. We dropped in for a chat."

"What did he tell you?" Marilyn asks.

"He wasn't expecting guests." Luigi says dryly.

Earlier

Luigi, Mario, and Clark look down at the purple statue that was once Frankie.

Now

"Frankie was petrified." Luigi says.

"How do you deal with all of that?" Marilyn asks

"We don't care about who they are." Luigi says. "We care about giving them their lives back."

"Using the technology my dad found." Marilyn says yet again. "It's almost like you're waking them up."

Luigi tries to move it along, "So once they got married, Francesca wanted to tell her dad the truth, but Frankie took matters into his own hands, but got petrified."

"By whoever it was that petrified Doe T.?" Marilyn finishes.

"Remains to be seen." Luigi replies.

Earlier

"Communications?"

"Check!" Pauline replies.

"Starlow?"

"Check."

"Lugosi?"

"Scusa?" Luigi lifts his head. "My name is Luigi, thank you very much."

"Slip of the tongue." Mario says, blushing.

"Inducing REM sleep in 3...2...1...GO!"