“You’ve got to answer it,” Jenay said. She could tell he was reluctant to not only answer his intercom, but to pull out of her. She had to take matters into her own hands.
“Move,” she said, pushing him away from her, and his dick did finally slide out. Then she grabbed her panties and hurried to the bathroom attached to his office. She closed the door behind her.
Charles was still breathing heavily. He was a fit man, but he was no spring chicken anymore. He could not jump up and go as easily as his younger wife could. He had to take a moment. And his intercom buzzed again.
He finally pressed the button. “Yes?” he said, attempting to regain the strength in his voice. He also began pulling his pants back up.
“Chief Sinatra is here to see you, sir,” Faye said. “Along with a Miss Ross,” she added.
Charles had heard about Miss Ross, and how she was the special prosecutor appointed by the state Attorney General to investigate and represent the state’s point of view at his father’s upcoming hearing, but he’d never met her. Nor wanted to. It was only natural, he thought, that some uninvited guest like her would be the one to interrupt the little time he had left with his wife before she left town. He didn’t like her already.
“Send them in,” he said to his assistant, and released the button.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Charles sat down behind his desk. He was still winded by that sexual whirlwind with his wife, and the last thing he needed right now was company. But it was done now. Brent was about to enter. And he entered the office with a very attractive woman, but a woman that could give Charles fits if she released his father: Makayla Ross.
“Hey, Dad,” Brent said as they entered.
“It’s not a great time, Brent.”
“Understood,” Brent said, “but when is it ever with you and your schedule?”
That was fair, so Charles didn’t argue with him.
Makayla was oddly nervous as Brent escorted her toward his father’s desk. Not that she was intimidated by his wealth or power. Wealth and power never intimidated her. But his reputation gave her pause. If the vast majority of the townspeople were to be believed, Charles Sinatra was a spawn of the devil. In all the time that she’d been working with Brent (and she’d been impressed by how Brent kept it purely professional after she turned him down for sex), there was not one person she ran into yet who had something good to say about Charles Sinatra. Except for Brent himself. He talked about his father as if he was the kindest, most generous man alive. He was Brent’s hero, no doubt about that. What Makayla couldn’t understand, given what she’d heard, was why.
But she was nobody’s puppet. She was concerned by all of the negative stuff she’d heard, but she was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt.
“I want you to meet Makayla Ross,” Brent said to his father as they approached his desk. “She’s the special prosecutor on your father’s case.”
“I know who she is,” Charles said.
Makayla smiled and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sinatra.”
But Charles didn’t shake her hand. Not because he was rude, but because his fingers, not that long ago, had found themselves massaging his wife’s vagina. “Have a seat,” he said.
Brent was surprised by his father’s rudeness, and Makayla, just by that rudeness alone, was fast closing in on an unfavorable verdict for this man Brent so adored. But then a beautiful, well-dressed woman entered from out of the adjacent bathroom, and the sudden tense mood completely changed.
“Well hello there, Brenton,” Jenay said jovially as she made her way toward Charles’s desk. She looked at Makayla with such a warm smile that Makayla smiled too. “Hi,” she said to Brent’s guest.
Brent and Makayla stood up. “Makayla Ross,” she said as she extended her hand.
“Hello Makayla Ross,” Jenay said as she shook her hand.
Charles looked at his wife. She had cleaned up nicely, he thought, considering what all he had done to her, and he was proud to introduce her. “This is my wife,” he said to Makayla. “Jenay Sinatra.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs. Sinatra. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about you.” And it was true. Although Charles was the devil incarnate in the townspeople’s eyes, Jenay was talked about as if she was a saint. What surprised Makayla was that Jenay was African-American. Nobody, not even Brent, had mentioned that fact. Which said something positive, Makayla also realized, about Jericho.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Jenay said.
“She’s the special prosecutor working on Granddad’s case, Ma,” Brent said.
Makayla was surprised to hear Brent refer to this woman as his mother, given that she appeared to be less than ten years his senior, and the fact that there was nothing interracial looking about Brent.
“I’ve seen her around town,” Jenay said, “and I assumed she was indeed the person from the Governor’s office, but we’ve never met.”
“Your stepson didn’t think it was a good idea for me to bother his family members unless it was absolutely necessary.”
Charles and Jenay looked at Brent. “It’s necessary,” Brent said.
“We don’t have a wealth of time,” Jenay said, “because I have a plane to catch. But please sit down. We have a few minutes.”
Makayla and Brent sat back down. Jenay sat on the edge of her husband’s chair. She could still feel Charles’s cum inside of her, and when he took her hand, the electricity of their coupling was still vibrant. “So what’s the deal?” Jenay asked. “What’s the sudden necessity?”
“I’ve gone through a lot of case files,” Makayla said, “which is the bulk of my work, but I’ve also interviewed people who were living in town at the time of the crime. What I’ve discovered is how little they know about what actually happened. I was stunned by this lack of knowledge.”
“The prosecutor at the time made short shrift of the details,” Charles said. “And my father’s lawyer did the same.”
“Apparently your father’s lawyer called no witnesses to testify on his behalf at all, nor did your father testify.”
Charles frowned. “What difference would that have made? The only witnesses to the crime were my siblings and I. And I testified for the three of us. Why would they need to hear from my father? He shot and killed my mother and her lover. He played God that night and killed two human beings. Case closed.”
“Only no, sir,” Makayla said, “that’s not how our justice system is supposed to work. The prosecutor withheld a lot of evidence. I mean a lot of evidence.”
“What evidence?” Jenay asked. “He killed two people.”
“But the jury never got to hear why. Oh, they knew his wife was in the middle of a sexual act with the man, but they didn’t hear the backstory.”
“What backstory?” Charles asked, his temper rising.
“Hold your cool, Dad,” Brent said in a way that seemed protective of Makayla. “Don’t shoot the messenger. Hear her out.”
“What backstory?” Jenay asked. She was with Charles. What kind of nonsensical, get-out-of-jail-free scheme was this lady trying to hatch?
“The jurors were never told that Cobb Zaxby, the man Luke Sinatra murdered, had threatened to murder Luke the week before.”
This was news to Jenay. No newspaper article she read about the case mentioned anything at all about Luke Sinatra having any past encounters with his wife’s lover. She looked at Charles. Charles was staring at Makayla.
Makayla continued. “Cobb Zaxby and Luke Sinatra had argued over Cobb’s wife the week before. Apparently Luke had gotten too close to Cobb’s wife, or had even had an affair with her-it was not clear, but Cobb took exception and they had a verbal confrontation. Cobb had, at that time, said that he was going to kill Luke.”
“So?” Charles said. “What could that have changed?”
“Maybe nothing,” Makayla said. “Or maybe everything. It might have been enough for the jurors to conclude that Cobb Zaxby
provoked your father that night by being at his house at all, and Luke had no choice but to kill him. Maybe he came at Luke.”
“Except he didn’t,” Charles said. “I was there. I was the one who came at Cobb Zaxby. My father was the one who killed the man before the man knew what hit him.”
“Perhaps he killed him because he was beating on his son.”
“He was not beating on me,” Charles said. “I was kicking his ass. And my father wouldn’t have given a damn about that. A man was getting the upper hand on his wife, and he didn’t like it. So he killed that man. And he killed his wife, my mother, for the hell of it. Not because she was with another man. Hell, he’d been with so many other women he couldn’t possibly have any kind of moral conscious about a thing like that. Every Sinatra man is a whore in that respect.”
Brent and Makayla exchanged a glance they hadn’t expected to exchange.
“But the point I’m making,” Makayla said, “is that the jurors should have been given that option. That information is a material fact. Your father could walk free because the prosecutor, and your father’s lawyer working in concert with the prosecutor, hid that fact from the jury. Your father couldn’t speak to the jurors. He was depending on his lawyer. But we’ve discovered that his lawyer and the prosecutor were cousins, and worked together to convict him.”
Charles couldn’t believe this nonsense. “So what do you want me to do? Tell them oh no, he was justified in killing my mother? Is that what you want?”
“The prosecutor and defense attorney failed to even ask you about your fight with Mr. Zaxby. You were young, you were only thirteen at the time and I understand that, but the only thing they asked you was what happened when your father entered that basement. You said he went over to Zaxby and shot him, then he turned his weapon on his wife. But they never asked you what led to that shooting. They never asked you about the fact that when your father came downstairs, you were fighting with Mr. Zaxby. He could have been trying to save your life.”
Charles stood up. “That’s bullshit,” he said. Brent and Makayla stood too. “Now you can play those bullshit games with whoever will listen to you, but I won’t be participating.”
“I’m not playing any game, Mr. Sinatra,” Makayla said. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Goodbye,” Charles said.
Brent would have asked his father to listen to reason, but he knew it was useless. Because he agreed with his father. They were not going to take the fact that Charles had jumped on Cobb Zaxby as a way to make Luke Sinatra seem like some kind of hero coming to save his son and wife from the evil man. No way.
“I’ll talk to you later, Dad,” he said to his father. “Tell your parents I said hello, Ma,” he said to Jenay.
And then he ushered Makayla out of their world.
Jenay and Charles looked at each other. Jenay knew he sought her reassurance. “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said.
And Charles nodded. He didn’t need her reassurance, not even Jenay was going to change his mind about Luke Sinatra, but he was pleased to have it.
He saw her as she walked across the campus. Beautiful girl with two of her beautiful friends. They were laughing, none of them had books but plenty of weave and designer purses: it was as if they were in school for the fashion show. Which pleased Willie Stiles. The easier it was to get his plan back on track, the better. And Ashley Sinatra, with her bad girl self, was making it a cinch.
When she finally looked near the curb where he was parked, he called out her name. “Ashley! Can I see you for a minute?”
Ashley remembered him. She even remembered his name. She especially remembered his car.
“Wow,” one of her girlfriends said. “Who’s that hunk?”
Ashley only smiled. “Wait here,” she said to the group she commanded, and made her way over to Willie’s Stingray.
Willie put on his best smile. “Remember me?” he asked.
“I do,” she said. “Willie, right?”
“That’s right! Good for you! I just wanted to see if maybe you wanted to come to this little get together I’m having at my house Friday night.”
Ashley was inwardly thrilled. She remembered him saying how he was an NFL scout, which automatically made him big time in her eyes. If she could get her hand on a baller, she’d be set! “Sure,” she said easily. “Where and when?”
Easy as pie, Willie thought. “Don’t tell your mother though,” he said. “She may not take too kindly to you going to a party that’s probably going to be attended by many professional athletes.”
“Don’t worry,” Ashley said. “I don’t tell her anything about my private life. That’s why they call it a private life.”
Willie laughed. “You’re so smart,” he said as he realized just how dumb she really was. And how easy.
“Do you want me to bring my friends?” Ashley asked.
Willie looked over at her friends. Then shook his head. “Not sophisticated enough. Don’t bring anybody. Don’t even mention it to them. You’re the only one I want.”
Ashley smiled. She loved being singled out. “Okay,” she said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On the first morning of Jenay’s absence, Charles woke up at seven on the dot, far earlier than he had awaken in years. But it was not by accident. He missed his wife.
He turned onto his back and stared up, at the ceiling. He had seven more days of not being with her, not touching her, not smelling her, and already he was a basket case. He even thought about hopping a flight himself, and going to California. But even Jenay would find that troubling. And he would find it especially unsettling himself. He’d never depended on another human being in his life. His happiness, his peace, his sense of rightness was never intertwined with anybody else, and he was not going to start allowing it now. But he couldn’t dispute the truth: he missed his wife.
He got out of bed, naked as usual, and put on his robe and slippers. He had a powerful urge to phone Jenay, to make sure she was still okay, but it was four in the morning in California, an ungodly time as far as Charles was concerned. He was not about to awaken his wife that time of morning.
He felt odd and out of sorts being up this early, but he made his way into the bathroom, peed, and then washed his hands and threw water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror above the vanity and saw the strain in his eyes. He found out late last night from Brent that in a couple days, on Thursday, they were going to have his father’s hearing. He would have to face that man again for the first time in thirty-six years. And his wife was out of town. It was not going to be a good week.
He left the bathroom and made his way across his huge bedroom to his double doors. When he unlocked and swept them open, and was about to walk out, he was shocked to see his eight-year-old, Bonita, fully dressed in her school clothes and lying on the floor just outside of his bedroom.
“Nita?” He went to her and lifted her into his arms.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“What are you doing out here?”
She hunched her shoulders.
He smiled. “You miss mommy too, don’t you?”
Bonita looked her big, green eyes up at him. He knew then that he had hit the nail on the head. “When is she coming back?” she asked him.
“Not for another seven days,” he said.
She looked concerned. “Why couldn’t she take me with her?”
“Because you have school, sweetheart. You can’t miss school.”
“Not even for seven little days?”
Charles smiled. “Not even,” he said. Then he kissed her. “Come on, let’s go get you something to eat before school.” He began carrying her downstairs. “Where’s Tony?”
“In the kitchen,” she said as he carried her.
But when they arrived in the kitchen, Charles was surprised to see, not only Tony, but Allison, the nanny, was there too.
“I don’t believe it!” Tony said with a smile as he sat at the center island.
“You’re up this early? Stop the presses! I’ve never seen anything more incredible in my life!”
Charles ruffled Tony’s thick hair. “What time did you get here?” he asked as he sat Bonita on the stool beside her brother.
“The time I was supposed to get here,” Tony said.
“And what time is that?” Charles asked, walking around and standing at the center island across from his son and daughter.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Sinatra?” the Nanny asked him.
“That would be brilliant,” Charles replied, and glanced down at her short skirt. “Thank-you.”
“So what gives?” Charles asked Tony. “What’s going on with you?”
“Who usually takes Bonita to school, Dad?”
Charles actually had to think about this. “Allison,” he said.
“Wrong,” Tony said. “Mom always takes Nita to school. That’s their--”
“Girl power hour,” Bonita said.
Tony nodded. “Right. That’s what Mom calls it. Their girl power hour. Allie isn’t usually here until after Nita gets out of school. She decided to come early this morning because Mom is out of town.”
“And what’s your excuse?” Charles asked his son.
“Before Mom left town she task me with taking your daughter to school every day given your penchant for, how do we say it? Late sleeping? But that’s what Mom does. She handles things.”
“Because she’s a good woman,” Charles said, missing her terribly.
“Because she knows your ass,” Tony responded. “Because she knows it was for damn sure you was not getting up and taking anybody anywhere.”
Bonita hit Tony on his arm. “Don’t talk to Daddy like that,” she said. “He’ll take me to school if I ask him.” Then she looked at him with uncertainty in her eyes. “Won’t you, Daddy?”
Charles smiled and winked at her. “You know I will.”
Bonita smiled greatly.
“So how’s it going Mr. Radio Therapist?” Charles asked Tony as Allison handed him a cup of coffee.
Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) Page 13
