“Oh, Bindi.” Daphne laughed, as though it were absurd. “Oh, of course I called you because I was missing my daughter. You’re number one in our lives.”
Her heart, along with any last threads of hope about reconnecting with her parents, sank like a stone.
Bindi soon excused herself to freshen up and reacquaint herself with her childhood home. She encountered Tessa again and asked her to help her find the doors leading to the backyard. Wrapped in a stately black peacoat, Tessa accompanied her outside.
“What are you searching for?”
“My swing. Daddy designed it and had it constructed on the day Mom went into labor. Isn’t that incredible? I’ve missed it, all this time…” Bindi stopped walking midway across the enormous yard and began to turn. “Where is it?”
“There is no backyard swing anymore, Ms. Paxton.” Tessa puffed her breath against her linked hands. “I apologize. If I’d known that was what you were looking for, I would’ve told you before you walked out here in your lovely shoes.”
Bindi cared little for her shoes when the swing—her swing—was gone. “Uh, don’t worry about it. It was just a silly childhood thing.”
“Built the day you were born? To undo such a gesture,” Tessa said, tsking.
“I really upset my parents, and if we’re being fair, I haven’t been home in ten years.” Because they never welcomed me back.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Paxton. Would you like to go inside now?”
“Sure.” Because if she stayed out here alone, she’d cry and the tears would freeze on her face. She couldn’t let a swing break her composure. She joined the maid in the kitchen and was all too delighted to be able to stay in the cozy room listening to Tessa talk. The maid was as friendly as all the staff Bindi had known when she’d lived here before.
“I’m afraid your mother and I will be gone for a bit this afternoon. I’m accompanying her to her doctor’s appointment.”
“Is she okay?”
“Why, yes, she is. Menopause isn’t easy to adjust to.”
“Menopause?”
“Yes, she was officially diagnosed a few weeks ago. Poor thing. And she and Mister Paxton were so hoping for a child.”
“A child?” She was their child. She was their idea of the face of the new average American.
Realization slapped her hard. “Mom called me after she found out she won’t be able to have more kids.”
“I can’t speak to that,” Tessa said, setting a mug of tea in front of her.
“Thank you, Tessa, but I’ll pass on the tea. I really would like to speak to my parents.” Bindi traced her way back to the office. Only Roscoe and Mort remained. “Where’s Mom?”
“Not in here,” Roscoe said, “but, Bindi, would you step inside for a moment? Shut the door behind you.”
Bindi closed the door. “What is it, Daddy?” She noticed the television was on, the volume muted. Only after a double take did it sink in whose picture was featured on the screen. “Turn up the TV. Hurry. That’s Alessandro Franco.”
Roscoe raised the volume and the words attempted suicide grabbed her.
“Oh, God.” Santino.
Roscoe turned off the television promptly. “That’s not your worry anymore. You’re here now. Mort’s driving into Chicago for a late lunch. If you want to get reacquainted with the area, there’s no better guide.”
“No. I need to go to Las Vegas.”
“There’s nothing you can do for Alessandro Franco.”
“I can be there for his son. We—we’re close.”
“Bindi,” her father cautioned, “don’t be rude. Mort has agreed to run my campaign. We owe him some hospitality.”
Bindi’s entire form stiffened. Both men watched her, and her mind slid back through the years. Age eighteen, at a political celebration in her father’s honor.
“Mayor Dougal is a good friend,” he’d said. “I give you permission to ride into the city with him. Be friendly, Bindi.”
“Friendly” had meant willing, and she’d resisted, saying, “Daddy, he tried to kiss me. I’m not going anywhere with him.”
In the end, her father had convinced her to take the ride and that she would be proud to have supported his career. When she’d come home late that night, she’d been dazed and so cold inside, and she’d passed a strange woman leaving. Inside, her father had been waiting in the study, his shirt more unbuttoned than it should’ve been, and he’d asked, “Bindi, were you friendly to Dougal?”
“Yes,” she’d whispered, and she’d tried to hug him.
“Take a shower, Bindi.”
“I took one before we drove back.” She’d shivered. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too. Go take another shower, and go to bed. Don’t wake up your mother.”
Dougal had been the first, but there’d been others over the next two years. She’d stopped feeling cold and had begun to feel nothing. Now, at age thirty, she was angry enough to stop a pattern that should have never started. “No,” she said to both men. “I will not go into Chicago with anyone. Uncle Mort, you were like another father to me.” She shook her head. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Bindi,” her father began, “think rationally.”
“You’re disgusting.” The anger built and built until she finally couldn’t hold back the poison that she’d kept inside of her for so long. “Did all your politician friends report back to you about what they asked me to do and what they did to me? I should’ve fought you then, but I’m doing it now. Stay away from me—both of you.”
The doors opened and Daphne entered with two other people wearing flag pins. “Bindi, have you started unpacking?”
“No, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’m not staying. In fact, I’m leaving now. Daddy wants me to dole out favors to Uncle Mort, if you can see how messed up that truly is. And you, Mom, you don’t have to stay with him and try to conceive another child to help out his presidential campaign.”
Daphne’s mouth worked like a fish out of water. “That’s crazy.”
“You don’t believe me? That’s fine. I know plenty of people in Las Vegas who will.” Bindi faced glares from both parents. “Daddy? I wouldn’t want a man like you to represent this country.”
Feeling as though the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders, Bindi collected her luggage. No one followed her. No one stopped her as she marched out the door to the idling car outside, letting her childhood go for once and for all. “Take me back to the airport, please,” she told the driver. “I’m going home to Las Vegas.”
Chapter 11
Santino and his brother monitored the hallway outside of Alessandro’s room in shifts. Switching shifts with Nate meant battling a crowd of media outside the Las Vegas hospital where Al had been transferred the day before. He still hadn’t seen or spoken to his father since he’d been brought in with a parade of crowd-control police units and hundreds of avid onlookers with smartphones and press with mics and cameramen.
Al, who was under twenty-four-hour police and nurse supervision, wasn’t allowed more than one visitor at a time and was considered high-risk. If his father was as ambitious in ending his life as he’d been in building his life, then the hell for the Franco family wasn’t close to being over.
A preliminary mental evaluation had been completed, but there were more extensive follow-ups to come. Alzheimer’s hadn’t been ruled out, depression had been the preliminary diagnosis and schizophrenic disorders were still possibilities.
Al had admitted to delusions of seeing his deceased first wife, Gloria, had hallucinated her likeness and voice and thought he’d been interacting with her while hiding in Italy. Rescued from some market in Sicily, he’d suffered severe blood loss from slashes to his wrists, and Italian authorities had worked with the hospital to extradite him to the United States immediately after stabilization.
Santino’s godfather, Gian DiGorgio, had been arrested on a warrant granted following the authentication of a video recording of Al reca
nting Gian’s involvement in running a criminal gambling ring out of DiGorgio Royal Casino and his arrangement of Alessandro’s escape from Nevada.
At five-forty, Santino had another twenty minutes left of his dusk till dawn shift in the waiting room outside the hospital’s psychiatric ward. He wondered what difference there was between a privately funded psychiatric ward and any other. Better-tasting coffee, maybe.
Hazarding a cup of brew, he grimaced but drank it down black anyway. Once his brother arrived, he’d need the extra shot of caffeine to calmly wade through the mob outside and drive home to rest. Chances were he wouldn’t sleep in the middle of a sunny day, but he’d get himself to relax and try to ease his brain, which was sprinting a constant marathon.
“I held up my end of the bargain.”
Santino’s hand automatically crushed the empty foam cup he held. Zaf wore a baseball cap and flannel shirt over a black outfit similar to what he’d worn when Santino had met him in February. “What do you want? He’s already in police custody.”
“I put him in custody, Santino. I found him in Italy and got his confession.”
“Then instead of turning him over right off the damn bat, you let him psyche himself until he thought the best way out was to gut his wrists? He almost died.”
“If he hadn’t cut himself, he would be dead. His old friend Gian DiGorgio was done following up behind him and wanted him eliminated. Your question’s how did I know that, huh? I had Gian watched, too. To get my clean indisputable proof, I put a few of my boys in place in Italy and DiGorgio hired one of them as the doer.”
God. “How did you get my father to confess?”
“That’s where you held up your end of the bargain.” Zaf got closer on the pretense of getting a drink of coffee. “Say hi to Bindi Paxton for me.”
“That means what?”
“Is her skin as soft as it looks? In another life I might’ve taken anything a woman threw at me if her skin was soft.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Since I’m not playing God, and all the players have free will, I can’t say I knew exactly what you’d do. I thought you or she would get the account shut down. I figured you’d get the money, not the panties.” Zaf paused, considered. “Yeah, that was crude even for me. But hey, proof of the hooking up is all your father needed to give up coming for her.”
“Who took the pictures? Cecelia Whit from the hotel?”
“Cecelia’s one of the good ones, and no, it wasn’t her. You’re off on that. But I don’t out my sources, so you’re not going to get a nice, clean Scooby-Doo mystery tie-up. For now, take comfort in the fact that Alessandro Franco’s under medical and police protection, and your godfather’s in custody. I say for now because it’s not over.” Zaf finally took a foam cup and filled it with coffee. “Crap, you’d think these people have enough problems without having to drink bad coffee in a place like this.”
As if he’d planned it, the moment Zaf disappeared into a stairwell, security personnel came passing through. A minute later the stairwell door opened again and a guy carrying a box labeled Lost and Found cut through the waiting room. At the top of the heap were a flannel shirt and an Angels baseball cap.
Santino got off his chair and went to the stairwell because he had to, but found no one there and heard no footsteps above or below. Going back to the waiting area, he met up with Nate. “Thanks, man,” he said, reluctant to leave this place but resolving to accept that he could share this burden and heartache with his brother.
“Don’t come back here until you get some sleep,” Nate said grimly. “Charlotte’s willing to join the rotation.”
“She’d do that, after everything our father did to make hell for her people?”
“She forgives him.”
“Maybe it’s easier for her,” Santino said. “She didn’t love him.”
“Could be why.” Nate clapped his back, and gave him a brotherly push toward the exit. “Remember—sleep first, then get back here.”
Santino knew his weariness ran bone-deep, but the coffee made him alert as ever as he took to the road. Concentrating on the road still didn’t make him stop thinking about his phone, waiting for the screen to light up with Bindi’s name. A call, a text, anything. He’d tried to call her yesterday, when he’d been reeling with shock, but it had gone straight to voice mail, and without hearing her voice, he hadn’t known what to say.
By now she had to have been clued in that Alessandro was in custody and in Las Vegas. But she hadn’t come near the psychiatric ward where he was being held and treated. If he didn’t know her the way he’d come to, he would be cynical enough to suspect that she was making money telling her story to the media. But he did know her, knew that she was empathetic and had a heart as vulnerable as anyone else’s, if not more so.
And he hoped he hadn’t wrecked beyond repair what they’d had together.
Santino didn’t call her. He didn’t drive to his condo and brainstorm what he could say to persuade her to give him another chance to get it right with her. He drove to East Dune, parked in the lot and went to her door.
Bindi opened the door, leaned against it and blinked slowly at him.
“I called yesterday,” he said from the hall, wanting her to speak and give him the comfort of her voice, “about my father. It went straight to voice mail.”
“I must’ve been on the plane. I was in Illinois yesterday, and I saw the report on TV.” She allowed him in with a nod and shut the door. “I picked up my keys and bag to go out the door and visit him, but I keep pulling back because I don’t know if I belong there anymore. With any of you.”
“What he did to you, me, Nate, the Blues and everyone he affected with that gambling scheme—it should be unforgivable. Does it make any of us wrong if we find out we’re in a place where forgiveness isn’t possible?” It made him jittery to be so close to his father but still be denied the closure he’d crawl across broken glass for.
“Neither of us should make that judgment against someone else, Santino. Forgive or forever blame—it’s an individual decision. But I…I went home, well, to the place that used to be my home, and I saw my parents for who they are. They’re hard people motivated by something I don’t understand, and despite all the ways they hurt me, I went back there willing to forgive because it was my choice to try it.”
“Do you forgive them?”
“I can’t until they change.” Bindi abruptly pressed a fist to her mouth, and he immediately took her in his arms when she started to cry. “Remembering is one thing, but reliving it is—”
He eased her onto the sofa, and her head rested against his shoulder. “What did they do? The pills?”
“No. I guess your informant missed out on the worst two years of my life. When I was eighteen, my daddy started persuading me to ‘be friendly’ to men who could offer him a political edge. If he gave them me, they’d give him support or would sponsor him or, as of yesterday, head up his presidential campaign.” She sniffled. “None of them cared about me, and afterward Daddy always said he loved me right before he told me to go take a shower.”
He saw red. “I’m so sorry, Bindi.” The words didn’t seem enough. If she could bear to take him there so he could put his fist in Roscoe Rayburn Paxton’s face, that might be a decent start. “Your parents should’ve loved you enough to protect you.”
“I don’t think they can love me. And I don’t think I should force them to fake it.” She sighed. “When I was twenty, I got away from Illinois. I busted Daddy for cheating. He’d been doing it for years—even during ComicCon. The shirt I love so much? He’d bought it for some D-cup woman he met, and I took it first.”
What a hell for a kid to face alone. Santino took her hand. “Why do you keep that shirt?”
“I thought I could pretend we were happy then. We weren’t, though, and I didn’t get away until I got booted from college for defacing this art project that represented lies. All of these people had written their lies, and I thought I
could do it. So I wrote out my lies, then backpedaled and covered the entire thing in black paint.”
“And after that—”
“You can figure that out. I got away from my parents so they couldn’t hurt me, but then I just hurt myself. Yesterday, I said no and I left them. I forgave myself more than I ever have before yesterday, because it was so damn clear that I’m finally changing. I’m okay with myself. And you—are you’re okay with me?”
Santino looked at her. Her tears, her sniffles, the way her mouth wavered because she fought so hard for composure—he loved it all. “I’d have to be, since I’m in love with you.”
Her eyes widened. “Santino…I didn’t tell you all of this because I’m asking for love donations. We can forget you said it.”
“Then I’ll just say it again until you can trust that I mean it. I love you, Bindi, and I’m in love with you. This is where I am, wanting you in my life.”
With a slow, blinding smile spreading across her face, Bindi stood up and led him to her room. “Show me. I want to know what it’s like to be with a man who loves me.”
He gently bumped her backward onto the bed and climbed on top. Gently, and then frenzied, they pulled at each other’s clothes. He was prepared to stop if her emotions demanded it. She’d made that sacrifice for him, and he accepted that sex between them wouldn’t always be fantastic or paradise. Paradise was imperfection. It was sharing a shopping list with somebody and having a good time in a market. It was about laughing and teasing and protection and getting each other.
Never had he had that with Tabitha.
“I want to tell you something,” he said, helping her peel off her jeans. “You’re beautiful, and for reasons that no one else has been smart enough to see before. You don’t believe it and now I understand why.”
“I’m trying to see what you see.”
“Right now I see a woman who’s not gonna get sex this time.”
“I’m not?” Bindi started to sit up, and that put her in perfect position to be kissed thoroughly.
Mine Tonight Page 18
