“You’re never in the helping mood,” Brent said. “And no, I’m not coming here to ask for any help of any kind.”
“Then what is it?”
Brent leaned against the side of the dresser. “The DA seems to think Donnie might have to do at least a year in jail. There’s no way around it.”
Charles exhaled. He still had an ache in his heart for his son’s dilemma. But this crime was different. He could have killed that girl, not to mention her baby. “Is there anything we can do?”
“If you testify on his behalf. To his character,” Brent added, “then the defense attorney thinks that can really help Donnie. Everybody in town knows how you don’t sugarcoat anything. The jury will believe you.”
“Your brother is a mess, and you know it,” Charles said. “If I get on that stand and tell the truth, he’ll get ten years. No. This is one fuckup he’s going to have to swallow.”
“So you think he should take the plea?”
“The offer of one year? Yes,” Charles said. “He deserves many more years than that.”
“That’s true,” Brent said. “And I’ll tell him. He says every time he calls you, he gets upset.”
“Because I don’t go along with his nonsense. He needs to finally realize the consequences for his actions. Part of that was my fault---”
“Yes, it was,” Brent agreed.
“But he went too far this time. I am not upholding him in this.”
Brent nodded. He couldn’t agree more. “Oh, and the DA says Miss Paige has agreed to plead guilty for stealing those jewels and will get probation and community service.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Charles said. “What about Edna and Bea?”
“Not so fortunate. They will get six months in jail, probation, and community service. Which isn’t fair on any planet. They found some of the jewels in Miss Paige’s house, yet she gets the least amount of time.”
“She’s wealthy. Money talks around here.”
“Then why don’t you throw some of that money around in defense of Miss Edna and Miss Bea?”
“Are you on drugs?” Charles asked his son.
Brent laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Then stop talking crazy. They should have never agreed to participate in the crime with Paige. The fact that they did negates any sympathy I would have for either one of them. They’re getting what they deserve. I’m surprised they aren’t getting more time. Bet that wouldn’t have been the outcome if Jenay was the perp.”
“You’d win that bet,” Brent agreed.
“What bet?” Jenay asked as she entered the bedroom.
“Bea gets to plead guilty,” Charles said, “in exchange for probation and community service.”
“And the others?”
“Six months, then probation and community service.”
Jenay nodded. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “They should have never got involved.”
“So you’re okay with Paige’s light sentence?” Charles asked.
“I’m not okay with it, no. But I’m not surprised by it. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Anyway, I’ve got to run,” Brent said.
“Want to stay for lunch, Brent?” Jenay asked him.
“Thanks, but I can’t. I’m taking Kerstin to lunch.”
“I thought you guys broke up,” Charles said. “At least that’s what Anthony told me.”
“Tony talks too much,” Brent said. “And I’m almost late. See you guys later,” he said, and left.
Jenay looked at Charles. Charles continued dressing. “What was that about? The fact that Paige won’t do any time?”
“And that Donald will do a year.”
Jenay hesitated. She studied Charles. “A year in prison?”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t feel great about it. But it’s needful. He could have killed that girl, Jenay.”
Jenay nodded. “I know. It’s an awful thing all around.”
Charles’s cell phone began to ring. “If I get him out of this jam,” he said, walking toward the nightstand, “then he’ll either end up in an early grave, or put somebody else in one. I can’t take that chance,” he added.
He grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand, and answered it. “This is Sinatra,” he said.
“She’s doing it, sir.”
Charles frowned. “Who is this?”
“It’s Reeva. She’s doing it. Abigail is doing it, sir.”
“Doing what?”
Reeva’s voice lowered. “Going to that place.”
Charles still didn’t get it. “What place?”
“That place in Lenmark, on Amsterdam Road. She’s going to do it, sir.”
Charles’s heart fell through his shoe. Even Jenay saw the change in his countenance. She walked over to him.
Charles was stunned. “But she can’t, can she? Isn’t it too late?” he asked Reeva.
“No, sir,” Reeva responded. “They’ll do it up to fourteen weeks. Sometimes even later than that.”
“Where is she now?” he asked Reeva. “Has she left?
“Yes, sir.”
“And you didn’t stop her?”
“I didn’t know she was going! The maid just told me she had gone.”
Charles ended the call, grabbed his keys and wallet off the nightstand, and hurried for the exit. “Let’s go,” he said to Jenay.
“Go where?” Jenay responded.
“Let’s go,” he said again, although he was already out of the room.
“Go where?” Jenay asked again, although she was already hurrying behind him.
He stopped his car illegally at the curb, jumped out, and ran into the clinic. Jenay jumped out behind him and ran in too, although she wasn’t quite sure what he thought he was going to do. It wasn’t as if he could stop her. It wasn’t as if it was his body. But she couldn’t reason with Charles right now.
“Abigail Ridge,” Charles said to the nurse behind the desk as soon as he walked into the waiting room. “Where is she?”
“I’m afraid, sir--”
“Where is she?” Charles asked again, his heart pounding. And then he began hurrying for the backrooms, to find her himself.
“Sir, you can’t go back there!” the nurse insisted. “Sir!”
But Jenay could have took her she was wasting her breath. Charles had already gone back there. The nurse hurried behind him, and so did Jenay. He was opening and closing the doors to exam rooms, until he opened the right door to the right exam room.
And there was Abby. Lying on the hospital bed. Charles stopped in his tracks.
“It’s done, sir,” the nurse said behind him. “It’s done.”
Charles stared at the woman he never loved, but at least used to respect. “How could you?” he asked her.
Abby looked from Charles to Jenay. Then back at Charles. “How could you?” she asked. And then she smiled. “Payback is a bitch. Isn’t it?”
Jenay held onto Charles’s arm. Her man wasn’t about to go to anybody’s jail today because of that woman on that bed right there.
But Jenay was worrying needlessly. Charles wasn’t enraged with Abby. He was in pain for his child. A child he would never know.
He stared at Abby, and then he looked at Jenay.
“Let’s go,” he said, and then they left.
But that next day, when Abby Ridge left the clinic in Lenmark, Maine, and made it back to her home Jericho, she encountered a shocking scene: everything she owned was outside, and an attorney, Charles’s attorney, was waiting for her.
Reeva, who was standing guard over her items until she arrived, walked over to her as Abby stepped out of her BMW. She was stunned witless.
“What is this about?” she asked her assistant.
“Mr. Sinatra,” the attorney answered her, as he approached her, “has ordered you to vacate his property.”
“What are you talking about?” Abby responded. “I live here
! He can’t just kick me out! He has to give me at least thirty days to get out.”
“Actually he doesn’t,” the attorney said. “You were not under any lease agreement. You were not paying him any rent. You were, essentially, a guest in his house. He now wants you out of his house. You are a guest no longer.”
Abby was stunned. She expected him to be angry. She expected him to be upset with her for days to come. But she never expected this!
“Is that all he said to you? To kick me out like this? To knock me out when I’m already down?”
“Yes. Oh, and he also told me to tell you . . .”
Abby looked at him. “To tell me what?”
“That payback is a bitch,” the attorney said.
Abby seethed with anger. “That asshole!” she yelled.
The attorney stared at her. “May I ask you a question, Miss Ridge?”
“What now?” Abby wanted to know. “Another cute little way to tell me off? Another way to put me down? What?” She was now displaying that hatefulness Reeva and everybody else who knew her personally was accustomed to.
“What?” Abby asked again. “Ask your question!”
“You apparently got on his wrong side.”
Abby sneered. “No shit?” she responded.
“Which isn’t unusual,” the attorney went on. “We are always getting on somebody’s wrong side every day of the week. But what I don’t understand is . . . Who did you think you were dealing with, ma’am?”
Reeva looked at Abby too. She had been thinking the exact same thing.
One month later, and the noise was still loud.
But they refused to let it out-sound them.
They were out on Charles’s boat, just he and Jenay, and the waters were a calming contrast to the craziness in Jericho. Charles had expected vicious phone calls from Abby, and he received them repeatedly after her ouster. Her voice mail messages were legendary in their vile. But he never returned not one of her calls.
Donald was calling him constantly too, to beg him to bribe the prosecutors or the judge or whomever he had to bribe to get him out of the fix he was in. But he didn’t answer his calls either.
The townspeople declared him an evil and hateful man for what he did to Abby, and what father would treat his son the way he treated poor Donnie, they surmised. But he didn’t give a damn.
Jenay heard the talk too. She heard the harsh words and the gossip that had no foundation in facts, and no one seemed interested in hearing the full story. Just Abby’s version, and Donald’s. She was surprised, shocked even, when Charles didn’t react.
But he didn’t. He held his head high and continued to do his work and get it done. He didn’t respond to their harshness, and didn’t correct their lies. He was Big Daddy Sinatra to them. He was the most ruthless, heartless man in Jericho to them. And he didn’t seem to care.
But his lack of concern began to concern Jenay. She accepted it, but she didn’t understand it. Until she looked over at him, as he sailed his boat, and she realized he was happy. Truly happy.
He was behind the wheel, and she was seated in the passenger seat, as he glided along the soft waves in a playful, relaxing fierceness. “Wanna take the wheel?” he asked her.
“Jesus will take that wheel,” Jenay responded, “before I do.”
Charles laughed vigorously.
But his joy wasn’t contagious. Jenay still wasn’t there yet. His beautiful black hair was blowing in the wind, and although his shades hid his gorgeous eyes, the tanning of his skin as the sun beat down against them highlighted the lines of age on the side of those eyes. He was not a kid anymore, but he was acting as if he had recaptured his youth. And she couldn’t figure out why. Especially after what Abby, and Donald, had put him through.
He continued to laugh, and enjoy himself, and then he glanced at Jenay. She was smiling, but not nearly as grand as he knew she could. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Except that it is. What is it?”
Jenay hesitated.
He considered her. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked.
Jenay lifted her own sunglasses onto her hair. “No,” she admitted. “You’re the most hated man in Jericho right now. Even more hated than you used to be.”
“That’s true,” he said with a grin.
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me. But I can’t be bothered by it. I’m not getting any younger, Jenay. And guess what? You aren’t either.”
She laughed.
“We’ve got to live,” he continued. “And that’s what we’re going to do. They can hate me. They can declare I’m the worse human being since Hitler. I don’t give a shit. What I care about is what you say about it.” He looked at her. He looked at this beautiful black woman who had his heart in the palm of her hand, and didn’t know it. “What do you say about it, Jean? What kind of man do you say I am?”
Jenay continued to stare at the mighty river in front of them. Then she looked at him. “I say you’re a ruthless sonafabitch,” she said.
His heart fell through his shoe. Not her too!
“You’re a ruthless sonafabitch,” she repeated, “who treats me like his queen.”
His heart soared. Just like that. And then he smiled. And then he said the words he thought he would never say to another woman as long as he lived. “I love you, Jenay,” he said. “I have fallen in love with you.”
Jenay looked at him. “I think I’ve fallen too, Charlie.”
He smiled. “And you can’t get up?”
Jenay remained serious. “And I don’t want to get up,” she said.
His smile left too. And he leaned over and kissed her. When they opened their eyes again, they were heading straight for a sandbar. He swerved, and missed it completely, and then they laughed.
“Good move,” Jenay said with a laugh. “Very good move, Charlie!”
And Charles nodded his head. That was what she did for him. She didn’t make him feel complete. He already felt complete. But she made him feel relevant. And special. And the kind of man who could do anything he set out to do. With her by his side.
EPILOGUE
Seven Months Later
Everybody was there. Jenay’s parents. Charles’s sons. Megan, Norm, and Denise. Everybody came. It was the event of the season in Jericho. But Charles only had eyes for Jenay.
Her father walked her down the aisle. She wore a gorgeous mermaid dress that highlighted her slender waist up top, and wrapped around in waves of pleats below. Charles never dreamed any dress could be so beautiful. And the woman behind the veil. He was mesmerized by her. He stood there, with Brent at his side, and Tony and Robert there too, and he finally knew what perfection looked like. It looked like the woman walking toward him. It looked like the woman who still made his heart pound when she entered a room. It was Jenay.
Jenay, too, was staring at him. Not the guests. Not her employees who were thrilled to attend. Not even her mother. She was staring at Charles. He looked so uncomfortable, standing there, as if he was a man about to be given his last rites. She smiled at his awkwardness. It endeared him to her.
But by the time she made it up to him, and her father gave her to him by placing her hand in his hand and stepping back and away, she realized it wasn’t awkwardness at all. He was trying to contain his emotions. Because as soon as he saw her, he cried. Charles Sinatra, the man who supposedly had no heart, was nothing but heart and soul and raw emotions to Jenay.
And when they clasped hands, and said their vows, and the preacher pronounced them husband and wife, it was over for both of them. They were in tears as he kissed his bride. Tears of exceeding joy. The room went wild. Even his sons and her parents were in tears. But they didn’t feel half the love, nor happiness, that the newlyweds felt.
Five months later, three days after Donald was finally released from prison, there was more joy.
They were sailing again. It had become their w
eekend, get-away-from-it-all ritual. Jenay found out yesterday, but Charles had been out of town. He returned late last night, while she was asleep. Now was the time, she felt. Now was the perfect time.
“Donald phoned me yesterday,” she said.
Charles was sailing the boat, and she was in her usual perch on the passenger seat. He looked at her. “Did he?”
“He did. He wanted to make sure I knew, and I told you, that the paternity test confirmed what you had suspected all along.”
“That the baby Susan delivered was not Donald’s child,” Charles said.
“That’s what he wanted me to know, yes,” Jenay said. “I told him I already knew. Tony had already told us. But he was proud of the fact that it wasn’t his kid, as if the beating he put on her was now justified. He was glad it wasn’t his child. And, quite frankly, given what he did to Susan, I was pleased too.”
“As was I,” Charles responded. “That boy does not need to be anybody’s father right now.”
“You know it’s true,” Jenay agreed. “But that wasn’t all he wanted to tell me. He also wanted to know if I would allow him to manage the Inn.”
Charles frowned. “You’re managing the Inn.”
“I told him that. But he seems to think I’m doing it because I can’t find anybody else to do it for me. I told him that wasn’t the case. I enjoy working.”
“What happened when you turned him down? He took it like a man?”
“He became angry, as usual, and hung up in my face.”
Charles tightened his grip on the wheel.
“Don’t confront him, Charlie,” Jenay said. “It’s not worth it.”
“I won’t,” Charles responded. “But he will be apologizing to my wife.”
Jenay smiled. She was still getting used to that lovely phrase. His wife. Mrs. Charles Sinatra. “I do think, however,” she said, “that I will need some additional help soon.”
Charles looked at her. “You want more help?”
“I’ll probably need it, yes. Especially when I go on maternity leave.”
Charles stared at her. Then he stared at the river in front of him. Then he literally turned off the engine right where the boat stood. And he looked at her again. “What did you just say to me?” he asked her.
Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) Page 21
