Brent, giving up, nodded. “Yes, you’re excused,” he said. “I apologize if I offended you, Miss Flannigan, but I have a job to do.”
“I fully understand,” she said. And as Brent left to go check on Jenay too, she looked at Tony. “I’m glad your stepmother is doing better. I’m very pleased with the news. But I’m going to leave.”
“If you can wait a few moments for me to at least eyeball my mother for myself,” Tony said, “then I’ll be happy to take you back to the Inn. Or wherever you want to go. You rode with me, and the least I can do is drive you back.” When she appeared to be wary of waiting, he went a step further. “Please,” he added.
Sharon really didn’t see why she couldn’t just call a cab and leave, but she nodded.
And Tony hurried out of the waiting room. But when he eyeballed Jenay for himself, and saw that she was medicated and resting comfortably as his father had said, he hurried back into the waiting room. But it was no surprise to him that Sharon had gone.
Jeff Cruikshank heard the commotion, but turned too late. Charles grabbed him by the catch of his collar and flung him against the wall.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Cruikshank asked. “What are you doing, Sinatra?”
“What game are you playing at?” Charles angrily asked. “What the fuck is this about?!”
Cruikshank’s campaign volunteers ran into his office, but stopped in their tracks when they saw the perpetrator was Big Daddy. They knew how mean, and powerful, he was.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Cruikshank insisted.
“Where is he?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where is that fucker that tried to kill my wife?” Then Charles slammed him against the wall again. “Where is he, gotdammit?!”
“I don’t know. Get him off of me! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“They wanted me, but they got my wife. My wife!” Charles said with anger and pain in his voice. Then he pulled out his gun, and put it to Cruikshank’s head. The volunteers took off running out of the office. “Nobody threatens my wife and get away with it. That’s not going to happen.”
“But it’s not true, man!” Cruikshank cried. “I didn’t order anybody to do anything to you or your wife! I didn’t do it!”
The volunteers nearly ran Brent over as he hurried into the storefront building. “He’s got a gun!” one volunteer was screaming as he ran out. “Big Daddy’s got a gun!”
Brent ran into the building, pushed past the last of the volunteers who were running out, and hurried to the back office where he saw Cruikshank and his father. “Dad, you can’t,” he said anxiously. “Don’t do it!”
Charles heard Brent’s voice.
“Dad, don’t,” Brent said again, and walked over to his father.
“Tell him I’m innocent,” Cruikshank said. “Tell him I had nothing to do with his wife’s shooting. Tell him, Brent!”
Brent, ignoring Cruikshank, attempted to ease the gun out of his father’s hand. Charles would not relinquish his weapon. Nobody dictated to him, least of which his own son. But he did remove the gun from Cruikshank’s head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cruikshank said again. “I had nothing to do with your wife’s shooting.”
“Where’s Norris?” Charles asked.
“I don’t know him. I told the press I don’t know him! People have been claiming he works for me, but he doesn’t. The news media have been spreading those lies. I’ve never met the man before, and I don’t know anything about him. I swear. I don’t know him! Nobody in my campaign knows him! I’m not guilty, Big Daddy!”
Charles stared at Cruikshank. The fact that he was pleading innocence only made matters worse. Now he didn’t have a clue why Norris harmed Jenay. But he released him. Cruikshank could be lying, but somehow he doubted it.
Charles put his gun away, left the small, storefront campaign building and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Cruikshank began complaining to Brent that Charles should be arrested for attempting to murder him, but Brent warned that he would sic his father back on him if he didn’t cut that foolish talk out. Cruikshank cut it out.
When Brent got outside, Charles was just standing there, thinking. “What’s going on, Dad?” Brent asked. “Why would you think Jeff Cruikshank had something to do with Mom’s shooting?”
“I saw the gunman,” Charles said.
Brent was floored. “You saw him? And didn’t tell me?”
“I saw Norris,” Charles said.
“Who?”
“Abe Norris. That protestor.”
“The one you roughed up this morning?” Brent asked.
Charles nodded. “He was the shooter,” he said. “I ran after the car, and I saw him behind the wheel.”
Brent ran his hand through his head. “Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?”
“Because I need to know what’s going on! I assumed he worked for Cruikshank. The press said he worked for Cruikshank.”
“But Cruikshank’s saying something totally different,” said Brent.
Charles exhaled. “I know that. But something’s going on here. And it isn’t random, and it isn’t accidental. I don’t want to hear that shit. Not after they harmed Jenay. Something is at work here. Before another member of my family is harmed, or those fuckers try it again with my wife, I’ve got to find out what.”
Brent nodded. “I’ll put a BOLO, a be on the lookout, on Abe Norris. But you’ve got to let me handle this, Dad. We’ll find him, and we’ll get to the bottom of this. But the legal way.”
Charles nodded his agreement. And he began walking away.
“Where are you going now?” Brent asked.
“Back to the hospital,” Charles said. “To be with my wife.”
Brent exhaled, and watched him leave.
“Hope I didn’t disturb you,” Tony asked when Sharon opened the door of her room at the Inn.
“I was reading,” Sharon said as if it was a disturbance. She had a book in her hand.
“Reading what?” Tony asked.
“Re-familiarizing myself with some liturgy. As Head Mistress of the church school, I have to make sure the staff and students adhere to certain protocol.”
“So you were reviewing what? The Book of Common Prayer?”
“Exactly. Of course its formal name,” she added, “is far more extensive.”
“The Book of Common Prayer,” said Tony, “and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David According to the use of The Episcopal Church.”
Sharon was surprised.
“In my prior life,” Tony said, “I studied theology too.”
Sharon smiled. “Good for you.”
“Why did you leave?” Tony asked, as if he was getting to the real reason for his visit.
Sharon didn’t want this visit. She didn’t want this exposure. She didn’t want to befriend him or anybody else at this time in her life. She just wanted to be left alone. “I have a full day ahead of me tomorrow,” she said. “The rector gave me the rest of the day off. I needed to take full advantage of it.”
Tony understood that. “Certainly,” he said with a nod of the head. “It’s not the first day of work you had envisioned, I’m sure.”
Sharon smiled warily. “Not hardly,” she said. “How’s your stepmother?” she asked.
“She’s okay. Sleeping. Resting. She’ll pull through just fine.”
“Your father seemed really upset.”
Tony nodded. “He loves her. He loves us all. But he loves her.”
Sharon didn’t detect any resentment in his voice.
“Look, I won’t keep you,” Tony said. “I know you need some rest yourself. But I did want to apologize for my brother. He had no call questioning you like that.”
“It was okay,” she said. “He doesn’t know me.”
“I don’t know you either,” Tony admitted, �
��but . . .”
Sharon stared at him. “But what?” she asked.
“But somehow it seems as if I know all about you,” Tony said.
Sharon smiled. “So I’m not the only one?”
Tony was surprised. And then he smiled too. But then his smile left, and he turned serious. “No,” he said. “You aren’t the only one.” Then he exhaled. “I’ll let you get your rest. Goodbye, Sharon.”
“Goodnight,” Sharon responded. And closed the door. But as soon as she did, tears welled up in her eyes. Did his brother know? Did that police chief have the goods on her? Was this town going to turn on her too?
She was swimming. At least he thought she was. She started out swimming. But then he saw her arms, and they weren’t stroking as he thought, but flailing. And she wasn’t laughing, but crying. She was crying for help.
Trevor jumped out of his lounger on the beach, flipped off his flip flops, ran into the water and then dived in. He stroked his way to where she was flailing, and reached for her. But she wasn’t there. He came up for breath, with his brown hair matted against his face, as he dived back in and stroked and searched for her. But he didn’t see her. Then he came back up for breath, and saw her again.
“Mr. Reese,” she cried. “Mr. Reese!”
She wasn’t flailing anymore, but going down. Way down. She was drowning. Trevor dove in again, to rescue her, but he didn’t see her beneath. He searched and searched, but there was no sign of her. He came back up for air, and didn’t see her at all!
“Carly!” he cried. “Carly!” He dived back in again. Came back up again. “Carly! Carly!” But no sight of her. And when he turned around, and around some more, he realized he wasn’t a few feet from shore as he had thought, but was in the middle of the ocean. And he was all alone the way Carly was, and now drowning too.
When he felt a tug, and went under, he woke up with a hard lift up. He realized then that he was not in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but was in his bed in Boston. And although Carly wasn’t drowning, she was still alone.
He laid back down, drenched in sweat.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Two Weeks Later
“I’m not a baby, Charles.”
“I didn’t say you were. But you need to give yourself time to heal, Jenay. You need to give it more time.”
“I gave it more time. The doctor said I could resume my normal activities within a couple of days after he released me from that hospital. The only reason I didn’t go back to work when he said I could is because of you. But I’m fine, honey. I’ll go stir crazy if I have to stay cooped-up in this house another day.”
They were in their bedroom at home. Charles, never a morning person, was still in bed, lying on his back. Jenay was sitting at her dressing table, fresh out of the shower but had put back on her bathrobe. She was hot curling her hair.
Charles let out a tough exhale. Jenay looked at him through her dressing table mirror. “Everything’s fine, Charlie.”
“Yeah, well,” Charles said as if he wasn’t at all convinced, “somebody harms my wife and two weeks later they still don’t have him in custody. That’s not my idea of everything being fine.”
“Brent’s men have no clue where that protestor might be?” she asked.
“They don’t even know who he is. He claimed his name was Abe Norris, but that was just some name he made up. It’s not his real name. And other than that, nobody knows a damn thing. Maybe if I wasn’t so certain it was Cruikshank, I could have told Brent sooner. Maybe they would have been able to track that asshole down that same day. But I was convinced Cruikshank was behind it, and he would give up, not only the guy, but the reason for his vendetta against me in the first place.”
“What did Cruikshank tell you?”
“He told me nothing. He knows nothing. There’s no vendetta, he claims. It’s all politics. He told me nothing.”
“They’ll find him, Charles,” Jenay said firmly. “Brent’s good at his job.”
But Charles knew Brent was a small-town police chief with the resources of a small-town police chief. “What Brent doesn’t know is that I’ve hired private investigators to work this case too.”
Jenay looked at him. “Private investigators?”
“That’s right. Five different ones. But they haven’t turned up shit either. I’m wasting my money.”
Jenay could feel his frustration. “It’ll work out,” she said to him.
Charles knew she didn’t need this extra aggravation, so he attempted to minimize his own anxiety. “I’m sure it will,” he said.
Jenay smiled, and refocused on her grooming. When she finished curling her hair, she stood up to head to their room-sized closet. But Charles tossed the bedding off of him. “Let me take a look at the bandage,” he said.
Jenay had already changed it, and it was fine. But Charles always had to see it for himself. She walked over to him as he flung his legs out and sat on the edge of the bed. He was naked, but Jenay wasn’t exactly dressed either.
She stood between his legs as he untied her robe, revealing her nakedness. She then removed one arm out of the arm of the robe. An ace bandage covered her small bicep.
“How does it feel?” he asked as he checked for leakage.
“It feels okay. Most times I don’t even remember that I have an injury. It hasn’t been a problem.”
Then Charles’s eyes glanced down, at her flat stomach, at her taut brown breasts, and then he looked into her eyes. “And what about you?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”
Jenay smiled. “I’m glad to be getting back to work. Donnie’s running the place in my absence, and I hear he’s doing a good job, but I’m ready to get back.”
“I can’t understand that boy of mine,” Charles said. “Sometimes he’ll rise to the occasion in remarkable ways, and then other times he won’t rise at all. I wonder if he’ll ever be consistent, and which Donald will he ultimately become.”
“You mean will he consistently be good Donald, or consistently be bad Donald?”
“He can go either way,” Charles said with a smile, “as you have found out for yourself.”
“And how,” Jenay said with a smile of her own as she removed her robe completely. “I have the invisible scars to prove it.” She tossed her robe onto the bed, and headed for her lingerie drawer.
But when she began walking away from Charles, and he watched as the cheeks of her smooth brown ass moved up and down with every stepdown, tight as hell, his cock began to throb. It had been two weeks, the morning before the shooting, since he last fucked her. “Jenay?”
She glanced back.
“Come here,” he said.
When she saw his erection, she shook her head. She knew what he wanted. But now? “Come on, Charles.”
But Charles was not relenting. “Don’t come on, Charles me. Come here.”
Jenay reluctantly walked back to the bed. Not because she didn’t want to be with him. She always wanted it. But she didn’t think her heart would be in it. She was still too focused on how she was going to react when she walked into the Inn for the first time since the shooting to even begin to experience any horniness.
Charles had already picked up on her anxiety. That was why, when she walked back up to him, he opened his legs wider, pulled her closer and into his arms, and reassured her even as he kissed and sucked her breasts. “You’re going to be alright, babe,” he said as he sucked her. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Jenay leaned her head back as he sucked her, but the reality of her situation was still front and center in her mind. “It’ll be my first time back since the shooting,” she said. “I’m worried about my reaction.”
Charles looked at her. Jenay was a strong woman. When she admitted a concern so plainly, he knew it was a major concern for her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll rearrange my schedule and spend the entire day with you. If you feel any way threatened or anxious or anything like that, I’ll bring you back home. A
nd tomorrow we’ll try again. And the day after that. Until you’re okay.”
Jenay stared at him. No human being alive had ever treated her the way Charles treated her. Then she smiled. “I thought you said I wasn’t ready to go back to work,” she teased. “Now you not only accept the fact that I’m going back, you’re offering to go with me? That’s a twist.”
“That’s love,” Charles said as he turned her around, where her back was to his face, and sat her on his lap. Or more specifically, he sat her on his penis. “You give me what I need,” he said as he lifted her small legs over his massive thighs and began rubbing her pussy. “And I give you what you need.”
Jenay was enjoying his massage. “You think you know what I need?” she asked him.
He began to rub harder. He began to breathe harder into her ear. “I think I do.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, her own breathe becoming labored. “And what’s that?”
“This,” Charles said as he thrust two digits deep inside of her and with his thumb began to flick her clit. Only he flicked it with such ferocity that Jenay’s body began to jerk in reaction.
“Like it?” Charles said as he flicked her faster and faster, and dug his fingers in deeper and deeper in simulation of a penis.
“I like it,” Jenay said.
“Like this?” Charles asked, as he continued to watch her and do her.
“Like that,” Jenay said breathlessly as he kept doing her and doing her until she was on the verge of cum.
He was studying her. He knew she was near. “Ready to cum, baby?”
“I’m ready,” Jenay said.
“Almost there?” Charles asked, doing her even harder.
“Almost,” Jenay said in a voice barely audible.
Then Charles lifted his fully erected penis, thrust it inside of her super-wet pussy, and began to fuck her at the apex of her cum.
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Page 10
