Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) (26 page)

“Oh,
Lord, no, Ashley,” Jenay said, attempting to go to her.
 

But
Charles pulled his wife back, and began walking toward Ash instead.
 
Donald followed him.

“He
raped me,” Ashley said again.
 
“He
brutalized me!”

“Give
me the gun, Ash,” Donald said.
  

“Now
it’s my turn.”

“Ashley,”
Charles said, still moving toward her.
 
“Put it away.
 
Put it away, baby,
and we’ll handle this.”

But
Ashley was shaking her head.
 
Tears were
falling down her face.
 
“He’s got to
pay.
 
He can’t get away with this.”

“And
he won’t.
 
I’ll handle it, sweetheart.
But you have got to put that gun away.”

“He
destroyed me, Daddy.
 
He destroyed who I
am!
 
I wanted to die last night.
 
And if he lives, I’ll die, I know I will.
  
I can’t live like this.
 
I can’t live with
 
him anywhere on the face of this earth.
 
I’ve got to do it.
 
I’ve got to!”

But
Donald moved ahead of his father and went to her side.
 
“Give it to me, Ash,” he said to her.
 
“You don’t want to do this.”
 
Ash was crying.
 
“You don’t wanna ruin your life over a
lowlife like him.”
 
Donald reached out
his hand.
 
“Give it to me,” he said.
 
“Ashley, give the gun to me.”

Ashley
looked at her brother and best friend.
 
“He raped me, Donnie.”

“I
know.”

“I’m
not just saying it this time.
 
He raped
me!”

“I
believe you.
 
I know you wouldn’t pull a
gun on this man if it wasn’t true.
 
I
know that, Ash.
 
But you can’t do
this.
 
Please give it to me.”

Ashley
looked at Willie again. She could see his heart pounding.
 
He wasn’t as tough as he pretended to
be.
 
And suddenly, with Donald there,
with her family there, she wasn’t as terrified as she had been.
 
But she was still determined.
 
She pointed that gun ready to pull the
trigger, but that was when Donald knew he had to act.
 
He wrestled it from her.
 
He took possession of the weapon.

And
Willie exhaled.
 
And his arrogance, once
again, took over.
 
“Lying bitch!” he said
to her.

“I’m
not lying,” Ashley said.
 
“You raped me!”

“I
gave you what you wanted,” Willie said, and everybody looked at him.

“I
told you to stop.”

“But
your eyes didn’t.
 
You didn’t want me to
stop and you know it.
 
You wanted me from
the moment you laid eyes on me.
 
And I
gave you what you wanted.
 
You wanted
it!”

As
soon as Willie made that declaration, admitting he raped Ashley and seeming not
to even realize it, Donald pointed Ashley’s gun at him and shot him straight
through the chest. The silencer was on, and Sprig was right: there was nothing
more than a whiff of a sound.

Everybody
was stunned, but none more so than Willie.
 
He clutched his heart and looked at Donald.
 
“You shot me,” he said as the blood began to
pour.

Charles
hurried over to his son and took the gun away from him.
 
Jenay could hardly believe her eyes.
 

“You
shot me,” Willie said again.

“I
gave you what you wanted,” Donald said to him.
 
“You wanted it.”

And
Willie became woozy and dropped down. Ashley fell into Donald’s arms.
 
And Jenay hurried to both of them, and pulled
them into her arms.

Charles
went over to the office door and closed it.
 
Then he looked at his son.

“He
couldn’t get away with that, Dad,” Donald said.
 
“And he would have gotten away with it.
 
They wouldn’t believe Ash.
 
You
know they wouldn’t.”

Charles
stared at Donald.
 
At his manchild who
was now just a man.
 
Charles pulled out
his cell phone, and called 911.

Jenay
was distressed.
 
Donald and Ashley were
distressed.
 
But they knew Charles was in
charge.
 
Whatever he decided, was what
was going to happen.

Charles
walked over to Willie.
 
He was still
alive, but barely.
 
He knelt down to him.

“Help
me,” Willie was saying in a voice so faint it was barely audible.

“An
ambulance is on the way.”

He
was holding onto his chest, as if he could staunch that amount of flow of
blood.
  
“I didn’t do it right.
 
I never do it right.
 
I was supposed to ruin Jenay, not her
daughter.
 
But I thought . . .”

Jenay
looked at Charles.
 
Did he get that?
 
Charles frowned.
 
He got it.
 
“Somebody hired you?” he asked, stunned himself.

But
Willie was still engulfed in his own self-pity.
 
“I never get it right.”

“Who
hired you?” Charles asked again.
 
“Did
Matt Dellum hire you?”
 
Was this a part
of Dellum’s destroy the Sinatra brand scheme?

“I
need a doctor!” Willie said with more force.

“Who
do you work for?” Charles asked again.
 
“You work for Dellum?”

“No.”

“I’ll
get help if you talk.
 
Now tell me who do
you work for?”

“I
don’t. . .”

“Who
Stiles?
 
Is it Matt Dellum?”

“Paige,”
Willie said.
 
“Paige Springer hired me.”

Charles
and Jenay both were stunned.
 
“Paige?”
Jenay said, floored.

“Why
would Paige Springer hire you?”

“Help
me,” Willie said, but his voice was even more faint.
 
“Help me.”
 
And then he moved his mouth, but no words came out.
 
And then his eyes closed.
 
Charles felt his pulse.
 
He was dead.

Charles
stood erect.
 
They could hear the sirens
in the distance.

“What
are we going to do?” Jenay asked him.

“Sit
down,” he ordered.
 
“All three of you.”

Jenay
didn’t know what was going on in Charles’s head, but she escorted Ashley and
Donald to the conference table and, as he had ordered, all three sat down.
  
Charles began pacing, his mind in deep
thought.

“He
did what he felt he had to do, Charles,” Jenay said.
 
“That man raped Ashley.
 
He admitted it.”

Charles
looked at her.
 
“I know that.
 
What are you telling me that for?”

There
was a hard edge to Charles’s voice, and Jenay knew to back off.
 
He was going to have to figure this out for
all of them.
 
Donald’s future was in his
father’s hands.
 
Jenay looked at Donald.
 
He was terrified, and probably scared too,
but defiant.
 
Ashley was just scared.

“Who
gave you the gun?” Charles asked Ashley.

Ashley
didn’t respond.

“Who
gave you this gun?” he asked again.

“What
are you doing?” Donald asked her.
 
“Tell
him.
 
He’ll help us.”

Ashley
frowned.
 
“Aunt Sprig,” she said.

Charles
had hoped that was the case.
 
Sprig had
many guns, but none of them were registered.
 
He thanked God for her right at this moment in time.

“Is
he right hand, or left hand?” he asked his wife.

“What?”
Jenay asked.

“Is
Willie Stiles right-handed or left-handed?”

Jenay
had to think about that.
 
“Right-handed,”
she said.
 
She would have noticed if he
was a southpaw.
   

Charles
walked over to Willie’s lifeless body, placed Willie’s right hand on the gun,
and then placed the gun by that hand.
 

Then
he waited.
 

They
waited.

It would
take a several more minutes, but the Jericho Police, led by Brent himself,
entered the office.
 
After removing the
family to a different office, Brent and Eddie Rivers closed the door.
 
They both knew they should have separated the
witnesses, but they also knew they didn’t have to.
 
There was no law against interviewing
witnesses together.
 
And Brent’s
instincts, which never failed him, told him to keep the family together.

“What
happened?” Brent asked his father.

“I
got into an altercation with Willie Stiles a while back,” he said.

“About
what?” Brent asked.

“Jenay.
 
He claimed to have been intimate with her, I
took exception to that, and we got into a fight.
 
I won.”

“Anybody
see this fight?”

“Megan
saw it.
 
It was here at the Inn.
 
Outside.”

Nobody
knew where Charles was going with this, but Jenay, Donald, and Ashley remained
silent.
 

“What
does that have to do with what happened today?” Brent asked his father.

“He
came here to finish the fight.
 
He didn’t
like the outcome.
 
And he pulled that gun
on me.
 
We got into a scuffle, and the
gun went off.”

“So
you’re saying it was self-defense?”

Charles
nodded.
 
“That’s what it was,” he
said.
  

Brent
looked at Jenay.
 
“What do you say?” he
asked her.

“Self-defense,”
she said.

“And
you?” Brent asked Ashley.

“Self-defense,”
Ashley said.

Then
Brent looked at his kid brother.
 
“What
about you?”

“It
was self-defense,” Donald said.

Brent
continued to stare at Donald and Ashley.
 
His father was protecting one or both of them, he could feel it in his
bones.
 
And that wasn’t like his
father.
 
You did wrong, you paid.
 
He didn’t care who you were.
 
That was his father’s motto.
 
Unless that Willie Stiles did something
worse.

“Okay.
 
We have four people claiming it was
self-defense, and one dead body.
 
This
should be an easy one.”

“You
mean,” Jenay asked, “you aren’t going to arrest anybody?”

“No.
 
It’s not illegal to defend yourself.
 
And if Megan can confirm that she saw Dad and
Willie Stiles get into it at the Inn previously, then there’s nothing to
prosecute.
 
They’ll be no arrest.”

Everybody
inwardly sighed relief.
 
It wasn’t any
kind of victory, because a man was dead.
 
But it was the best outcome they could have hoped for.

Paige
Springer answered her door shocked that Charles and Jenay would have the nerve
to come anywhere near her.
 
And when she
opened the door, he didn’t ask to come in either.
 
He and that wife of his barged right on in!

“Who
do you think you are, Charles Sinatra?” Paige asked her former lover.
 
“This is my home!”

“Willie
Stiles,” Charles said.
 
“Sound familiar?”

Paige
didn’t respond.
 
And Jenay and Charles
both knew why.
 
“How do you know him?”
Jenay asked her.

“What
about him?” Paige asked, not willing to give any information.

“How
do you know him?” Charles asked.

“I
asked around in Boston and his name came up as one of your ex-lovers.
 
That’s how.”

“He’s
not my ex-lover.
 
But you knew that.”

“He’s
dead,” Charles announced.

Paige
was stunned.
 
“Dead?
 
You killed him?”

“Why
did you hire him?” Charles wanted to know.

At
first, Paige refused to answer.
 
Charles
asked the question again.
 
“Why did you
hire him, Paige?”

Paige
smiled.
 
“Pay back,” she said.

Jenay
was stumped.
 
“For what?” she asked.

“First
you took Charles away from me, and now you want my title.
 
That’s what!”

Jenay
frowned.
 
“What title?” she asked.

“Founder’s
Day Queen, what title do you think?
 
I
have been Queen for eight of the last ten years.
 
You will not take that away from me!”

Jenay
was floored.
 
“Are you serious?
 
You hired Willie to try and destroy my family
so that they wouldn’t select me to be Queen of some stupid-ass parade?
 
Are you kidding me?”

“Minimize
it all you want,” Paige said.
 
“It means
everything to me!”

Jenay
couldn’t believe it.
 
She was so thrown
that she turned to Charles.
 
What was
wrong with these people?

Charles
stared at Paige.
 
“You’ve always been
petty,” he said, “but this takes the cake. So she threatened your little crown,
and you decided to destroy her?
 
And was
willing to pay to see it through.”

“That’s
right.”

“No,
that’s wrong,” Charles said.
 
“Because it
didn’t work. Because on Founder’s Day, Jenay will be the queen.”

Jenay
looked at him. Paige looked concerned.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
She
turned them down.
 
They said she turned
them down.”

“The
offer was still on the table.
 
She took
it off the table.
 
Jenay Sinatra will be
the queen.”

Jenay
saw the distress on Paige’s face, and it made it all worthwhile.
 
She smiled too.
 
“Oh, well,” she said, “I guess you’ll have to
think up something else.”

“And
if you do,” Charles said, “if it involves my wife or family in any way, you
won’t be able to think up anything else.
 
What Willie did is on Willie.
 
But
if you hatch anymore schemes involving my family, that’s going to be on you.”

When
Charles and Jenay finally left, Paige fell against the door.
 
Petty, he said.
 
How could he consider an honor like that, to
be Founder’s Day queen,
petty
?

Makayla
Ross sipped more coffee as she stood at her conference table and reviewed a
series of witness statements.
 
She was
attempting to put them in the order that she planned to call each witness to
the stand.
 
She was set to begin a new
trial next week, in Portland, Maine, and she had to prepare.

Her
office door opened and Lannie, her assistant, walked in.
 
“You have company, Kay.”

“Who?
 
Jack?”

“A
guy named Brent Sinatra.
 
Or as I call
him: Beautiful Brent.
 
That hair and that
face and that body, oh my!”

“Get
a hold of yourself,” Makayla said, “and send him in.”

When
her assistant left, Makayla exhaled.
 
She
had missed Brent terribly, but she wasn’t going to beat a dead horse.
 
Especially after she got the news.

Brent
walked in.
 
And his angry face said it
all.
 
“I see you’ve heard the news.”

“Why
the reversal?” he asked.

“How
have you been?”

“Why
the reversal?” Brent asked again.

Makayla
hesitated, and then began walking toward her desk.

Brent
watched her walked and his dick throbbed just looking at her.
 
He missed her too.
 
But fuck that.
 
This news was devastating.

“My
boss has been appointed Assistant Attorney General.
 
He leaves for Washington in a few weeks.
 
I’ve been appointed his assistant.”

“Why
the reversal?” Brent asked for the third time.
 
Telling him that she was going to be leaving for D.C. wasn’t good news
to him.
 
But that was beside the
point.
 

“They
found out about our relationship,” she said.

Brent
was confused. “What about our relationship?”

“Apparently
I was followed.
 
My boss had pictures of
you visiting me at my house, and the two of us having sexual contact.”

Brent
was stunned.
 
“Somebody recorded it?”

“Yes.
 
And don’t ask me who.
 
But if that news gets out it can ruin my
boss’s appointment.
 
He felt he had to
reverse it because requesting a new trial may look like I was granting my lover
favors, that’s how he put it.
 
So he
ordered me to reverse the decision.
 
We
requested immediate release.
 
The judge
will make the final decision.”
 
She
looked at Brent heartfelt.
 
“I’m sorry,
Brent,” she added.

“Why
couldn’t you phone me?
 
Why did I have to
find out from one of my men?
 
And now you
casually tells me you’re moving to D.C.
 
Well great for you.
 
Not so great
for my father, but great for you.”

“I
was trying to spare your feelings.”

“You
were sparing your feelings.
 
Because you
could have phoned me. And why do you have to follow your boss everywhere he
goes?
 
I thought you loved your
independence.”

“I
do.”

“Then
why are you following him?”
 
Then Brent
hesitated.
 
He had a thought.
 
“Is the Attorney General the man you recently
broke up with?
 
Is he your ex?”

Makayla
stared at him, and then nodded her head.
 
“Yes,” she said.

Brent
stared at her.
 
“I was under the
impression your ex had cheated on you.”

“He
had.”

Brent
shook his head.
 
“Yet you follow him
anyway.
 
But anything for your career,
right?”

“It’s
not like that.
 
I loved him.”

“Still
do apparently.”

“It’s
going to take time, Brent.”

“Yeah,
sure.
 
It’s not my business.
 
I’m just disappointed that you don’t think
more of yourself.”
 
Then an anguished
look appeared in his eyes.
 
“Goodbye,
Makayla,” he said, and left.

“Brent!”
Makayla yelled, but he slammed the door behind him.
 
And calling him would make no sense
anyway.
 
She sat down, and fought back
tears.

Charles
and Jenay stood beside Charles’s Jaguar across the street from the
courthouse.
 
Brent was standing with
them, and Tony, but they couldn’t find the words to say.
 
It had been decision day in Jericho, and the
judge had rendered his ruling.
 
It was a
lengthy statement in the packed courtroom, as the judge talked on and on about
the bedrock of liberty and the justice system and the rule of law and it all
sounded like gibberish to Charles.
 
He
wanted the bottom line.
 
He got it.
 
Luke Sinatra, his father, was free to go.

Now they
were outside the courtroom and were at a loss for words.
 
The media was out in force, hoping for
comments from the newly freed man when he finally came out of the courthouse,
and Brent had ordered a strong showing of police to control what was become a
boisterous crowd.
 
This was big news in
Jericho.
 
Excitement was in the air.
 

But
it didn’t touch the Sinatras.
 
It felt
like a death to them.

“I’m
sorry, Dad,” Brent said, the anguish on his face.

“You
warned us this was likely to happen,” Charles responded.
 
“Nothing for you to be sorry about.”

“But
did you feel prepared when the judge made it official?”

Charles
shook his head.
  
“No.
 
Not at all.
 
I guess I was hoping against hope that it still wouldn’t happen.
  
That this day wouldn’t come.”

“There
he is,” Jenay said, looking toward the courthouse steps, and Charles and Brent
looked too.

And
there he was, Luke Sinatra, taking his first walk of freedom after thirty-six
years.
 
And he looked so smug it was
nauseating.
 
But he was smiling, had pep
in his step, and was inhaling that fresh, free air.

The
media shoved microphones in his face, and asked him so many questions from so
many reporters that he couldn’t understand what any of them were saying.
 
But eventually they settled down, and he
answered their questions.
 
Then his
lawyer began to escort him down the steps to freedom.

“He’s
so full of himself now,” Brent said.
 
“But don’t worry, Dad.
 
My men
will follow him twenty-four-seven if we have to.
 
His freedom will not feel free here in
Jericho.
 
He’ll leave town.
 
It’s just a matter of time.”

Jenay
looked at her stepson.
 
“You’re talking
about harassing the man?” she asked.

Brent
looked at her.
 
“Yes.
 
That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

Jenay
nodded.
 
“Good,” she said, and as she
said it, gunfire erupted.

“Get
down!” Brent yelled as he shoved both parents down
 
and pulled out his weapon.
 
Tony got down too, as the media and crowd
scattered.
 
And there was Luke Sinatra,
who had been walking down those courthouse steps, falling down those
steps.
 
He had been shot. He had been
shot repeatedly.

Brent
ran across the street toward the courthouse, looking around him at the tall
building where the shots appeared to come from, and ordered as many officers as
he could to search every building.
 
It
was a fool’s errand and he knew it.
 
This
was no random shooter.
 
This was an
expert.
 
He knew what he was doing.

And
the crowd made it worse. There was screaming and running and cameras being
trampled.
 

And
Charles, who had fallen on Jenay, protecting her, stood up.
 
He knew the danger was over.
 
And through the chaos, he looked toward the
end of the street.
 
A Lincoln Town Car
was parked there, and a man in the backseat leaned forward, and stared at Luke
Sinatra’s dead body.
 
Then he looked
further over, and stared at Charles.
 

It
was Mick.
 
Charles’s kid brother who
wasn’t a kid anymore.
 
Charles hadn’t
seen that face in years.
 
But Charles
nodded at his brother, in acknowledgement and gratitude, and his brother nodded
back.