Brent Sinatra: All of Me

by Mallory Monroe

  “Yes, sir,” Eddie said, and walked toward Bobby’s chair. “Come on, Bob. Stand up.”

  Bobby reluctantly stood up. Tears began to appear in his eyes. Jenay was already crying.

  But just as Eddie was about to put him in handcuffs, Charles spoke up. “He’s lying,” he said, and everybody looked at him. “He was trying to protect me. He’s lying. He wasn’t driving that car. I was.”

  “Dad,” Brent said, understanding full well what he was up to.

  “I was driving the car!” Charles blared. “I borrowed it that night and I was driving it.”

  “Charlie,” Jenay said, with pain in her voice. She knew full well what he was doing too.

  But Charles was not backing down. He knew he was wrong. He knew this was a lesson his son needed to learn. But the cost was too high. “So you have your suspect,” he said. “Robert, take my wife and go home. Now. Eddie, you can cuff and frisk me.”

  Eddie looked at Brent. It was one thing to arrest Bobby on suspicion of a hit-and-run. It was another thing entirely to arrest a man of Big Daddy Sinatra’s stature.

  Then they all heard a commotion outside, and then suddenly the door flew open and Porter Keith, the portly mayor of Jericho County, walked in. Belma was behind him. “I told him you were in a meeting, sir,” she said.

  But Brent waved her off. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “That woman,” the mayor said, closing the door in her face. “She tried to tell me what I could and couldn’t do. Fire her, Brent.”

  “No thank-you,” Brent said. “I’m busy right now, Mayor.”

  “I know what’s going on,” Keith said, “so don’t play those games with me.” He tossed two folders on Brent’s desk.

  “What are those?” Brent asked.

  “Sworn statements from the two witnesses.”

  Charles and Jenay stared at him.

  “What do you know about that?” Brent asked his boss.

  “I know they originally claimed they thought they saw a red Corvette leave the scene. But they now say, under oath, that they were mistaken. They actually saw a red Ford Focus leave the scene. And as you know, a Ford Focus looks nothing like a Corvette.”

  Brent looked at his brother. “Bobby, did you hit that lady and fled the scene?”

  Bobby knew his parents were staring at him. But he couldn’t look at them. “No,” he said to Brent.

  “No. See,” the mayor said. “You have to let him go now. There’s no evidence of his involvement at all. And my daughter had nothing to do with it either. Nothing. And if any of this leaks out to the press, Eddie Rivers,” the mayor said, “then I’ll know who leaked it. We’re in the middle of a campaign. All my opponent will want is to scandalize my good name by claiming that my daughter left the scene of a crime. When she didn’t. That unfortunate lady is dead, but it has nothing to do with Robert. Besides, that woman wasn’t a lady. She was a streetwalker. That’s why she was out that late alone. She was looking for a pick up. So come on, Robert. Drop the guilt. You did nothing wrong. Kaci is waiting for you.”

  Bobby looked at his parents. Charles was staring hard at him, as if he was willing him to do the right thing. As if he was holding his breath to see what he was going to do. Jenay could see the pain in Charles’ eyes.

  But Bobby left with the mayor. He saw a chance at freedom and took it. He walked out the door.

  Brent exhaled. And read over the sworn statements.

  “What can we do?” Eddie asked.

  “Nothing. He confessed to us, true enough, but then you confessed too, Dad. And now the witnesses have changed their stories. And then he recants. What am I supposed to do with all of that?”

  Charles walked as if he was going to pace the floor, disgusted with both his sons, and then he walked out.

  “Dad,” Brent said, rising, but Jenay stood and held Brent back.

  “He’ll be okay,” she said, and hurried behind her distraught husband.

  Brent ran his hands through his hair.

  “Your brother has got to be the luckiest you-know-what on the planet. Because I guarantee you, if Porter Keith wasn’t up for reelection, he would let him swing.”

  “He’ll swing anyway,” Brent said sadly. “The truth always comes out in the end.”

  Denise Donahue-Stravinsky spotted the reporter easily. She would have thought he had enough sense to come in disguise too. They were three towns over from Boston, in the tiny town of Carr, it was true. But they still were in the state. He should have known better.

  But Jock Ambers didn’t care. He just wanted the story. He sat down at the back table alongside the Lieutenant Governor’s wife and smiled at her dark sunglasses and wig. “I don’t think anybody in Carr will know who the LG’s wife is,” Jock said, then threw up his hands. “Just saying.”

  “You can never be too careful,” Denise reminded him, and sipped more champagne.

  “Okay give. You wanted to meet. What you got?”

  He sounded almost obnoxiously ignorant to Denise, even down to his name, as if that in-your-face persona was his stock and trade. But he was actually a well-respected journalist in the Boston area. And if she was going to go down this road to perdition or, as she called it, self-preservation, she needed a heavy hitter. “I’m sure you know that there are rumors about my husband’s business dealings.”

  Jock smiled. “Since I’m the one who wrote the stories about those rumors, then yeah, I know.”

  “What if I’m able to turn those rumors into facts?”

  Jock’s smile was gone. He was hoping this meeting would net him something juicy. He just didn’t expect it to be this fat. “And how can you do that?” he asked her.

  “I know everything you need to know about Mark Stravinsky and his businesses. And when I say everything, I mean everything.”

  “And you’ll give me the info?”

  “You and you alone.”

  Jock stared at her. They seemed like the perfect family. The Lieutenant Governor, his African-American wife, and their biracial son. Always smiling. Always positive. The beautiful people. Then suddenly hubby’s poll numbers went south and the good wife was now ready to throw him under the bus. But in exchange for what? “What do I have to do to get this info?” he asked.

  This was the meat of the matter for Denise. His response to her demand would determine success or failure. “I need you to be available, on very short notice, to cover whatever story I need you to cover.”

  Jock smiled. “Is that all?”

  “Don’t underestimate what I’m telling you,” Denise said. “Because it may seem like a fool’s errand. But I need you to do exactly as I say, and to do it immediately when I request it.”

  “And if I can’t come through for you?”

  “Then I’ll have additional information that will contradict all of the information you would have already put in your stories. It will ruin your reputation as horrifically as it is going to ruin my husband’s. So you will be taking a major risk. But if you stick with me, and do as I instruct you to do, the reward will be incredible.” For both of us, Denise wanted to add.

  And although Jock smiled, and shook her hand, he had a sinking feeling that he was shaking hands, not with a woman of means who could take his career to the highest level, but with the devil himself. But his career was worth the risk. He gladly shook her hand.

  And afterwards, after Jock Ambers left, the man called Mister Hide sat at the table with Denise.

  “Good enough?” she asked him.

  “That remains to be seen,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You’re so stupid,” Rhonda Jean said with a laugh as she and Norm Morgan stood behind the counter at the Jericho Inn Bed and Breakfast restaurant. Norm, the chef, was on break from the kitchen, and Rhonda, the cashier and waitress, was waiting to ring up another customer. It was four p.m. The lunch crowd was gone, the dinner crowd was only trickling in. It was slow.

  “I’m serious,” Norm responded to the cashier. “I
think ambition is highly overrated. Look at me. I’m a chef in my best friend’s hotel. And I love it! I don’t want to do anything else. I like Jericho now. I love Jenay and all my other friends. Life is good. But these ambitious types will say I’m a loser.”

  “You are a loser if you think working here as some cook is your definition of success.”

  “First of all,” Norm said with those same mannerisms that made Rhonda call him a black woman imitator, “I’m not a cook. I’m a classically trained chef, so let’s get that straight right off the bat. Second of all, I didn’t say working here was the definition of success. I said working here is what I enjoy doing and that makes it a success for me.”

  The door, to the restaurant’s entrance from the outside, opened and Brent Sinatra walked in. As soon as he did, Rhonda smiled and began sprucing up her short, blonde locks.

  Norm looked at her, looked where she was looking, and then shook his head. “Not you too,” he said.

  “What?” Rhonda asked. “Can I help it if he’s good looking? He’s hot. I’m sorry, but he is.”

  But Norm wasn’t a fan. “It’s pathetic the way you girls salivate over that man. A man, I will remind you, who already has a woman that he’s not about to dump for y’all.”

  But Rhonda didn’t care about possessing him. She just wanted to admire him. He was heading toward his favorite table by the window and she was watching his every move. She was staring at his gorgeous green eyes that even from where she stood were gleaming. She was checking out his big, fine body that gave off such a heightened sexual charge that most boys around Jericho would kill to be able to exude. She couldn’t stop staring at him.

  He was dressed in what Rhonda viewed as his chief of police uniform: perfect-fit suit, a tucked-in collarless shirt that highlighted his thick chest, and his trademark hat. He removed his hat, revealing a thick swath of wavy black hair that dropped to his neck, and tossed it onto the table as he sat down.

  Rhonda took her hand and began fanning herself.

  “You need to quit,” Norm said. “Every female I know go nuts whenever he’s around. I’m telling you it’s pathetic.”

  Rhonda looked at her co-worker. “So he’s not good looking to you, Norm? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

  “He’s good looking. Every one of those Sinatra boys are good looking. I’ll give them that. But my goodness, they aren’t the only nice looking men in town.”

  “Name one that looks better?” Rhonda challenged him. “Just one.”

  “I think Biff McCord is nice looking.”

  “Biff McCord? Are you joking? Biff McCord looks like a little rat face boy compared to Brent Sinatra! Did you see Brent’s thighs? Did you see that thickness between his legs? I’ll take Brent, thank-you, and I don’t even like cops. But I’ll take Brent. Hell, I’ll take skinny-ass Donald Sinatra over Biff McCord!”

  “Then you’re farther gone than I thought,” Norm said.

  “Sure Norm,” Rhonda said with a laugh. “But at least he’s not like his father. I can’t stand that man!”

  Norm was floored. “You can’t stand him? Yet you have no qualms whatsoever working in his establishment. He owns the Jericho Inn, I hope you’re aware of that. Which means he owns this very restaurant you depend on for your livelihood. He signs your paychecks, girl, what are you talking about?”

  “Jenay Sinatra signs my paychecks, that’s what I’m talking about. She owns this. Not just him!”

  “She owns it too, but he owned it first. He owned it long before he ever met her or married her, so don’t get it twisted. You need to show some respect.”

  But Rhonda had already moved on. She was looking toward the entrance. “Well well,” she said. “Here comes the girlfriend.”

  “Big Daddy doesn’t have a girlfriend!”

  “Not Big Daddy you idiot. Brent’s girl.”

  Norm looked out of the window as Makayla got out of her Acura. “I didn’t know she was in town,” he said.

  “Probably came to celebrate the proposal.”

  Norm looked at Rhonda. “What?”

  “He proposed to her.” Rhonda looked at him. “You’re so buddy-buddy with Mrs. Sinatra. Didn’t you know?”

  “No,” he said as he looked back out of the café window. “But knowing Jenay, she probably figures Brent’s business should be told by Brent.” Then she looked at Rhonda. “How did you find out?”

  “Donnie.”

  “His kid brother?”

  “Yup. He can’t keep a secret. He told me not to tell anybody though. I only told you because I assumed you already knew.”

  He didn’t. Jenay never told her personal business, not even to him. “Anyway,” he said, “break time’s over. Let’s get back to work.” And Norm headed back into the kitchen.

  Rhonda shook her head. “What a loser,” she said aloud, but got back to work.

  Brent waved a hand at Makayla when she entered the café and started looking around. When she saw his hand, she smiled and headed toward his table. Although it was a regular Saturday afternoon, she was nicely dressed in a bicsotti-colored satin dress that crisscrossed at the cleavage, and matching heels. With her hair flowing behind her in waves of thick curls, she looked angelic to Brent. He loved the fact that she took such care with her appearance. Even when she was casually dressed, she was always well put together.

  He stood up when she arrived, kissed her on the mouth, a gesture that had the few people in the café staring at them, and he helped her to her seat. “You look hot,” he said as she sat down.

  “Why thank you, sir,” Makayla responded. “You don’t look too cold yourself.”

  Brent laughed as he sat down. Rhonda came over and took their drink orders, and then left.

  Brent stared at Makayla’s cleavage. “Sorry to be away from you all day. But my day off is never a day off anymore. What have you been doing with your day?”

  “A little of everything,” Makayla said. Including house hunting, she wanted to say but knew it would only spoil the mood. He had enough on his mind. “I met up with Tony and we hung out together too. He’s very happy for us.”

  “I’m glad he had time for you. Tony’s fun to be around.”

  Makayla smiled. “Yes, he is. So what about you? How did it go with that hit-and-run?”

  Brent exhaled. “Not so great.”

  “So it was Bobby’s car that fled the scene?”

  “The witnesses changed their stories. They both now claim it was a green Ford Focus that fled the scene. Bobby’s saying it wasn’t him. With no evidence that it was, I couldn’t hold him.”

  “What about car tracks at the scene?”

  “There were none. By the time we let Bobby go and sent a team out there to analyze the tracks, a city crew had painted the entire street.”

  Makayla frowned. “Are you serious? Why would they suddenly paint over a crime scene? Wasn’t the police tape still up?”

  “They thought it was cordoned off for them by a different crew of city workers. At least that’s their story.”

  “That doesn’t past the smell test, Brent.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Makayla stared at him. “What else aren’t you telling me? There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

  Brent ran his hand across his face. “There’s a lot I’m not telling you.”

  Makayla was hurt by the admission. “Why?”

  “Because you’ll be deputy D.A. in ten days. I don’t want you in a position to have to deny anything. Or confess to anything.”

  “Regarding your brother?”

  Brent looked at her. “Regarding my brother, my family, any of it,” he said. “Yes.”

  A look of concern appeared on her face. Which concerned Brent. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’s getting real now,” she said and looked at him as if she wanted to see if he shared her anxiety.

  He did. He nodded. “Really real,” he said.

  Then Makayla exhaled. “And I’ve go
t to be real with you.”

  “What?” Brent asked. “You rented a townhouse?”

  Makayla was stunned. “How did you know?”

  “Tony was there. Remember? He has an allegiance to you, true enough. But he has a greater one to me.”

  She stared at Brent. “Upset?”

  “It’s not thrilling news,” he said. Then he looked at her. “But I understand it.”

  Makayla smiled. That was all she was after.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Two weeks later and Makayla was ready. She grabbed her purse, her keys, and her briefcase, and hurried out of her front door. She wasn’t late, but she was determined to be especially early. It was, after all, her first day.

  But as soon as she walked out of the front door of her townhome, and made it to her car, Brent’s big Ford F-150 drove up and parked at the curb. She smiled when he got out of his truck.

  Brent buttoned his suitcoat and made his way up the sloped driveway. Makayla, he thought, looked stunning in her dark blue pinstripe skirt suit and heels, with her hair partially pinned up in an upsweep up front, and down curls in back. Her big eyes were smiling and Brent’s heart was soaring with love as he looked at her. He would have preferred to have been in bed with her all night and saw her when she first woke up, but she insisted on having her own place. He didn’t like it, but until he married her that privilege was off the table. And rushing her to the courthouse after all these years wasn’t going to work either. She’d already said she wanted a well-planned, real wedding.

  Makayla, too, had a surge of joy as Brent approached her. It was an odd reality. They’d been living apart for four years and rarely saw each other every week. Now that she was a bona fide Jericodian and his soon-to-be wife, she wanted to see him all the time. Even last night she considered hopping in her car and going to be with him. But talk about a mixed message. That move would have defeated her entire argument for having her own place to begin with. They were handling this transition just about right, she felt.

  Her smile grew even brighter when he made his way to her side. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning,” she said. “You almost missed me.”