He located the truly dangerous area of this gathering: the men. Sitting as usual, in a circle of mismatched lawn chairs. In that group was his father, watching Trey, and Trey knew, even though sunglasses obscured his father’s eyes, the exact expression he was wearing: narrow and evaluating. Judging.
Angie had broken away and headed to his brother, Matt, leaving Trey to face his father alone—which was as it should be, but he wouldn’t have minded some Pagano backup. Then Uncle Joey stood up from the group and came toward him.
They shook hands.
“All set?” Joey asked. He’d been shot about twenty years ago and had had trouble speaking ever since, so he rarely spoke in long sentences. Trey had been very young at the time, and he didn’t remember Joey being any other way.
Trey was the reason Joey had been shot. He didn’t feel guilt for it—he’d been four years old—but Joey had taken a bullet trying to save him. From the time he’d learned that truth, in seventh grade, when he’d asked about his bio-mom and his father had told him the story, he’d felt a special affection for Joey.
He gave his uncle’s hand an extra squeeze before he let it go. “Yeah, Uncle Joey. We’re all good. Sorry we’re late.”
Joey shrugged and nodded to the picked-over buffet table, which showed the leavings of a typically enormous Pagano feast, but there were still a couple of chilled bowls of pasta salad and a basket of breads. Trey’s mind was too much on the later activities of his day for his stomach to be especially interested in food. The beer tubs were full, though.
“Beer. Hungry?” Joey asked.
“Don’t go to trouble.” Nick had come up on them. “We’re late, so we’ll take what’s left.” He and Joey shook hands. “Gessica was lovely today.”
“Thanks,” Joey said and nodded again at the food and drink. “Help … yourself. I’ll … put meat on. No … trouble.”
With another nod and a smile, Joey turned toward the house. Nick took hold of Trey’s arm and pulled lightly. “Come. Face your father.”
As they approached the circle of men, all of whom had been watching him, his father stood, and Trey felt the tightening across his shoulders he always got when he had to be ready for trouble. Though they’d made their truce, they hadn’t made a real peace, and he never knew from one family event to the next when he and the old man would be head to head. Or worse—Nick and his father would go at it again. Nick tolerated disrespect from virtually no one, and Trey’s father had heaped a mountain of it on the don’s head in the year after Trey went to the other side of the pews. The whole family stood on the sharp edge of a blade, worried that Carlo would cross the last line Nick drew.
And what would Trey do if his father pushed the don past his limit? It wasn’t a question he could bear to consider.
Today, he wouldn’t have to. His father held out his hand to Nick, offered his hand first, and Trey relaxed at once. Maybe a true peace was working its way home.
He turned to Trey and smiled. “Hi, son.”
“Hi, Dad.”
His father opened his arms, and Trey accepted a warm hug. In that embrace, Trey felt his old man. His best friend. Fuck yeah, he missed the hell out of him.
He held on a little tighter.
~oOo~
“You gotta come out and get wet, Unc. I never see you out for dawn patrol anymore.”
Uncle Luca laughed and shook his head. “I’m fifty-five years old, kid. With my knee, I can barely ride a board at all. No way I can do it before summer—or noon. It looked great out there this morning, though. Firing like crazy.”
“It was. I was on my feet the whole hour I was out there. Some great doubles, too.”
Luca sighed sadly and took a swallow from his bottle of beer. Almost all the Paganos surfed, or at least had surfed, but of them all, Luca had been the best and most avid. He and his wife, Manny, lived on the beach as well, downshore a bit, at the edge of the Cove.
Even with a bad knee, blown out and rebuilt twice, Luca had stayed on the water into his fifties, but Trey hadn’t seen him out since last summer.
“I’m just too old, kid. I don’t have much more time in the water period, much less in the dawn cold.”
“What about that fish you got last year?” A shorter, wider board. Luca had bought the fish because it was easier to balance and could take pressure off his knee.
“That’s what’s keeping me wet at all. Trey, let up. I get out there as much as I can, okay?”
“Sorry. I was out there today, thinking about when I was a kid, surfing with you and Aunt Carmen, Uncle John and dad, and I just … I was lonely, I guess.” That wasn’t it, really. He liked being out there alone. But the force of nostalgia had wrapped all around him, too. He missed the days when everybody was together.
His uncle laughed and slapped him firmly on the back. “You need yourself a woman, Trey.”
“I have plenty of women.”
“Not women. Woman. Singular. You’re nesting. I can smell it on you. Damn, you’re so much like your old man it’s fucking eerie.”
Luca’s tone was full of good humor, and his assertion was nonsensical—Trey was twenty-five years old; he did not need a singular woman yet—but Trey felt defensive nonetheless. He shrugged his hand off his back. “Fuck off, Unc.”
Luca laughed and finished his beer.
“Trey.”
Both Luca and Trey swiveled their head around at Nick’s voice.
Trey stood up. “Yes, Uncle?”
With a sotto voce chortle full of rhetoric, Luca got up from his chair and walked away, to his wife.
“I want you on the road in ten minutes. Have you told your father that you’ll be away?”
“Not yet. I will now.”
Nick nodded. “Do so. Come to me before you go.”
“I will.”
When the don walked away, Trey turned and scanned the yard. His father was with Uncle John, and John’s eight-year-old twins, Olivia and Claudia. His mom was talking with Aunt Bev—Nick’s wife—and Aunt Rosie.
He went to his mom. Some might call that cowardice; Trey called it situation management. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Misby?”
Though she gave him a searching squint, she said, “Of course, sweetheart,” and took his hand.
Leading her to a quiet corner of the yard, he sat with her on an iron settee near a wildly blooming yellow rosebush. “I’m going away for a while.”
“And where is away?” His mom was Argentine. She’d been in the States for around forty years, and of course her English was fluent, but she’d never fully lost her accent. He loved to listen to her talk.
“It’s a work thing.”
“A work thing.” She nodded. “So you can say not much.”
Always careful not to tread where she shouldn’t be. “No. But I don’t think I’ll be gone more than a couple of weeks. At the least, I’ll check in by then.”
“And this is dangerous, this work thing?”
He had no idea. It could be. “No. Just a long errand.”
She took both his hands in hers. “I want you to do something for me, Mr. Trey.”
Smiling at the old nickname she’d had for him, he readily said, “Anything, Misby.”
“I want you to tell your father this thing. Tell him yourself.”
“Misby …”
“Trey. When I go between you, you think it makes things better. It does not. He sees that you won’t come to him. He is calmer when I’m between you, yes, but he hurts more. And so do you. As long as you cannot be true with each other, you won’t have what you had. So you be true. Don’t hide who you are, and don’t hide behind me.”
“I’m not hiding. I just don’t want a scene.”
“And this morning? When you called me? What scene did that prevent?”
She had a point.
And she wasn’t finished. “When you ask me to be between you, it makes tension between your father and me. He sees me helping you stay distant—and Trey, that is what I’m doing. Help
ing you stay apart. Neither he nor you wants that.”
He didn’t want his mom taking his heat. His parents had almost broken up over his decision to join with Uncle Nick, and his mom’s refusal to cut him out of the family. Of course his dad thought she’d taken Trey’s side; she had.
“Okay. I’ll tell him myself.”
“Thank you.” She clasped his face in both hands and kissed his cheeks. “I love you.”
His father was still at the swings with Uncle John and the twins. Trey crossed the yard and watched for a few seconds. But he had a stopwatch on him, so he called, “Dad. Got a minute?”
“Sure, son.” He came over, and Trey didn’t bother to find a quiet place. If his old man wanted to make a scene, there wasn’t enough room in Quiet Cove for it to be private.
“I just want to let you know that I’m heading out now. I’ve got a job, and I’ll be gone for a while.”
“Gone. Gone where?”
“It’s a job, Dad. I can’t say.”
Trey’s father’s eyes flashed hot under his salt-and-pepper brows, and his jaw pulsed under his salt-and-pepper beard. But he didn’t make a scene.
“How long will you be gone?”
“Not sure. I don’t think more than a couple of weeks. I’ll check in, I promise.”
“Is this a job to hurt someone?”
That was actually pretty fucking hypocritical. His father, the man who’d asked that question, had been fine with the Pagano Brothers hurting people when it suited him—like when they’d killed Trey’s bio-mom, the woman who’d shot Uncle Joey and stolen Trey. Or Misby’s first husband, who’d abused her and intended to kill her.
But Trey didn’t make a scene, either. “No, Dad.”
“If I ask a question, do you think you can give me a straight answer without copping an attitude?”
“Do you think you can be reasonable if you don’t like my straight answer?”
“I can if you can.”
This was what they’d been reduced to: playground negotiations. “Okay. Go for it.”
“This is the life you truly want? You choose this for yourself? It fulfills you like no other life could?”
“It does. I know you think it’s a waste, but this is the life I want.”
“I don’t understand.”
If he could explain it to himself, maybe he could make his father see. But his need for this life was buried deep inside him, too deep to be understood, and too deep to be ignored. He’d searched for something, and this was what he’d found. “I know. I’m sorry.”
His father turned his head, and Trey saw him seek out Misby, who watched them from the porch. Something passed between his parents, and when his father looked him again in the eye, he nodded. “Be safe, son.” He held out his hand.
Not a hug, this time.
Trey shook his father’s hand. “I will.”
~oOo~
Trey recognized the Tahoe outside the Dumas house and waved at Bobbo and Jake. They would be his backup for this job, and he imagined they were none too happy about it. As he pulled into the Dumas’s driveway, Bobbo put the Tahoe in gear and pulled away. They’d take an hour off while Trey put everything together and got Lara Dumas ready to go.
The front door opened as he came up the walk. Frederick Dumas was built like a small bear: about five-five and barrel chested, and the hairiest dude Trey had ever seen—and he spent his days with Italian men, most of them Sicilian, so that was saying a lot. But Dumas’s arms were covered with white fur, and it puffed up from the open throat of his shirt, meeting up with his beard.
“Mr. Pagano.” He held out his hand, and Trey shook it.
“Frederick. Is she ready?”
He could tell by Dumas’ expression that she was not, but that was okay; they had an hour. “Come in. I need to talk to you first.”
As he stepped into Dumas’ handsome colonial house, Trey reminded him, “This is what Nick wants, Frederick.”
“I know, I know. I’m not fighting it. But you need to understand some things about my daughter, or you won’t be able to do what Don Pagano wants. So please”—he swept his open hand toward a bright living room—“sit, and let me explain Lara to you.”
Nick had told him to ask her father about what made her ‘peculiar.’ It looked like he wouldn’t have to ask.
As Trey sat in a winged armchair, Dumas asked, “Can I get you a drink?”
“No. Just say what you need to say.”
The hairy old bear nodded and sat on the sofa. “Do you know what those animals did to her?”
“Yes, I know.”
“So you know that she’s been badly traumatized.”
“Yes. But she’s in danger, and we’ll keep her safe.”
“I think we both understand that my daughter is Nick’s secondary concern.”
“I think you don’t understand Don Pagano’s sense of honor, if you believe that to be true.”
“I hope you’re right. But when I told him how much damage this plan could do to her, he wasn’t moved.”
Trey didn’t answer, or ask a question himself. He knew when to wait for information to come to him, and when to go in search of it. That had been one of Nick’s first lessons.
“Lara is not my daughter. Not by birth. I adopted her.”
Dumas paused, expecting that revelation to have some impact, but Trey wasn’t shocked. His mother wasn’t his mother by birth. And his brother wasn’t his brother by birth. Adoption happened. Shitty birth parents happened. Trey waited.
“She is my niece. My brother’s daughter. He died when she was three months old. Of a brain tumor. He was diagnosed four months before she was born, and the last months of his life were a long, slow, horrible, dwindling death.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dumas accepted the condolence with an incline of his head. His bushy white beard brushed his chest. “He was a good man. He married a needy woman, but he loved her well and kept her needs controlled. But after he died, after all those months of hospitals and doctors, and hospice, all those nurses and caregivers and grieving family … do you know what Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is, Mr. Pagano?”
It sounded familiar, and Trey searched his mental folders. Before he found the answer, Dumas gave it to him. “It’s a mental disorder that provokes a caregiver, such as a parent, to pretend their child is sick, or to force her to be sick, to feed their own need for attention.”
Trey nodded, remembering some movie he’d seen about it. Then the import of Dumas’ explanation struck him. “You’re saying Lara’s mother made her sick.”
Dumas nodded. “In the attention she got from Irving’s illness, Janice discovered something she needed. She began making Lara sick shortly after the sympathy for her widowhood waned.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“Because she took Lara from Providence a month after we buried Irving. She went back to Illinois, where she had property inherited from her parents, and I didn’t see Lara until Child Services brought her to me, as her only living relation. She was seven years old. She weighed thirty-three pounds, and she hadn’t yet learned to walk, because she’d been kept bound to a wheelchair. What I know of those seven years is what her caseworker told me, and the very little that Lara herself remembers. To put it mildly, they were horrific. Her recovery was often almost as hard. But she did recover.
While Trey took all that in, Dumas leaned close. “That was a long time ago, but those were formative years, Mr. Pagano. I think, too, Lara would have been different from most even if she’d had a happy, healthy childhood. Despite all the things her mother did to her, her intellect wasn’t impaired, and it is an amazing thing. She is a genius, and she sees the world quite a bit differently from the rest of us. But those years with her mother, they instilled in her a profound need for order. She notices everything, and she seeks the patterns in everything. It’s why she’s so good with numbers and code. She often forgets there are people around her while her mind is busy finding patterns
. When she’s particularly stressed, she focuses so completely on making order of the world that she sometimes forgets even to breathe. People who first meet her often mistakenly think she has autism. She’s been tested for it repeatedly, and she is not autistic. She understands social cues and desires human interaction. She simply forgets. She won’t open up to people she doesn’t trust, however, and she trusts very reluctantly. As you might imagine. Her own mother made her suffer so she could bask in the sympathetic status of being a single mother with a chronically ill child. If we can’t trust our parents, whom can we?”
He sighed heavily and sat back. “I broke her trust this afternoon, and I might never get it back, but I had no choice. After what happened to her, she was on a crumbling ledge, mentally, breaking through powerful drugs, and I knew if I told her that you were coming, throwing more disruption in her way, she’d break down completely. The signs were all there.”
“Wait. She doesn’t know I’m taking her away?” Nick had told him to be prepared for a fight, but Dumas deserved a punch for making it even harder for him.
“I told her. But I waited until she was heavily medicated, and she won’t remember. She’s sleeping now, and at the dose I gave her, she’ll probably sleep for the next several hours. I can give you another dose to keep her under longer, perhaps long enough to get wherever you’re going. I’ll give you all her meds and explain them to you.”
“You want me to take an unconscious, mentally ill woman out of her bed.”
“The choice was to take her wild or take her unconscious. I’m sorry.”
This was the worst-case scenario. Even in the worst case Trey had been prepared for, she’d known he was there for her and then had been knocked out. Now, she’d wake in the back seat of the Ford SUV, or in a bed in a cabin in West Virginia, and have no fucking idea where she was or who she was with. “This is not better than a breakdown at home, you bastard. Don’t you see? She was taken yesterday, and hurt, and now she’ll be taken again, and she’s going to wake up with a stranger in the fucking dark. Jesus, you are a moron.”
Simple Faith (The Pagano Brothers Book 1) Page 4