Trina leaned back. “Nothing’s going on.”
“Right. You hop a plane and without so much as a phone call, show up on my doorstep, with your baby in tow, looking like death warmed over, and I’m supposed to figure everything’s peachy keen?”
She still wouldn’t respond.
“Let me put it this way,” Cecil said. “What has Reno done this time?”
Trina looked at her father. “He hasn’t done anything,” she said, quick to defend him. “It’s not him. It’s me.”
“You?” Cecil asked. “What have you done?”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I mean . . . I’m tired, Daddy. Every time I turn around it’s something else.”
Cecil fully understood what she meant. But she was just figuring that out? “What have you turned around and found this time?” he asked her.
“We thought something had happened to Dommi yesterday.” Cecil almost jumped from his seat. “He’s fine,” Trina quickly added. “Fran’s boyfriend decided to take him for a walk, that’s all. But he’s fine. The doctor checked him out top to bottom. He’s fine. But because he was Reno’s son, we feared the absolute worse, Dad. We just knew there would be a ransom demand or some kind of, I don’t know, retribution hit. We feared the worse. Just because he was Reno’s son. And then, when we get back home, this woman, a former member of Reno’s board, turns up dead.”
Cecil frowned. “She turned up dead? What does that mean?”
“They don’t know the cause yet or anything like that. But she came to see me the day before she died.”
Cecil stared at his daughter. “Go on.”
“She claimed Reno fathered her two-year-old son.”
Cecil smiled. “Not another one!”
“I know. I should be used to that by now. And I am. I didn’t believe her for a second. Reno said he would handle it. But then . . . Then she turns up dead, and that just kind of took it all over the top for me. It was beginning to feel like it was too abnormal. I needed to get away.”
Cecil nodded his head. “You’ve been through a lot, Baby Girl.”
“Understatement? Check.”
“And if you stay with Reno you’re going to go through a whole lot more.”
Trina, surprised by that statement, looked at him.
“You didn’t marry a good little meek and mild man, Baby Girl. You married a man. A very complicated man. And if you read that stuff on the internet, which I do, you married a man who many people believe is one of the biggest mob bosses in America.”
“He’s not a mob boss,” Trina pointed out. “The internet is like a free-for-all for liars, and you know it.”
“Of course I know it! But before we got to know Reno, I was believing that stuff too! And we were concerned, especially your mama, that you was hitching your wagon to a man whose lifestyle might just put you at risk for harm. It was a hard reality to face. But we faced it, and you especially faced it, Baby Girl. You decided that you would rather face danger every day and be with Reno, than to never face danger and be with any other man. You told us that. Now all of a sudden it’s a problem?”
“It’s not all of a sudden,” Trina said. Then she spoke hesitantly. “After my miscarriage---”
“Oops, there it is!” Cecil said, pointed at his daughter, and leaned back. “There it is, there it is! I was wondering when you would see the connection.”
Trina considered him. “What do you mean?”
“Losing that baby scared you. It was the first thing, since you’ve been with Reno, that you’ve lost. I mean, he lost a lot of his family and his people, but it was your first loss. Now you’re hyper-sensitive. Now you’re afraid of losing Dommi and Jimmy Mack and even Reno too.”
Tears began to appear in Trina’s eyes.
“Am I right, Baby Girl?” Cecil asked her.
Trina slowly began to nod. “I keep thinking about that loss. I can’t get it out of my head. I keep thinking that, wow, if an unborn baby is giving me this much grief, I wouldn’t be able to bear it if anything happens to Jimmy, or to Dominic. And Reno? I love him so much! And he’s always in harm’s way. You’re worried about me, but I worry so much about Reno. And when Dommi was taken, and when I found out about that woman being killed, it all just . . .”
“Crashed?”
Trina nodded. “It all just crashed. And I ran away.”
“Reno know you’re gone?”
“Yes. I mean, Jimmy promised to explain it to him.”
“Explain it? Explain what? That the wife that means the world to him has left him?”
“That I needed some time away. That I needed some time to think.”
Cecil chuckled. “You better think fast,” he said, “because Reno is giving you a day, two days tops, then he’ll be here.”
“He’ll give me more time than that,” Trina assured her father.
But he wasn’t assured. “Don’t you believe it,” he assured her. “He’s going to come to my little house and demand to get his wife and son back just as sure as I’m sitting here. And it’ll be within the next couple of days too. He’s coming. He’s coming back for you. I’d bet my life on it.”
Dr. Amos Cates washed his hands in the examining room and told Betty she could close back up her blouse.
“So I’m okay then, doc?” she asked as she buttoned back up her blouse.
“You have a little congestion, a minor upper respiratory infection. Nothing that antibiotics can’t take care of.”
“That’s a relief,” Betty said. “I didn’t want to miss the carnival. Now I don’t have to.”
“You’ll be fine by then,” Amos told her.
“You’re going to be there, too, aren’t you, doc?”
Amos smiled and grabbed the clipboard. “With flying colors. I love a carnival!”
Betty smiled greatly. Good looking eligible men were almost extinct in Dale, and Amos, with his tall, fine, black beautiful self, was the most eligible of them all. “Good,” she said as she hopped down off of his examining table. Then her gossip mind thought of something. “You know Trina will be there too, don’t you?”
Amos stopped in his tracks. “Trina?” he asked. “Katrina Hathaway’s in town?”
“That’s Katrina Gabrini to you,” Betty said with a smile. She knew how much of a crush Amos always had on Trina. “But yes, she’s back. Her and her little boy. They’re staying with Tree’s parents. She had that miscarriage you know.”
“But I thought that was months ago.”
“It was. But some women never get over a thing like that. I would easily, I think, but maybe Trina hasn’t. At least that’s what I heard. But anyway, I have some shopping to do. See you later alligator.”
“After while crocodile,” Amos said absently as Betty walked out of his examining room. Well now, he thought. Trina was back in town. He was actually stunned to hear the news. But pleasantly surprised to hear it too. Although he knew the chances of him making any inroads with her were slim to none.
“But you never know,” he said with a smile. If there was any daylight between husband and wife, and Trina was in need of a shoulder to cry on, he was going to figure out a way to be that shoulder. To be that good old friend. And then, he thought again, his odds could change just like that. Dramatically. He’d seen that husband of hers. That casino-owning, possibly mob-connected Dominic Gabrini. Amos only saw him once, but even then he seemed like a handful. He seemed like a man who wouldn’t be a stranger to lies and deceit and all manner of infidelity. And he was rich and good looking too? He probably had to beat the females off of him. Which meant, Amos thought airily as he made his way out of the examining room too, that anything was possible.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Reno stood at his office window and looked over the Vegas skyline. It was an overcast day and his mood reflected it. It was the second day of his wife’s decampment. The second day of her time to think tour that was getting old to him already. He wanted his wife back. He wanted his family back as one unit.
And he wanted it yesterday. But he knew he had to give her time, he had to honor her request. Or in his effort to keep her, he might lose her outright.
He turned around, leaned against the window seal, and looked at his son. Jimmy was seated in Reno’s chair behind the desk, talking up a storm. Reno smiled at just how much he talked. Like some damn chatterbox lately. He never stopped. But he was also a comfort to Reno. He was glad he was talking.
Ever since Trina left, Jimmy checked on his father seemingly every hour on the hour. He moved into the penthouse with him, and made sure the kitchen staff brought dinner up every night. It was tiresome to Reno, all of this fuss, but at least he knew his son cared. Reno was an emotional man. He knew how much he needed the connection of human beings to make him feel alive. Jimmy gave him that connection.
“I looked at my second house today,” he said to his father. “But it wasn’t with Val. Her Dad showed up this time. But you remember Val, don’t you, Pop? She’s the young lady who showed me that first house, the one you didn’t like.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said it was awfully small.”
“Well, anyway, she wasn’t there. Just her old man. Nice enough guy but . . . she wasn’t there.”
Reno stared at his son. “What are you trying to say, Jimmy? You like this girl?”
Jimmy smiled. “I don’t know if I like her yet. I haven’t spent any appreciable time with her to go that far. But I like her personality, I’ll say that. I like the fact that she doesn’t seem like a gold digger.”
“And how would you know that? Most of them show themselves early on, sure they do. But some know how to suppress that side of themselves until they get what they want.”
“So you’re saying I might never know until it’s too late?”
“I’m saying it’s a crapshoot. Love ain’t Ping-Pong, son, it’s tennis. It’s Wimbledon. It’s all about being willing to strike out in the super bowl. But at least you’re in the super bowl.”
Jimmy smiled. “At least you get a chance at the real deal.”
“Right,” Reno said. “If you care enough about her, it’s worth the crapshoot. If she’s shown you any red flag moments at all, it’s not worth it. Keep moving because you’ll regret stopping. But if she’s the real article, and you grow to love this girl, then go for it. Put it all on the line. But then again, what the fuck do I know? My wife left me.”
Although Reno said this with a smile, Jimmy could feel the sting.
Then the desk intercom buzzed. Jimmy, without asking, answered it. “Yes, Karen?” he said.
“Mr. Jones is here to see your father, Jimmy.”
“Send him in,” Jimmy said and released the button. “Wonder what that’s about?” he asked.
Reno was still amused that Jimmy didn’t see the audacity in his actions. But he was pleased to. That young man was growing up by leaps and bounds. He’d take over it all one day.
Lee Jones entered the office and headed toward Reno’s desk. When he saw Jimmy sitting behind that desk he, too, was amused at the kid’s gumption. “Wow, Reno, you’re looking younger every day,” he said as he came.
“It’s being around that son of mine,” Jimmy said, playing along. “He keeps me young and virile. Without him I’d be an old, raggedy, impotent, shell of a human being.”
Lee laughed. Reno hit Jimmy upside his head. “Move,” he said playfully.
Jimmy got out of Reno’s chair, Reno sat in his chair, and Lee got down to business.
“The authorities have ruled it a suicide, Reno,” he said.
Reno was shocked. “She killed herself?”
“That’s right. Her husband died a couple months back and she’d never been right since. She tried to put on a brave front, but her friends say she lapsed into a deep depression and she never came out again. She just didn’t see the point to living anymore.”
“But what about her kid?” Reno asked. “She had her child to live for.”
“That’s the thing, Ree,” Lee said. “She had no kid.”
Jimmy was stunned. “Then why did she claim Pop fathered her child?”
Lee shook his head. “Hell if I know. Her closest friend seems to think she created this child she and her husband never had. They tried to have children, but couldn’t.”
Reno was still stumped. “But she showed off a picture of the boy,” he said.
“Some image off of the internet, or some kid she photographed, who knows where she got that picture from. But it wasn’t her kid. She didn’t have one.”
Reno leaned back in his chair.
“Think we should issue a statement now?” Lee asked him.
Reno nodded. “Yes. Now that we know that it wasn’t foul play, yeah. But something mild. No details. We grieve her lost and we wish her family well. Leave it at that.”
Lee stood up. “I’ll get on it now. I knew you’d want to hear the news.”
“Yeah, I did,” Reno said. “Thanks, Lee.” Both men exchanged a glance. They used to be real tight. Now it was primarily professional only.
Lee left.
Jimmy looked at his father.
“Family,” Reno said. “At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Family. You, me, Tree, and Dommi.” Then he exhaled and stood up. Made up his mind on the spot. “Come on, Jimmy,” he said as he began to leave. “Let’s go get our family.”
Jimmy was thrown at first, but then he smiled as he followed his father out.
Amos smiled and stood up when Trina made her way to the back of the diner. He phoned her earlier, and invited her to lunch, and to his utter satisfaction she agreed to come. Now the woman he always viewed as the gold standard, was standing right in front of him.
They exchanged a hug and a cheek kiss. “Welcome home,” he said as they took their seats.
“Home?” Trina asked. “You’d better bite your tongue. I’m just a stranger passing through.”
Amos laughed. “I understand. Who wants to call Dale home, right?”
“You do apparently. You left a lucrative practice in Chicago to come back here.”
“It’s my home. I, like you, was born and raised here. I, unlike you, loved it when I was here.”
“Very unlike me,” Trina agreed. She removed her jacket, placed her drink order with the waitress, and then took a good look at her lunch companion. “You’ve gained a little weight,” she said.
“A little my foot,” Amos said. “More like ten pounds. I’ve been eating like an alligator, and with such a reduced case load I’ve been relaxing too. Maybe too much.”
“There’s no such thing,” Trina said. “If you can relax, I say go for it. Life is too short.”
Amos stared at her. “I’m sorry about your miscarriage, Tree,” he said. “I heard it really got to you.”
Trina smiled a weary smile. “Yeah, it was a shocker, I’m not even gonna front. I never expected that to happen. It kind of threw me for a loop.”
“Your husband too, I would imagine.” Amos knew it was underhanded to bring him up. But he needed to get a read on that relationship. Was it merely in trouble, or on life support? Or neither?
“Oh, yeah, Reno was pretty shook up too,” Trina said.
Amos waited for her to say more, but she didn’t go there. He inwardly smiled. He wouldn’t have expected any less from Tree. “So what brings you back home? To see your parents?”
“That, yes, among other things.”
“I hear young Dominic is with you.”
Trina smiled. “He is. That’s my baby. I wasn’t about to leave him.”
“You had no problem leaving your husband behind,” Amos decided to say, “but your baby? Well that’s another story altogether, isn’t it?”
Amos was smiling, but Trina wasn’t going along, not even in a joking sense. “I don’t separate it like that,” she said. “They’re both my heart.”
“I wasn’t trying to minimize anything, Tree.”
“No, I know. It’s just . . .” Then she smiled. “Le
t’s talk about you. My parents are giving me the third degree, asking me a thousand questions. I guess I’m just kind of answered out. But you, on the other hand, is fresh gossip. So give it up, bud.”
Amos laughed. It wasn’t exactly how he had hoped their encounter would go, but at least he had her attention.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Cadillac Escalade pulled into the driveway of the Hathaway’s two-story home, and Reno and Jimmy got out of the huge SUV. Before they could stretch their legs good, Little Dominic ran out of the house and tore across the lawn. He left his grandparents, who were also coming out of the house, in the dust.
“Daddy!” he yelled as he ran, nearly falling down twice. Reno stood there looking and laughing at the way his small body worked to maintain his balance. He swept him up into his arms when he finally arrived.
“There’s my baby,” Reno said as he kissed and held his son. As he smelled his son again.
But as quickly as he was in Reno’s arms, he was reaching to get in Jimmy’s arms too.
Jimmy smiled, grabbed Dommi from Reno, and Reno was free to greet his in-laws.
“Welcome to Dale,” Earnestine said as Reno hugged and kissed her first.
“You’re looking sexy,” Reno said with a smile and Earnestine blushed. Her husband laughed.
“Oh, go on,” she said and pushed Reno. Then Jimmy, still holding his brother, gave her a one arm hug. “How are you, grandma?” he asked her.
“I’m doing well, son. Even better now that you and your father are here. Come on in,” she insisted with uncharacteristic gaiety, and she, Jimmy, and Dommi began to head indoors. Reno and Cecil, however, headed to the trunk of the Escalade to retrieve the luggage.
Cecil placed his arm around Reno’s shoulder as they walked toward the car. “Nice vehicle, Reno,” he said as they walked. “I didn’t know you owned an Escalade.”
Reno laughed. “After I got off of my plane, it was the only thing worth renting around here. The pickings are slim.”
RENO AND TRINA: GETTING BACK TO LOVE (The Mob Boss Series) Page 11