Dina Santorelli

by Baby Grand

  "So where's the girl?" Leo asked.

  "Didn't we cover this already?" Bailino picked up his cards.

  "You didn't say where she was."

  "Upstairs."

  "I'll bet she is."

  Leo kicked Benny under the table. "So? Did you forget how to play?"

  "Check," Benny said.

  "Check," Tony said, scratching behind his ear.

  "I open," Bailino said, tossing in a hundred-dollar bill.

  "Woo hoo! I call," Leo said. He, Tony, and Benny threw in their bills. "What about you, brainiac?"

  Joey showed Bailino his cards.

  "Don't show him your fucking hand."

  "You should fold, Joe."

  "I fold," Joey said.

  "When did you get a job as a ventriloquist's dummy, Joey?" Leo laughed, one of those loud, irritating guffaws. "How many cards you want, Ben?"

  "Three."

  "Ton?"

  "Three."

  "I'll take one," Bailino said.

  Leo gave him a card. "Just one, huh?"

  "Yep."

  "Okay, then."

  "I call," said Benny.

  "Me too," Tony said.

  "I call too," Bailino said.

  "Really, well, I raise five hundred," Leo said, making a big show of reaching into his pocket and tossing crisp bills into the pot.

  "I fold," Benny and Tony said in unison, tossing their cards facedown onto the table.

  Bailino studied his hand. "I'll see that," he said. "And I'll raise you another hundred."

  "Oh, now we're raising, huh?" Leo placed another hundred-dollar bill in the pot. "This'll be interesting."

  "Oh, yeah. Why?"

  "Because I know you're full of shit."

  "Really?" Bailino said. "So raise me again."

  "I have an idea." Leo tilted his chair back. "I'll raise you the girl."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I win this, and the girl, Jamie, spends the night with me tonight."

  "I don't think so." Bailino shook his head and sat back in his seat.

  "Does that mean you fold?" Leo reached out his hands to pull the pot toward him.

  "Wait." Bailino looked again at his hand. "All right..."

  "Uncle Don..." Joey said.

  "Shut up, Joe," Leo said. "You folded, remember?"

  "Okay, big man," Bailino said, "if your hand beats mine, you can have her for the night." He raised his eyebrows. "But... if mine beats yours, then you pay the first year's tuition for Joey to go to MIT."

  "What? I'm not paying no fucking tuition..."

  "Uh, does that mean you fold?"

  "No fucking chance," Leo said, "but that's not a fair bet."

  "Why not?" Bailino smirked.

  "That's fucking tens of thousands of dollars."

  "That's my raise," he said. "If you don't like it, or your hand isn't good enough, then you can fold."

  Leo shoved Joey in the shoulder. "Why the fuck you want to go to college anyway?"

  "To get the fuck away from you," Bailino said. "And don't fucking touch him."

  "I'm not talking to you. What is it with the two of you? You're like two peas in a pod."

  "Play the fucking game, Leo," Tony said.

  "Stay the fuck out of it, Tony. It's not about the game."

  Leo stood up, staggering a little and holding on to the table for support. He scowled at Joey. "You're a little big shot here, aren't you? Let's see how tough you are when I get you home."

  "He's not going home." Bailino said flatly.

  "Oh, no?" Leo asked.

  "When the school year is out, he's moving up here. I already spoke to ToniAnne this afternoon. Then in the fall, he'll stay on campus at MIT."

  "What the...? Does my father know anything about this? Who decided all of this?"

  "He did," Bailino said, motioning to Joey, whose eyes were cast downward.

  "Is that right?" Leo asked Joey. "Do you speak at all?"

  Joey looked up. "I want to live with Uncle Don."

  "After all your mother has done for you, you little shit."

  "This has nothing to do with his mother, you fucking small-minded bastard," Bailino said, his eyes narrowing, his rage bubbling under the surface. "Kids all over the world go to college. This has to do with him, for him to lead his own fucking life, away from all this shit. Can't you see that?"

  "All I see is a kid trying to be something he's not. You don't got it, kid. You're a fucking freak. Learn that now." Leo kicked the sofa. "What? You gonna be a businessman like him? Hang around with Kid Rock and the secretary of defense?"

  "No, I'm fucking stuck here, but I won't let that happen to him. With any luck, he'll move somewhere far away."

  "Oh, you won't let that happen. Who died and made you boss? Or is that the plan?"

  "You got something you want to ask me, Leo? Go ahead. Ask me." Bailino held his cards on his lap. "If not, let me see your fucking hand, so I know whether I'll be making a big withdrawal this month from my bank account."

  Leo's expression changed. "The things I'm gonna do to that girl..."

  "Show your fucking hand."

  Leo slapped his cards on the table. "Two fuckin' pair, kings and jacks. Now, go ahead," Leo said, "show your flush that didn't happen. Or was it a straight?"

  "How about the full house that did happen?" Bailino fanned out his cards on the table, three nines and two sixes.

  "FUCK!" Leo ran his arm across the table and knocked all the money and the cards onto the floor. "You think I'm paying that fucking tuition, you're out of your fucking mind." He stormed toward the back doors and tried to open them, but they were locked. "How do you open this fucking thing?"

  Bailino, as if in slow motion, took his electronic key out of his pocket and undid the lock, and Leo slammed open the glass door and stomped out.

  "Well, that was entertaining," Tony said.

  "Ben, Tony, take the money." He reached into his pocket. "Here are my car keys. Take the hothead with you. Go get something to eat."

  "You sure?" Tony asked.

  "Don't worry about it," Bailino said. "But don't let him smoke in the car."

  "Cool," Benny said. "Thanks, Don."

  Benny and Tony picked up the money that Leo had knocked onto the floor and left, while Bailino and Joey began scooping up the playing cards.

  "Would you have really let him spend the night with Jamie, Uncle Don?" Joey asked, stacking his cards on the table in a neat pile.

  "Not in a million years."

  "What if you would have lost the hand?"

  "But I didn't." Bailino smiled. He put his arm around Joey. "You want to rent a movie? I saw you had your eye on that Angelia Jolie one."

  Joey blushed.

  "Go ahead, Joe, watch whatever you want." He handed Joey the cards that he had picked up from the floor. "It's gonna be okay, you know."

  Joey nodded, his eyes welling with tears. As he started to cry, he leaned on Bailino's shoulder. "Thank you, Uncle Don... I love you."

  "I love you too, kid. Always have."

  Chapter 41

  Bob sat at his large mahogany desk. The hours ticked by as if he were watching the world through a series of time-lapse photos: coworkers passed, back and forth, by his office door, stuck their heads in, waved hello, good-bye, all while the sunlight rose and fell through his office window.

  It was like college all over again, Bob thought. Edward Carter loomed over him like a storm cloud forever stealing his sunshine. It didn't matter that Edward had left the firm and had become a public defender. It didn't matter whether Edward quit law altogether and opened his own online coupon business. Edward would always be one of the greatest legal minds anyone who knew him ever met no matter how long he was out of the picture.

  Eight years ago, when Edward announced his leave of absence to care for his ailing mother, Bob knew that a window of opportunity had opened. Bob had gotten the brunt of Edward's caseload—he actually volunteered to take on as much as possible—and had worked da
y and night to impress the powers-that-be at his firm. And when that leave of absence turned into a resignation, Bob knew that his future at Worcester, Payne & Leach had been sealed. Over time, he became the go-to guy—the lawyer who was first choice when an important client was taken on and the voice of the firm when it came to media relations. And, he was sure of it, he was this close to being the token lawyer in People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue for 2010.

  Bob knew the idea of Edward sitting on Governor Grand's roundtable of the state's best legal minds shouldn't have fazed him—considering he was raking it in on Easy Street while Edward was sweating it out on Main Street, paying his perpetual dues in the DA's office—but it did. Just when he had finally gotten rid of the Carter siblings altogether, they kept popping back into his life when he least expected, or wanted, them. Sir Edward Carter—it just didn't have the same ring to it, that was for sure.

  To cheer himself up, he checked his Twitter profile. He had just over 26,000 followers, up about thirty since this morning. He typed something witty and retweeted a few inspirational quotes from several influential people he followed and then logged out.

  Maybe he was wrong. What he had told Andrews was true—the politics of Edward Carter were at the opposite end of the spectrum from those of Phillip Grand. And although Edward may have welcomed the prospect of being part of a group with a wide diversity of opinion, he preferred keeping a low profile. Bob decided this kind of thing wasn't even on Edward's radar.

  Still, he just had to know. He picked up his office phone and dialed, trying in his mind to formulate a reason for the call. But he didn't need one when Edward picked up on the first ring.

  "Is she with you?" Edward said, without saying hello.

  "Who?" Bob asked, startled.

  "Jamie."

  "What? You still can't find her? How long has it been?"

  "Listen, I don't have time."

  "She called me earlier today."

  "She did?! What did she say?"

  "I couldn't hear her. There was a bad connection."

  "But you heard her voice?"

  Bob thought back to the phone call this morning. "No, I don't think I did, but does that matter?"

  "Listen, I can't talk. I'm on my way to Albany. Call me if she calls again and you actually hear her voice. Thanks." Edward ended the call.

  Albany?

  So it was true, Bob thought. Edward was answering the governor's call for the state's brightest legal minds, and he was driving all the way upstate to make his case in person. He imagined Edward ringing the doorbell of the Executive Mansion with his American Lawyer article on Grand in one hand and his reference-filled resume in the other. He was probably determined to get his liberal mind on that panel and keep Phillip Grand's conservative agenda at bay. Hell, Bob thought, he might even try to stop the execution of Gino Cataldi tomorrow night while he's up there.

  Bob shut down his computer, grabbed his keys, and ran out his office door.

  "Leaving for the day, Mr. Scott?" Patsy, his secretary, asked as he ran past her desk.

  "Yes," he called back. "Oh, and tell Mr. Turner I won't be in tomorrow, Patsy. I need to travel upstate and take care of a few things. I'll touch base with him in the morning."

  Sir Robert Scott, Bob thought, jamming his finger into the elevator's down button. He had to get home, craft a quick resume and clips, pick up his briefcase, pack an overnight bag, and get himself upstate to dazzle Phillip Grand. Although the thought occurred to him that the governor might have his hands full with the current crisis involving his daughter, this was the perfect opportunity to make a name for himself and jump ahead of the line, he reasoned. The elevator door opened. And I'll help find the governor's daughter, Bob thought, crossing the threshold. And save the day. All in a knight's work.

  Chapter 42

  Jamie lay in the corner of Bailino's bed, although she didn't start off there. In the hours after Charlotte had fallen asleep, she kept herself busy by pacing the nursery, looking out the window and washing her hands—all while trying to formulate a good plan for escape, but nothing seemed feasible. She hadn't seen Bailino since the bathroom incident earlier that evening when he wasn't too happy with her, and she had decided that the best plan was just to get through whatever was going to happen and live to see another day. She thought about her mother who taught her to be, as she liked to say, "a lady," and was probably looking down on her and wondering, How could you just lay there and let him do whatever he wanted? Truth be told, Jamie felt like she had been doing that for years, long before Bailino kidnapped her life, and she wondered whether it was naïve to think that, given the chance, Bailino would not hurt her, even after she witnessed the brutality of which she knew he was capable.

  For now, though, she thought it best to perform the duties of her job and crawled into her side of the bed. She still had her clothing on and wondered if that would infuriate him. She had to keep him calm, yet stand her ground—he seemed to admire that. She remembered what Bailino had said about the bra that morning, so she slipped it off through her sleeve and placed it on the nightstand and pulled the blankets up to her neck. In the quiet of the dark, she could hear her stomach rumble and realized how hungry she was. She had had a few of Charlotte's Cheerios that morning and a handful of Joey's cut grapes, but couldn't remember eating anything else.

  The electronic lock of the bedroom door clicked, and the creakiness of the door's swing was as quiet as it was ear piercing; Jamie braced herself. The familiar smell of Bailino's cologne reached her nose, but it was fainter this time. Muddled. A lamp turned on as another smell became more pungent and recognizable.

  Brownies.

  On a serving tray were twelve frosted brownies carefully cut into twelve equal squares. Next to them was a basket of gourmet chocolate.

  "There was a box of brownie mix in the closet, so I just made them," Bailino said, as if it were no trouble at all. "Want one?"

  Jamie reached for a brownie and was about to take a bite, then hesitated.

  "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already," Bailino said, as if that were supposed to make her feel better. "And not like that."

  Jamie took a bite, careful to catch any crumbs with her free hand and then toss them into her mouth.

  Bailino opened a few drawers, taking out a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and excused himself into the bathroom. He seemed to have calmed down. When he returned, he sat down on the bed, his knee bent forward so he was partially facing Jamie. "Actually," he rubbed his temples. "I just wanted to apologize for my behavior in the bathroom earlier. I overreacted. Do you want another one?" he asked, holding out the tray. "Do you like chocolate? The truffles have cherry flecks."

  Jamie took another brownie and stuck the whole thing in her mouth to keep from having to worry about the crumbs.

  "Well, what do you know... a woman who eats." Bailino put the tray on the nightstand.

  Jamie smiled weakly to mask the quiver in her cheek and then lay down and pulled the blanket up, her cheeks puffy with cake.

  "You must be tired," Bailino said, reaching for the lamp switch. "There's probably nothing more exhausting than following a toddler around all day. Do you want me to leave the light on?"

  Jamie shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter." She felt as though she were in a haunted house and waiting for something to jump out at her from an unseen corner.

  Bailino turned off the light and lay down on his side of the bed. She'd thought about turning over to the side and pretending to sleep, but she didn't think that she would fool anyone or that it mattered much if Bailino were going to go at her again. She decided to just lie there and wait, but Bailino appeared to be doing the same. It was quiet for a long time.

  "You're very good with children," Bailino said finally. His voice was softer, the way it had been down by the river with Charlotte. Was this another test?

  "Thank you," Jamie said.

  It was quiet again. Jamie's heart began to race.r />
  "You're welcome," Bailino said finally.

  "Are you going to kill me?" Jamie blurted out suddenly. The room was completely dark since the sun had set, and Jamie was feeling courageous under the cover of night, although part of her felt as if she were alone on a desert island and her question merely a message in a bottle being thrown out to sea.

  "Again?" Bailino asked.

  "You never answered me this morning."

  Jamie heard the ticking of Bailino's wristwatch. "No," he said.

  "But you killed that other girl."

  "She was a whore."

  "How do you know?"

  "She was a stripper, a dime-a-lap-dance whore who took care of Leo and everyone else in the private room of the Exotica Strip Club downtown. For some godforsaken reason, he thought she'd make a good nanny. Stupid, stupid." Bailino sounded like a parent who had sent his child out to buy milk and was disappointed when he came home with candy.

  "But even so, if she was, that didn't mean she deserved to die. She was somebody's daughter. I'm sure she had friends, a life somewhere."

  "You're feeling suddenly brave," Bailino said. Jamie turned her head to look in Bailino's direction, but she couldn't see him at all. She wondered if he could see her in the dark—wolves had keen eyesight and could detect the slightest movement in front of them.

  "You said I was free to talk," Jamie said. "By the river."

  "Yeah, but I didn't say anything about the house."

  "Oh," Jamie said.

  "That was a joke."

  Jamie paused. "Why are you being nice to me now?" she asked.

  "Would you rather I weren't?"

  "No, I mean... You tell me that you're not going to kill me, but you're telling me things I shouldn't know, and I've seen your face."

  "So you think I'm lying?"

  Jamie thought she felt Bailino inching closer in the dark.

  "I just don't know... anything." She crept toward her end of the mattress.

  "Especially about loyalty."

  There was a playfulness in Bailino's voice, and it emboldened her. "Another joke, right?" she said.

  He chuckled. "Okay, now, it's my turn for questions." Jamie could sense Bailino propping himself on his pillow. "Is one of the reasons why your husband left because you wanted children and he didn't?"