Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (21 page)

Now
she was in yet another relationship with yet another man with children.
 
Grown children, but still they were his
babies and they, she knew, would always come first.
 
Not that there were all that many childless
men in her age group out there to begin with, but there were certainly some.
 

But
apparently that wasn’t Jenay’s fate.
 
It
did not appear that an unencumbered man was going to cross her path any time
soon.
 
Because with every passing day,
with every time Charles held her in his arms, or took her by the hand, or just
smiled at her with those lines of age on the side of his eyes, was a day that
drew her closer and closer to him.
 
It
could get serious.
 
The fact that she had
come to Maine to begin her career at his hotel elevated it already.
 
But spending time with him, and being with
him was taking it to yet another level.
 
Which was daunting.
 
She wasn’t
going to lie.
 
This could get serious
fast.

 
“I thought I smelled bacon,” Charles said as
he entered the kitchen.
 
He had on a
bathrobe, and his wavy hair was tousled all around his round head, but he was
smiling.

“Good
morning!” Jenay said with a smile of her own.
 
“I thought you were no early riser.”

“Only
for bacon,” Charles said as he sat down at the center island, “will I rise.”

Jenay
laughed and began turning her bacon in the pan.
 
“It will be ready shortly,” she said.

Charles
ran his hand through his already messy hair and looked at Jenay.
 
He had woke up and found her gone and had
actually panicked a little.
 
Which
disturbed him.
 
He didn’t like reacting
so emotional to anything.
 
But he did
question her absence.
 
He did wonder if
Paige’s little stunt scared her away.
 
He
did wonder if she was the strong woman he had her pegged as, or was she so weak
that she would fold at the least provocation?
 
He needed to know now, he felt, before he was in too deep and it would
be too late for him to care.
 
Because he
was clearly heading toward the deep end.
 
He had seen it on her graduation day, when she told him she was
relocating to New Mexico.
 
The idea of
having her so far away made him feel as if he had been broadsided.
 
And now, with her in Jericho, those feelings
were only magnifying.
 
This was getting
real.

“How
do you feel this morning?” he asked her.
 

“I
feel good,” she said, glancing back at him.
 
“You?”

“I’m
good, thanks.
 
That little episode with
Paige Springer didn’t upset you too much I hope.”

“No,”
Jenay said.
 
“I can handle her.”

Charles
smiled.
 
That was what he wanted to
hear.
 
“Good,” he said.

“So
what’s on tap for you today?” she asked.
 
“I’m still going to spot-check rooms to make sure Edna gets it, and
continue to go over the books.
 
What
about you?”

“I’ll
be on conference calls with my various groups of partners most of the day, but
since I was supposed to still be in New York, I don’t have any set schedule as
of right now.
 
But stay tuned.
 
And next week I’ll be in Saginaw.”

“Michigan?”

“That’s
the place.”

Jenay
was a little let down that he was going to be on the road again, but that was
apparently the nature of his business.
 
“I see.”
 
She began to remove the
bacon from the pan.

“Just
for a few days,” Charles felt a need to add.
 
He was so unaccustomed to telling anyone, even his own sons, of his
every move, but he wanted Jenay to know.
 
For some reason he needed her to know.

“Well,”
Jenay said as she looked back at him with a smile, “you know where I’ll be.”

That
warmed Charles’s heart.
 
That smile of
hers.
 
He looked down, at her bare legs
beneath his shirt, and began to feel an erection coming on.
 
But then he heard the front door of his home
open and close, and then his youngest son, who could always smell good food a
mile away, came waltzing in.

“Dad?”
Donald yelled.

“Kitchen,”
Charles replied.

“They
said you were back in town,” Donald said as he entered the kitchen and walked
toward his father.

“Who
said I was back in town?” Charles asked.

“Those
gossiping biddies at the club.”
 
He
placed his arm around his father’s shoulder.
  
“They told Susan about it.”

Charles
looked at his son.
 
“How is Susan?”

“She’s
okay.
 
She’s . . .”
 
Then Donald looked at Jenay, and a frown
appeared on his face.
 
“So who’s she?” he
asked.
 
“Another one of your whores?”

Charles
grabbed his son by the catch of his shirt, and punched him hard across his
chin.
 
Donald fell back into the stools
and landed on his rump.
 
Jenay, astounded
by the sudden outbreak of violence, didn’t realize her mouth was gaped open and
her hand was on her heart.
 
She looked
from the son, to Charles.
 
His wavy hair
was now hanging over his forehead, and he was pointing at his downed son.
 
“Don’t you ever, and I mean ever speak of her
that way again.”

“I
didn’t know,” Donald said as he began to stand back up.
 
To Jenay’s amazement, he seemed accustomed to
his father’s outburst.
 
He didn’t seem
angry about it at all.
 
“I didn’t know
she was different,” he added.

“Now
you know,” Charles said.
 
“So cut that
shit out here and now.”

Donald
nodded.
 
“Yes, sir.”

“And
apologize to Miss Franklin.
 
That’s her
name.
 
Jenay Franklin.
 
And don’t you forget it.”

Donald
looked at Jenay.
  
She could tell he
didn’t want to apologize at all.
 
“I
didn’t mean any disrespect, Miss Franklin,” he said.
 
“I thought. . .” He glanced at his
father.
 
Then he looked at her
again.
 
“I apologize,” he said.

Jenay
didn’t know how to respond to that.
 
It
all unfolded so fast.
 
But she certainly
wasn’t ready to forgive and forget.
 
If
she made it that easy, that kind of disrespect would undoubtedly happen
again.
 
Especially with Charles out of
town so often.
 
So she didn’t say
anything.
 
She turned back around, and
tended to her breakfast.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

One Week Later

A
Land Rover SUV stopped at the seldom-used side entrance at Jericho Inn.
 
Paige, the driver, got out, and Beatrice, the
passenger, followed her.
 
Beatrice
knocked, and soon the door was opened by
 
Edna, the
 
housekeeping
supervisor.
 
She ushered them in and then
escorted them, unseen, to her ground floor office.

“Where
is she now?” Beatrice asked as they entered her tiny office.

“In
your old office,” Edna said.

“What
about Meg?” Paige asked.

“In
the office too.
 
She’s reviewing files.”

“How
long has she been there?” Beatrice asked.

“She
just started,” Edna said.
 
“Don’t
worry.
 
I’ve been watching her.”

“So
what’s the conclusion?” Paige wanted to know.
 
“A good time, or no?”

“Perfect
time,” Beatrice said.
 
“It’s Meg’s job to
check at the end of each day.
 
Nobody
else has any business in that room.
 
If
she just started reviewing files, it’ll be hours before she even thinks about
doing anything else.”

“And
I’ll keep an eye out if she gets on the move,” Edna assured the ladies.
 
“If it appears she’s heading anywhere near
there, I’ll distract her.
 
There’s
nothing to worry about.
 
She won’t know a
thing.”

Paige
smiled.
 
“Then what are we waiting for?”

Beatrice
and Edna glanced at each other.
 
This
might have been fun time for Paige, who was a woman of means in this town and
would easily get out of this unscathed, but it was risk time for them.

“What’s
the matter?” Paige asked, when she saw their resistance.

“This
is a big deal, Paige,” Beatrice reminded her.

“I
know it’s a big deal,” Paige responded, insulted.
 
“But it’s also a big deal that she forced
Charles to fire you, Bea, and she’s building evidence to get Edna next.”

“That’s
the truth,” Edna responded.

“If
we force him to get rid of her, then Edna keeps her job, and you, Bea, will
regain yours.
 
But she has to go. There
is no other way around this.
 
It’s a risk
both of you will have to take.”

Beatrice
nodded.
 
She knew Paige spoke the
truth.
 
“What are we waiting for?” she
asked rhetorically, and then escorted Paige to the vault.

It
was turning out to be a very hectic day, but Jenay was having a good day. The
rooms she inspected last week were in excellent shape this week, and the books,
thanks to Megan’s excellent stewardship, were all in order.
 
Now she was focusing on a new marketing
strategy and ultimate campaign for the Inn.
 
She had already hired a web designer, and although Charles had rejected
all of the name changes for the Inn she proposed to him, she wasn’t going to
let that deter her.
 
She would just have
to work with that same old, boring-ass name.
 
It was his B & B, after all.

But
there were problems too.
 
On any given
day, nearly half of the Inn’s guestrooms were vacant.
 
Given the size of the Inn, and the massive
overhead in running such a resort style hotel, half of the rooms unoccupied was
not financially sustainable.
 
They needed
far more traffic, far more exposure, far more travelers willing to stop on
their way further north, or on their way headed south and elsewhere.
 
Jenay was making it her responsibility to
make Jericho Inn ultimately and finally profitable.
 

She
looked at the clock on her office desk.
 
It was only eleven in the morning, but she had already accomplished a
lot for the day.
 
She stood to stretch
her muscles, and to take a break from so much paperwork.
 
But just as she walked toward the window, and
looked out across the beautiful lawns and gardens of the majestic Inn, she
heard a scream, the loudest, the most unapologetic, bloodcurdling scream.

She
ran.
 
She knew where the scream was
coming from.
 
She knew who was
screaming.
 
But that didn’t make it any
easier.
 
She ran.

By
the time she made it downstairs, around the walls and the rusty old six-feet
lockers, and arrived at the door of the vault room, the room that housed the
hotel safe, the two desk clerks and the maintenance supervisor were already
there.

“What
is it?” Jenay asked nervously as she hurried past the others and made her way
up to the safe.
 
Megan was standing at
the front of the four-foot safe, and was looking ghostly.
 
She had been the screamer.
 

“What’s
wrong?” Jenay asked her.

“It’s
gone, Miss Jenay,” Megan cried.
 
“It’s
all gone!”

“What’s
gone?” Jenay asked.

“All
of it.”

“All
of what?”

The
jewels,” Megan said.
 
“The guest jewels!”

Jenay’s
heart fell through her shoe as she flung open the safe and saw nothing
inside.
 
Not a ring.
 
Not an earring.
 
Nothing!
 
Her heart began to hammer.

But
she couldn’t go to pieces the way Megan had.
 
She had to keep her wits about her. “Rita, call 911,” she ordered one of
the desk clerks.

“Yes,
ma’am,” Rita said, and hurried to do just that.
 

“I want
this entire hotel on lockdown, Roy,” she said to her maintenance
supervisor.
 
“Nobody leaves until the
police arrives.
 
And I mean no-one.”

“Yes
ma’am,” Roy said, and hurried to lock it down himself.

Jenay
looked at Megan.
 
“Has this ever happened
before?” she asked.

“Never.
 
Not in all the years I’ve been here, Miss
Jenay.
 
It’s never ever happened before.”

Jenay
was stumped.
 
In just the second week of
her tenure as GM, the guest safe was robbed?
 
The cost of those jewels had to be staggering!
 
There were a lot of wealthy people who
patronized this hotel on a weekly basis.
 
They were the only ones who could afford the exuberant costs.
 
Now their jewels were missing?
 
Would Charles blame her?
 
Would Charles
fire
her?

She
leaned back against the wall, before she fell.

“Four!”
Charles yelled as his ball sailed across the fairway toward what he hoped would
be a clear path onto the green, but he overshot and ended up nearly twenty feet
on the other side of the hole.
 
He was a
lousy golfer, and the negotiations weren’t going much better.
 
He was looking to purchase a failing textile
mill that was long past its prime, but the owners didn’t want to just give it
away either.
 
The talks were getting
heated.
 
When golf was suggested as a way
to unwind and restart the talks, he agreed.
 
He needed the relief.

He
watched his golfing partner fare even worse, as his ball ended up in the
rough.
 
They walked and talked, not about
the negotiations, but about the birds and the condition of the course and
anything and everything other than the negotiations.
 
That was how it was done in Charles’s
world.
 
Relax first, and then they would
talk.

He
grabbed the putter from his golf bag and then hit his ball much gentler, hoping
to at least get a birdie out of this.
 
But his ball sailed again and ended up a good feet on the other
side.
 
His golf partner, the current
majority owner of the mill, allowed him to take his final tap-in to finish the
round one-over-par.
 
Another par for
Charles.
 

It
was now the owner’s time, who still had a chance to birdie, but his ball was in
a precarious position.
 
He studied the
hole.
 
As he studied it, Charles’s cell
phone rang.
 
When he saw it was from the
Inn, he thought about Jenay and immediately answered.

“Sinatra,”
he said.

“Mr.
Sinatra?”
 

“Yes.
 
Who is this?”

“It’s
Megan Townsend, sir.
 
I hate to disturb
you.”

Then
why was she disturbing him?
 
“Yes?” he
asked.

“It’s
Miss Jenay, sir.”

Charles
stood erect.
 
“What about Miss Jenay?”

“They
took her away.”

Charles
frowned. “What do you mean they took her away? Who took her away?”

His
fellow golfer stopped and looked at him.
 
Charles moved further away.

“Who
took her away?” he asked again.

“The
police.”

Charles
could hardly believe what she had just said.
 
“The
police
?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Why?”

“They
said she was the one.
 
They said she
stole the jewels.”

She
sounded crazy to Charles.
 
“What jewels,
Meg?
 
What the hell are you talking
about?”

“The
guest jewels in the house safe were stolen, sr.
 
The police was called because Miss Jenay said to call 911.
 
But when the police came they searched each
and every room, including the VIP suite where Miss Jenay is staying.
 
They found the jewels in her suite.
 
They found them in one of her suit cases,
sir.”

Charles
was dumbstruck.
 
He was so floored that
he felt as if the world was tilting on him.
  
“Where is she now?” he asked his bookkeeper.

“In
jail, sir.
 
They took her away.”

 
Jenay
?
In
jail
?
 
His heart slammed against his chest.
 
“I’m catching the next flight out.
 
I’m on my way,” he said, and killed the call.
 
Then he informed his golfing partner that he
had an emergency and had to leave.
 
And
as he hurried to his golf cart to get out of there, he immediately phoned his
oldest son, Brent.

Brent
was surprised by the call.
 
“Dad?
 
What’s up?
 
Still in Saginaw?”

“Where
are you?” Charles asked as he drove toward the front of the course.

“I’m
at my apartment. I just finished my last class.”
 
He was in college, at the University of Maine
in Orono.
 

“Get
to Jericho,” Charles ordered.
 
“A friend
of mine has been wrongfully arrested. I want you there with her. I want you
speaking up for her until I can get there.”

“Wrongfully
arrested?
 
Who, Dad?
 
Miss Abby?”

“Her
name is Jenay Franklin,” Charles said.
 
“You get to that station now.
 
Let
her know I’m on my way.”

“Sure,
Dad.
 
Yes, sir,” Brent said.
 

Charles
knew his son was shocked.
 
He’d never
been this concerned for any other woman before.
 
Even Charles was a little shocked himself.
 
He hadn’t known Jenay long enough to be so
certain of her innocence.
 
But for some
strange reason even he couldn’t fathom, he was certain.
 
He was as certain of that lady as the flesh
on his bones.

It
had been hours.
 
Brent had been waiting
and waiting.
 
He knew those assholes had
already processed her, but because he was a Sinatra, and he was Big Daddy’s
oldest kid, he knew they were determined to drag it out.
 
When his father got there, things would
change.
 
They wouldn’t dare disrespect
him this way.
 
But he was a twenty-two
year old senior in college.
 
They didn’t
give a damn.