Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry (15 page)

“And what if there is a connection?”
she asked.

Brent ran his hand through his thick,
black hair.
 
“Then somebody knows
something,” he said.
 
“Then we’re
screwed,” he added, as he looked her dead in the eyes.

And Makayla, fully understanding what
that night could cost them, sat back down.

The connection could not have been
more plausible moments later when knocks were heard on the Sinatras’ front
door.
 
Charles answered, but Jenay and Carly
were right there too.
 
They were a
well-known family, but even they didn’t get this many guests this early in the
morning.
 
Especially, when Charles looked
through the peephole and saw two very formal looking men, and a uniformed
cop.
 
He quickly opened the door.
 
“Yes?” he asked.
 
“May I help you?”

“Is Carly Sinatra here?” the man
asked.

Carly stepped in front.
 
“Yes?”

“Miss Sinatra, my name is Special
Agent Goosley.”
 
He showed his ID.
 
“This is Special Agent Javier Lucentos.
 
And this is Officer Holland of the Jericho
County Police Department.
 
We need you to
come with us, ma’am.”

Charles moved back in front of his
daughter.
 
“Come with you where?”

“We’re taking her back to Boston.”

Carly felt faint.
 
Was this really happening?
 
“Why?” she asked as she moved beside her
father.
 
“May I ask why?”

“We have a warrant for your arrest,
ma’am,” Goosley said.
 
“We have
extradition papers.
 
We’re here to take
you back.”

Jenay placed a hand around Carly’s
waist.
 
“But what are you arresting her
for?” she asked, reeling too.

“What’s the charge?” Charles added.

“We have a warrant to arrest Carly
Sinatra,” Goosley said, “for the kidnapping and murder of Ethan Marvin
Campbell.”

They knew that had to be the reason,
but just hearing those words still hit them like a ton of bricks.
 
Because it was true.
 
Because this wasn’t just some miscarriage of
justice, and they were all involved.

But Charles was not about to
surrender not even a part of the point.
 
“My daughter didn’t murder or kidnap anybody,” he said, as he pulled
Carly back and stepped in front of her.

“Out of the way, sir.”
 
The agents placed their hands on their
weapons.
 
“Do not interfere with the
performance of our responsibility or you will be arrested too.”

“But what are you talking about?”
Charles asked.
 
“My daughter didn’t
kidnap and murder anybody!”

“Please step out, Miss Sinatra,”
Goosley said.

Carly was floored.
 
“But I don’t understand.
 
Ethan is missing.
 
They said he’s missing.
 
You found him?”

“We found his body,” the agent said.

Charles knew better than that.
 
He went with Mick to bury that body.
 
He saw it with his own two eyes!
 
“What does your finding his body have to do
with my child?” he asked.

“What does it have to do with me?”
Carly also asked.

“We found his body,” Goosley said to
her, “in the home in Boston that you, up until a few months ago, rented.”
 
He pulled Carly out of the house and began
handcuffing her.
 
“That’s what it has to
do with you.”

Carly’s heart was hammering.
 
Jenay was so beside herself that she leaned
against Charles to remain standing up.
 
Charles put his arm around her, flustered too.
 
Because it couldn’t be possible.
 
What were they talking about?
 
They found the body in Carly’s house?
 
Ethan Campbell’s body?
 
In
Carly’s
house?
 
They didn’t know what they were
talking about!

But he knew there was nothing he
could do at this point.
 
Railing against
the FBI was liking railing against the wind.
 
They had no choice but to take the blows.

But Charles wasn’t so thrown that he
couldn’t warn his daughter.
 
“Don’t you
say a word to anybody,” he ordered Carly as they followed her to a waiting
patrol car.
 
“They’ll twist your words
around and claim you confessed.
 
Don’t
you say one word to anybody!
 
You hear
me, Carly?”

“Yes, sir,” Carly said, as a pool of
tears appeared in her big, sad eyes.

Charles’s heart broke.
 
“We’ll get you out of this, baby,” he
said.
 
“I’ll get you out of this!”

But it was just talk and bluster, and
they all knew it, as he and Jenay watched in horror as those law enforcement
officers, those enforcers of laws they clearly had broken, took Carly away.

Somebody was blowing up his phone.
 
Calling over and over again.
 
He
was in the back of his estate working out in his gym.
 
He didn’t have any of his men on any
call-outs.
 
Roz and the twins were up at
the house.
 
Nothing should have been this
urgent.
 
But he nodded to his spotter
anyway.
 
The spotter, a longtime
employee, went over to the bench and grabbed his cell phone.
 
Mick Sinatra lifted the weights up over his
sweat-filled, muscular chest, and racked them.

He sat up and grabbed the towel.
 
His spotter handed him the phone.
 
“Who is it?” he asked.

“A Charles Sinatra, sir,” the spotter replied.
 
“According to the Caller ID.”

Charles blowing up his phone like that?
 
He was more curious now.
 
His
brother didn’t call him unless it was serious.
 
He took the phone from his spotter and answered it.
 
“Good morning.”

“They arrested her, Mick.”

Mick knew who he meant.
 
He could
also detect terror in his brother’s voice.
 
“The police?”

“The FBI.”

Mick’s heartbeat began to quicken.
 
It was always far more complicated when the Feds were involved.
 
“Did they give a reason?”

“They said they found Campbell’s body.”

Mick frowned.
 
“That is not
possible.”

“They said they found his body in the house she rented, Mick.
 
They found his body in that fucking house!”

But Mick knew that couldn’t be.
  
“It wasn’t left in the house.
 
What are you saying?
 
We moved
it!”

“I know we moved it!” Charles yelled, his voice on the verge of
hysterics.
 
“I was there!
 
I know we moved it!”

Mick knew there had to be something else going on.
 
Were the Feds shitting with her to get her to
talk?
 
Or were they trying to out him, or
Charles, or all of them?
 
“Where are you
now?” he asked his big brother.

“On my way to Boston.
 
They’re
transporting her to the Boston jail now.”

“When you arrive in Boston, do not go to the jail,” Mick said.
 
“Go to the airstrip and wait for me.
 
I’m on my way.”

“Brent and Makayla’s on their way there now.
 
So I guess I can do that.”

“And Charles,” Mick added, “make certain you are not being followed.”

There was an exasperated exhale over the phone.
 
Mick knew Charles, a law and order man his
whole life, hated to be on the wrong side of the law.
 
But he’d go through fire for his
children.
 
Mick knew it now.

“I’ll be careful,” Charles responded.
 
“You just get here.”
 
And then he
ended the call.

Mick let out his own exhale when the call ended.

“The Feds on your case, boss?” the spotter asked.

Mick looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
 
His spotter, suddenly realizing his error
too, began moving back.
 
But it was too
late.
 
Mick took the barbells he had been
lifting and threw them at the man, knocking him down with a force that took his
breath away.
 
“Don’t you ever question me
about my own fucking business!” Mick yelled.
 
“Not now.
 
Not ever!”

“I’m sorry, boss,” his longtime spotter said, as his butt pushed away
from Mick, his hands lifted up to shield him from further harm, the barbells
falling away from him.
 
The pain that was
ripping through his body was visible all over his face.
 
“I apologize, sir.
 
I didn’t mean any harm.
 
I didn’t mean any disrespect.
 
Please forgive me, sir.
 
Please forgive me!”

But as quickly as Mick had knocked him down, he wasn’t thinking about him
anymore.
 
He was thinking about his
niece, and Boston, and why in the world were the Feds fucking with them like
this?

 
Charles was leaned against his
Jaguar, with his arms folded and his legs crossed at the ankle.
 
His shades shielded his worried eyes as he
watched the Gulfstream Jet descend from the clouds and land at the Boston
airstrip.
  
Charles was a wealthy
man.
 
By Jericho’s standards, he was the
wealthiest.
 
But his kid brother Mick,
like their cousins the Gabrinis, was among the mega-rich.
 
And like the superrich, Mick’s excesses often
astounded Charles, even as the mobster in Mick concerned him.
 
But in times like these, he was glad to have
Mick in his corner.
 
They were up against
the FBI, and they were the point.
 
Mick,
in Charles’s mind, was the counterpoint.

The steps of the plane dropped down and within seconds Mick descended in
his flapping black suitcoat.
 
He hurried
down and across the tarmac alone.
 
Men
like him usually ran with entourages, especially at a time like this.
 
But there was no one waiting but Charles as
if Mick didn’t trust anybody else to handle this situation but himself, and his
big brother.

“Where’s Jenay?” Mick asked as he approached.

“I wouldn’t let her come.
 
She’s
still recovering.”

Mick stared at Charles.
 
“Recovering from what?”

Charles didn’t keep his brother in the loop.
 
He regretted it.
 
“Somebody shot up the B & B a couple
weeks ago.
 
One of the bullets grazed her
arm.”

“Any idea who might have fired the shots?”

“I saw the prick,” Charles said.
 
“Some political agitator named Abe Norris, although we found out that’s
not his real name.
 
But that’s all we
found out about him.
 
He was protesting
my ownership rights in Jericho.
 
I’m a
monopoly, let him and his ilk tell it.”

“He’s still at large?”

Charles nodded.
 
“He’s still out there,
yeah.”

Mick stared at his brother.
 
“You
didn’t think I needed to know this?”
 

“I had some men working it.
 
I
thought I had it under control.
 
I didn’t
know this shit was going to turn the way it turned.
 
I thought that would be enough.”

“It is never enough,” Mick said, “when it comes to our enemies.
 
It always turns.
  
And we have to face facts.”

“Such as?”

“Because of my involvement in this matter, perhaps my enemies have become
yours.”

Charles lifted his shades above his head, as if he had to get a better
view of his brother.
 
He knew the gravity
of what he spoke.
 
“You think that’s
possible?
 
You think somebody’s using
what happened with Carly to get to you?”

“I am not verse enough in what is going on to reach the ultimate
conclusion right now,” Mick admitted.
 
“But yes, that is what I think.”

Charles closed his eyes and shook his head.
 
“Good Lord,” he said.
 
Then he looked at Mick.
 
“But how could they have found out?
 
Nobody knew but us.”
 
Then Charles added:
 
“And your men.”

“I understand your concern.
 
My men
are not fools.
 
They know what will
befall them if they cross me.
 
But, I am
not foolish either.
 
Every one of the men
who worked for me that night are being round up as we speak.
 
If it was one of them, I will know.”

Charles nodded.
 
He respected
Mick’s efficiency.

“What about Carly?” Mick asked.
 
“What is her status?”

“They have her here in Boston.
 
In
jail.
 
Brent and Makayla are heading over
there right now to try to win her release.
 
Or at least see her and make sure she’s okay.”

“And who is protecting Jenay?”

Charles loved the fact that Mick cared deeply for Jenay.
 
If Charles was his father-figure, Jenay was
his mother-figure, and he seemed to place them both above the rest.
 
“Tony’s protecting her and Bonita.
 
I ordered him to make certain they both stay
at home until I get back.”
 
Charles
frowned.
 
“It was supposed to be Jenay’s
first day back at work.
 
But it can’t be
helped.”

“No, it can’t,” Mick said.
 
“But
don’t worry.
 
It is probably not her they
are after.”

“But we can never be too sure until we are,” Charles said.

Mick nodded.
 
“Right,” he said.

And then they got into Charles’s Jaguar, and Charles sped away.

It took several trips around the various blocks until the two men were
convinced they were not being followed.
 
And then they drove to the spot on the preserve just outside of Boston
where they oversaw the burial of Ethan Campbell’s body.
 
But it wasn’t even close.
 
They didn’t have to get out of the car.
 
For the marker they laid to identify the
body, a stone of a unique shape, had been rolled away and the ground upturned
in dramatic fashion.
 
The body had not
only been dug up and removed, but the grave diggers didn’t care who knew.
 
The
in
your face
nature of the dig suggested to Mick and Charles immediately that
whoever dug up that grave wanted them to know.
 
They wanted to be certain that the allegations the FBI leveled against
Carly were substantiated.
 
The Feds had
the body.
 
And somebody put that body in
Carly’s old house.

“We’re in trouble, Mick,” Charles said as the reality of what they were
witnessing began to sink in.