Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(63)

“Good afternoon ladies. Miss Springer.”

“Yes, Joffee, what is it? You know better than to walk across our lawn like that.”

Joffee was going to enjoy this. “I’m here to place you under arrest, ma’am,” he said, “for the jewelry heist at the Jericho Inn Bed and Breakfast yesterday.”

Paige’s girlfriends couldn’t believe it. Paige, too, feigned shock. “Are you out of your mind? I didn’t steal any jewels! Why would I steal jewels?”

“I don’t know, ma’am, but you stole them. We received a tip that we couldn’t ignore.”

“But it was in the newspaper this morning,” Paige declared. “Those jewels were found in that black girl’s closet, in her suitcase! How could you put the blame on me?”

“Some of the jewels were found in the VIP suite at the Jericho Inn, yes ma’am. But the majority of those jewels were found at your home, in your closet, in your suitcase.”

Paige’s heart dropped. What was he talking about? She didn’t put any of those jewels in her home! She wouldn’t dare! Her friends looked at her. “What are you talking about?” she asked him. “None of those jewels were at my home!”

“Yes ma’am, they were. Based on the tip, we had probable cause. The judge signed the search warrant. We have concluded, based on the sheer volume of jewels that were actually found at your home, that you not only set up Miss Franklin, but you used her as bait for your real purpose.”

“My real purpose?” Paige asked angrily, and genuinely confused. “And what, exactly, was my real purpose?”

“Why to steal those jewels, ma’am,” Joffee said. “And to make sure Miss Franklin, your boyfriend’s new love interest, was blamed for what you did.” Then he looked at his deputy. “Cuff her and frisk her and haul her ass downtown,” he said, and began to leave.

Paige was floored as the deputies did as they were told. She was cuffed and frisked and taken away. Her girlfriends, who had been so happy playing doubles with her, were all laughing at her now, and texting and calling their other friends. They hadn’t had this much excitement in years!

“I’m telling you the truth!” one of them blared on her cell phone. “They put her in handcuffs and took her away. Handcuffs! ‘Haul her ass downtown,’ was how Joffee put it. It was a blast to see!”

And by the time the day was done, the charges were dropped against Jenay. But Edna, Beatrice, and Paige Springer were all arrested. All three sat in their separate interrogation rooms at JPD and started pointing the finger at one another, and completely away from themselves. Paige said Bea was the mastermind, and pointed the finger at her. Bea said Paige was the mastermind, and pointed the finger at her. Edna said both Paige and Bea masterminded the entire scheme, and pointed all of her fingers at them.

But it didn’t matter to Charles. Just as long as none of those fingers were pointing at Jenay.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Three Weeks Later



The doorbell rang and Jenay, in a sudden panic, pulled Charles back.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“How do I look?” she asked for the third time. “Do I look okay?”

Charles smiled. They were in the living room of his gorgeous home, and his sons had finally arrived. She had met them all, except Robert, but never in any formal way. This was formal. It was high time, Charles felt, that his sons knew the full extent of his relationship with Jenay. And not some local, rumored version either, but the truth.

He looked down, once again, at Jenay’s blue-and-white Versace pantsuit, a pantsuit he had purchased her himself. “You look fabulous as always,” he said to her, and kissed her on the lips. “I don’t know why you’re so worried.”

“I’m formally meeting your sons, Charles. All of them! If you had to formally meet my sons, wouldn’t you be nervous too?”

“I’d be mortified. Especially since you don’t have any sons.”

Jenay hit him upside his head. He laughed as he headed for the front door. “You’ll be fine,” he said as he went. “Quit worrying!”

But that was easy for him to say. Since Charles had no parents alive, and his relationship with his sister was badly fractured, formally meeting his sons was akin to taking her home to meet his mother. Those boys, bar none, were the most important people in Charles’s life.

She stood at the sofa and waited. She heard Charles greeting each of his sons, and she waited for their handsome faces to round the foyer and enter the living room. Her only hope was that it wasn’t the youngest boy she had to greet first. Their first encounter wasn’t exactly a pleasant one for her. Or for him, she thought slyly, given what Charles did to him.