Reno and Trina: In the Shadows of Love, Book 12 (13 page)

Jimmy walked
over to his father.
 
“What do you think,
Pop?
 
You think this was a simple
hit-and-run like the cops think?”

“It was a
hit-and-run,” Reno said, “but it wasn’t simple.”

Trina looked
at Reno too.
 
“Why not?” she asked him.

“Because
nothing is.
 
Not when it comes to us.”

Trina
exhaled.
 
That was the truth.

After the
doctor confirmed that all X-rays were negative, Trina, Reno, and Jimmy headed
out of the hospital and was relieved to feel the cool night air against their tired
faces.
 
A limo was parked and waiting
near the exit doors, and so was Debrosiac, one of Reno’s “street”
security.
 
He was standing further away,
purposely in the shadows.
 
He knew Reno
was well trained and would see him.
 
And
he did.
 

“Get Tree
into the limo,” he ordered Jimmy, and then walked over to a man Jimmy did not
realize was even there, until he saw his father heading in that direction.
 
Jimmy looked at Trina, astounded.

“Did you see
that guy there?” he asked her.

“No.
 
But that’s why your father hires men like
that.
 
They know how not to be seen.”

“Damn he’s
good,” Jimmy said.
 
And that awesome
sense of responsibility, of following in his father’s footsteps when he knew he
wasn’t worthy to put on shoes that grand, burdened him again.
 
But he did as he was told and helped Trina
into the limousine.

Reno walked
over to Debrosiac and they shook hands.
 
“What you got for me?”

“We found
the video before the cops could get a hold of it,” Debrosiac said, and handed
Reno his smartphone.
 
It showed the copy
he had made of the video.

“Where was
it?” Reno asked as he watched the video.

“The one
you’re watching now is the one across the river at the tire plant.”

The video
showed a car, a Bentley, ramming Trina’s car from behind.
 
Reno saw Trina’s car spin out, lose traction,
and then sail over the rail.
 
His heart
was in this throat when he saw that it was even more horrific than he had
thought.
 
What angered him, however, was
when the driver, instead of stopping to help his wife, to make sure she was
okay, or even to call in an anonymous tip to the cops, sped away.
 
“Motherfucker,” Reno said.

“The next
video,” Debrosiac said, “shows the driver.
 
It was taken by a business camera at the bottom of the bridge.
 
And it’s a good shot, boss.”

This Reno
had to see.
 
But when he saw the driver,
and saw that it was some chubby, middle-aged white woman, he looked at his
man.
 
“
She
was the driver?”

“She was the
driver,” Debrosiac said.
 
“It looks real
random, boss.
 
Like she did it and just
didn’t give a fuck.”

“Yeah.
 
Like Tree’s life wasn’t shit to her.”

“That’s why
I love street justice,” Debrosiac said.
 
“You may not be able to stop the crime, but you can get even.”

Reno looked
at him.
 
“You got it?” he asked.

Debrosiac
smiled as if he was full of himself. “We got it, boss,” he said.
 
“Name and address.”

Reno
exhaled. That was why he hired Debrosiac: he knew how to take care of
business.
 
Then he handed Debrosiac back
his phone and walked over to the limo.

Jimmy was
standing outside, completely expecting to get in his Camaro and go while his
father got in the limo and escorted Trina home.
 
But when Reno came with a different plan, Jimmy knew then he should have
known better all along.

“Take your
mother home,” Reno said to his son.
 
“I’m
going to drive your car.”

But Jimmy
wanted a piece of the action too.
 
“I can
go with you, Dad,” he suggested.

But Reno
would have none of it.
 
“You can do what
I said,” Reno said firmly, and looked at his son as if he dared him to question
it.

Jimmy rolled
his eyes but walked around, to the other side of the limo, and got inside.

Reno leaned
in at the open door.
 
He reached for
Trina’s unbuckled seatbelt and moved to buckle it, as if he was protecting
precious cargo.
 
“I’ll be home soon,” he
said to her as he buckled her in.

Trina looked
at her husband.
 
He had news.
 
But she also knew it was the nature of their
business and she wasn’t about to tell them not to handle it.
 
“Be careful, Reno,” she said.

“I will,” he
said.
 
“You can bank on it.”

Trina smiled
weakly.
 
Reno stared into that face he
loved more than life itself.
 
And kissed
her on the lips.

Maggie
Vinson stood at the mirror in her high-rise condo’s bedroom and put on her
lipstick.
 
It was her final prep before
it was time for her to go.
 
When she
finished, she stood there, and smiled.
 
The Botox was working nicely, and that powder concoction she applied to
the back of her hands were covering up the liver spots as well as she could
have hoped.
 
She looked good and felt
good.
 
She was good to go.

She grabbed her
clutch and keys off of her bedroom dresser and made her way through the hallway
that led to the front of her house.
 
But
when she got up front, she was astonished to see two men, both looking like
respectable businessmen, sitting on her couch.

“Nice sofa,”
Reno said as his open hand rubbed across the expensive leather.
 
“What’s it called?
 
Caribbean leather?”

Maggie was
stunned.
 
“What are you doing in my
home?
 
Who are you?”

“Carribou
leather?
 
What’s it called?”

Maggie
quickly pulled out her cell phone to dial 911.
 
The second man in her home, Debrosiac, pulled out his gun.
 
“Put it away,” he ordered her.

When Maggie
saw that gun, her cell phone dropped from her hand.
 
“Who are you?”

“Corinthian
leather,” Reno said.
 
“That’s it!
 
That’s what it’s called.”
 
Then he looked her dead in the eye.
 
“You hit my wife’s car today.”

“I what? I
didn’t---”

Reno became
unhinged.
 
“Don’t you lie to me!” he
yelled, and Maggie jumped back.
 
“You hit
my wife’s car today.
 
That’s no question,
lady.
 
It’ a fact!”

Reno stood
up, buttoned his suit coat, and began walking toward Maggie.
 

“It was an
accident,” she said. “I called the police afterwards.”

“No, you
didn’t.
 
I told you not to lie to me.”

“I was going
to call the police.
 
I really was.
 
But I already had a DUI on my record---”

Reno
nodded.
 
He was now toe to toe with
Maggie.
 
“So that was it?”

Maggie
nodded.
 
“Yes.”

“It was all
about you.”

Maggie
quickly shook her head. “No.
 
I didn’t
mean---”

“You didn’t
just hit her car,” Reno said.
 
“You saw
her lose control of that car.
 
It’s on
film.
 
You remained there, watching in
horror, as her car flew over that bridge rail.
 
You saw the whole thing.
 
But
instead of calling 911 the way you was about to do when you thought we were
your common variety intruders, you drove the hell off.
 
You left my wife to die.”

Maggie was
shaking her head, and backing up.
 
“No,”
she said.
 
“It wasn’t like that.”

Reno was
moving forward, remaining in her personal space even as she sought to get him
out of it.
 
“It was exactly like that,”
Reno said.
 
“You left my wife to
die.
 
Now,” he added, when she backed
into the wall and he was able to move even closer, “it’s your turn.”

Maggie
didn’t realize Reno had a knife in his hand until he was shoving it through her
body, and the pain came.
 
Her mouth
opened first, as if she wanted to scream, but all she could do was gurgle.
 
Reno imagined Trina was gurgling too, when
her car began to fill with water. If it had been left up to this woman, Trina
would have died a lonely death that night and Reno might have never known what
happened to her.
 
And this pathetic piece
of shit of a lady would have gotten dressed for her night out on the town, just
as she had been doing, and never gave Trina a second thought.

That was
why, as Reno watched her take her final breath, he had no second thoughts
either.
 
He twisted the knife.
 

Trina was
fast asleep by the time Reno made it back home.
 
Jimmy and Val, who had stayed the night, were asleep in the guest room,
and Dommi and Sophia were asleep in their beds.
 
Reno took a shower in the bathroom adjacent to a separate guest bedroom
to avoid waking Trina, and then crawled into bed well after midnight.

Trina
stirred when the mattress she slept on was pressed down by Reno’s weight, but
she didn’t wake up.
 
Which pleased Reno
mightily.
 
He pressed his naked body into
hers, and wrapped her into his arms.
 
The
things most men did for love were child’s play compared to the things Reno had
to do.
 
But as he looked at her, and
thought about what that woman’s carelessness almost did to her, he snuggled her
even closer.
 
He hated going to those
dark, lonely places.
 
He was no cold,
calculating, heartless man.
 
But he’d go
to even worse places, and become even more heartless and calculating all day
long, for his family.

He did what
he had to do.

That was
why, within minutes of lying in bed beside his precious Tree, he was as dead to
the world and all its cruelty, as she was.

When Trina
grabbed her purse, her briefcase, and the hot cup of coffee she’d just picked
up from the 7-11, and made her way inside her clothing store, she saw Amy
standing at the check-out counter.
 
After
the events of last evening, this bothered her.
 
Why was she back here after Reno had threatened her to stay away?
 
She wanted the job, and Trina understood
that, but Amy was no newbie.
 
She knew
Reno was not a man of idle threats.

“Hi,” Amy
said with a smile on her face as Trina made her way toward the counter.

“Good
morning.”
 
Trina was not in a cheerful
mood.
 
She rarely was early mornings
anyway, and she especially was not this morning.
 
Reno didn’t want her to come to work
today.
 
Now she wished she had taken his
advice.

“I know you
weren’t expecting to see me here today,” Amy said.
 
“But I heard about what happened to you last
evening. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Trina hadn’t
expected that.
 
“I’m okay.
 
Thanks.”

“Do they
know who hit your car?”

Trina was
sure Reno knew.
 
“Not yet, no,” she said.

Amy
nodded.
 
“I also came,” she admitted,
“because I was hoping that the job offer was still open.”

Liz Mertan,
Trina’s business partner and the co-owner of Champagne’s, was standing behind
the counter, drinking her own cup of coffee. “What job offer is that?” she
asked Trina.
 
“I told her I didn’t know
what she was talking about.”

“I’ve got
it,” Trina said as she placed her purse and briefcase behind the counter.

“Have you
seen her resume?
 
We certainly can use
some good people.
 
I had to fire Lindsey
at our PaLargio location.”

Trina looked
at Liz.
 
She was always firing people
without consulting her first.
 
But that
was a fight for another day.
 
She had to
deal with Amy first, before the store traffic picked up.
 
“Come with me,” she said to Amy and escorted
her, with her coffee still in hand, to the small office off from the main
floor.
 

When they
settled at the conference table, Trina got down to business.
 
“Why did my husband fire you?” she asked her.

Amy didn’t
seem surprised by the question.
  
It
seemed to Trina that she was ready for it.
 
But she had to play the same tune first.
 
“I already told you why.”

But Trina
was in no mood for old songs.
 
She was so
inattentive yesterday, so upset with Reno and their previous conversation that
she wasn’t paying attention to the world around her, something Reno drilled
into her brain was an absolute must no matter what.
 
She didn’t see that car coming.
 
It nearly cost her her life.
 
And it was all because of Amy’s appearance at
Champagne’s.
 
She had to be worth
fighting for, and Trina wasn’t going to know that until she heard the full
story.
 
The new song.
 
“Why did my husband fire you?
 
Until you tell me why, the real story, I
can’t help you.”

Trina’s
suspicion was right.
 
Amy was ready to
talk.
 
“He wanted to sleep with me,” she
said so quickly that it took Trina by surprised.
 
She looked Trina dead in the eyes when she
said it.

Trina was
staring her dead-on too, and it was startling.
 
But she needed more.
 
Dropping a
bomb and expecting her to react to it, wasn’t going to happen.
 
That was why Trina didn’t respond.
 
It was Amy she needed to hear from.
 
She sipped her coffee instead.

“I know you
don’t believe me,” Amy went on.
 
“But
it’s the truth, Mrs. Gabrini.
 
I respect
you too much to lie to you.
 
Your husband
is attracted to beautiful women.”

Trina didn’t
like that insinuation.
 
“What man isn’t?”
she responded.

But Amy took
her response as defensiveness.
 
“The wife
is always the last to know,” she said, schooling Trina.
 
“They think their husbands can do no wrong,
but they do wrong all the time.
 
You
can’t imagine how many other married men hit on me every single day.”

She wasn’t
interested in what other married men did.
 
She was interested in what her man did.
 

“He was
attracted to me,” Amy went on when Trina didn’t rise to her bait.
 
“He would always compliment me on whatever I
was wearing, and the perfume I used.
 
He
said he buys it all the time.
 
He said
it’s his favorite.”

“What
perfume do you use?” Trina asked.

Amy had
obviously not expected that question.
 
“Caron’s Poivre,” she finally said.

Trina sipped
more coffee.
 
Reno wouldn’t know Caron’s
Poivre from a buy-one-get-one-free perfume at the dollar store.
 
“Go on,” she said to Amy.

“He kept
complimenting me so much, but I didn’t mind that.
 
It seemed harmless.
 
Until, while we were on a business trip to
Hawaii, he propositioned me.
 
I turned
him down cold.
 
I do not date married
men.
 
When we got back, that was when he
had Quinn concoct that story about his business partners, and he fired me.”

When it
seemed as if Trina was still skeptical, she took it a step further.
  
“He wanted to sleep with me, Mrs. Gabrini,”
she said.
 
“I wouldn’t.
 
Quinn would.
 
He fired me, and promoted Quinn.
 
And that’s the truth, ma’am.”

Trina
listened to her entire story, and her final curb ball regarding Quinn, and then
she stood up.
 
Amy stood up too.
 
“I can’t help you,” Trina said to her.

Amy was
stunned. “But I just told you the true story!”

“You told me
a story, but I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t
believe it?
 
How can you not?
 
And here I was thinking you were smarter than
that.
 
Here I was thinking you were
somebody who would listen.
 
My girlfriends
told me I was wasting my time.
 
They told
me you were as clueless as the rest of those rich married women who would
rather believe anything their men told them before they believed the truth
about their shiftless husbands.
 
They
always look the other way and keep spending their husband’s money.
 
And their husbands kept harassing women like
me and making pure fools out of wives like you.”

Before Trina
could react, Amy left the room.

Trina used
to despise those kind of weak women too, those who had blinders on when it came
to their no-good husbands.
 
She would
never stay with a man who even thought about cheating on her, used to be her
mantra.
 
Those women were fools, and she
used to be so certain that she was not one of them.
 
Now she wasn’t certain at all.
 
Because this was about Reno, not some random
man.
 
This shit was personal.

She meant to
leave that room too and get to work, but she sat back down instead.

Reno arrived
in his suite of offices late that afternoon after meetings he couldn’t cancel
across town.
 
Debrosiac was waiting for
him outside his office, which surprised him.

“What are
you doing here?” he asked him.

Debrosiac
stood up.
 
“A twist,” he said.

Reno didn’t
know what he meant, but he looked at his secretary.
 
“Hold my calls,” he said, and then he and
Debrosiac entered his office.
 

It was
empty, but Reno and Debrosiac both knew his managers would be barging in with
contract disputes and vendor disputes and any other problem they could think up
as soon as they got word that Reno was back in the building.
 
Reno had some time, but not a wealth of it,
before the onslaught began and his office was overrun with staffers vying for
his time and attention.

“What you
got?” he asked as he made his way behind his desk.
 
He was so tried he sat down.

Debrosiac
remained standing.
 
“That lady we
handled?”

“Yeah, what
about her?”

“She wasn’t
as random as we thought, boss.”

“Meaning?”

“She
intended to harm Mrs. Gabrini.
 
That car
accident was no accident.”

Reno wasn’t
expecting to hear that.
 
He frowned.
 
“How do you figure that?”

Debrosiac
opened the file he had in his hand and gave it to Reno.
 
“Ever seen that guy before?”

Reno picked
up the folder.
 
It was a picture of Shaun
Connors.
 
“Yeah, I’ve seen him.
 
He was complaining about how he was treated
when he stayed here.
 
It was a pack of
lies.”

“Maggie
Vinson, the woman we handled, was his sugar mama.”

“His sugar
mama?”

“She had a
private eye on his ass.
 
This P.I. saw
him with your wife at McHale’s restaurant, and saw him again with her at
Champagne’s.
 
She leaped to the
conclusion that they were having an affair, and decided no gorgeous young woman
such as your wife was taking her gorgeous young buck away from her.
 
So she took matters into her own hands.”

“How do you
know all of this?”

“A friend of
a friend knew the P.I.
 
After Maggie
Vinson croaked, he was running his mouth.”

Reno looked
at the picture again.
 
“So Connors led
that bitch to my wife.”

Debrosiac
nodded.
 
“He’s the one.
 
Shaun Connors.
 
A gigolo basically.”

Reno tossed
the picture back at Debrosiac.
 
“Find
him,” he said.
 
“I want to see his ass
before the day is out.”

Debrosiac smiled.
 
“I’ll find him,” he said, grabbed the photo
and file, and left.

“Knock-knock,”
Jimmy said as he entered his parents’ penthouse.

“Hey,
Jimmy.”
 
Trina was seated on the sofa,
with her legs folded beneath her, sipping wine.
 
“How you doing?”

“I’m good.”
 
He walked toward the sofa.
 
“I wanted to see how you were doing before I
headed home.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“How sweet,”
Trina said with a smile.
 
“Don’t you look
handsome in such a nice suit.”

“My
employees got on my case about it.
 
They
said I was trying to dress like Dad.
 
I
said no I wasn’t either.
 
I’d have to
trample all over this suit and then put it on.
 
Then I’d look like Dad.”

Trina
laughed.
 
Jimmy sat beside her.
 
“I thought you guys were going to stay at the
estate tonight.”

“No, we’re
probably stay here at the penthouse for the rest of the week.
 
We’ll go home to the estate over the
weekend.”

“So where’s
everybody?”

“Dommi’s
sleep. Sophie’s sleep.”

“Where’s
Dad?”

“Working, I
guess.
 
I haven’t heard from him.”

Jimmy couldn’t
believe it.
 
“Are you serious?
 
Ma, why do you let him get away with that?”

Trina looked
at Jimmy as if he had exposed her somehow.
 
“Let him get away with what?”

“With
treating you like this.”

“Jimmy, I
know I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You nearly
died last night.
 
Yet tonight he’s not
here with you, holding your hand, but he’s out late who-knows-where doing
who-knows-what.
 
Why do you put up with
that?”