CHAPTER THREE

PRESENT DAY

Brent Sinatra parked his weather-worn Ford F-150 in front of his father’s storefront office and leaned over the steering wheel staring at the name Sinatra Properties as it stood out in semicircle letterings across the plexiglass of the bay window. Although his father owned more properties than anybody in Maine, and almost everybody in America, he refused to show just how successful he actually was and continued to operate out of his original worksite. But that was his old man. Unpretentious to a fault. The strongest man he’d ever known, a fact even his Uncle Mick, a strong man himself, couldn’t disagree with. But Brent was still worried about him.

He got out of his truck in his jeans and blazer and made his way across the sidewalk. A group of girls walking past all spoke to him, as their eyes glanced down approvingly at his thick thighs straining those blue jeans and his muscular biceps straining his blazer, but Brent didn’t give them the time of day. As Chief of Police of Jericho, Maine, he had more work to do than there were hours in the day. But as he was driving pass his father’s place of business, he had expected him to be at work. That was where he told Brent he was headed when they spoke earlier that morning. But Brent made a U-turn when he realized his father’s truck wasn’t there.

Katie Paranz was putting away cases in a file cabinet when Brent walked in. One of only four people who worked in the office itself, she was his father’s office manager. While most girls in town had monster crushes on Brent’s younger brothers Tony, Bobby, and Donnie, mainly because they found Brent to be too stern and moody for their taste, Katie was different. She and Brent went to elementary, middle, and high school together. Even as a kid he was the strong, silent type just like his father. And although she dared not have a crush on Big Daddy Sinatra because she knew he’d sniff it out a mile away and fire her, she’d always had a thing for Brent. She privately felt that a woman like Makayla, with her fat black self, didn’t deserve a great man like Brent to call her own. But she kept her feelings to herself. “Good morning, Brent,” she said with an exaggerated smile.

“I don’t see his truck out front.”

The other clerks in the office, who were at their desks working from computers, all glanced at Brent. Not even a how do ? Even they knew better than to walk into an office without speaking. But that was why they couldn’t stand his arrogant butt. But Katie kept her cool. “His truck isn’t here because he’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“Eviction run. The Fordham property.”

Brent frowned. “And you let him?”

“What do you mean I let him?”

“You didn’t stop him?”

Katie looked at him offended. “How am I supposed to stop him, Brent? You can’t even stop him, but I can?”

Brent looked at her as if he could cuss her out, and then he hurried out of the office.

One of the clerks shook her head as they all looked out the big, front bay window as Brent hopped into his truck and took off. “I don’t see how you can like him.”

“I don’t like him,” Katie said defensively. “What are you talking about?”

“I understand it,” the clerk added as if Katie said nothing to her. “He’s gorgeous. Can’t nobody deny that. He’s right up there in the looks department with the other Sinatra boys. But he’s so darn moody and mean. I can’t stand his butt.”

“I don’t know where you get that from, but I don’t like him,” Katie said again as she looked at the clerk straight-on, even though she knew she was giving off protest too much vibes all over her face.

The clerk tried to suppress a smile. “Okay dang,” she said as if it was no big deal to her, and she got back to work. But Katie saw that same clerk and another clerk glance at each other and grin.

Katie wanted to protest even more how much she didn’t like Brent, but even she knew that would only highlight how much she did like him. She, instead, continued to stuff those folders into that file cabinet. She always spoke up for Brent when everybody else were saying how mean he was and how he would arrest you for petty crimes his deputies would let them get away with. Yet she always gave him the benefit of the doubt. But for him to treat her like she was nothing to him? Like she disappointed him because she didn’t keep tabs on a man nobody could keep tabs on? She flung those files into that cabinet. She was pissed.