Tommy Gabrini: A Family Man Read online

  Tommy smiled and lifted him into his arms. “Hey, little fellow,” he said as he held him. “How’s your day been?”

  “Good, sir. We made paper tigers that became real. They growled and everything!”

  Tommy glanced at Grace. Grace hunched her shoulders and shook her head. She didn’t know what he meant either. “Good for you,” Tommy said, bouncing him. “Paper tigers that growl. Great.” Then he looked at Grace. “And how are you?”

  “I’m great now,” Grace said with a smile, grabbing her briefcase.

  “Anything else?” her secretary asked.

  “No, but thanks. That’ll be all.”

  The secretary spoke to Tommy, and Tommy spoke to her, as she left the office.

  Grace walked up to Tommy and TJ. Tommy placed his free hand on her upper back, leaned her to him, and kissed her on the lips. “How was your day?” he asked her.

  “It was good. Yours?”

  “Too busy.”

  “As always.”

  “Yup.”

  “So, what’s up?” she asked him. “What are you doing here?”

  Tommy smiled. “All a part of my quest to do better.”

  Grace nodded her approval. Ever since that night at his office, he had been doing great. He was home for dinner every single night. But she knew to keep her joy in check. It had only been a week.

  “There’s a carnival in town,” he said to her.

  “I’ve heard,” Grace said. “Junior keeps reminding me.”

  “They have cotton candy, Daddy,” TJ said excitedly.

  Tommy looked at him. The thing he loved best? The smell of his children. “You wanna go to the carnival?” he asked him.

  “Yes, please!” TJ said happily, jumping in his father’s arms. “Please!”

  “Don’t fall, TJ,” Grace warned.

  Tommy laughed. “What you say we make an evening of it?” he asked Grace.

  She had tons of work that needed to be done, but she knew he probably had double her load. And he was making time. She smiled. “Why not?”

  “Yay!” TJ proclaimed. “Thanks, Mommy. Thanks, Daddy!”

  “Des is gonna love this,” Grace said.

  “I hope she doesn’t think it’s kid’s stuff,” Tommy said as they headed for the exit.

  “Oh, she will,” Grace said, knowing their adolescent daughter too well. “But she’s still gonna love it.”

  Tommy smiled, opened the door for Grace to walk through first, and then he and TJ followed.

  As soon as Destiny saw her mother’s brand-new Bentley, she broke away from her friends and made her way to the car she loved. Of all the cars her father had ever purchased for her mother, the Bentley Mulsanne was by far her favorite. Her friends, in fact, thought she was like royalty when they first saw it, but Destiny didn’t play that game. There was nothing royal about her family, and she knew it. “It’s just a car,” she said to them. She loved that just a car car very much, but not to the point where she was willing to front.

  She opened the front-passenger door ready to plop down onto that beautiful leather seat the way she had been doing for the past few days. But, to her surprise, her mother was already sitting on that seat. Which made no sense. Her mother was supposed to be behind the wheel. Not on the passenger seat! “Mom?” she asked, before she knew it.

  “Hey, baby,” Grace said with a smile.

  And that was when Destiny looked behind the wheel and saw her father. And her eyes, like TJ’s eyes before her, lit up with happiness. “Daddy!” she cried.

  She got in the backseat, sliding clumsily past TJ’s booster car seat with her bookbag, unintentionally brushing him repeatedly as she passed. “Ouch!” he yelled. He was almost too old for that car seat, and he couldn’t wait. “Just kill me, why don’t you?”

  But Destiny had her father in her sights. She moved over to the seat behind the driver’s seat and hugged his neck. Tommy placed a hand on her tiny arm. “What are you doing here?” she asked him just as Grace had asked him before.

  “We’re going to the carnival!” TJ gladly answered for his father.

  “The carnival?” Destiny asked.

  Tommy looked at her through the rearview. She had her mother’s coloring and forehead, but every other detail was a replica of his face. It made for a stunning combination. “That okay with you?” he asked her.

  “All of us are going? As a family?”

  “That’s the idea,” Tommy said to her.

  Then Destiny smiled. “Cool,” she said, and sat back on her seat.

  Tommy glanced at Grace. Grace had told him so. And he drove away.

  But Tommy noticed something at the carnival after they had ridden every ride, ate loads of cotton candy, and drank big cups of sugary drinks. They were happy and exhausted and heading back to the Bentley.

  At first, he thought he saw him out of his peripheral vision as they walked to Grace’s car. But when he looked again, nobody was there.

  But while he opened the passenger side door for Grace, and she was getting inside while TJ got in his car seat and Destiny got in on the opposite side, he saw that image again. This time he looked quickly enough and, sure enough, the man from the car dealership, the grieving husband of the woman killed in that horrific car crash, was standing all the way on the other side of the carnival grounds, near the waterfall, buying shaved ice. Tommy stood there and stared at the man. When the man finally looked over at him, but then quickly looked away, it only confirmed what Tommy already suspected: he was stalking Grace.

  Before Tommy got into the car himself, and as he stood at the back of the Bentley, his shoe bent back and resting on the bumper, he pulled out his cell phone and phoned the head of the security detail he had onsite. They were out of sight, but very visible to Tommy.

  “The guy over by the waterfall, near that old van, “he said into his phone. “Blue trousers, white Seahawks jersey. Buying shaved ice. See him?”

  “I see him, yes sir.”

  “Put a man on him.”

  “A full tail?”

  “Yes. I want to know where he goes from here, and where he lives.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it. You think he’s following you, sir?”

  “Me or my wife or both, yes. Fucker’s out of his mind if he thinks he’s getting away with harassing us.”

  “I agree,” the detail chief said. “I’ll keep you posted,” he added, and Tommy ended the call.

  He looked at the man one more time, to make certain that the man knew he was watching him. When the man looked at him again, and then looked away just as quickly like any guilty man would, Tommy felt he got his message across. Then he got behind the wheel of the car, and drove away.

  Later that night, after taking the family out to dinner for a change of pace, Tommy and Grace showered together, got in bed together, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  When the call came in, they had been asleep for hours. But the search of that grieving husband had been moved up the chain. Branson Nash himself phoned Tommy. They had the stalker’s name: Stanley Mayflower. And his address.

  Tommy ended the call, eased out of bed without disturbing his peacefully sleeping wife, and got dressed quietly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The dogs, two Doberman Pinschers, were barking furiously in the backyard as the same man that had deigned to raise a hand at Tommy Gabrini’s wife, got out of the bed in the back of the home and made his way down the hall, through the living room and then the kitchen, and turned on the back porch light. When he saw nothing unusual, he opened the back door. As soon as he poked his head out, to see why his dogs were so riled up, a gun was placed at the side of his face.

  Tommy was holding that gun. “Let’s go inside,” he said, calmly, to the man.

  The man’s Dobermans were still barking, but he couldn’t understand why they weren’t attacking the way they were trained. When he realized they had been chained up, and apparently by the man holding the gun, he knew he had no backup. He w
ent back into the house, as Tommy ordered, and Tommy went in with him, closing the door behind him.

  “It was a stupid coincidence,” the man quickly said.

  “Is that what they call stalking nowadays?” Tommy asked him.

  The man noticed Tommy was wearing gloves. He barely recognized him in his jeans and black bomber jacket and skullcap. But he remembered that swag. That arrogant, I’m better than you swag he declared Tommy displayed. That swag all of those fucking Gabrinis displayed. “How was I to know you and your wife would be at that carnival too? How was I to know that, sir?”

  “Because you were stalking us,” Tommy said. “Her or me or both of us.”

  Tommy leaned against the side wall, while the man leaned against the side table. “What do you want from me?” he asked Tommy. “My wife was killed. And there’s no getting over that, okay? What do you want from me?”

  Tommy knew he should have had sympathy for this man. At the dealership, once he realized who he was, he did have sympathy for him. But he had left that stone unturned. He had allowed his sympathy to let that man, a man who had the nerve to try and punch his wife, to walk away virtually unscathed, with those few licks he rained down on him not nearly what he wanted to do to him.

  But that was the problem. Those licks didn’t stop him. The fact that Tommy didn’t do more seemed to embolden him. Which was why Tommy, like every Gabrini that ever lived, was always taught to handle your business while it was in front of you, or that business was going to handle you.

  “My wife wasn’t responsible for that accident,” Tommy said. “I saw it with my own two eyes. Your wife ran a red light.”

  “You say that,” the man said. “That’s not what I heard.”

  Tommy’s temper snapped. “You think I give a motherfuck about what you heard? I’m telling your ass what I know!”

  “Fuck you!” the man said angrily, which seemed like a ploy to Tommy. Like he was lashing back at Tommy as a distraction. But Tommy knew the game too well and wasn’t distracted. He saw that the man wasn’t just leaning against that table, but was pulling a gun out of that table’s drawer.

  Tommy quickly stood erect from his own leaned position. “Don’t do it,” he said. “They call me Backdoor Tommy for a reason,” he added, as he hurried toward the man. “Don’t do it!”

  But the man whipped out that gun in a way that made it clear he aimed to use it, and Tommy’s warning came too late. The man aimed that gun and was about to pull the trigger.

  But Tommy got to him, grabbed his hand, and lifted the gun in the air, causing the man to misfire, with the bullet lodging into the ceiling instead.

  But that didn’t end Tommy’s troubles. The man was hellbent on aiming it at Tommy again. He was hellbent on dying, apparently, Tommy thought, because he would not relent.

  And they struggled for control. The man was larger than Tommy in every way, and was able to point that gun at Tommy’s chest. But Tommy was stronger, and with effort was able to reposition that gun away from himself, and toward the man’s chest. And they struggled mightily, with both men breathing heavily from the physical exertion alone.

  And soon, the man regained control. But then Tommy regained it back, aiming that gun, once again, at the man’s chest. And Tommy knew, right then and there, that he had to end this shit before this shit ended him.

  He pulled the trigger as soon as it pointed at the man.

  The man looked at Tommy, as if he couldn’t believe it would turn out the way it had, and then hunched over. Tommy, now with full control of the gun, kept the gun in his hand as he backed away. The man, no longer with Tommy’s body to hold him up, dropped dead.

  Tommy let out a harsh exhale. When he first arrived at that home, he wasn’t certain what was going to happen. But he knew he was going to do something that would be a permanent reminder that he couldn’t fuck with his family. The man was going to either lose a limb or lose his life, because he had to understand the price to be paid when anybody came for a Gabrini. His plan was to let the man’s own actions determine his fate. And that was exactly what happened.

  Tommy pulled out his own gun and began walking through the small house, checking every room and closet for any possible witnesses. There were none.

  As he made his way back into the living room area, he pulled out his cell phone and called Branson Nash. He wanted him to get a cleanup crew to the residence and get one there fast.

  But then he noticed something else. He had been pacing the living room floor, talking to Bran, and seeing it the entire time. But it was only now that he realized what he was seeing. And he stopped in the middle of the room.

  The photographs on the fireplace mantel and the various collages on the side walls, and the bigger picture over the fireplace, weren’t images of that man, that grieving husband, with his dearly departed wife. Joanne Mayflower, the woman who had died in that fiery crash, wasn’t in any of those pictures. Those were pictures of that man, her supposedly grieving husband, with his husband! Photos of the two men saying their vows. Putting on rings. Kissing. Feeding each other wedding cake. And more photos of them, presumably on their honeymoon and various other vacations, kissing and hugging and taking selfies!

  Tommy’s phone almost slid from his ear. He was frowning and staring at all of those photos because every one of those pictures were confusing the hell out of him. This man was grieving his wife? This man, with a husband, was grieving his wife?

  “What the fuck?” Tommy said out loud.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next day, Tommy was sitting behind his desk inside his home office. Grace was standing in front of the desk with her arms folded. Standing beside her: Branson Nash.

  “But how can that be?” she was asking the security chief. “That man was in terrible grief. And he said she was his wife. But he has a husband? He told me he was grieving his wife.”

  “And that’s what he wanted you to believe, that he was the grieving husband,” Branson said. “But that wasn’t the truth. He’s a happily married gay bathroom remodel salesman living in Bowling Green, Kentucky.”

  “Kentucky?” Grace asked, shaking her head.

  Tommy was puzzled too. “Why were there so many pictures of his spouse in that house here in Seattle if he lives in Kentucky?” he asked.

  “Because it’s their house. Their vacation home. They visit that place about four times a year, according to our research.”

  “I still don’t understand, Bran,” Grace said. “Why would he pretend to be this grieving husband? What was the point?”

  “Because that’s not all he does for a living,” said a voice behind them.

  They all turned, because they knew that voice. And they were right. It was Sal Gabrini, Tommy’s kid brother, walking through the opened office door.

  Grace smiled. “Sal!” she said happily and went to greet him.

  “Hey, sister-in-law!” They embraced vigorously. He and Grace had grown closer after she and Tommy remarried.

  Sal touched her belly. “How’s the baby? Kicking the shit out of you yet?”

  “Not yet,” said Grace. “He’s still becoming a baby.”

  “Yeah, because you’re still flat as a motherfuck,” said Sal. “Gemma’s stomach was out to here by this time in her pregnancy.” Gemma was Gemma Jones-Gabrini, Sal’s African-American wife.

  Grace smiled. “At seven weeks pregnant, Sal, and Gemma was that big? I doubt that.”

  “What are you saying? It’s not normal to have a stomach the size of a beach ball at seven weeks?”

  Tommy laughed.

  “No,” Grace said. “That wouldn’t be normal, Sal.”

  “What do I know anyway?” Sal responded, smilingly, and kissed Grace. “Where are the kids?” he asked. “They usually come running down when they hear my adorable voice.”

  “It’s Saturday,” Grace said. “TJ’s at a birthday party, and Destiny’s his chaperone.”

  Sal laughed. “That princess at a kiddie party? I’ll bet she loves
that!”

  But Tommy remembered what Sal walked in saying. “What do you mean that’s not all he does for a living?” he asked his younger brother.

  “You guys were talking about Stanley Mayflower, I take it?” Sal asked as he and Grace walked over to the desk.

  “So he’s a Mayflower too?” Grace asked. “I thought we determined Joanne Mayflower, the woman who died in that car crash, wasn’t his wife.”

  “That’s what I was about to tell you,” Branson said. “She wasn’t his wife. But she was his sister.”

  Grace was surprised. “His sister?”

  “Right. He was grieving, but he was grieving his sister.”

  “Then why would he pretend she was his wife?” Grace asked. “I don’t get it!”

  “It’s the relationship,” Branson said.

  “What relationship?” Grace asked.

  “Between husband and wife,” said Tommy.

  Sal, in love with his wife, too, was nodding his head. “I agree,” he said.

  “Then maybe you can enlighten me,” said Grace. “Because I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “It’s a guy thing,” Sal said.

  “Not really,” Tommy said.

  “Not really,” Branson echoed.

  “I don’t mean it in any sexist bullshit way,” said Sal. “I mean a guy marries the love of his life and it’s different. Yeah, the lady that died was his sister, and that’s a sad thing, but he’s not getting a pass because his sister died. I mean, come on. But his wife dies? Yeah. He could approach Tommy Gabrini’s wife at a car dealership, and if that shit goes sideways, he can plead the grieving husband defense and maybe get away with it. A man like Tommy, who he apparently knew is in love with his wife and they don’t have no bullshit relationship, would understand and give him that pass. It was insurance.”

  “You’re saying he was trying to avenge his sister’s death?” Grace asked. “That’s why he came for me at the car lot, and was following me around?”