Gemma's Daughter Page 6

  Sal shook his head and began heading for the entrance, with Robby on his heels. Then he realized another problem. “No cops?” he asked as he stopped and turned. “Why aren’t there cops here? How could all of that go down in a quiet neighborhood like this and I don’t see the first cop out here? Did those fuckers use silencers?”

  “They used silencers on every gun they fired, yes, sir. And it was so sudden that not one of our men had a chance to fire one shot. That’s why you don’t see cops. They were expert. They knew exactly what they were doing, Boss.”

  Sal let out a harsh exhale. “This shit ain’t adding up,” he said.

  “I don’t get it either,” said Robby. “I mean, think about it. Who would risk everything by hitting you, Sal Gabrini, because of somebody like Kamill?”

  “That’s what I wanna know,” Sal said as he continued to head inside. “Gotdammit! That’s what I wanna know!”

  He and Robby went into the small house and saw the carnage right away. Although a clean-up crew was there cleaning up, they could still see how it all went down. They saw where the backdoor had been kicked in. They saw where the two guys were apparently playing cards at the table and probably tried to reach for their weapons, but were overwhelmed immediately and shot and killed. They saw a trail of blood that led up to a bedroom door. That was apparently Kamill’s blood as she was shot trying to get to her children. Sal couldn’t even pull himself to look in that room.

  He, instead, headed for the room where the doctor was treating Kamill.

  But when he and Robby got into that bedroom, Sal gave the doctor a hard look. The doctor, an ex-con who lost his license to practice medicine years ago, shook his head. And it was obvious as soon as Sal saw Kamill lying there in her own blood why he was shaking his head: she didn’t have long on this earth.

  But Sal needed the kind of answers that only she could give to him. He walked up to her bed and crouched down. Kamill’s eyes were already glazed over and her whole body was shaking. She was still mourning her children, not herself.

  “Who did this, Kamill?” Sal asked.

  When she heard his voice, she looked at him.

  “Tell me who did this to you, to your children. I can get those bastards for you. Who did this, Kamill?”

  Her voice wasn’t strong, but it was still surprisingly clear. “You did this,” she said as a tear fell down her face. “You killed my kids. You did this.”

  Then it took all she had to try and slap Sal. She reached up her hand, ready to do it, but Robby caught her hand and stopped her. He understood her anguish, but nobody was laying a finger on the boss.

  But Sal was too perplexed to even notice her gesture. “What do you mean I did it?” he asked her.

  But her eyes began dilating.

  But Sal was desperate to know now. “Kamill, what do you mean?” he asked her. “Kamill? Tell me what you mean. Kamill! Kamill!”

  But Kamill suddenly stopped all movement. She was no more. It was over.

  Sal, disappointed and a little sad that it had come to this for her and especially her children, stood up. What in the world was she talking about? How in the world could she land any of what happened at his feet when all he was doing was trying to help her?

  Robby was as confused as Sal. “What’s going on, Boss?” he asked him.

  Sal continued to stare at Kamill. “Find out,” he said. “Don’t your ass rest until you tell me why,” he ordered, gave Robby a hard look, and then walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ed Dowdell, Gemma’s brand new paralegal, sat the thick folder on his desk and sat down too. “This is ridiculous,” he said to Curtis Kane, Gemma’s longtime secretary. “Every folder these lawyers give to me are as heavy as a book manuscript. And they expect me to read all of this? It’s insane! I need more people on my staff!”

  “Your staff?” Curtis asked. They both were seated downstairs, in a large office just beyond the lobby where the receptionist desk was housed. “You just got here and already want a staff? Boy bye!”

  Ed smiled. “I’m serious though. I’ve never worked this hard in my life, not until I came to the Jones-Gabrini Law Firm. Before I came here, I was hot shit. Now I’m just a hot mess.”

  Curtis laughed. He liked Ed. Barbara Jiles, the lady Ed replaced, never had a sense of humor, at least not the kind Curtis found humorous. But Ed was different. And hunky to boot, Curtis thought. But then he looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window as Sal’s Bugatti drove up. And he frowned. “So much for laughs,” he said.

  Ed looked where Curtis was looking. When he saw Sal Gabrini getting out of that fancy car, he saw why Curtis said what he said. But that didn’t mean he understood it. “Why are you always so hard on that man, Curtis?” he asked him.

  “Because he’s always so hard on me. I used to think it’s because I’m black.”

  “Are you serious? His wife is black, dumb-dumb. A man who marries a black woman is not going to have a problem with black people, I’m sorry. Besides, I’m black and I’ve never gotten any racist vibe from him.”

  “That’s because he likes you,” Curtis said. “He thinks you’re so competent. He thinks you’ll help protect his precious Gemma should something go down. But me? He just sees me as an insufficient gay boy.”

  “Who also happens to be dating his right hand man Robby Yale,” Ed said.

  Curtis, shocked, looked at Ed. How in the world did he know about him and Robby? It was not common knowledge at all!

  “I see how Robby take those little sly looks at you every time he comes to this office. I see how you look at Robby. I love women,” Ed reiterated, “but I also know love when I see it. That’s how I know,” he said as if Curtis had asked him that question.

  And then Sal walked in. Since nobody was at the receptionist desk, Sal walked further back, where Curtis and Ed were seated. “Is she in?” he asked Ed.

  “No, sir, she’s not,” Curtis answered before Ed could.

  But his answer surprised Sal. “She’s not?”

  Curtis wanted to roll his eyes. What part of she’s not did he not understand? “She’s not,” he said again.

  Sal frowned. “Then where is she?” It was Saturday. There was no court on Saturday. At least not any involving Gemma.

  This time Ed answered. “She went over to the jail, sir,” he said.

  “The jail? For what?”

  “To see a client, I think,” said Ed. “She didn’t say why she was going. I’m assuming that’s why.”

  “Fuck!” Sal said, and then he hurried for the exit. When he got outside, he ran to his car, hopped in, and sped away.

  Curtis shook his head. “Now I get it,” he said. “He’s no racist. At least not anymore. He loves Gemma way too much for me to claim that.”

  “Then what is it that you now get?” Ed asked him.

  “The man’s just flat crazy,” Curtis said. “He’s a nut-ball traveling early, as my grandma used to say.”

  Ed smiled, and then laughed. “You’re the crazy one,” he said, as both men got back to work.

  She saw him standing downstairs, talking and laughing with his men as if they were one big happy family when nothing could be further from the truth. It used to feel that way to Marie. When she first began dating Marco, everybody around him made her feel as if she was so special. They loved Marco and Marco loved her. That was all they needed to know.

  Now everything was so different.

  Marco was no longer the man of her dreams. She no longer couldn’t wait until he came back home from his business trips. She saw what he did to that woman, a woman she later discovered was his wife. His wife, she thought with anguish as she stood on that balcony and watched Marco and his men downstairs, in that filthy courtyard. He was a married man, something he had sworn to her he had never been. And she saw what he did to his own wife. How did he expect her to still want to have anything whatsoever to do with him?

  But Marie also was a practical girl. She was his prisoner, altho
ugh he would declare up and down that she wasn’t. But she knew she was. She had to go along with whatever she needed to go along with until she could regain his trust. It had been months since she witnessed that terrible crime, and at first she wanted no parts of him. But all of her rebellion got her was a bad time with him. She learned how to adapt. She learned how to hide her true feelings so deep within herself that she barely recognized herself. Now she was Marco’s girl. The second part of M & M: Marco and Marie. She was playing a role she hated.

  “Come down, my love!” Marco yelled up to her when he finally saw her on the balcony. “Come down!”

  She would have rather jumped from that balcony and ended it all right then and there. But with her luck, she’d survive the fall and just be in a lot of pain. Since she already had enough to go around, she didn’t jump. She did as he commanded, and walked on down.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  At the county jail, Gemma sat quietly in the tiny lawyer room. She was so anxious she could hardly sit still. But it took several minutes until the door finally opened and a cop peered inside. “You owe me, Gem,” he said to her.

  “I got you,” Gemma responded. She never liked owing cops, especially since they were always harassing her husband, but this was different. She needed this favor. And when he opened the door further, and Sylvia Pendle walked in, she appreciated his gesture even more.

  When the cop sat her down in front of Gemma, he walked out, closing the door behind her. Sylvia frowned. “You ain’t my lawyer,” she said. “They said I was gonna meet with the lawyer.”

  “I am a lawyer,” Gemma said.

  “But you ain’t mine!” Sylvia shot back. “What do you want?”

  “One date in particular,” Gemma said. “November fifteenth. The day my daughter was born at the Memorial-Mayhew School for Girls in South Bend, Indiana. The day I was told my daughter had died, and they gave my daughter to you.”

  At first Sylvia wanted to deny all. That was what her attorney had told her to do. Deny everything. But she was an old pro, and old pros always figured they had an angle. “It was all legit,” she said. “I never snatched nobody’s baby. Never! Consent forms were signed and my adoption agency was legit all the way. Those people lying on me.”

  “I never gave consent for you to take my baby from me,” Gemma said, “I don’t care what kind of agency you were running. You didn’t have my permission to take Marie away from me.”

  The woman stopped fidgeting when she heard that name. Marie. She’d never forget that one particular baby. “So you’re her daughter,” she said.

  Gemma frowned. “She’s my daughter,” she said.

  “That lawyer, I mean. You’re that lawyer’s daughter.”

  Gemma stared at her. Did she remember her mother? Did she remember her baby? “That lawyer?” she asked, to find out as much as she could about what Sylvia meant.

  “Yeah, the lawyer,” Sylvia said. “The one who became a judge and kept coming back.”

  Gemma frowned. “Kept coming back? What do you mean?”

  “She kept coming back! She kept harassing me.”

  “How did she harass you?”

  “Because she knew she could,” Sylvia said.

  But Gemma hadn’t asked her why. She asked her how. “How did she harass you?”

  Sylvia hesitated, as if she was deciding if it was worth her effort. “Why should I tell you anything? What’s in it for me?”

  Gemma knew she had to play hardball. She pulled out her cell phone, pulled up an article on Google she had already selected when she figured she would get that kind of response, and then slid her phone over to Sylvia.

  “You see that picture?” Gemma asked.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “What does it say?”

  “Salvatore Luciano Gabrini.” Sylvia said that name and then looked at Gemma. “So?”

  “What else does it say?”

  Sylvia looked again. “Reputed mob boss Salvatore Luciano Gabrini.” Then she looked at Gemma differently.

  “That’s my husband,” Gemma said. “Life,” she added. “That’s what’s in it for you, motherfucker. You get to live. Now tell me what I asked you. How did my mother supposedly harass you?”

  Sylvia hesitated, and frowned, but ultimately she spoke up. “She made me tell her everything. She threatened to blackmail me if I didn’t tell her everything that was going on in that child’s life.”

  Gemma was baffled. “What are you saying? My mother knew about Marie’s life after you took her?”

  “I didn’t tell her!”

  “After the adoption?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Yeah, she knew. She made me tell her everything. It was bad enough while she was a lawyer. But when she became a judge, I knew I had to do exactly what she said. Not because I did anything wrong, mind you, but because I didn’t want any trouble for myself. I knew how rigged the system was. So I went along with it.”

  Gemma was stunned.

  “So if you wanna know all about your daughter, ask your mama. She was the one who signed the papers anyway. She was the one who had you sign the papers too. You might not have known what your mama asked you to sign, but you signed those papers. When I get my day in court, I’m gonna prove it. I’m gonna prove how all y’all signed those papers. Every one of you girls. I’m going to prove my innocence.”

  And she kept talking as if she hadn’t already shocked Gemma senseless with news that her mother knew exactly where her daughter was, and if she was okay, but didn’t tell her. “If anybody’s guilty of anything,” Sylvia continued, “it’s your mama, and all those other mamas who manipulated their daughters into signing those papers. I didn’t know they were doing that. I thought you girls were agreeing too. That’s not my fault that the mamas lied.”

  She was just covering her ass, and Gemma knew it. Every client she’d ever had was always about covering their asses. But Sylvia Pendle was no longer Gemma’s concern. If she was telling her the truth, Gemma knew she had a bigger problem. Her mother was lying to her. Her mother knew her daughter’s whereabouts, and what kind of life she was leading, and didn’t tell her. What she didn’t understand, since she had to know it all was going to come out anyway, was why.

  “Tell me what you know about Marie,” she said to Sylvia. “Tell me what you know.”

  But Sylvia was shaking her head. “That’s not for me to tell. My agency was legit. Once Marie grew up, your mama had private eyes keeping tabs on her. I got out of there and lost all contact. I don’t know what became of her. She was still in high school last I knew of her. So you need to be asking your mama all those kinds of questions you have. That bitch knows.” Then she smiled. “That bitch knows it all.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Gemma made her way to the parking lot unable to even think straight. Her mother knew all about Marie for all of these years, and never told her? Even after Sylvia was arraigned, and Gemma flew all the way to Indiana to confront her mother, she still wouldn’t come clean. But why? What was she hiding? Why wouldn’t she just tell Gemma the truth?

  Gemma was so engulfed in her own thoughts, and was trying to decide if she should phone her mother or fly right back to Indiana and confront her face to face, when she walked up to her Bentley and realized Sal was leaned against her car, his arms folded, his sunglasses covering his angry eyes, waiting for her.

  “Sal,” she said, surprised to see him there.

  “Didn’t I tell your ass not to go see that woman?”

  “I have information, Sal.”

  But Sal was too angry. “I don’t give a fuck what you have! I told you to stay away from here and let me and my men handle this. You don’t know what the fuck you’re getting yourself involved with.”

  Gemma stared at him. “You found out something?” she asked him.

  Sal hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

  “What?” Gemma asked.

  But Sal was still in his feelings. “Just get in the car,” he said, still angry, and got in himse
lf behind the steering wheel.

  Gemma knew he wasn’t going to like it when she disobeyed a direct order the way she had, but she also knew it was her daughter, not his, and she was the one who had to make the ultimate decisions about what she did to get the information she needed. But now he already had some intel? She hurried around to the passenger side of the luxury car he had bought for her, and got in. “What is it?” she asked him.

  “What did that woman tell you?” Sal asked her.

  “Just that my mother knew more than she was letting on. She claimed my mother kept tabs on Marie the entire time. She claims Mom even hired private eyes to keep tabs on Marie.”

  “But is it true?” Sal asked. “That woman could be lying her ass off.”

  “She could be. I’m not saying she isn’t. But if she’s not, it’s strange.”

  “Yeah, it is. Why wouldn’t Cassie just tell you what she knew? She was concerned about her culpability, but that shit’s coming out regardless. They arrested the mastermind behind that dirty scheme they cooked up to take babies from their mothers. Why didn’t she just come clean?”

  Gemma shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll probably have to go back to Indiana to find out.”

  Sal didn’t object, which surprised Gemma. And that was when she realized he had some intel of his own. “What about you?” she asked. “What have your men told you?”

  Sal exhaled, and removed his sunglasses.

  “What, Sal?” Gemma asked.

  “We found her,” he said.

  Gemma was stunned, and elated. “Where?” she asked him anxiously. “Take me to her!”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Sal.

  “Why? What’s wrong? Is she alright, Sal? Tell me she’s okay!”

  “She’s not okay,” Sal admitted. “We don’t think she’s okay, Gemma.”

  Gemma’s heart sank. “Why don’t you think so? What’s happened to her?”