Sweet Revenge: A Nanny to Mommy Romantic Suspense

by Ford, Mia

  “There are people who think that you married your wife just for the money. And people who even think you had something to do with her death.”

  I felt myself getting hot. I took several deep breaths and kept things together though. I was proud of myself.

  “Well, people will talk and people will talk. In this world we live in—people have nothing better to do than to spread vicious gossip.”

  Jane smiled, as if satisfied with my answer.

  When she left later that night I was glad to be rid of her. As much as I was starting to fall for her, there was something about that woman that scared me to death. It was like she knew me way too well, as if she could just look right through me and read me. Normally, I was used to being on that end of things, but having those questions and that condescension aimed at me—that was no fun at all.

  I could clearly see that I was going to have to keep an eye on how close Jane got to me.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Leia

  I was sitting on the couch with Taylor when his phone rang.

  “It’s her,” he said. He answered the phone quickly. “Hey, thanks so much for checking on that for me. Oh? You do?”

  I waited as he spoke with his friend. We’d been waiting on pins and needles for days for the forensics report to come back. I could only hope that there was something there. Please… there has to be something…

  Taylor hung up the phone and looked at me. I saw something in his eyes that looked like excitement. It was a contagious feeling.

  “What? What?” I asked.

  “It turns out that Ted’s real name is Greg Lydell.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. It gets better. When he was fourteen, his parents’ house burned down killing them both. Apparently he was at a friend’s house.”

  “A fire…”

  “Yep. The cops always thought he was involved, but they couldn’t prove anything. An aunt raised him until he was eighteen and he received his inheritance from his family. Something to the tune of three million dollars.”

  “Three million?”

  “Yes. And of course Greg, or Ted as he is known now, blew through all of that within a few years. Then he started trying to make a name for himself as a motocross racer.”

  “He did it before. He killed his parents for the money,” I said. It all made sense now. There was a pattern emerging.

  “But does this prove anything about what happened to you? I don’t see it. So far, it is all circumstantial. Ted knew it worked before, so he did it again. And he did it very well. The whole world thinks you are dead.”

  Taylor was right. All of my excitement was starting to turn to grief. I didn’t know what made me think that somehow this would blow everything wide open and I’d have everything set for me to spring my trap on Ted.

  “Why is this so hard?” I grunted. I was so frustrated. I just wanted to hit something, and I wanted that something to be Ted.

  “Wait a minute…” Taylor said. “What about the friend? The one who’s house he was at when the fire with his parents happened.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe we can’t pin your murder on him, but there might be a way to pin the murder of his parents.”

  “You’re right.”

  Taylor grabbed his laptop and started looking up details of the fire using Ted’s real name of Greg Lydell. Surprisingly, there were several in depth articles from that area about it. After doing a bit more research we were able to come up with the name Karen Fox. After a bit more snooping on social media we found her, and then looked up her number.

  “I’m not sure I want to talk about this…” Karen said when I told her I wanted to talk to her about the night of that fire. “I told the reporters back then everything that I could remember or wanted to say.”

  “I’m not a reporter,” I explained. “Listen, if there is anything you remember about that night—anything that points a finger at the guilt of Greg Lydell—you’ve got to tell me. I think he’s done it again. We have strong evidence that he actually tried to kill someone else the same way.”

  “Oh, no!” Karen gasped.

  “Please. Won’t you help me?”

  There was silence on the line. I could almost hear Karen getting her nerve up.

  “Ok,” she finally said. “Greg was at my house. We were there having a party while my parents were out of town. I went downstairs to get some more soda from the basement. That’s when I saw Greg. He was grabbing a can of lighter fluid off the shelf. When I asked him what he was doing, he tried to play it off and said he wanted to borrow some for his family barbecue the next morning. I told him I knew he was lying and he just laughed at me. Then he left the party but returned a while later, without the can. I was going to question him, but then we learned of the fire. I knew he did it, but I didn’t want to believe him. I couldn’t bear to think that a friend of mine, a guy I kind of had a crush on—that he would do that to his own parents. I wouldn’t let myself believe it, but as I got older I knew he was guilty.”

  “Karen, you have to go to the cops. He has to face justice.”

  “It’s been too long,” Karen said.

  “No. There is no statute of limitations on murder. We have to do something,” I said. I was pleading with her. Finally, I came clean. “Karen, he tried to kill me the same way. He is alone with my two little boys. They are in danger. The man needs to be behind bars. But I need your help to do it.”

  There was silence on the other line for a moment. I wanted to say more, to plead the case a little better, but I was terrified of saying too much. It was obvious that Karen had been scared or intimidated into not saying anything. I could tell that she’d learned who Ted really was and what he was capable of.

  But the guilt had to be brutal. She’d done a great job of stuffing it down so far back into the dark recesses of her mind that it never bothered her. It never surfaced. But I’d poked it and prodded it until it was now free out in the open once again. She knew that she had to help me; it was the right thing to do.

  “Ok,” Karen said. “Just tell me what to do.”

  We set Karen up on a Skype call and we videoed everything she said. After it was over I thanked her sincerely. “I know how hard this was for you. But you are helping to make sure that justice is served. With this we can finally go to the police and make a formal report. I don’t know if it will lead to anything, but it’s a start. Thank you, so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” Karen said. She was crying by the end of it. It could be the fear and the emotional toll that this confession had taken on her. I now owed it to her to keep her safe and make sure that Ted never knew she talked to us.

  After the phone call with Karen I called the police. It took me speaking with a few people before I finally found my way to a detective, Henry Fisk, who seemed very interested in what I had to say.

  “You are saying what now? You are claiming to be Leia Daniels? The Leia Daniels?” Detective Fisk asked me.

  “Yes. That is me. My husband set me on fire. He tried to kill me.”

  “How can we prove this is really you? Where have you been all this time?”

  I went over the story in explicit detail.

  “Ok. Look, for what it’s worth, I believe you. But right now you are just a voice on the phone. And you say your appearance is radically different? What can you do to prove you are who you say? I see nothing in your records about prints or DNA, and even if there was you would have been so burnt that your fingerprints would have been gone. What about dental? Dental records?”

  I agreed with him that was probably the only way to prove I was Leia Daniels.

  “Alright, well when you come in to the station we will have our forensic people take care of those comparisons. But even then, how can we prove that your husband set that fire or that he tried to kill you?”

  “I have an idea,” I said. “I’m going to get him to admit the whole thing.”

  The detective chuckled. “
Well, lady, you’ve got some guts. I like what I’m hearing.”

  I smiled at Taylor who rubbed my shoulder reassuringly.

  Finally, after all this time. I was going to have real peace and real justice.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ted

  I swerved my dirt bike hard to the left and then quickly applied the brake as the bike’s tires skidded along the rocky trail and eventually came to a stop right along the edge of a steep drop off. Glancing over the side I felt just a little bit queasy. That was quite a long way down. I’d almost come face to face with my death. It was a bit of a thrill.

  By the time my friends Marty and Clyde pulled up next to me I was laughing my head off. My own clumsiness had almost gotten me killed for what was probably the fifth time this year. One day I knew I would run out of luck, but today was not that day. Therefore, it was all fun and games.

  “Dude, that was messed up!” Marty said. “I thought for sure you were a goner.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said. “But not this time.”

  “I don’t get why you have to take so many risks,” Clyde said.

  “Because that is what makes this sport so awesome. What is the point of having an amazing dirt bike if I don’t use it to ride in the dirt?”

  “Yeah, but riding in the dirt is one thing. Flirting with falling off the side of a mountain is another thing entirely. You have to be the craziest guy I know.”

  “You’d better believe it, baby,” I said slapping him on the arm.

  We rode our bikes back to a flat spot where we’d decided to camp for the night. It was pretty serene out in the desert. I’d been coming out there riding for years and every single time I came out I thought about how much fun it would be to just live out there and become one with nature. There were no people, not many animals, and really nothing close to resembling civilization to disturb you. But then again, I was use to the amenities of home and by about three days in I would probably go nuts.

  “So, how come we didn’t invite any ladies with us out here?” Marty asked when we got back to our camp.

  I shrugged. “It’s good to have a guys’ night out every now and then. Besides not that many of the women we know are into racing. Unless you got some new friends I don’t know about.”

  “We should change that,” Clyde said. “Hell, that new girl I’m seeing gets really turned on by riding.”

  “Guys, this is our little sanctuary. Actually, it’s mine. You should feel lucky that I even invite you out here. I’m not going to muck it up by turning it into some kind of a romantic getaway.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t upset because that foxy nanny of yours won’t give you the time of day?” Marty asked.

  I shot him a look that could have taken his head off. The fear in his eyes showed that he’d had a momentary slip of the tongue. Clyde was yucking it up though, laughing his head off.

  I played it off.

  “She will come around,” I said. “But if she doesn’t then that’s fine. Some women are just not worth the effort.”

  “Oh, that one is. Damn, she is fine as hell.”

  I nodded. “I agree. And she has a great mind. That is an amazing combo.”

  Clyde’s eyes flew wide just then. “Oh, shit! You love this girl!”

  Marty joined in on it.

  “I don’t love anybody,” I said and as I uttered those words I realized it was true. I’d never really loved anybody and I was perfectly ok with it. I did however want Jane in every possible way I could have her. If I found out she was shacking up with some other guy, I was going to be furious. No one could satisfy her the way I could. I knew it. And soon so would she. I was working on a few things to get her sexy ass to come around. They would work come hell or high water.

  “There is no shame in it, man,” Clyde said. “It’s cool if you have feelings for a great girl like that. We are happy for you.”

  Marty nodded in agreement.

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be sure to include all of that in a newsletter.”

  We joked around for a bit and then decided to fix some food. I grabbed a few of the steaks I’d packed into the cooler and threw those in a pan over the fire we built. The sun was just starting to set and the temperatures in the desert were now really starting to drop. That was fine; I loved the cool evenings out here with perfectly clear skies. You could see all of the stars.

  I used to lie around as a kid and think about all of the stars up in the sky and the galaxies. Each one of those stars had a different solar system with it. I figured there had to be intelligent life on some of them. I used to dream about being an astronaut and going to space. I would one day land on another planet and greet some creature out there, but then I found out that you had to have great grades and be a “school” person to have a shot at it. I was not a “school” person. As a matter of fact, I hated school. I hated the structure, the rules, the way the other kids would tattle on me anytime I had the guts to do something fun to break up the boredom. They would be entertained and then they’d tattle on me like a bunch of little, whiny assed bitches.

  Sometimes I fantasized about tracking some of them down and enacting a special kind of revenge on them. That would be so sweet. They wouldn’t even see me coming. Hell, with my money I could pull that off so easily.

  “Do you ever think you are getting married again, man?” Clyde asked when we were eating the steaks later.

  I looked at him trying to determine if he was actually being serious, or if he was still joking off something from earlier. He was serious. Why was this moron asking me this?

  “Are we talking about our feelings or something now?” I asked. “Did this become like some kind of a feelings retreat or whatever?”

  Marty was laughing now. He hit Clyde in the arm. “You are an idiot. I hope you know that.”

  “What? I was just curious,” Clyde said.

  “No,” I replied. “I got married once and that was more than enough.”

  “Why? Was it that bad?” Clyde asked.

  “Wow, man. What is your deal?”

  “It’s that girl, Mary. The new girl he’s dating,” Marty said. “He told me the other day he was thinking of popping the question.”

  I was shocked. “Damn. Another one bites the dust. I never took you for the married life, Clyde. I guess you fooled me. I could have sworn you’d dedicated your life to full on bachelorhood.”

  Clyde blushed and played it off. “I said I was thinking about asking her. I never said I was going to.”

  “You probably know that Mary would say no,” Marty chuckled.

  “Shut up,” Clyde protested. “She would not say no. That woman digs me.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? I just do.”

  “No, you never ‘just know’. You never ‘just know’ about anybody. Clyde, listen to me. That woman is looking for a guy to marry to help her squeeze out some babies before she gets too old. It happens to all single women once they hit thirty. That biological clock is no joke. All women suddenly become crazy with being parents at around that age.”

  “Really?” Clyde asked.

  I tried not to laugh. I was essentially talking out of my ass, and I was three beers in at this point. I was right in that crucial point between being totally full of it and actually speaking some truth, as I understood it. Plus, Clyde was one of the dumbest friends I had. He was very gullible and believed just about everything I said. But he was a big bastard and great in a fight if you ever needed him on your side. On top of that he looked like a young version of Dolph Lundgren and all the girls were always gathering around him. He was easy chick bait. For these reasons, and the fact that he was dumb as a rock and easy to mess with, we kept him around. For entertainment purposes mostly.

  “You moron,” Marty said ruining my fun. “He’s messing with you.”

  Clyde gave me a dumb questionable look. I could no longer hold it together. I burst out laughing.


  Clyde hit me in the shoulder. “You dick!”

  “I know,” I said. “I am a jerk. And I’ve made peace with it.”

  He lightened up and started laughing with me and Marty. Honestly, I felt that of the three of us Clyde would probably enjoy being married the most. He was just a good type of guy who would be happiest with it. He hated dating and he was not good by himself. Clyde had always been one of those guys who really needed people.

  The next morning, we got up early, loaded up our stuff in our backpacks, and hopped back on the bikes for some more biking. They were mostly trails I’d been on dozens of times over the years. I made a resolution that sometime in the next few months I was going to take a trip up north and find some new challenges, some different terrain, and just see how good I did against the northern territory. I’d always loved pitting myself against nature. There was just something animalistic and primal about it.

  We headed out of the desert and started the ride home a few hours later. It had been a pretty good trip. I always valued getting away from everything with some good friends. Jane had been almost happy about staying with the boys for a few days while I went away. She was still flirting with me and pretending not to. It was a game she was playing and I was well-versed in it. I’d seen women doing the same thing to friends of mine. Very few ever had the guts to try it with a man like me. That was the wealth factor. Most women were too intimidated by it to ever try to play me that way. It was too easy for me to say “No thanks” and move on. When it came to women I had nothing to lose and little to gain. They all knew it and I loved the power that my money gave me over people. Life wasn’t supposed to be that way, but it was and no one could ever really deny it no matter how hard they tried.

  It all made me laugh to think about.

  When I got back to the house I was expecting a warm greeting from Jane and the kids, but to my surprise the house was empty. I checked around but I was alone. After not finding any notes I double checked my phone to see if Jane had sent me any messages. She hadn’t.