Sweet Vengeance

by Fern Michaels

  The rest of that year was spent in foster care. Hard as their caseworker, Lauren Keller, tried, she was unable to find a family willing to take in both of them, and Tessa and Lara lived apart for the first time in their lives. They’d stayed in contact in the beginning, but after two years, Lara stopped answering the letters Tessa sent her sister through Lauren, and their phone calls were few and far between. Tessa optimistically decided that her younger sister must be happy, and she focused on her own set of problems.

  She had been in her third foster home for only three months when Hector and Maria Amaya were arrested and charged with fraud. She never knew exactly what kind of fraud but suspected it had something to do with the “other” business Hector operated in their spare bedroom after he thought she and the three other girls she shared a room with were asleep. People would come and go all night long. Some laughed, some cried, and others were bold and vulgar, their Spanish loud and guttural. Tessa had not slept a full night since she had been placed with them, so when she was told she would be relocating to yet another foster home, she was fine with the decision.

  She hated leaving the other girls behind. They were all younger than her and looked up to her. Ashley, a pale, thin girl with long blond hair reaching her waist, appeared to be around nine or ten. Tessa knew something very bad had happened to her family, but when she tried to ask her about it, Ashley would just cry, and Tessa held her hand because she didn’t know what else to do. Deanna was seven and didn’t speak at all. Tessa thought she might have been a bit deaf because she never seemed to react to the loud, boisterous noises at night. Deanna followed Willow, the youngest of the girls, around like a shadow. Willow was small and dark-skinned, with hair so curly it looked like dozens of tiny corkscrews were attached to her head. She was the sweetest little girl, and Tessa thought she had the kindest eyes, especially for one who was so young. She had not seemed at all unhappy with the Amayas, so Tessa didn’t spend too much time worrying about her when she left.

  In seventh grade, Tessa was sent to live with the Carter family in Davie, Florida, which was a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Glenn and Shirley Carter were in their early forties when Tessa entered their lives. Of the three families she had lived with, this one’s situation was, by far, the most promising. No trailers or shabby apartments. The Carter family home was a mansion compared to those other places. Painted a pale shade of peach, with a redbrick tile roof and a perfectly manicured lawn with a screened-in swimming pool, Tessa thought she had hit the jackpot. Briefly, she wondered if Lara had had such luck.

  She didn’t recall how long she had been with the Carters when the nightmare began. Looking back, it all seemed so surreal, so off the charts. Unable to cope with the luridness that plagued her nights, she had focused her attention elsewhere.

  School was her savior.

  She had studied hard in school and, in her senior year of high school, earned an academic scholarship to the University of Miami, where she studied and earned her bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular pharmacology. She had been a science nerd ever since first grade. In high school, she was a member of the National Honor Society. When she had been offered the scholarship, she knew that receiving it was her only way out of a world of poverty. It had not been easy, but she had delved into her studies and managed to graduate near the top of her class.

  The day she had turned eighteen, she packed what few belongings she had and left Glenn and Shirley Carter and her former life behind. Shirley, who’d always asked the fosters to call her Mama Shirley, had truly been sad when Tessa moved out. Sure that she had not known what horrors Tessa had been subjected to, Tessa had merely said her good-byes and never looked back.

  After working at Miami University Hospital for a year, she found herself getting bored and applied for a job at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the state of Florida.

  Jamison Pharmaceuticals.

  It was here that she met Joel Jamison, the owner of the company, and after working in pharmaceutical sales for a year, she and Joel became involved. Ten months later, they were married, and one month after that, she was pregnant. Six weeks after learning she was pregnant, she was ecstatic when her doctor told Tessa and Joel that they were going to be the parents of identical twin girls.

  At first, Joel had seemed a bit shaken at the news that they were expecting twins. She had questioned him on this later, and he’d told her the idea of raising one child was mind-boggling. Two at once, he’d said, scared the pants off him. But a few days later, once he’d gotten used to the idea, Tessa remembered he’d become even more excited as together they planned their daughters’ future.

  “Twins,” she had remarked one night as they’d dined in Coral Gables at the stylish Pascal’s On Ponce. She was three months pregnant and had already gained sixteen pounds, something Joel had recently started teasing her about. He told her she looked like a starving Ethiopian. She had been truly offended. Not so much for herself but for those in Ethiopia who barely had enough food to exist. He’d apologized, but from that moment on, she was careful not to completely undress in front of him. When their waiter asked if they wanted dessert, Tessa declined, but Joel had insisted she have the key lime raspberry tart, and she remembered wondering if this was his way of telling her that he didn’t mind if she was a bit larger than some women at this stage of pregnancy. Of course, she really had no clue about relative sizes, as no one she knew had ever had twins, which led to a discussion on the topic of twins.

  Identical twins.

  Tessa asked Joel if there were identical twins on his side of the family. At first, Joel seemed angry at her inquiry, but then he brushed it aside, telling her he personally didn’t know of any twins but mentioning that he seemed to remember having once been told that there had been a set a few generations in the past.

  Chapter 2

  Tessa forced herself to think of something else, anything but the past. The cellblock was beyond noisy, and she remembered that today was Saturday, one of the two visiting days each week. She planned to finish reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for the third time since she knew there wouldn’t be anyone anxiously waiting to visit her, to ask if she was okay, if there was anything she needed. That was not going to happen.

  She had loved reading her entire life, and it was her love of books that continued to protect her sanity. Lost in the fictional world of the Brontë sisters, she devoured their stories, anything to escape her own reality. Books had been her escape as a child and would apparently be for whatever remained of her miserable life in this cell she called home.

  Randall Harper, her attorney, occasionally visited when there was something new to report. He’d filed an appeal immediately after the sentencing, as was customary after one’s client had received a life sentence—in her case three of them—one for each count of murder in the first degree to run consecutively rather than, as was normal, concurrently. Randall had warned her not to expect a decision in her favor, so she wasn’t surprised when her appeal had been denied. In point of fact, she really had not cared one way or another. Her daughters were gone, her husband was gone, her family no longer existed. Her life was over, and all the appeals in the world wouldn’t change that fact. She had told her attorney not to waste his time on her. It didn’t matter where she lived, she would still be grief-stricken and labeled a murderer, despite the fact that she was totally innocent of anything other than, perhaps, stupidity.

  Liam Jamison. Joel’s half brother. He was the person responsible for her loss, and he had never even been questioned regarding the murder of her entire family. Repeatedly, she had told her story to the police officers. Over and over that fateful Sunday when she had returned from San Maribel. She had begged, pleaded, and finally, she had screamed with such rage, crazed with unparalleled grief, that they’d actually listened to her. She told her story again, over and over, repeatedly, or at least she thought she had because years later, when she had tried to recall the events that had led up to her arrest, she
had no clear memory of exactly what she had said to the police that day or any other day aside from her absolute, unwavering conviction that Liam had killed her entire family. Over and over, she had implored them to locate Liam, telling the police she knew he was responsible because he had been molesting her daughters, and that was the reason she had traveled to San Maribel. To arrange a place to hide her girls from the media, which would exploit the horrid act that had changed their lives forever. It didn’t seem to matter what she had said; they would not listen. She recalled being whisked from room to room and questioned until she simply stopped talking.

  Literally.

  She had told the officers on the scene what she knew to be true. When the detectives had taken her downtown to police headquarters, where she was questioned for hours, so long, that her memory of that day, or it might have been days, was still hazy more than ten years later.

  Liam was never investigated; in fact, he was never even located. Sure that Rachelle, her mother-in-law, had whisked him out of the country, never to be found again, Tessa had simply given up on locating him. Rachelle had done a damn good job because Tessa’s attorney said he’d hired the best private detectives in the business, and they had failed to locate him. The one thing that they did know was that he had not been in Japan as she had thought when she flew off to San Maribel. He seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

  The police investigation, what little of it there had been, centered completely on her.

  Her trial was short, taking almost no time at all and occurring scant weeks after the deaths of her loved ones, making headlines across the country. While the case went to the jury after only fourteen days of testimony, she listened to the talking heads discuss her life, what her motive had been: a 50-million-dollar life insurance policy and Jamison Pharmaceuticals. Virtually everyone agreed that she should get the death penalty for her greed.

  The talk of her weekend “getaway” had been the subject of a great deal of speculation. A secret lover in San Maribel. A sudden hate for her children. Revenge for an unfaithful husband. On and on the murders made headlines across the country, and there wasn’t a single ounce of truth to any of them.

  She had truly lived through a nightmare.

  And that nightmare would never end unless she dictated its ending herself. For years now, she had been contemplating how she would go about committing the act that would put an end to her suffering, yet each day, she somehow found another reason to go on. A new book in the library, a rare kind word from a guard, or just the knowledge that it was morally wrong to have acted on such thoughts.

  Tomorrow I will rethink my options. She had this thought at least once each day.

  The guards were especially watchful on visiting days, their eyes everywhere, never missing the slightest hint of defiance. It could be as simple as one trying to hold the hand of a loved one, a quick sleight of hand in an attempt to pass a joint, whatever the latest craze happened to be in the world of narcotics, or a small weapon. It amazed her how hawkeyed they could be on visiting day, considering how lackadaisical they usually were.

  In a different world, she would understand, but she was now a part of this institution that synchronized every minute of her existence with military precision. When she ate, what she ate, when she showered, when she slept, where she slept, what she wore. On and on it went. The only variation to her days were her precious radio, which allowed her to stay informed on the outside world, her books, and the few snacks she was allowed to purchase from the commissary, something she seldom did, again because she did not want to draw any undue attention to herself.

  She dampened a much-treasured washcloth and ran it over her face, neck, and arms. Showers were every other day, and she had learned to make do with the small sink in her cell. While she wasn’t going to strip off for a full body wash, which she only did when it was lights out, for now, she settled for a quick once-over, then settled down on her bunk with her book while the other inmates prepared for visitors.

  At first, it had bothered her when no one came to visit, other than Randall, of course, whom she never considered a real visitor, but now, she was content for the short span of quiet time these weekend visiting days provided her. While her days working in the prison’s library were cherished, it wasn’t always as quiet as one might think it would be in a library.

  So immersed was she in her novel that the whack of a club against the steel bars startled her, and her book flew out of her hands.

  “Get up, Jamison. You got a visitor,” said Hicks, her least favorite guard.

  Who? she wondered, as she had not had a visitor since Lara, and that had been more than a year ago.

  Knowing it was useless to ask who, she simply nodded, picked her book off the floor, and tossed it onto her bed. So much for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters’ adventures, but she knew the ending, so it really didn’t matter as it was simply a means by which to pass the time, which, unfortunately, she had more than enough of.

  “Hurry up. I ain’t got all day,” Hicks shouted.

  Tessa nodded, held her hands out of the small opening for the wrist cuffs that connected to the shackles that would be placed around her ankles when she was out of her cell.

  “You ain’t going to the public visiting area. You got some fancy-schmancy legal team here,” Hicks explained, her Southern accent heavy with sarcasm. “Must think you’re special, huh?”

  Marcia Hicks was overweight and just as ugly as she was mean. More than once she had passed by Tessa’s cell with a black eye. Tessa wasn’t sure if her occasional injuries were from an inmate, another guard, or possibly from home. Nor did she really care. The woman was evil and a bully, which made her well suited for the job of prison guard.

  Tessa hated it when the guards tried to antagonize her, anything to get a negative response just so they could send her to the “hole,” but to this very day, she had never allowed her emotions to control her actions. She simply nodded as if this turn of events was expected, and let Hicks lead her out of her cell.

  Inside, her heart hammered like a Gatling gun. As Tessa walked down the cellblock, Hicks behind her, she kept her head lowered, focusing on the cement floor as she took one step at a time, her thoughts all over the place.

  A legal team? Hicks was probably just trying to get a rise out of her. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder who’d gone to such great lengths to visit her. The few times Randall visited, they had met in the attorney-client holding room reserved for attorneys to meet with their clients, where they could have actual human contact. One couldn’t sign papers or visit with one’s attorney in the area reserved for public visitations. But they were headed in the opposite direction from the attorney-client rooms. When they reached the end of the hallway with which she was familiar, with Hicks on her heels, she stopped, waiting for Hicks to direct her to her destination.

  “Left, stupid ass,” Hicks said before Tessa could ask.

  Tessa took a deep breath and released it slowly. She would not allow the crude name-calling to affect her, no matter how hard it was not to do so. She turned to the left and walked down a short hallway, which ended with a utilitarian gray door inset with a small pane of wire-covered glass. She had never been to this area of the prison and had no clue what to expect when Hicks jostled her ring of keys and unlocked the door.

  Hicks shoved her into the room, and Tessa stumbled, regaining her balance with the aid of an unknown hand that was offered.

  When she saw the face of Sam McQuade, tears filled her eyes. Not knowing or caring why he was here, she walked toward him and wrapped her arms around him, not caring that she was being observed by strangers.

  “Sam,” she said, her voice a soft whisper.

  “Tessa.”

  It was only seconds, but it felt much longer to Tessa when Hicks pushed her away from him. It had been so long since she had had a comforting hug; the utter completeness of the act brought back memories that she had thought were tucked away in that safe place in her m
ind that she rarely allowed herself to visit. A tingle down her spine settled itself in places that were off-limits to her now.

  “Get your hands off her,” an unfamiliar voice said to Hicks. “And leave. You’re not needed here.”

  Tessa wanted to shout “Yes!” as loud as she could but refrained, knowing what the consequences would be once this visit was over.

  It was unlike Hicks not to respond with some smart-ass comment, but the horrible woman left the room without saying a word, signaling her displeasure only by slamming the door behind her. Perhaps these people had the kind of clout that even a bully like Hicks recognized could spell trouble for her if they decided to make an issue of her crude conduct. One could wish.

  “Are they all like her?” the man who had spoken asked, nodding toward the door.

  Tessa shook her head. “No.” Her head was spinning, wondering what was happening. It couldn’t be good; that much she was sure of. No one visited a prison to deliver good news; at least she didn’t know of anyone who’d had good news delivered this way.

  “I assume you’re wondering why we are all here,” said the man with the unfamiliar voice. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a head of the blackest hair she had ever seen. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a dark blue suit, and a pink tie, which she assumed to be in recognition of it being October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “I’m Lee Whitlow, and these are my associates”—he stepped out of her line of sight—“Steven Kilhefner and Bethany Young.”

  Tessa extended her hand, shaking hands with these three strangers who had most likely come with devastating news, hence Sam’s appearance.

  Her first thought was that Lara had either overdosed or had been killed. Just the thought caused her stomach to churn with that familiar tugging sensation that she identified as gut-wrenching fear.

  Unsure of what she should do, she simply said, “Hello.” It had been a very long time since she had had occasion to display her social graces, and she felt totally out of touch with the real world. Prison life was an entity unto itself, and Tessa was stained forever with the stigma of being a convicted murderer. She felt inhuman, worthless, no longer a part of society or anything that mattered because the life she knew had been taken from her over ten years ago. So, whoever these people were, the reason for their visit didn’t really matter because she knew that as soon as they said whatever they came to say, Hicks would take her back to her cell, where she would return to the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald.