Sweet Vengeance

by Fern Michaels

  “Watch yourself when you leave. Those media whores are still hanging out by the gates,” Tessa reminded her.

  Jill laughed. “I’ll watch for them, and if they give me any crap, I’ll flip them the bird. That should give them something for tomorrow’s front page.”

  Tessa laughed, too, and for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt just a moment’s happiness. “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” she added.

  “Of course I would never do that, but I did get a smile out of you,” Jill said. “Are you okay? Seriously, do you think you’re going to be able to deal with . . . everything?”

  “I’m just grateful for the chance,” Tessa said. “It was never going to be easy, I have realized that all along, but I want to do whatever I can to find . . . the person responsible.” She wanted to say Liam, not the wishy-washy “person responsible,” but she didn’t for fear she would actually slip up and tell Jill what she was planning to do when she found the bastard. Even though she had no formal plans, they had to find him first. Then she would seriously begin to plan his death.

  “I’ll be here every step of the way,” Jill said. “Now, I’m going to sneak out the back.” She grabbed her giant tote bag, and Sam waited by the door.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said to Jill, then to Tessa, “Wait here.”

  She sat down on the sofa, totally exhausted. It was almost midnight. Another long day tomorrow, but she didn’t care. She thought about Rosa and her absolute certainty that she had seen Joel running from the house. Covered in blood. It was so absurd, she couldn’t believe Sam was actually considering looking into her claims.

  Tessa felt sure the watch found in Joel’s desk was . . . was what? Suddenly, she didn’t know what she felt so sure of anymore. Granted, none of this made any sense whatsoever, but she remembered that day. Horrified hardly described her reaction to what she had seen, but she clearly remembered that when she had seen Joel’s body by the pool’s skimmer, something about it hadn’t seemed right. It was Joel, she knew that, but she had always had a nagging thought that the man that was Joel, the bloated, decomposing Joel, had not been . . . Joel. Of course, scientifically, she knew why the body didn’t appear to be her husband’s body. The face was gone. Slashed so badly with the box cutter that the medical examiner’s office had needed DNA to make an accurate identification. And, of course, the DNA was an exact match, so what was it about his body that had bothered her all these years?

  Everything, of course—he was her husband, the father of her children. Their twin daughters. As though jarred by a jolt of lightning, Tessa had a flashback from a conversation she and Joel had had years ago. They’d been having dinner at a fancy restaurant. She was pregnant with the girls.

  Tessa asked Joel if there were identical twins on his side of the family. Joel had seemed angry at her inquiry, but then he’d brushed it aside, telling her he personally didn’t know of any twins, but she remembered he had said something about once having heard that there was a set a few generations before him.

  Had she imagined his reaction to her question? Had he actually been angry? She didn’t remember the exact tone of the conversation, so it’s possible she was reading more into an old memory than she should.

  But hadn’t he acted strangely when they learned that they were having twins? Yes, she was sure he had, but then he had explained it away by telling her it was scary enough being a parent to one child, even more so to two at once. Those might not have been his exact words, but they were close. And he had been rattled when she asked him about it later. She didn’t recall where the conversation had ended, but the discussion of twins had provoked Joel for some odd reason. Of course, once the girls were born, Joel was truly a devoted father. He changed diapers, helped with the 2:00 A.M. feedings, helped her bathe them.

  Dear God, had he . . . No! She wouldn’t even allow her thoughts to travel down that sick road. Joel had his faults, but he was a good father.

  Sam opened the sliding door, and Tessa jumped. She placed her hand on her heart. “I am definitely jumpy tonight,” she said, her voice sounding fake to her own ears. There was no way she would even consider sharing her thoughts about Joel with Sam.

  “I think you’re just tired. Let’s call it a night, and tomorrow, we’ll get a fresh start.” Sam stretched again, and she looked away.

  “Yes, I am bushed.”

  “I’ll lock up and see you in the morning,” Sam said.

  “Thanks, Sam. For everything,” Tessa said. “Night.”

  “Good night,” he called out.

  Tessa had planned to take a hot soak in the Jacuzzi tub, but she was too tired after the emotionally strenuous evening she had just been put through. She had showered earlier, and that would have to suffice. So she quickly washed her face. She brushed her teeth, reveling in the real toothbrush, not that flimsy excuse for one she had to use in prison, though she had to remind herself not to get too used to these things as there was no guarantee that she wasn’t going to return to FCI, although the chances that she would seemed to be vanishing since Rosa’s account of what had happened on Saturday, when her family was still alive.

  Chapter 24

  Tessa could not get to sleep. She looked at the clock for the hundredth time and saw it was just after 2:00 A.M. She had wanted to get a good night’s rest, so she would be sharp tomorrow when she saw Rachelle for the first time since being sent to prison. She would need to be at her mental best as she planned to rake the woman over the coals, and then some. Tessa would know if she was lying. She had spent most of her youth with liars, so she knew one when she saw one. Rachelle might act like a grieving mother, but Tessa knew that she of all people would be able to see through her lies.

  She rolled over, punched the pillow into a comfortable shape, and closed her eyes. She tried to calm her mind, focus on nothing, so that she could fall asleep, but it was impossible. So she let her thoughts take her wherever they might, and after a while, she drifted into a deep sleep.

  Tessa wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep when she was startled awake. Glancing at the bedside clock, she saw that it was after four. She sat up in bed, waiting to hear if what startled her awake would become evident. A thousand thoughts went through her mind. She propped herself up in the bed, pulling the covers up to her chest. Thinking a reporter might have sneaked onto the property, she considered waking up Sam, but she knew that the newly installed alarm system would be blaring had anyone actually managed to get onto the property.

  It was probably her imagination. She was so used to being awakened at night in her cell, it was most likely a continuation of her experiences over the years in prison. She had never been a heavy sleeper anyway and hadn’t ever really required much sleep. She remembered that Mama Shirley used to tell her she didn’t need much sleep because she was a true genius, just like the inventor Thomas Edison, who only slept a couple of hours here and there, according to historians. She didn’t agree. If only Mama Shirley had known then why she rarely slept, she wouldn’t have been so quick to compare her nocturnal habits with those of the great inventor.

  Glenn. That sleazy slimeball who called himself a foster father had spent much of his nights prowling through the house, making pit stops in her bedroom. She knew she should have told Shirley at the time, but all she had wanted to do was live there long enough to finish high school. She knew that having an education was her only way out of the life she did not want to live, so she tolerated the nighttime visits. He would touch her breasts and tell her she would make a good model for Victoria’s Secret one day. Thankfully, though, it never went further than touching. Little had he known that her aspirations were much grander than wagging her tits and ass in front of a camera for the world to see. But she had kept quiet, and Glenn continued to visit her room until her senior year of high school, when she finally confronted him. She was not long from graduating from high school and had already received a scholarship, so at least she knew she had a head start on bettering her lif
e. The last time Glenn had paid her a nightly visit, she was ready for him.

  While she mostly kept to herself in school, she knew a few girls who were not honor students such as herself. She had never judged them for their wild, crazy behavior because she didn’t know what their life circumstances were. She had learned the hard way how hurtful it was to be looked down upon for things beyond her control, so she tried not to judge others when the so-called good girls would turn up their noses at them.

  It was at lunch one day, and she remembered it as though it had happened yesterday. Norrine Sellers was sitting alone at a table in the back of the cafeteria. She had dyed, witch-black hair, black nail polish, and deep purple lipstick. Short skirts and too-tight tops garnered her a great deal of attention from the boys in their senior class. Tessa had thought she was quite the character and knew that she wasn’t the slut that most of the school thought she was. They’d shared lunch more than once, and Tessa liked Norrine, and she knew that Norrine felt the same about her. It was during lunch once that Tessa had told her about Glenn and his nighttime visits to her room. Why she had spilled this to her, she wasn’t sure, but she had needed to tell someone, and Norrine did not judge her. In fact, she had told her she had been through the same thing with three of her mother’s boyfriends. She had asked Tessa to meet her after school that day, promising to help with her “problem.” At first, Tessa was afraid she might tell someone, but true to her word, they met at the Starbucks three blocks from the high school. Norrine had slipped a can of pepper spray into Tessa’s bookbag. “The prick comes into your room, spray him in the face. I promise you that he will never do it again. And with any luck, just the threat will give him a heart attack. Then they’ll boot his perverted ass out of the system, and there goes his income.”

  Norrine had been right. When Glenn sneaked into her room the next night, she was sitting up in bed, and, instead of wearing her nightgown, she was still wearing the clothes she had worn to school. When he eased himself down on the edge of her bed, she whipped the can of pepper spray out from behind her back, then with her other hand, she had switched on the light. “See this, Glenn? If I spray you in the face, Mama Shirley is going to wonder why you’re in my bedroom getting your eyes burned out of your pissy little head. And I plan to tell her. And the state.”

  He had never said a word to her, then or after. He left her room and never returned. The day she graduated from high school, she returned the can of pepper spray to Norrine and thanked her for her help.

  She knew that what she had been through with Glenn was not normal. However, she had lived a rough life with her mother and Lara, and as she got older, she knew there were men who preyed on young girls. All this came back to her that Wednesday morning when Piper and Poppy told them that their uncle had touched them in their most private places. They were only ten years old, for God’s sakes! Tessa had tried to keep their lives as normal and wholesome as possible, and once they were old enough to learn about good touch, bad touch, she explained in very simple terms what they were. And always told them if anyone, it didn’t matter who it was, ever tried to touch them, that they were to come to her immediately. Sadly, that had not happened. There were no tears this time as she remembered her daughters’ tragic deaths. Maybe it was because she knew in a matter of hours she would confront Rachelle, and she would learn of Liam’s whereabouts.

  And then she would begin to plan. She would need Lara’s help. Sam had her phone number. She would call her and tell her she had to come to the house. It was a matter of life and death. And she had to add that there would be money involved. That alone would bring Lara to her. If there was money involved, she could always count on Lara to show up.

  Tessa tried to close her eyes again, hoping for at least another hour’s rest, but sleep would not come, so she said to hell with it, went to the kitchen in her pajamas, and made herself a cup of coffee. As she waited for the Keurig to do its thing, she prayed that the DA would realize that the evidence that her family was still alive on Saturday made it impossible for her to have killed them. After all this time, it was painful for her to think that the jurors who convicted her actually believed a mother, she, could commit the crimes she was charged with. Had she looked that unsympathetic as she had sat at the defense table?

  She didn’t know the answer, as she was sure she had been in a complete state of shock. Her arrest, then the trial, which was only two weeks after her arrest, a fact she later learned was unusual, given the court’s backlog, was the result of incredibly sloppy police work. How could she have killed people on Friday if they were still alive on Saturday? True, Rosa never came forward to tell her story, but how could a coroner mistake a Saturday time of death for a Friday time of death? Once they decided that she was the murderer, did they even bother to ascertain the time of death? Since she was on the mainland all day Saturday, she had to have committed the murders on Friday, to their way of thinking. Ergo, the victims were killed on Friday, and who needed to waste time on establishing scientifically when they were killed? They had to have been killed on Friday since she killed them.

  Someone had wanted her out of the way, and she just knew that someone was Liam Jamison. And in only a few hours, she would finally have the opportunity to tell his mother how much she hated him and that it was her life’s mission to find him. Tessa knew enough not to let on about her plans for Liam, but she would let Rachelle see what the years had done to her. She wasn’t even fifty years old and knew that anyone looking at her would add ten years to her age, maybe even more.

  “I take it you couldn’t sleep either,” Sam said as he entered the kitchen.

  She had heard his footsteps on the stairs, so his appearance in the kitchen didn’t surprise her.

  “Not much,” she said, taking her cup of coffee and sitting on the barstool.

  He made himself a cup of coffee, and she couldn’t help but admire him. She was a female. He must have showered—his dark hair was still wet—and she could detect a woodsy scent coming from him. He wore a pair of navy slacks with a white shirt, untucked, and buttoned only halfway. He was sexy and handsome, and why she had never really noticed this before, she had no clue. Handsome men hadn’t been her priority.

  “Darlene sent me a text message a while ago. Told me to tell you there was a dress and ankle boots in the closet, and the boots would cover your ankle monitor. Said they were in a box from Zappos.”

  “Zappos?”

  “Darlene says it’s the world’s largest shoe store.”

  Tessa smiled. “I’d like to meet Darlene sometime, before. . . well, if I return to prison, I’d like to thank her for all that she’s done for me.”

  “You are not going back to prison. You could not have killed people on Friday who were still alive on Saturday. You’ll meet her today. She’s going to meet us in Lee’s office. Darlene works part-time as a legal stenographer for Lee and a couple of other local attorneys. Gives her extra money for her grandsons, or at least that is what she tells me. Personally, I think Darlene is a workaholic, in a good way.”

  “I like her already.”

  “She’s good people,” Sam said. “Jamison Pharmaceuticals was lucky to hire her.”

  “No doubt,” Tessa said, then went on. “Sam, what Rosa said about seeing Joel running from the house that day. Can we talk about this now? I was going to talk to Jill, given her profession, but I don’t think this requires a professional opinion.”

  He brought his coffee to the bar and sat next to her. “Of course, Tess. You can tell me anything.”

  She nodded. “I’m just not sure where to start.”

  “The beginning always works for me.”

  “Of course.” She wasn’t sure what Sam would think of her after she told him her thoughts, but it didn’t matter. This needed to be said, and she didn’t want to wait until Jill’s visit. “When Joel and I first married, we had what you would call a whirlwind romance. It felt right at the time, or at least I thought so. I still do, but there were times whe
n Joel acted, I don’t even know what word to use. Angry. And sometimes, he could be cruel. I remember when I was pregnant with the girls, I was just a few months along.” She stopped, as this was still a bit embarrassing, but she was a big girl now. “Joel would laugh at me when I undressed, telling me I looked like a starving Ethiopian. I told him how that offended me, and he said he hadn’t meant to, but I think he did. Another time, right around this same time, he implied that I was way too fat for a woman to be in such early stages of pregnancy. Of course, I had no one to compare to. This really bothered me, and from that point on, I tried not to eat much in front of him, and I didn’t undress unless he was out of the room or the lights were off.” She took a sip of her now-cool coffee, got up, tossed it in the sink, then started brewing a second cup. “You want another?” she asked, and took the cup he held out to her. She finished brewing the coffee and returned to her seat.

  “I have never been married, but I could see how this would hurt your feelings; you’re bearing the man’s children. I would think he would adore the changes.”

  Tessa blushed when he said this. “He didn’t. It wasn’t those things that bothered me so much. It was the twin thing. When I found out I was pregnant with identical twin girls, Joel was not happy. Not at all. He tried to act like he was, but I knew that he wasn’t. When I confronted him, he told me he was just overwhelmed at the thought of becoming a father, and the prospect of twins, he said it was double the anxiety.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “I would imagine it would come as a bit of a shock to anyone, but in a good way.”

  “I was thrilled. I wanted a family of my own so badly. I hadn’t had anything like the best upbringing, as I’m sure you know. I wanted to be the best mother in the world, and I made myself a promise that I would never let anyone mistreat my children and that they would always be my first priority. Even before Joel.”