Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery, Book 2)

by Betta Ferrendelli

  “Please, Anne,” Sam said. “I expect to hear from them any time.”

  Anne pulled her hand away from the switchboard. “I hope you’re right,” she said and sat back hard against her chair. She folded her hands tightly in front of her. “I feel just awful. Here all this time you were in the hospital and I thought Wilson was relaxing under a hot sun on a sandy beach and working on his tan. I just hope he’s okay.”

  Sam sighed. She turned and looked over her shoulder toward the editorial department. “I guess I’m going to have to talk to Nick.”

  “He’s in a mood,” Anne said rolling her eyes.

  Sam collected her briefcase and turned to leave. She stopped and looked again at Anne, thinking a moment before she spoke. “Please don’t say anything, Anne. Let me talk to Nick first.”

  Anne nodded as the phone rang, taking away her attention.

  Sam walked slowly down the stairs. She stopped at the bottom and scanned the perimeter of the newsroom, cast in semi-darkness. The reporter’s computers were off, as they usually were on Monday mornings when no one had a reason to be in over the weekend. Most reporters came in late on Mondays because of their respective city council meetings they had to cover that evening. Desk chairs were turned this way and that and the room was silent save for the occasional squelch from the police scanner.

  Sam set her briefcase down and unwrapped her scarf from around her neck. She stuffed her hands deep in the pockets of her overcoat as she tried to fight off the sense of doom in the pit of her stomach.

  Wilson’s office was straight ahead of her. The door was ajar and though it was dark, the morning light coming through the window brightened that room. Sam could see the loveseat against the wall. She saw the Mexican blanket that Wilson kept draped over the back of the couch. She allowed herself a small smile, remembering the day Wilson used it to cover her. It was the day she had learned the news about Rey Estrada, a Grandview police officer.

  It was the morning that Jonathan stopped by the newspaper to tell her that Rey had been killed covering a traffic accident on Kipling Street, just north of Colfax Avenue. In addition to his other duties as a cop, her ex husband was also the public information officer for the Grandview Police Department. It was his job to tell reporters like Sam whatever information he could for a developing news story.

  Except the story about Rey was a fabrication, designed to throw Sam off balance, to get her to stop her investigation into the drug smuggling operation. But it wasn’t Sam’s investigation. It had been Robin’s. Robin, with Rey’s help, had been working to expose a drug smuggling operation. Robin had died trying to bring the information to light. Sam was just finishing the business her sister had started.

  Sam remembered the day she attended Rey’s funeral, watching Rey’s wife and two little girls following his casket to the front of the church. A promising law enforcement career and a young, happy, fulfilling life cut short by greed and the incomprehensible evil that can live in the hearts of some men.

  The police scanner came to life with the disembodied voice of a dispatcher sending a cruiser to the scene of a multi-car accident. It took Sam away from the unsettling thoughts of what had happened to Robin and Rey.

  She forced herself to look toward Nick’s office. His light was on and the door was closed. A thin strip of glass that extended, floor to ceiling, next to the door allowed for a partial view inside the office. Nick was in talking on the telephone, leaning heavily on his elbows. He was sitting away from his desk enough that Sam could see his paunchy stomach protruding over his pants. He was holding a ballpoint pen between the tip of his index finger and thumb and shaking it.

  She could feel her lip curling upward in disgust for Nick Weeks. The feeling was mutual. Neither cared for the other and the tones of their dislike and lack of respect weren’t subtle.

  Sam knew that Nick thought of her as a has-been, lazy, sloppy reporter. It showed in the assignments he’d throw her way and how he would edit her copy. The outcome of Sam’s big, breaking story, however, did nothing to improve Nick’s opinion of her. Sam’s success with the story only seemed to intensify his anger at her. Several days after her story had published, Sam saw Nick in Wilson’s office. She heard a snippet of his conversation as she was going up the stairs. He told Wilson he thought Sam took too much credit for the story, that it was Robin who had done all the hard work and had paid dearly for it.

  She collected her briefcase. She thought about knocking on Nick’s door, to let him know that she was here, but decided to go to her desk. Having to deal with Nick Weeks would come soon enough.

  Her desk was at the end of the newsroom, just before the kitchen. The walk through the length of the long, open room gave her time to prepare mentally for her encounter with Nick. The police scanner was alive with a sudden burst of activity. Now the dispatcher’s voice was radioing another cruiser to the same accident.

  Before Sam could put down her briefcase, Nick opened his office door. He came as far as the door jamb and called out to Sam. “In my office,” he said, retreating back inside.

  Sam muttered under her breath and let her briefcase fall to the floor with a heavy thud. She kept her eyes on his office door as she threw her coat and scarf over the back of her chair. She started toward Nick’s office, but stopped for a moment to consider what she might say.

  She sat down in her chair and began to massage her temples, trying to sort through her thoughts. She knew she could not go into Nick’s office on the defensive, with her dislike for him glaring.

  A conversation she and Wilson had once about Nick Weeks came to mind. She smiled a little as she heard Wilson’s sonorous voice, rich, soothing like chocolate. She was surprised that remembering the sound of his voice made deep stirrings in her chest.

  “Don’t pay too much attention to what Nick thinks of you, Sam,” he had said. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that there will always be those people in this world that you can never please, no matter what you say or do?”

  “Not my mother, but my grandmother,” Sam remembered saying to Wilson.

  “She probably told you something similar to what my mother had once told me; that some people are just that way and nothing you will ever say or do will ever change the way they think of you. So don’t die trying. You’ll see over time that it’s not worth the effort or the fight.”

  Armed with Wilson’s words, Sam pushed herself up from her chair and walked to Nick’s office. Doing her best to contain her emotions, she knocked on the door with the knuckle of her index finger. Nick looked in her direction, eating a jelly doughnut. On his desk there was a coffee cup with a 7-11 logo and the lid off. He motioned her into his office without saying a word and pointed with his doughnut to the only empty chair in the room. She walked in and sat down. Nick took a bite of the doughnut and got up and closed the door.

  He sat down and swiveled in his chair to face her. When he did, Sam noticed that some of the red filling from the doughnut was caught on the right corner of his mustache. He set the doughnut down and used a napkin he got from the convenience store to wipe some of the jelly filling from his fingers, but not his mustache. He looked at Sam over the top of his glasses, which were perched in their usual spot at the tip of his nose. It drove Sam crazy that he’d never push them up to the bridge of his nose where she thought they belonged. Sam guessed Nick to be in his mid forties. Not old by any means, but she always had the impression that he acted years older. “I should fire you right now,” he said.

  Sam almost laughed. “I hear you thought I had skipped off to Mexico with Wilson,” she said instead, ignoring his comment.

  Nick Weeks looked at her as if to say ‘well, didn’t you?’ Sam raised her left wrist to their eye level, her bandage the focal point between them. The reality of what Sam had been through was finally dawning on her. She drew a deep, involuntary breath.

  “I was in hell last week,” she said, still holding her wrist in the air. “I don’t know where you really thought I was, Nick,
but I can tell you it wasn’t Mexico. When Wilson and I left here last Tuesday night we were kidnapped.”

  Sam hesitated only a moment. “We were jumped by three men and taken somewhere. And wherever that was, I think Wilson’s still there.”

  Sam bit her bottom lip. For the first time since waking in the hospital and seeing Howard’s bald head, she felt like crying, and if she was going to cry about it, she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it in front of Nick Bloody Weeks. She straightened her shoulders, collected herself and told Nick everything she could remember about the kidnapping.

  She ended by saying, “They obviously knew our schedules, knew that Wilson was leaving the next morning for Puerto Vallarta and knew…”

  Her voice trailed off, thinking of what Howard had said to her in the hospital.

  “Why are you still in that apartment? Why don’t you come live with your grandmother and me? At least then, for Heaven’s sake, you wouldn’t be alone and we’d know to call someone if you didn’t come home at night.”

  Sadness tugged at her heart. She was alone in her apartment and her life now more than she had ever been. With Robin gone and April living with her grandmother, Sam had no one except her own grandmother and Howard. She remembered a day soon after she broke her big story. She had traveled to her grandmother’s ranch to ask if she could live with her until she got herself and her life back in order. Sam remembered how Nona had cried.

  “Of course. Of course, Sammie.” Nona had said over and over.

  She forced herself to tell Nick the rest of the story, over the lump in her throat and a sadness that tugged at her heart like a small child pulling on her sleeve. “And somehow they knew that I wouldn’t be missed.”

  When she finished she directed her attention to a watercolor painting over Nick’s desk, an autumn landscape beneath a vast blue sky. She waited for Nick to speak, but he was speechless, just as Anne had been.

  “I think we need to call the police,” Nick said finally.

  “I think it’d be better if we waited to hear from the kidnappers instead,” Sam said.

  There was an extended silence in the room, allowing Sam to hear the muffled voices of co-workers greeting each other as they began to arrive.

  “You’re probably right,” Nick said.

  Another extended silence, which Nick broke by saying, “Shit,” in a long drawn out sigh. “People are kidnapped for three reasons; money, headlines or they want…”

  “Revenge,” Sam said, finishing his sentence. “That’s what it is, Nick. Whenever I think of the story we broke about the drug smuggling operation, I cringe. That’s what it is and it really scares me. These people don’t give a shit about money, they already have money and they certainly don’t want any publicity. They’re out for revenge. That’s all it is. Pure and simple. You remember what Wilson told the staff right after the drug story hit the newsstands.”

  Nick nodded knowingly. “Yeah, he said ‘we put some very ruthless, evil people out of business today.’”

  Nick’s comment threw both of them into another long silence. A knock at the door made Sam jump. David Best poked his head in the office. If he was surprised to see Sam, he didn’t show it. He nodded quickly at her and then looked at Nick.

  “My nine o’clock interview’s here. You wanted to sit in on the meeting.”

  “Yeah, right,” Nick said, glancing at his watch. “They’re ten minutes early. Let ’em wait in the lobby. I’ll be done here in a few minutes.”

  David nodded and closed the door. Nick leaned against the tall back of his chair and rested his elbows on the arms. For once he actually pushed his glasses up on his nose and folded his hands and studied Sam over the top of them. The jelly filling was still in place at the corner of his mustache.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Sam said. “Until we hear from them.”

  “I don’t know why they let you go instead of Wilson. You’re the one who wouldn’t quit your investigation, even after all those threats. How many did you get after all? You’re the one who wrote the story. You’re the one who should be punished. Wilson has done nothing for you, but try to help you.”

  Nick’s comments were par and what Sam had expected from him. Still, she could not help feeling a stab of resentment. His lack of remorse. True. There was no love lost between them. It was the last thing Sam would have done had he been in her situation.

  “I suspect I’ll hear from them very soon,” Sam said and got up to leave. “I asked Anne to keep this quiet at least until we get our first contact from them. Maybe then we’ll have a better idea how to proceed.”

  “You’re right,” Nick said and glanced down at the calendar on his desk. “Wilson’s supposed to be back to work a week from today.”

  He looked at Sam over the rim of his glasses, which had slipped back down to their usual spot at the tip of his nose. Her lips were set in a thin straight line, as if to expect the worst from him. Nick did not disappoint.

  “Don’t screw things up now, Sam,” he said. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

  “Right,” Sam said, sarcasm all over her face. “As if I wouldn’t.” She put her hand on the doorknob, but hesitated before opening it. She turned around and looked at Nick. She wanted to say ‘use your napkin,’ but thought better of it.

  She opened the door and left the office without another word.

  Seven

  Wilson didn’t know how long he had been alone since he had last seen Sam. His watch was gone, and the minutes and hours seemed to merge into one, into nothingness.

  Sam had still been unconscious when the kidnappers came for them. Wilson knew they were going to be moved when the door opened and he saw one of the three men, the white one with the thick beard—Fuzz Face as Wilson now thought of him—holding rope and a hood. The twins stood at the door, watching, their faces impassive, their hands clasped in front of them. The smell of their leather jackets was thick in the room.

  “Get in the chair,” Fuzz Face ordered Wilson.

  With effort Wilson lifted his big frame away from the wall and got to his feet, doing as he was told. He wanted to lunge at all three of them and take them down. He had enough anger pent up inside that he felt he could have handled all of them at once, but he could not run the risk of something happening to Sam.

  The twins came and stood on either side of Wilson while Fuzz Face stayed at the door. He waited for the twins to get in position. The twins wore T-shirts, one in gray, the other white. Wilson wondered if they ever went home to change. He had been trying to engage in small talk with the twins and Fuzz Face, hoping that if he could befriend at least one of them, he might have a way of getting out of here alive. He gave up before too long. The twins only spoke when they were spoken to. The tall, skinny one with the sharp nose and pencil-like fingers seemed to do all the talking and ordering around. There was no use trying to win his confidence.

  Fuzz Face tossed the rope to the twin on Wilson’s right and the hood to the other one. Wilson watched as Fuzz Face removed a pistol with a long handle from his shoulder holster. He trained the muzzle on Sam’s head.

  “She’ll never wake up again if you do something foolish,” he said.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Wilson said, trying to keep his voice free of anger and pleading. “I’m doing what you asked.”

  Wilson narrowed his eyes, keeping them fixed on Fuzz Face. He sat passively as the twins tied his hands behind his back. He turned his head back as far as he could over his right shoulder to watch. The twin pulled the rope roughly over his wrists and he winced. Wilson had rolled the sleeves of his white shirt to his elbows. Now a burning sensation traveled up his wrists to the top of his shoulders. He gritted his teeth against the pain. They pulled the rope so tight that Wilson couldn’t wiggle his fingers. His skin beneath the rope throbbed each time he tried to move.

  The twin holding the hood shook it open in front of Wilson as he readied to lower it over his head.
Wilson kept his eyes on Sam, lying on the floor before him, her hands still bound. That was the last thing he saw as the room went dark.

  Determined that fear would not overtake him and that he would not hyperventilate, Wilson took a deep breath as the twin lowered the hood over his head. He exhaled slowly as one of them pulled the drawstring. Several days beard growth made his face feel scratchy against the hood. His whiskers caught on the cloth as one of them tried to adjust the hood.

  Wilson could feel the twins tuck their hands under his arms then pull him to his feet. As they did, he heard Fuzz Face say, “You know what to do with the girl.”

  Wilson knew wherever he ended up, Sam would not be with him.

  He could only pray they would keep her alive.

  Wilson could not tell how long it took to get to the outdoors. He counted two turns before they ascended a short flight of stairs, which Wilson counted as six. Then they took an immediate right. They took several quick steps down what Wilson guessed was another hallway. Then they turned left and took longer strides until they reached more stairs. Unable to see that a set of stairs was before him, Wilson stumbled and lost track of the number of steps he climbed.

  At the top of the stairs, he could tell that they had only taken a few short steps until one of the twins opened a door and Wilson could feel fresh, cold air against his forearms. It must have been late, or at least dark. Even wearing the hood, Wilson was able to tell the sun was not shining.

  Wilson heard a car engine running and the air was thick with the smell of exhaust. The hood and the rope made it difficult for Wilson to move easily and once they reached the car, the kidnappers had to push his head down and help him navigate his body inside the vehicle. The drive to the new location was short, maybe ten minutes. Wilson guessed that it was the twins who helped him out of the car. They were the ones who had manhandled him so far. In a matter of minutes, they had taken several long strides and Wilson was inside and in another room.