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

by Betta Ferrendelli

  It was a rhetorical question, but Sam felt compelled to answer. “We bought those rings together.”

  “Jonathan wanted me to have it,” Esther said.

  “What did April say when she gave it to you?”

  “She said ‘Daddy wanted you to have this.’”

  Sam nodded, not knowing whether to believe Esther’s story. She had a long history of mixing truth and lies whenever or however the situation suited her. Esther watched Sam turn away from the mirror and walk in silence toward the door. She stopped at the threshold, turned and looked over her shoulder at Esther. She could see her reflection in the mirror, the ring still poised in mid air.

  Sam spoke in slow, measured tones. “You can point out all my glaring mistakes, Esther, all you want. All my shortcomings, all the false starts I’ve had when it comes to my drinking, whatever else you want to say. If it makes you feel better to belittle me every chance you get, then go right ahead. Go right ahead. You do whatever makes you feel good. I am not foolish enough to think that anything I could say or do is going to change your mind about me, anyway, so you just go right ahead.”

  Sam studied Esther for a moment in the looking glass, but the same self-righteous image stared back. In the silence that followed Sam could hear the water fountain bubbling from the living room. It was going to take more than a babbling brook to soothe her now. “Don’t bother to take me to the ferry terminal, Esther,” Sam said finally. “I’ll call a cab.” She started to leave the room.

  “Don’t you want to know what Jonathan said in his letter?” Esther asked, stopping Sam in her tracks.

  She thought a minute, watching her foot trace a nonexistent pattern in the cream-colored rug. Wondering again if such a letter really existed or if it was just another one of Esther’s lies. Sam wasn’t going to buy into it. True or not, she was done being hurt for the day. “No, Esther, I don’t,” Sam said and turned and walked out of the bedroom.

  Within the hour, Sam had finished packing and was listening for the cab to arrive. She knew she didn’t have to listen hard. The dogs would let her know. While she waited Sam went to April’s room and stood quietly in the center. She looked around and took a long deep breath. It still smelled faintly of her daughter. The shampoo, the lotion she used and the smell of fabric softener from freshly washed clothes lingered in the air.

  She closed her eyes and remembered her first night here, crawling into bed with her daughter and how warm she was with sleep. She took another long, deep breath and wondered just how many more times she would screw up before her daughter would truly stop believing in her.

  On the nightstand next to April’s bed, Sam placed a miniature windmill that Howard had made out of wood for her. He had even painted the spokes of the windmill a combination of lavenders and soft pinks. Howard had given it to Sam before she got out of the car at the airport.

  Twenty minutes later the taxi arrived and blew its horn, barely heard above barking dogs. Before Sam left April’s room, she took one last glance over her shoulder, at her pillow. It still had the indentation in the middle where she lay her head. “I love you, sweetie,” Sam whispered and left the room. She grabbed her bag and purse and headed down the hallway. She knew Esther was in the house somewhere, but hadn’t seen her since she left the bedroom. She ignored the dogs as she passed through the gate into the foyer. She stopped at the front door and called out. “Esther?”

  Sam waited briefly for a response. Nothing. She placed her hand over the doorknob and called again. “Esther? I’m leaving for the airport. Thanks for the guestroom. I’ll call tonight after I get home to see how April is doing.”

  Sam hesitated only a moment for a response. Hearing nothing, she opened the door and headed out toward the cab. Sunlight was skimming the tops of the tall trees and the sky was a deep indigo. The air was crisp and fresh and it was chilly in the shade on the deck. Sam walked to the cab and took a deep breath before she got in the car.

  As the ferry sailed toward Seattle, Sam found a seat on the starboard side and set her bags in the empty seat next to her. The large windows on the boat allowed her to see sunlight shimmering off the water in every direction, bright enough to make her squint. Sam fished her sunglasses from her purse and put them on. Sunlight illuminated the jagged snowy peaks of the far-off Olympic Mountains. Mount Rainier loomed before her in the distance, looking as though it had been airbrushed on a painter’s canvas. Until now, the mountain had been hidden. Now only a ring of clouds covered the bottom part of Mount Rainier, giving the impression that the mountain was levitating over Puget Sound.

  In every direction Sam looked the vistas were glorious, all encompassing. Then she remembered what the man said to her the first night she was on the ferry, “Nothin’ prettier than Seattle on a clear, sunny day.” But little registered and she stared in every direction unseeing. Her mind was completely occupied by the events in her bedroom last night and Esther’s only hours before. She wasn’t aware that another passenger was sitting just a few seats away until she heard him cough.

  She glanced in his direction, uninterested in conversation. His eyes were covered by sunglasses, but she couldn’t help noticing his pock-marked face and the blue ball cap he wore. The words above the bill captured her attention:

  Seattle Rain Festival

  Beneath those words:

  Jan. 1–Dec. 31

  The back of his cap read:

  All year. Every year.

  He was reading a book, a mystery by an author Sam did not recognize. It was the colorful bookmark protruding from the top of the book that caught her attention.

  Live Love Laugh

  Sam shook her head and laughed slightly under her breath not to call attention to herself. She stared at the words, written in a fancy, flowing type, and wondered what it really meant to live and love and laugh.

  She got up to make her way to the front of the ferry. When Sam was well out of the area, the man removed his ball cap. He stared intently in Sam’s direction watching her maneuver through a maze of other commuters, pulling her luggage. He smoothed his hair back against his scalp and tossed the hat on the seat beside him. Another man joined him. As they left the section together, a little girl walking with her mother noticed them with their matching leather jackets and sunglasses and said, “Look, Mommie, twins! Just like my brothers!”

  Sam arrived at the airport several hours before her flight, but it didn’t matter. If she couldn’t have the morning to be with April, she’d rather have passed the time at the airport, not with Esther.

  She thought of the cab ride to the ferry and how she had asked the driver to take her to April’s elementary school first. Before her flight home, Sam wanted nothing more than to catch a glimpse of her daughter, perhaps playing in the playground, or walking past one of the large school windows.

  Of course, she could have stayed in front of the school all day, but the cab driver kept staring at her in his rearview mirror. He looked from the meter to the mirror trying to catch Sam’s eye. He was a big man, probably about fifty, with a large, round belly that protruded well over his belt, so much that it almost interfered with his ability to turn the steering wheel.

  Sam didn’t get out of the car. She stayed in the backseat with the window down, and every once in awhile she felt the cold February wind rush in. The school building was long and silent, and the gray roof reflected the color of the hardening sky. All around Evergreens swayed lightly in the breeze. No one came or went from the building.

  “Ma’am?”

  Sam turned her attention to the driver. He pointed to the meter and asked if she was ready to go to the ferry.

  “Just a little while longer, please,” she said.

  He followed her reply with a casual nod, smoothing his mustache with the tips of fingers while he waited for her to give him the okay to drive away.

  “I’m ready now driver, thank you,” Sam said after a few minutes.

  In the boarding area at SeaTac International Airport, Sam discov
ered the flight to Denver would be delayed due to light snow in Denver. Sam selected a seat where sunlight was spilling in the window and Mount Rainier loomed in the distance. When the mountain was out, it was impossible to miss.

  Sam waited patiently for the flight to board. She was glad for the time alone. She felt numb, the entire weekend ruined by the events of last night and this morning. When her thoughts drifted in that direction, she kept her focus on the more pleasant aspects of her stay like making April’s lunch and the conversation it inspired. She wondered if April and Laurie would have lunch together today. She hoped their friendship would grow to the girls spending nights at each other’s houses and doing things that good friends do when they’re together. The thought eased some of her numbness and a little of the emptiness fell away.

  Finally, the plane began to board. When they announced her seat number, Sam picked up her purse and bag and headed toward the jetway. She found her seat. A man, dressed in business attire, was already sitting in the aisle seat. Sam pointed to the window. He smiled, stood and stepped in the aisle so she could get to her seat. While the plane continued to board, he used his laptop computer to make last-minute checks to his e-mail.

  The flight attendant announced that the doors were closing and all electronic devices needed to be turned off. The man complied. As he shut down his computer, he mumbled something to himself. But he spoke loud enough that Sam heard bits and pieces of what he said.

  “She thinks she’s being anonymous sending me that e-mail,” he grumbled. “But I know how to get ahold of her.”

  Sam’s internal antenna shot straight into the air. She turned to him and said, “You mean there’s a way of finding out who sent you an e-mail even if it came from an undisclosed location?”

  The man looked at Sam and nodded. “There sure is. It’s my ex-wife,” he said, pointing to the computer. “I know it’s her. She doesn’t realize that I know it’s her, but I’ll fix her. Wait ’till I turn this thing on again.”

  She leaned over the middle seat. “How would you know that?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” the man said and shrugged. “I have a friend who’s an engineer. He told me once that it has to do with IP protocol or something like that. I can’t really explain it, it’s just something I have to walk myself through.”

  Sam turned and looked out the window. She watched a handful of the airline’s ramp agents load a few last minute bags into the belly of the aircraft. The window felt warm where the sun had been shining on it. She pressed her fingers against the glass, expecting the same coolness that she had felt this morning watching April and Esther leave for the bus. But it was warm to her touch and Sam’s lips spread into a small smile.

  Her thoughts returned to the e-mail the kidnappers had sent her. Perhaps they did not realize that their e-mail could be traced. That it wasn’t as anonymous as they believed. The notion made Sam giddy with excitement, allowing her to forget momentarily the oppressing time with Esther this morning.

  Wilson filled her thoughts. Please don’t give up Wilson. I’m coming.

  She knew exactly who to call. He would tell her how to trace the kidnapper’s e-mail. It would be late, probably after 10 p.m., by the time she would finally get home from the airport. She had never called him this late before. In fact, she had never called him at home at all. No matter how late, she would make the call the moment she stepped foot in her apartment.

  When Howard saw Sam waiting outside passenger pick up at DIA, he couldn’t help his excitement. “How’d the weekend go?” he asked as she got in the wagon.

  “Okay ’til last night,” she said. She explained what happened and his big frame seemed to shrink at her news. “Are you disappointed in me, Howard?”

  He looked straight ahead for what seemed a long time, his big hands wrapped over the top of the steering wheel. “No,” he said finally. Sam nodded, knowing differently.

  After they left the airport, along the long stretch of Pena Boulevard, Howard glanced over at Sam, the red taillights from the cars in front of them, reflecting in his glasses. “You know, Samantha,” he began by saying, his voice soft and calm, “you’re not going to have too many more chances with your daughter if you keep this up. One day she’s not going to be so kind and forgiving.”

  Sam nodded knowing that April had every reason to stop believing in her. She wore it as if it were part of her skin. She looked off in the direction of the Denver skyline. It looked slightly smaller than the Seattle skyline she had just left behind.

  They drove in silence, the wheels rushing beneath the surface the only sound breaking silence in Howard’s station wagon. He glanced only a moment in Sam’s direction before he turned his attention back to the road, navigating as he merged into the westbound traffic on Interstate 70. Howard wasn’t a man who lectured. She knew him to be a man with patience that stretched out like taffy, and she knew without him saying another word that he expected her to change her ways.

  “I’m not a total hopeless case yet, Howard,” Sam said.

  “I know,” he said. “But do you?” She could tell that he placed special emphasis on the pronouns I and you. Sam said, “I promise I am going to do better.”

  Howard pulled up in front of Sam’s apartment. Before she got out of the car, she thanked him for feeding Morrison. She put a hand on his shoulder, still thick with muscle and strength, and promised to change her ways. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, feeling the end of a day’s beard growth.

  He stopped her after she got out of the car. “Samantha,” he said. She bent down and looked back at him in the car, the interior of the dashboard lighting up his features. When he had her attention, he said, “That’s a promise I expect you to keep.”

  Sam nodded, closed the car door and watched him drive from the parking lot, exhaust following the car like a shadow trying to catch up.

  Eighteen

  “David?” Sam said, hoping she didn’t get him out of a deep sleep. She glanced at the illuminated numerals on her DVD player and saw 11:30 p.m. She had guessed right about landing at DIA just before ten. She had hurried home, picked up the phone first thing and dialed David’s number only to discover that the number now belonged to someone else. Then she remembered hearing David talk about the new apartment he moved into just before Thanksgiving. Then she discovered that though she meant to get his new phone number and write it down in her address book at home and program it into her cell phone, she never did.

  Sam would not wait until morning to call him. She fed Morrison, jumped into Wilson’s Accord and drove to the Grandview Perspective to get the home telephone for reporter David Best. Luckily, little snow had fallen, the streets were clear and she made it to the newspaper in the less than the twenty minutes it normally took her.

  The office was quiet and dark when Sam used her key to unlock the front door. She immediately turned off the alarm and prayed she’d remember to turn it back on when she left. She took the stairs two a time to the reception area. She knew that Anne kept a log of home phone numbers for the entire staff at her desk. There was enough light streaming in from the streetlamps just outside the windows in the reception area that she didn’t bother with extra lights. Sam scanned Anne’s desk and quickly found the numbers. She wrote David’s new number down on a yellow sticky note and double-checked it off Anne’s log. The last thing she wanted was to get home, dial the number, only to realize that she had written it down incorrectly.

  Before Sam left the building, she went to her desk to check her e-mail. There were the usual after-hour lights on in the newsroom downstairs that provided enough light to get to her desk. She pulled out her chair. On her seat she found a flat box slightly smaller than a shirt box wrapped in brown paper. She picked it up. The package had her name on it, but Sam noticed that it hadn’t been mailed. There was a yellow sticky note from Anne’s desk, with her handwriting that said, “Sam, this came for you shortly after you left on Friday.” Sam shook it gently. It didn’t seem to weight much. She set it
on top of her desk while she fired up her computer. She thought nothing of the package.

  As she waited for her computer to boot, a soft whirling noise filled the quiet room. She turned on her monitor, which cast an eerie glow of light across her desk. She kept looking around the office. In the quiet, she could hear herself breathing. She had never been in the office this late and it unnerved her. She found herself jumping each time she thought she heard a noise. She wanted to hurry, check her e-mail and leave. Sam quickly scanned her inbox, but just as she expected, nothing from the kidnappers.

  She turned off her computer and headed up the stairs, relieved that they had not tried to contact her while she was in Seattle. She remembered to set the alarm, locked the door and dashed back to the Accord. She hit the automatic door lock as soon as she got in the car, feeling safe again. Sam started for home and did not realize until she had made the turn onto Sixth Avenue from Wadsworth Boulevard that she had forgotten the package. She had been in such a hurry to leave the office that she had not given it another thought. She wasn’t going back for it now. She’d open it in the morning. It was probably from someone who wanted her to do a story on them or their company. Reporters were always getting free promotional items and packages from people wanting stories. Sam had received her share, everything from free coffee, lunches and dinners, to weekend stays at hotels to hot air balloon rides, from people wanting her to write about them. She sped home to call David, praying that she wouldn’t be pulled over and get a ticket on the way.

  David Best was a general assignment reporter for the Grandview Perspective but also the unofficial IT expert for the office. He had always called himself a computer geek, and had once considered studying computer science in college. He opted for a journalism degree, but took a good number of computer courses anyway. When there was a problem with a computer, or the server at work, everyone turned to David.

  “David? It’s Sam Church. Did I wake you?”