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

by Betta Ferrendelli

  Juan calmly pulled another cigarette from the pack and took the time to light it. “Go get her,” he said.

  Sam bolted through the entryway and slammed that door, falling against it with all her weight, the flashlight and ax handle extending from her wrists and flapping beside her like wings. She raced up the stairs trying to take two at a time, but stumbled half way up and had to grab the banister. The ax handle knocked loudly against the wall and was hitting her hard against her leg. She ignored the pain and, propelled by terror, went up the remaining stairs so fast that she plunged into the kitchen and fell face first on the floor, hitting her chin hard against the linoleum. The fall knocked the flashlight from her hand. It rolled to a stop in the living room, producing a pool of light, before it flickered and died out.

  She struggled to her feet, breathing furiously. She could hear one of the men in the stairwell just below her, shouting obscenities. She bolted from the kitchen toward the living room. Just as she reached the hallway, she heard one of them enter the kitchen.

  She screamed as if she were drowning. “Help me! Help me! Somebody help me!”

  She reached the living room sick with fear, looking left, then right, then left, feeling trapped like a doomed animal. She had left the front door open. A draft of cold night air was hitting her face. She started to run toward it, but one of the men reached her and wrapped his arms around her legs, tackling her from behind.

  She grabbed for the wooden chair to stop her fall, but it was just beyond her reach. She could feel herself falling helplessly to the floor. Somehow the ax handle flew off her wrist. It tumbled out the front door. Sam heard it hit the ground, bounce off the porch and then roll out into the grass. Sam landed hard, her head narrowly missing the chair. She fell on her right shoulder with such force that it pulled away from the rest of her body. She cried out. The pain in her shoulder was all encompassing, momentarily blinding her.

  She managed to look behind her to see who had tackled her. It was the white-haired man. Given his size, she was surprised by his strength. The fall had knocked the wind out of her assailant, giving Sam a moment of reprieve. The heel of her hiking boot had hit him squarely in the stomach as they fell to the floor. He was struggling for breath. She tried to kick out from beneath his grasp, using every ounce of strength she had left in her body, now weakened by fear and pain. But she couldn’t shake free from his grip.

  He struggled to get to his feet, keeping Sam pinned to the ground. He straddled her, reached down and tried to grab a chunk of her hair.

  Sam screamed. “No!” With all her strength, she lifted her right leg straight up and directly hit him in the groin. He howled in pain, shouting another stream of obscenities. He fell to the ground beside her, shuddering and clutching his groin.

  Sam rolled off her back and managed to lift herself to her hands and knees, trying to find her breath. She coughed so hard, she almost started to choke. As she struggled to her feet, the white-haired man reached out and grabbed her ankle.

  “Let go of me, asshole!” Sam screamed and kicked loose from his grip. She grabbed for the flashlight and whacked the white-haired man as hard as she could over the head. He immediately let go of her ankle, and went motionless on the floor.

  Sam stood in the center of the living room, gasping for breath trying to figure out what to do next. Her thoughts were clouded with pain. She grabbed the chair and dragged it back to the kitchen. Her movements and weight from the chair caused new agony in her shoulder, but she ignored it. She slammed the door shut and rammed the top of the chair beneath the knob. She turned and ran out of the house. She stumbled down the street, glancing over her shoulder. No one was following her, but still she ran as fast as the pain in her shoulder would allow. She reached the Accord completely out of breath, her lungs burning for air. She fumbled with the keys. “Come on! Come on!”

  Finally she opened the car door. Once inside, she slammed the doors locked and shuddered a heavy sigh of relief. Her right arm was nearly useless. She struggled with her left hand trying to insert the key in the ignition. She was so shaky with nerves that the keys slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  She looked to the floorboard. Somewhere during the struggle, her hat had come off. Most of her hair had come loose from her ponytail and it was dangling in front of her eyes, but it didn’t matter, it was too dark to see anyway. She fumbled on the floor groping for the keys. Finally she found them and tried again, this time inserting the key with little effort. She started the engine and left so fast that her tires screeched loudly, piercing the night air.

  The car barreled to the top of the street, but before Sam could escape from the neighborhood, high beams from another car’s headlights filled her rearview mirror. She squinted, gripped the steering wheel, ignored the stop sign, and swung a sharp right off Chester Street. As she did she saw the black shiny sedan from the corner of her eye. “Damn it! Damn it!” Sam shouted into the interior, pounding her fists hard against the steering wheel. “How the hell did they get out here so fast?!”

  Sam pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the car lunged forward. She looked straight ahead, having no idea where she was. She clicked on her high beams and the light rose and fell with the road. She took another right. The farther she went, the more rural the area became. Her thoughts were spinning. Where to go? What to do? Help me! Help me! Help me!

  She looked in the rearview mirror. The sedan was gaining. She glanced down at the speedometer, the thin red line showed she was going almost 60 miles an hour. The headlights from the black sedan nearly filled her mirror, making it almost impossible for Sam to see the road ahead. The moon had disappeared behind clouds.

  Another right turn. Sam had turned onto a gravel road. Loose rocks flew up pinging off the body of the car. A mistake. But it was too late to turn back now. The sedan followed, inching closer. She checked her speed: 65 miles an hour. She couldn’t see a thing in front of her.

  As Sam reached up to adjust the mirror away from the high beams, the black sedan rammed the back of the Accord. She lurched forward, almost hitting her head on the steering wheel. Sam screamed as she began to lose control of the car on the loose, rocky surface. She turned the wheel and the car began to fishtail. Overcorrecting, right, then left, then right, then left.

  The shiny black sedan hit the Accord again, this time clipping it on the left back bumper and forcing it off the road. The car careened into an open field, where it flipped, once, twice, then a third time before coming to rest on its top. The only movement came from the wheels spinning round and round and round. The thin red line, frozen in time like an epitaph, showed 75 miles an hour.

  Thirty

  When David walked into his apartment at ten minutes after nine o’clock, he dropped his satchel at the door and walked directly to his answering machine. He saw the red light flashing one time and closed his eyes in relief. He knew Samantha Church well enough that he expected her to ignore his plea. He did not want her to put her life in danger, but he did not expect her to be reasonable at a time like this. Not with everything at stake.

  He hit the play button. He removed his jacket as the woman’s mechanical voice on the recorder said, ‘you have one new message and no saved messages.’ There was a brief moment of silence before the woman started to speak again, ‘First message came today at 8:52 p.m.’

  David’s sense of relief disappeared like a magic trick when the voice that filled his living room did not belong to Samantha Church, but a friend inviting him to a Denver Nugget’s basketball game Friday night. He frowned, trying not to feel his disappointment that Sam had not called. He stood in the center of the room, hands stuffed in his pant pockets looking down at the answering machine, wondering just what Sam was doing at that moment. He glanced at his watch. Nearly a quarter past the hour. He would give her until nine-thirty, ten o’clock at the latest before he called.

  He changed into sweats and a Colorado Rockies T-shirt. He sat on the floor, flipped on the
TV and ate a bowl of cereal watching the early edition of the news, then switched to a sports channel on one of the cable stations. His cordless phone was an easy reach on the floor beside him.

  At five minutes before ten, he picked up the phone and dialed Sam’s number, trying not to let his frustration get the better of him. The phone rang once, twice, three times before Sam’s answering machine picked the call up on the end of the fourth ring. David was not going to leave a message, but changed his mind. He waited for her greeting to play through.“Sam? Sam? It’s David. Hello? Are you there?” He waited a moment, giving her time to get to the phone. Seconds passed. Nothing. He spoke again. “Sam? It’s David. It’s a little before ten. Hey, remember you were supposed to call me tonight around nine so that we could check in. Just wanted to see how you were doin’. Give me a call okay?”

  David hung up the phone, deciding to give her twenty minutes to call back. If she didn’t call, he’d drive to her place. Time ticked by and at fifteen minutes before eleven, David put on a sweat top, his tennis shoes, got in his SUV and drove to Sam’s apartment.

  He scanned the parking lot for the Accord when he pulled into the complex. He didn’t see it on his initial sweep so he made a second. Obviously, she wasn’t home. David parked his SUV in front of Sam’s building. He looked up at the windows on the third floor. They were dark. His frustration was turning to anger. “Sam, what did you go and do?”

  He got out of the truck and walked slowly up the stairs. The other night when they unwrapped the mannequin hands in the office, Sam had reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys. It was an extra set, she told David she kept in her purse, just in case she was locked out of her car or apartment. She had handed him the one to her apartment and said she’d have another one made.

  He knocked firmly twice. He waited. Wind circulated through the entryway, the chill made him shiver. He knocked again and crossed his arms against the biting cold. He waited, bouncing on the balls of his feet for Sam to come to the door. No answer. David used her spare key.

  “Sam?”

  Nothing. The house was silent and dark. He called again. He waited only a moment for her reply. He stepped inside the apartment and listened. The room was silent, save for the tick-tick of a clock, a light sound off somewhere in the darkness. He took several deep breaths, wondering if remnant smells of dinner might still be lingering in the air. The place smelled only lightly of eucalyptus. He was certain now that she had been gone all evening.

  David flipped the light switch by the door and a lamp by the couch came to life, brightening the living room. He quickly scanned the room. With the exception of Morrison who had been asleep in the big chair by the living room window, nothing seemed out of place. The cat looked up, temporarily disturbed from his nap. He studied David a moment, then cautiously stalked off to the bedroom. Relief flooded David as he made a fast sweep through the rest of the house and saw that it had not been ransacked.

  He stood in the middle of the living room, his hands resting on top his head, thinking. He could not wait until tomorrow morning. He checked Morrison’s food and water bowl. Satisfied they both were full, David left Sam’s apartment. He drove back to his place, angry with himself. He should have known better than to take Sam at her word. Wilson had been kidnapped and her daughter had been taken. What had he expected her to do? Sit passively by while people terrorized her life? He understood that she felt compelled to do something. He would have done the same were it his daughter.

  He entered his apartment thinking of the meth house. The thought stopped him in his tracks. That’s where she’s gone.

  David hoped that Sam had information about the meth house in her desk at work. He changed to a pair of Levis. He would head to the Perspective, and he would find Sam. But not alone. This was more than he could handle solo. He picked up the phone and punched in the number. He glanced at his sport watch as he dialed, knowing that it was too late to call, but let the phone ring anyway.

  “Hello?”

  David was relieved that the man’s voice didn’t sound irritated that someone was calling so late. He could hear the sounds of the television playing in the background. “Hello, Mr. Skinner?”

  “Yes, this is Howard Skinner. Who’s this?”

  “You don’t know me, but my name’s David Best, I work with your granddaughter…” David’s voice trailed off as he really didn’t know how Sam and Howard were related. “Ah, sir, I work with Sam Church at the Grandview Perspective newspaper.”

  “Yes, young man, I know who you are,” Howard said. “Samantha’s mentioned your name a time or two. She’s told me you’ve always been nice to her.”

  “Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Skinner. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I think I’m going to need your help. And this can’t wait ’til tomorrow. I think Sam could be in a lot of trouble and you’re the only person I know I can call.”

  David told Howard what had happened and where he thought Sam might be.

  David ended by saying, “I don’t know for sure, Mr. Skinner, but I don’t like the way I feel about this. I think something really bad has happened.”

  A troubled silence.

  “Where can I meet you, David?” Howard asked.

  “Sir, can you meet me at the Perspective office?”

  “I’m driving in from the ranch. I should be there in about a half hour, forty-five minutes at the very most,” Howard said without hesitation.

  Howard hung up the phone, staring down at hands the size of baseball mitts. He made them into tight fists and raised them to eye level. The tighter he squeezed his fists, the more the muscles in his forearms flexed. He had been doing a slow burn since the day he waited for Sam to wake up in the hospital. When Howard Skinner learned that April had been abducted and how much danger she was in, there was no longer any use in working to keep his anger at bay—and when Howard Skinner got angry it was something to behold.

  He vowed that their captors would never survive the experience alive.

  Thirty-one

  It was just minutes before midnight when Howard started the drive from the ranch to the Grandview Perspective.

  Frances Marino stood on the long front porch, her arms settled in a soft fold across her stomach, her thick robe pulled around her to protect her from the cold. He watched her watching him as he headed for the main road. He kept an eye on her in the rearview until her figure had been swallowed up by the darkness. He drove to the outer gate, keeping close to his bosom her words…

  “Bring them home.”

  In the rearview mirror, the ranch house had been reduced to the size of a breadbox. The lights were on, cozy boxes of soft, golden light that reminded him of warmth and safety, and brought a smile of hope to his face.

  His mind was spinning, filled with thoughts of Sam and April and the times they had been part of his life, here at the ranch. His life had always been full and he was as happy as a man could be who had spent most of his younger life away at sea, first in the Navy, then as a Merchant Marine. After he retired from military duty, he found that he didn’t like being in one place all the time, so he became a long-distance driver hauling doublewide mobile homes. He never thought much about settling down permanently, and he had loved only one woman, taken from him not long after they had started college. She had been killed in a car accident in a blinding snowstorm returning to school the winter break of their sophomore year. Howard finished the semester, but never went back. Instead he joined the Navy that summer. He loved the sea so much that he became a Merchant Marine when his career in the Navy was over.

  He retired a Merchant Marine and moved back to Indiana, the place of his birth. There he spent a decade trucking all over the country and had gone through Colorado on interstates 25 and 70 any number of times and liked the feeling he had every time and in every season that he passed through the Centennial State. He had always thought that when he retired he would live in a city on the West Coast. He had been stationed in Washington at Bremerton, where he use
d to like seeing the big gray Navy ships floating in Dyes Inlet at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and thought he would go there after he retired. But it rained a little more than he liked and, when the sun was out, he wanted it to be warm and dry on his skin. He wanted the hot, strong sun that shone in the Colorado sky, not the meek, soft sun that filled the skies of the Pacific Northwest.

  When the time came, he retired from the trucking company, took everything he owned and moved from Indiana to Denver. He drove into the state much the same way he had when he hauled houses, along Interstate 70 over the Kansas border. On the way to Denver, the landscape changed from the high plains to the Front Range. He wasn’t in Denver long when he saw an ad in the local newspaper that Frances Marino was looking for a hand to help her run the ranch. The thought appealed to him instantly. He called and liked the sound of her voice the instant she said hello. As he listened to her explain some of the duties that the hired hand would be responsible for, he felt the way he often did whenever he heard distant church bells chiming at noon. Settled and at peace.

  He interviewed with Frances Marino a few days later over coffee at her kitchen table. She had a large pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the kitchen stove and homemade bread in the oven, making the kitchen rich and warm. Howard remembered that she wore a pale blue housedress with a simple striped pattern. A white apron, stained with flour and yeast, covered her dress.

  She fed him homemade minestrone soup and bread fresh from the oven and a small juice glass filled with red wine. Grappa. He would learn it was called in Italian. When they finished lunch, Frances Marino gave Howard the keys to the International Scout, an old light blue, four-wheel drive she kept on the property, and they drove over her land with him telling her that, yes, he could this, and, yes, he could do that. When they returned to the house, they got out of the truck and met in front of the engine. It was a cold day that May and he remembered feeling the last of the heat on his jeans as it emanated from the truck’s motor. In that instant, a sense of home and security emerged and settled over him, downy and soft like a baby blanket, a sense of place aching to be fulfilled. An empty feeling closed.