Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (19 page)

What would you do, Samantha Christine,
without the use of your hands? This is what happens to bad people when they write stories on their computer that they shouldn’t … it is only a matter of time … soon you will know what it is like to be ‘cut off’ from your livelihood …

“Is Christine your middle name?” David asked after reading the message out loud.

Sam nodded wordlessly and eased herself into the chair
he had pushed to her desk. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Let’s get out of here,” she said finally.

“Do you want me to follow you home?” David asked and he was almost whispering.

Sam shook her head and mumbled something he could not understand. “What’s that?” he asked.

She shook her head again and waved him off as if to say never mind. Instead she said, “I want to find Wilson and put these bastards in prison where they can rot the rest of their miserable lives away.”

David felt the Barbie doll and gripped it hard and he tried to avoid looking at the mannequin hands. He felt sick to his stomach. “We need to do something with this stuff,” he said. “The police will want to see what we have here. We probably should’ve kept our hands off everything.”

Sam snorted. “Oh, I’m sure they thought to use Latex gloves. Or maybe not. Maybe they don’t give a shit if the police know who they are. Once they do away with Wilson and me, they’ll disappear without a trace anyway, go off to a fancy yacht somewhere to enjoy their millions. It’s how those kinds of people operate anyway. They’ll slit your throat without batting
an eye and laugh while they’re doing it.”

“Right,” David said and put the doll in the box with the mannequin hands and headed toward his desk. “I am going to keep these in my bottom drawer.”

He put the contents in his desk and headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked.

“To your car,” David called over his shoulder. “We’ll want to play the tape for Nick in the morning.”

He returned to Sam’s desk minutes later. She sat lifeless, staring straight ahead lost in thought on what their next move should be, her hand resting lightly on the jacket over her lap. He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Want me to drive you home?”

“No, David, I’m fine. This really pisses me off.”

Sam stood and pushed her shoulders square. “They’re not going to defeat me.” She put her jacket on. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll tell Nick everything in the morning and then somehow come up some kind of a game plan.”

Sam followed David up stairs and waited while he reprogrammed the alarm. They walked to their cars, letting a mixture of rain and snow collect on their clothes.

Wilson could not get comfortable. He felt it had been days since he had slept and guessed it was probably due to a combination of hunger, the dull ache in his left shoulder blade and the pain from his broken nose. The thin mattress on the cold floor didn’t help. Every bone and muscle in his body felt like it was full of arthritis.

He had to go to the bathroom. Trying to sleep anymore was useless. He groaned heavily as he managed to lift himself to a sitting position.
He looked at his wrist again and wondered which of his kidnappers had taken his watch, an Omega, one he’d had for years. He tapped his wrist several times wishing his watch were there. He broke the deep, slumbering silence surrounding him with a booming laugh. He found it ironic that whenever he went on vacation he made it a point to put his watch in the suitcase and turn the clock in his hotel room toward the wall. He had no desire to know the time of day when he was on vacation. He had lived his professional life working against the clock on deadline after deadline. When he had a chance not to have to live by the clock, he simply made it a point not to.

Since he had been abducted, he had lost count of the times he had glanced toward his wrist wondering what hour of the day or night it was. He had no way of keeping track of time; no way of knowing how many hours had passed since he woke and Sam was gone.
He looked toward the crack in the wall. Nothing. He felt his wrist where his watch should be and guessed it was dark outside, probably two or three in the morning.

It would be a few hours before Fuzz Face or the twins would come with food and to take him to the bathroom. Both would be welcomed. T
he wait would be an eternity. But Wilson would not focus on that. Instead he was going to continue planning his escape.

The last several times his captors had come with food or to take him to the bathroom, it had only been one of them—but not Fuzz Face or the twins. A new person Wilson had never seen before. A shrimpy little guy that Wilson towered over. He was Latino like the twins, but had the whitest hair that Wilson had ever seen. It was so white that it made the little man’s skin seem almost black.

To Wilson’s surprise, the white-haired man was more careless than Fuzz Face or the twins when they came into the room. Wilson was so much taller that he had to stay seated so the little man could put the hood over his head. Then Wilson had made it a point to rise quickly after the hood was on, forcing the little man to scramble and only loosely tie the hood. Wilson could keep his head down when he walked to see the floor.

He had counted the paces toward the bathroom. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Just like that. Just that easy.
He knew from turning his head slightly that to the left of the bathroom there was another door. He didn’t know if it led to the outside and freedom, but his captors had to enter from somewhere. Wilson was willing to take that chance.

He had to get to Samantha before Juan did. He knew by now that she must have received the tape, the Barbie Doll and the mannequin hands. Juan had brought them to the small room and showed Wilson. He could see him turning the Barbie doll ar
ound with his pencil fingers, laughing when he looked at Wilson with his dead dark eyes and told him what he had planned to do.

It had been the only time that Wilson lost his composure. He lunged at Juan, almost reaching him before he was whacked hard in the shoulder
by the butt of one of the twin’s gun. The blow stunned him and he collapsed to the ground, falling heavily on his knees.

The next day when the kidnappers entered the room, they came equipped to make the tape. Another painful experience for Wilson. When Wilson refused to talk into the microphone, Fuzz Face slapped him hard across the face. Wilson couldn’t help himself and cried out in pain. His nose immediately started to bleed. Large drops of blood ran down his lips and fell on his shirt. He raised his hands, which were handcuffed, and wiped the blood away from his mouth, staring intently at Fuzz Face.

“Are you ready to talk now?” one of the twins asked.

When Wilson refused again, the twins jerked him up from the chair he was sitting in and Fuzz Face kneed him directly in the groin. Wilson grunted in pain and dropped hard to the floor. He grimaced, holding himself.

Juan had been standing at the door, watching. He came into the room. He looked down at Wilson on the floor curled inward. Juan placed his boot against his shoulder and pushed him over. Wilson landed on his back, his breathing labored. “We can keep this up all day and come back tomorrow and the day after and the day after, Mr. Cole,” Juan said and fished his cigarettes from an inside pocket. “Or we can get this over with right now.” Wilson was in no condition to put up more of a fight. He did as he was instructed.

In the dark, with
nothing but the sound of his own breathing to keep him company, he regretted giving in to make the tape and lunging at Juan when he saw the Barbie doll. He did not want them to see his weaknesses. But when it came to Sam, he knew he would do whatever it took to defend and protect her. The thought made him laugh; a hollow, tinny sound that carried in the darkness. He was hardly in any shape to protect a kitten much less the life of a woman for whom, as much as he wanted to deny it, he had deep feelings for, deeper than Sam would ever know.

Wilson could not underestimate the white-haired man, however. Size is no true indication of strength, and he knew that. Though he was in no real condition to put up much of a fight, he was banking on one thing: The element of taking his diminutive captor by surprise.
One good swift kick in the balls is all it’s gonna take.

It had to work. It was
his only chance. There was no Plan B.

When Sam walked into the Grandview Perspective a few minutes after nine Tuesday morning, the place was already bustling with activity. Sam nodded at Anne at the reception desk. She had the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder and gave Sam a thumbs up, hopeful that the weekend in Washington had gone well. Sam stopped at the foot of the stairs, thought a moment, shrugged her shoulders and gave a so-so sign with her right hand. She saw the look of disappointment that registered on Anne’s face. Sam mouthed the words “we’ll talk,” and headed down the stairs into the newsroom.

David was already at his desk and on the phone when Sam entered the newsroom. She had made it a point every morning since Wilson had been kidnapped to glance toward his office, hoping the light would be on. She wanted to poke her head inside to see him sitting at his desk typing. He would look up at her over the rim of his silver reading glasses and smile. Then she would have known it was a bad dream and that she had finally awakened. His office was dark; just it had been the day before. To Sam’s surprise, Nick’s office was also dark. She glanced up at the clock, but it was only ten minutes after nine. By the time Sam hung her coat, booted her computer and checked her e-mail, she could hear Nick on the phone.

She glanced over to David’s desk. He was looking in her direction. She nodded and he nodded back. They rose in unison, both holding reporter notebooks and ballpoints. He waited for Sam to reach his desk. He had traded his shorts, sweatshirt and ball cap for a pair of dark gray cords and
a white Oxford shirt that buttoned at the wrists. His shirt was opened at the collar and tufts of his dark hair showed at the V in the neck. He was smiling in her direction, his ruddy complexion evidence that he had completed his four-mile run earlier that morning.

Sam, however, had neither the same glow nor energy when she woke this morning. She
’d tossed and turned through what little sleep she’d managed to get, waking, it seemed, every few minutes, replaying over in her mind the hateful conversation with Esther in her bedroom before she left for the ferry and the look on April’s face when she learned she wasn’t coming with Sam to Denver.

“Baby, I’m so, so sorry,” Sam had
said as she dragged herself out of bed just after seven. She fed Morrison, got in the shower and dressed for work. She was casual in tan chinos, a black sweater and leather Loafers. She had pinned her hair back away from her face.

When they met together in front of David’s desk, he leaned closer and whispered in her ear. She bent in to hear him. “Any new e-mails?”

Sam pulled away, pursed her lips and shook her head. They reached Nick’s door and stood at the threshold like bookends. Nick looked up from his desk and eyed them both. He held a coffee cup with a 7-Eleven logo. A jelly doughnut sat on a white napkin over a pile of newspapers. Sam couldn’t see the filling yet, but she knew it had to be cherry-filled. It was the kind Nick always wore on his mustache. He spoke first to Sam. “How was the trip?”

“Good,” Sam said. “Thanks for asking.”

Nick paused a moment looking between both of them and said, “What’re you two up to?”

David moved first and stepped into Nick’s office. “We need to talk to you.”

“Wilson?” Nick asked, and his eyebrows rose just above his glasses.

When he looked at Sam, she nodded.

He motioned them in his office. “Close the door,” he said to Sam.

David cleared a pile of magazines and junk mail off one chair, put the contents on the floor and sat down. Sam sat in the chair next to him and set her reporter’s notebook in her lap. She twisted her ballpoint pen in her hand. When she looked at Nick, he spoke to her. “Does David know what’s going on?”

“He does now,” Sam said and she told Nick why she had called him.

“You guys were here last night?” Nick asked, he looked from David to Sam and let his eyes rest on her.

Sam nodded. “I didn’t want to wait until this morning to see about the e-mail with everyone else in the office.”

“Sure,” Nick said. “Makes sense, I would’ve done the same. What did you come up with?”

Sam and David alternated telling Nick their news, including the threatening items left for Sam and Wilson’s voice on the cassette tape.

“I’d like to know how the hell they got in here,” Nick said.

When no one answered, Nick asked, “You have the evidence?”

“It’s in my desk drawer for safekeeping,” David confirmed.

“Mannequin hands, huh? That’s creepy,” Nick said. He looked at Sam in what she could say for the first time since the ordeal began was a look of true concern. “We need to keep an eye on you. Still think you’re being followed?”

Sam nodded. “That black sedan was in my parking lot last Thursday night and I left for Seattle Friday afternoon. That’s probably when they put that cassette in there, because I didn’t see the car in the parking lot on Friday when I left and I haven’t seen it since I’ve been back.”

For a time no one spoke. Sam and David sat erect in their chairs, leaning forward. Nick sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. He covered his mouth with his hands and began to stroke his mustache with the tips of his fingers, reminding Sam of the cab driver on Canal Island just yesterday morning.

“And you say this Juan guy, the mastermind of the smuggling operation, is the one who escaped?” Nick asked, his hands covering his mustache.

“That’s him,” Sam said and nodded. “He was probably in the sedan the night Wilson and I were grabbed out back. He’s no doubt the one who’s the brains behind this, too, and the one behind sending the first e-mail and all the other garbage I got.”

“Now he’s out for revenge against Sam and Wilson,” David added.

David and Nick eyed each other and nodded in unison. Nick removed the lid from his coffee cup. Steam rose from the cup as he took a sip as aroma from freshly brewed coffee filled the room. “Do you think you could work with the people you know at the Grandview PD without tipping your hand about Wilson?” Nick asked looking at Sam.

“What else can we do to move this thing forward?” David asked, after filling Nick in on their conversation
last night about alerting someone at the police department.

“There
’s got to be someone there I can talk to, I just can’t be certain who,” she said.

Nick shook his head. He went back to smoothing his mustache, lost in thought. “God, I wish I knew. Let’s see what Sam comes up with at the police department. I’m not sure there’s anything we really can do, but what we’re doing. I feel so useless just sitting on my ass while who knows what’s happening to Wilson, but their instructions were
to wait. We can’t jeopardize that by going to the police.”

A nearly inaudible sound escape from Sam’s mouth and Nick and David looked at her. “How long do they want us to wait?” she asked. “Until we turn to stone?”

“I don’t know, Sam,” Nick said partially ignoring her comment. “If we do nothing, we could lose him, if we over do it and go to the police, we still stand the chance of losing him and you, too.”

Nick looked directly at Sam and she cringed. “And now these threats against you,” Nick said and shook his head. “We’re walking a fine line and once we get to the end of it, I still have no way in hell to know which way to turn next.”

“I think it’s a good idea not to say anything to the rest of the staff, at least until the end of the week.” David offered as a suggestion.

“I agree with David,” Sam said. “It’s just a few more days.”

Anne buzzed in on Nick’s line interrupting the momentary silence.

“Nick, is Sam in there with you?” she asked. Sam knew Anne well enough to detect a slight agitation in her voice and she felt uneasy.

“She’s sitting right here,” Nick said eyeing Sam.

“Her mother in-law is on the phone in hysterics,” Anne said into the intercom. “Said she needs to talk to Sam right away.”

Sam felt her heart drop to her stomach. “Something’s happened to April.”

“Put the call through, Anne,” Nick said.

It rang. Nick quickly snatched the phone from the cradle and handed it to Sam.

“Esther, it’s Sam, what’s going on? Is April okay?”

She looked at Nick and David. Both were staring at her intently. Esther was speaking into the phone loud enough that they could hear the tinny sound of her voice. Sam shook her head, her brow wrinkled in confusion. She looked at Nick, then David. The phone cord was a black tight rope between them.

“Did I what?” Sam asked.

Esther’s tinny voice filled the room.

“Esther, April is not with me,” Sam said and she emphasized the word not. “The last time I saw her was yesterday morning when she was walking across the yard with you toward the bus.”

Sam was now trying to control her own fear, which was about to dissolve into hysteria that April might be missing and anger at Esther that she was accusing her of taking her daughter. “Did she come home from school yesterday?” Sam asked.

“Well, of course she did,” Nick and David heard Esther’s voice plainly. “And I put her on the bus this morning. I watched her take her usual seat, the second to the last one at the back of the bus. I waited like I usually do for the bus to turn the corner and then I walked back to the house.”

“Then what the hell happened?” Sam’s voice a mixture of fear and panic.

“Because I hadn’t called her in sick, the office just called and said she wasn’t in her first period class.” Esther’s voice was
thick with apprehension and worry.

“Something must have happened when she got on the bus before it
reached school,” Sam said, looking from David to Nick. “Did you call the police?”

“I’m going down just as soon as we get off the phone,” Esther said.

“Esther, go now,” Sam said and spoke firmly. “April is not with me.”

Sam tried to stop her brain from going into overdrive and imagining the worst. She closed her eyes, gripped the receiver hard with both hands and spoke. “Someone must have taken her before she got to school,” Sam said, her heart thudding violently as her mind raced through a chilling obstacle course of possibilities.

She opened her eyes to the stares of Nick and David, their mouths slack with foreboding. The look mirrored Sam’s feelings.

Sam and Esther spoke a
few seconds more.

“Go to the police station and please, please, Esther, let me know the first minute you hear anything,” Sam said and she heard a click in her ear. “Esther accused me of taking April from school and bringing her back here,” Sam said and handed the phone back to Nick. “How could she think I’d be so stupid?”

The three looked at each other while a silence grew in the room like gathering darkness before a storm. David put his hand gently over the top of Sam’s.

“Do you think they could have followed you to Washington?” he asked, his voice
edged
with concern.

She looked down at his hand and studied it a moment. Her
apprehension abated slightly at his touch. “I don’t know, David. I’m afraid to think of what’s possible with these people,” she said. It felt like it took all her energy to hold her head up and talk. “All I know is now those fucking bastards have my little girl.”

At that moment the desire for a drink hit her so intensely that she felt certain she would never be free of the yearning. She would give anything if she could cauterize the desire from ever returning.

“Excuse me,” Sam said and got up from her chair and pushed her shoulders square. “I have to go to the ladies room.”

Sam left Nick’s office without another word and walked to the bathroom. She closed the bathroom door, leaving the sounds of the newsroom behind. The quiet surrounded her until she turned on the
faucet. She let the water run until it was too hot to touch. She pulled several paper towels from the dispenser and soaked them through. She closed her eyes and pressed the towels firmly against her face, only seconds passed before she began to sob, deep and heavy. The warmth felt soothing against her skin and she took a deep, shuddering
breath. Sam repeated the process several times, until it brought a brief sense of calmness, however fleeting. She kept her eyes closed until she heard a slight knock at the door. She removed the towel and looked toward the door.

“Sam? You in there?”

Sam cleared her throat, “I’m here, Anne.”

“Can I come in?” Anne asked in a muffled voice.

Sam leaned into the mirror to compose herself. She wiped away her tears and quickly checked to make sure her mascara wasn’t smeared beneath her eyes.
“It’s unlocked.”

Anne opened the door slowly and entered the bathroom. Sam turned and rested against the sink and the women stood facing each other.
“Is everything okay?” Anne asked. “Your mother in-law sounded like a screaming banshee.”

Sam wadded up
the paper towels and threw them at the wastebasket. It hit the rim with a dull thud and fell to the floor. Both women looked a moment at the wadded paper towels. When Sam spoke, it brought Anne’s eyes back to hers. “She thinks I took April.”

“What!” Anne’s voice was incredulous. “That woman really has it out for you.”
Sam pursed her lips and shook her head, feeling hopeless. Anne was quiet a moment, knowing that something terribly wrong had occurred. “Sam, what’s happened?”