Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (20 page)

A strand of Sam’s hair had pulled away and had fallen in her face. Anne smoothed her hair away from her forehead. Sam looked away, and shrugged, desperate not to cry
again. But Anne cupped her hands gently around Sam’s face. Sam bit her bottom lip, trying not to show her emotions. But she was alone now with Anne and it was okay to let her guard down, to explain what was agonizing her. Through more tears, Sam told Anne everything.

“If there’s not an Amber Alert out yet, there will be before long. They won’t be able to get away with this,” Anne said and gave Sam a tissue. She took it and blew her nose.

“All I know is,” Sam ended by saying, “is that now those bastards have my daughter and I won’t stop at anything to get her back.”

Wilson opened one eye, feeling hazy and slow with sleep. At some point during the night, he must have found a position that suited him and drifted off in troubled dreams. He couldn’t immediately recall the shapes, figures and places that made up his dream. Then maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe he had started to hallucinate. Maybe these four walls, his captors, little food and the uncertainty of what could happen next were finally getting to him.

He was lying on his side. He grimaced as he tried to lift his head off the floor. His neck had gone stiff sleeping without a pillow. He rubbed hard trying to get the kinks out. It took several minutes of deep massaging, before he could move his head without pain.

He pushed himself off the floor to a sitting position, groaning as if he had aged thirty years over night. At least his nose didn’t seem to hurt. He looked around the small room. It must be morning. The sunbeam was back, falling in a long thin stream that stopped just short of his shoes. But what time of day, Wilson had no idea.

He took a deep breath. There was that faint odor again, a sickening smell he was certain was cat urine. At times it was stronger than others, as it was now. His thoughts might be becoming more disoriented, given his fatigue, stress and fear, but he was sure of that smell. He clearly remembered the discussion they had had in the newsroom when Sam was writing the articles about the drug bust: About the small room that seemed to be the nerve of the smuggling operation and about one of the byproducts of manufacturing meth—the take-your-breath-away smell of cat urine.
Could it be that I’m being holed up in the very room that we were talking about? Could Sam know to look for me here?

For a minute, Wilson reconsidered the idea of trying to escape, just in case Sam shared his thoughts. But he decided to go for it. The first chance he had to run, he’d run.
Wilson’s stomach growled. Cheese and crackers came to mind. He’d never been crazy about cheese and crackers, but they sure had come to taste good lately. He could feel the waistband of his pants pressing against his bladder. If someone didn’t come to take him to the bathroom soon, they wouldn’t need to. Wilson decided that he would make a run for it this morning, if the little white-haired man came to take him to the bathroom. He’d have to do something soon, what little strength that remained in him was fading.

Wilson woke with a start as he heard someone unlocking the door, realizing he must have dozed again. His head had fallen to one side and the kink in his neck was back, more painful than before. He winced as he straightened himself against the back wall. The door opened and light flooded into the room, momentarily blinding him. He couldn’t tell which of his abductors had come to take him to the bathroom. He was going to use his hand to shield the glare, but discovered he didn’t need to when his captor’s tall, thick shadow blocked the light coming into the room.

It was not the white-haired man as he had hoped, but Fuzz Face. Wilson guessed Fuzz Face was his height, probably an inch or two more. His neck spread out into his shoulders and his arms were thick. He was carrying what looked like the kind of nightstick used by police officers. Wilson wasn’t sure he even had enough strength to manhandle the white-haired man. He knew he would be no match for Fuzz Face.

Fuzz Face walked into the room and stopped just beyond Wilson’s shoes. “You gotta take a leak?” he asked. As he talked, he tapped the nightstick firmly in his open hand.

Wilson nodded. “What do you think?”

“Get up,” Fuzz Face said and stepped back.

Wilson grunted as he tried to stand. He didn’t realize how stiff he had become from sitting on the floor. His body was slow with cold and the more he tried to move, the more it felt as though his muscles had begun to atrophy. His strength seemed to have disappeared. He couldn’t pull himself off the ground.

Fuzz Face reached down, grabbed Wilson by the arm, and easily pulled him to his feet. He put the hood over Wilson’s head and led him the twelve paces to the bathroom. Wilson followed like an obedient schoolboy, hoping that the little white-haired man would come tonight.
“I’m hungry,” Wilson said when they returned to the room.

“Shut up,” Fuzz Face said as he removed the hood
, but not before backhanding Wilson across the face, the cold slap bouncing off the walls. Wilson groaned, catching the blood from his nose that had started to fall again in his hands.

Before Fuzz Face left the room, he tossed a couple of packages of cheese and crackers at Wilson’s feet, followed by another packaged burrito, an apple and two bottles of water. He turned and left. When Wilson heard the key turn in the lock, he yelled out, “What about some salsa?!” Then he reached for the food and ate exactly as he felt, like a condemned man.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. Wilson tried to keep his thoughts focused on planning his escape and willing that the next man to open that door would be his ticket to freedom. Wilson perked up the moment he heard someone put the key in the lock and turn. The door opened and light fell inside the room. Wilson already had his hand up to shield his eyes. This time Wilson, with food, a little rest and plenty of determination, was ready. To his relief, it was the little white-haired man. He breathed a deep sigh as he kept the look on his face neutral.

He had been preparing himself all day for flight and the chance that Fuzz Face or the twins would return.
The small room smelled like a gymnasium. Soon after Fuzz Face left, Wilson ate, got to his feet and started to exercise. His muscles
screamed in pain when he started to move, but the more he exercised the better he began to feel. He stretched, did jumping jacks, ran in place and shadow boxed, anything he could to keep his muscles warm, loose and limber. Large sweat stains grew on the armpits of his white dress shirt. His gray hair matted in sweat against the sides of his head. Getting the adrenalin moving and his blood pumping rigorously again felt good. The release of endorphins made him feel ready, poised for flight.

The little man ordered Wilson to remove his shoes. He loosely tied Wilson’s hands in front of him. Wilson stood just as the white-haired man pulled the hood over his head, before he could tie it closed. Wilson decided he would make his break when he was coming out of the bathroom. He would be next to the door and it was the only time outside this small room that he faced his captors.

“Let’s go,” the little white-haired man said as he finished fixing the hood.

Wilson counted his twelve paces. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest again just as it did when he exercised earlier. He took his time in the bathroom, preparing himself. He rolled his neck from side to side. Loosened the rope around his hands a little more. His mouth had gone dry and the palpitations in his chest rolled on like thunder. He knew what he had to do when he came out of the bathroom. He took one more deep breath. “I’m done,” he said.

Moments later the door opened. Wilson pulled his hands free and ripped off the hood. He lunged at the white-haired man, grabbing him firmly around the neck. He was close enough to see the little man’s brown eyes pop, then widen in surprise. Wilson had strength he didn’t realize. He kept squeezing. He was surprised how easily his hands fit around the circumference of his smaller captor’s neck.

Wilson wanted to keep his chokehold, but he knew he had to move fast. He pulled the little man closer to him and, at the same time, brought his knee up to the man’s groin with as much force as he could muster. The little man wailed in pain and collapsed fully into Wilson’s midsection. Wilson stepped back and let him fall to the ground, watching him as he landed hard and clutched himself, w
rithing
in pain, yelling obscenities.

Wilson was breathing hard and sweating. He looked in the direction of the small room, the door partially ajar. He quickly turned to his left, wrapped his hand around the knob on the closed door before him and squeezed. It turned instantly.

One step closer to freedom.

Wilson looked up and was surprised to see a set of stairs. It confirmed, however, what Wilson suspected that the room he was being held in was probably a basement of some sort. The door must lead outside. He could feel a draft coming from the top of the stairs. He could hear
the
white-haired man moan in pain above his own labored breathing.

Wilson took the stairs two at a time, surprised at his stamina. He was running so hard and fast up the stairs that, as he reached the top, he stumbled out the door, lost his balance and fell hard to the floor. He saw the front door. He jumped to his feet and ran toward it. He flew out the door so fast that he stumbled and fell again. He smiled sincerely for the first time since his capture. Nothing tasted as sweet as the thin night air that hit him square in the face as he landed with a thud. The fall momentarily knocked the wind out of him.

Moved by fear, adrenalin and the taste of freedom Wilson struggled but quickly got to his feet, his clothes full of dirt. He looked left and then right. The quiet residential street looked deserted in every direction. He started to run. Nothing around him looked familiar, but he just kept running, feeling the wet earth instantly soaking his socks. He looked up. The sky was gray and a light rain hit his face. The fresh air and cold rain surged through his body, giving him a jolt of energy as he ran. He picked up speed.

He was running now on what looked like a two-lane county road. It was empty and he didn’t hold out hope that there would be much traffic. He didn’t know how long he’d have to run before he found help. But he wouldn’t stop. He prayed each time his feet hit the ground he was heading in the right direction.

His lungs began to burn as he took in large gulps of air. He slowed down to prevent hyperventilating. He tried desperately to ignore the pain he felt on the bottom of his feet every time he stepped on a rock.
Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Keep running!

Suddenly the dark road became light. Wilson looked over his shoulder. A shiny black sedan was barreling toward him, the beams from the headlights illuminating the tall trees that lined the road. He could hear the engine roaring as the car got closer. It was getting hard to breathe. Wilson looked ahead for a place to hide, taking his attention off the ground in front of him. Just as he stepped down with his right foot, an all encompassing pain, shot through his foot. It traveled the length of his leg until it reached his mouth forcing Wilson to shout out in agony.

His run slowed to a hobble. He looked down at his foot. It was too dark to see anything, but Wilson could feel something warm fill his sock. The black sedan was closing in. Wilson tried to keep running, but the pain was too great. He could feel something hard pressing deeper in his foot every time he stepped down. He stepped on his foot a final time, and overcome by pain, fell hard to the ground. The black sedan reached him in a matter of seconds. The rain was falling harder against his face. Wilson looked up in time to see Fuzz Face standing over him with the nightstick. It was the last sight he saw as darkness overcame him.

Wilson woke hours later staring into a dimly lit bare bulb protruding from the ceiling. He was groggy, but knew he was in a different room. His head, shoulder and right foot throbbed. The pain was indistinguishable and he didn’t know which hurt more. His clothes and socks were wet from running in the rain and he was shivering. It took several attempts to get to a sitting position. He felt nauseous from the pain and trauma he had put his body through.
Can’t take much more of this.

He looked down at his clothes. His white shirt was covered in mud and he noticed a large tear in one of his pant legs just above the knee. Wilson ran a hand through his hair and pulled out little particles of earth, pebbles, weeds and small sticks. As he did, he looked up, his attention captured by something else in the room.
He was startled when he realized he wasn’t alone. He had been so absorbed by his pain that he failed to notice another presence in the room.

There she was;
sitting Indian style on the floor, her slight frame taking up only the smallest section of the room. She was sitting on a thin mattress the same as his. Her hands were folded neatly and resting in her lap. Her eyes were wide and blue and she wasn’t smiling. A strand of her brown hair had pulled away from her ponytail and was dangling in front of her right eye. She was sitting casually, almost appearing poised and not the least bit concerned that she may have been kidnapped.

Though Wilson had never once met the little girl, he knew her from stories her mother had told him and the many pictures he had seen. It could only be one person who had been watching him as he struggled to a sitting position.