Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (21 page)

Wilson had not spoken in hours and his raspy attempt at words sounded unintelligible even to him. He cleared his throat and tried again, smiling at the little girl as he spoke. “You must be April,” he repeated.

April nodded and looked down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. Now that he had managed to get himself into a seated position, she was just an arm’s length away. His big frame made the little girl’s body seem even slighter. Wilson could detect a fine scent of lotion, a sweet soft smell, reminding him of lavender. He took a deep breath, enjoying the scent
and sure that what April was smelling was not as pleasant.

Wilson looked at his wrist where his watch had been, knowing of course that it was no longer there, a force of habit he couldn’t seem to break. “Do you know how long we’ve been here?” he asked, even though he could see that she too was not wearing a watch.

April shrugged, clearly unaware of the time that had passed since her arrival.

“I know how you feel,” he said and nodded knowingly. He thought a moment then asked, “Was I asleep when they first brought you in here with me?”

April nodded. “I tried to wake you up, but you didn’t move at all, even when I shook you by the shoulders. I shook you hard, too. When my daddy used to take naps on the couch, that’s how I used to wake him up. Sometimes I’d have to shake him lots of times just like I did to you to get him to wake up.”

Again Wilson nodded knowing that April’s daddy was one reason they were in this hellhole.

April took a moment to study Wilson. “You look like Santa Claus,” she offered.

Wilson offered a small smile and ran a hand along his beard, which was as white as, well, Santa Claus.
“I’m afraid I’m not as jolly or as clean as he is right now, April,” Wilson said and he looked down at his clothes, soiled and damp from his failed escape attempt.

He tried not to focus on the dampness, the cold he could feel beginning to seep into his bones and settle. He did his best to brush whatever dirt and debris he could from his clothes even though they were truly filthy. He raised his hands over his head and grunted from the pain and stiffness in his joints. He ran both hands several times through his thick hair. He did not want his bedraggled appearance to frighten the child anymore than he thought she already might be.

He tried to keep his mind off the pain in his foot, which throbbed terribly. He looked up at the bare bulb protruding from the ceiling. It didn’t offer much light, but at some point he was going to have to remove his sock and he would have to do it soon. He wondered what Sam was thinking. She had to know by now that her daughter was missing. He thought of her resolve and felt ashamed of himself that he did not have more faith in her. “I’m sorry I didn’t wake up, April,” he said. “And I hope I didn’t scare you.”

“Nope,” April said. “You didn’t.”

Wilson smiled at the girl’s sense of sureness. “April,” he said. “Your mother probably never mentioned my name or who I am, but I’m Wilson Cole. I’m the publisher at the newspaper where your mother works. So there’s no need to be afraid of me. Okay?” Wilson spoke calmly, as though the two of them were at a park eating lunch and watching ducks swim in a nearby lake.

“Okay,” April said and nodded.

Wilson smiled and looked from April to around the small windowless room. The only way out would be through the door that stood directly before him. “Somehow I’m going to figure out how to get us out of here,” he said.

He wanted to get up and try ramming it with his shoulder, but the results would be yet another area of aches and pain on his body that he didn’t need. His broken nose, sore shoulder and foot were enough to endure for the moment.
He looked at April. She still projected an image of calm. What sense of uncertainty that she may have hovered just below her surface and seemed to vanish at his words of assurance. Now he just needed to believe it. “Were you at your grandmother’s when they came for you?” he asked.

April shook her head. “I was on the school bus going to school.”

Wilson’s eyebrows drifted upward. “They took you off the school bus?”

April nodded. “How come your hair is almost white?”

Wilson absentmindedly brushed his hand through his hair. He thought a moment and then chuckled. “Well,” he said, “I guess because I’m a lot older than you. That’s why it took me so long to sit up, my bones are old and get kinda achy.”

“How much older?” April asked and scooted a little closer to Wilson.

“Hum,” Wilson said, putting an index finger to his lips and looked toward the ceiling pretending to be deep in thought. “Let’s see you’re at least nine right?”

“I was nine in January,” April informed Wilson with authority.

He went back to his thoughtful pose. “Well, if you’re nine, then that makes me almost fifty years older than you.”

April’s eyes widened. “Wow!” she said. “That’s old.”

“I guess it is,” Wilson said and scratched his beard. “That’s why I got lots of gray hair and this Santa Claus beard.” The room was quiet for a moment before Wilson asked, “What about the other children on the school bus, April? Weren’t there some of your classmates riding on the bus with you when those men came?”

April shook her head. “No, I’m the first stop. Grandma Church waited until I got on the bus like she always does and then she waved at me ’til the bus went ’round the corner. After we went ’round the corner, the bus driver stopped the bus and these two guys
got out of a car that stopped right by the bus.”

“What did they do after the bus driver stopped the bus?”

“They got on the bus after bus driver opened the door and talked to them for a few minutes. They were looking at me the whole time they were talking.”

“What did these two men look like?”

April shrugged.

“Were they big guys and were there two of them?” Wilson asked, trying to coax her into remembering.

April thought a moment then nodded.

Wilson continued, “Did they dress like your daddy? I mean did they wear suits and ties?”

Again April nodded. “They were dark.”

“The suits were dark?” Wilson confirmed.

“Yep,” April said, sure of herself.

“Did you see their faces?”

April nodded. “They looked the same.”

Wilson frowned, then nodded. “You mean they looked like twins?” he asked, knowing now why he had not seen the twins in several days.

April nodded and Wilson watched as she looked down at her hands. He noticed that she twisted and pulled at them as she spoke.

“Then what happened?” Wilson asked, encouraging April to continue.

“Then the bus driver looked at me in that big mirror that’s over his wheel and then he looked at the two men. Then the two men handed him some money and he took it and put it in a bag by his feet,” April’s voice drifted off as though she were replaying the moments on the bus again over in her mind.

“I think it was a lot,” she said finally.

“How could you tell it was a lot of money?” Wilson asked.

“It was a big, thick bunch,”
April said matter of factly and holding her hands out as if to show the size of the wad of cash. “Like the kind you see the bad guys get on TV.”

Wilson nodded and rubbed a hand over his coarse beard. He clenched his jaw so tight the muscles on the side of his face protruded. His eyes narrowed to slits. What Wilson was thinking he’d like to do to these people right now, he could not say aloud. Instead he said, “What did they say to get you to come with them?”

April looked at him a moment as she thought. “They told me they were going to take me home. They said my mom said it was okay for me to go with them.”

“To your grandmother’s
house?” Wilson asked and April was sitting close enough now that he was able to reach over and gently brush the strand of hair from her eyes.

“No,” April said and shook her head, impatiently as if Wilson didn’t understand. “Home,
here
.” April stressed the word here and pointed to the floor with her index finger.

Wilson nodded understanding now. “They said they were taking you home here to Colorado? Home to where your mother is?”

Again April shook her head with impatience. “Not mom,” she said. “Howard and Nona.”

“To the ranch then? The twins told you they were going to take you to your grandmother’s ranch?” Wilson confirmed.

April nodded. Her face lightened and she sat up a little taller, clearly happy with the thought of going home to the ranch to see Howard and Nona.

“Won’t you be excited to see your mother again?” Wilson asked.

April’s face darkened and she straightened her shoulders and crossed her arms tightly over her chest, and announced firmly, “I don’t care if I ever see my mom again.”

Anne waited in the cool semi-darkness of the bathroom with Sam until she could collect herself and return to the newsroom.

“Look at me,” Sam said into the mirror, primping her hair with her hands. “I’m a total wreck. But I guess I’ll fit right in here, since this is what everyone expects of me.”

“Oh, Sam, you’re so hard on yourself,” Anne said and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. Anne watched as Sam leaned into the mirror and used the tip of a tissue to clean a smudge of makeup away from beneath her left eye. She looked at Anne in the mirror while remembering the tense conversation she had with Esther in her bedroom mirror just the day before. She did her best to smile. “Thanks, Anne,” she said. “For being a friend. I haven’t been the best person to be around lately.”

Anne patted Sam’s shoulder gently and let her hand fall to her side. “Sam, you’re doing the best you can and you have to know that.” Anne brought her hand to her chest and looked at Sam levelly. She said, “I certainly don’t know what I’d do in your situation. Probably be a total wreck.”

The women walked to the door. Before Sam opened it, she leaned against it and said, “Esther was really screaming at me on the phone when I was in Nick’s office, like she was almost going to implode. She said it was my fault that April was missing. I tried to tell her that the people who came for her weren’t the kind who checked in at the main office first.”

Anne shrugged off Sam’s comments. Instead she said, “Don’t worry about what your former mother in-law thinks, Samantha. She sounds a bit goofy to me, anyway. What with all those dogs around and all. I would hope that she would have already called
the police.”

“She said she was going to the police station just as soon as we finished talking. She said she called me the moment the school called her, thinking I had taken her,” Sam said, placing an open hand against her chest. She could feel her heart beating hard. “There’s got to be an Amber Alert out by now.”

“Dear God it’s got to be,” Anne said. “I’d hate to think of anything bad happening to that dear sweet child.”

Anne’s words sent Sam into
renewed bouts of tears, which came in a powerful, commanding burst.

“I … I just don’t know what I’d do if … if I lost my daughter, too,” Sam said trying to talk through a halting voice. “I don’t know if I could stand it, Anne. She’s everything to me and … and she’s all I have and she’s missing and I don’t know where to start looking. I feel so hopeless not being able to do anything. What if April thinks I’m not coming for her? I can’t let her down again. I … I just can’t.”

Sam was crying so hard her shoulders were shaking. Anne pulled her close and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m so, so sorry, honey,” she said and her voice was soft.

For what seemed a long time Anne held Sam and let her cry until her sobs turned to a quiet whimper. “Let me get you some tissues,” Anne said and pulled several from a box sitting on top the toilet. She handed them to Sam.

“Thank you Anne and I’m sorry,” Sam said and blew her nose.

Anne placed her hand on the side of Sam’s face. Sam closed her eyes and took another deep, shuttering breath.
“You’ve been so strong, Samantha. I know it’s going to be hard, but you mustn’t give up your resolve now. We’ll find April and Wilson and we’ll bring them home safely.”

Sam nodded, feeling empty and drained. She wanted to smile, to believe Anne’s words, but she opened the door to the newsroom with a sense of impending doom that surrounded her like a forest.

When they finally emerged from the ladies room, Sam’s face was red and blotchy, her eyes swollen. David was on the phone when she crossed in front of his desk. He cradled the phone, looked at her and nodded. She waved slightly as if to say ‘I’m okay.’ David watched as she walked to her own desk. When he finished his phone interview, he looked over at Sam, who was emerging from her trance-like state. He watched as she turned toward her computer and guessed that she was checking her e-mail, the expression on her face devoid of any emotion. That, however, changed the longer she stared into the computer. She looked up and over at David, her face flushed. Seeing that he was watching her, she motioned to him to come to her desk. He rose quickly from his chair and took long strides to her desk. Over the chatter of the open newsroom Sam heard David ask, “Did you get something from them?”

She nodded as he leaned closer to her monitor. “There are photos,” she said flatly.
She scooted her chair away from her desk to allow him a better look at the screen. She was trying desperately to keep the Barbie Doll likeness of her out of her mind, still reeling over April having gone missing. She stared unseeing at the screen while David read the message. He immediately began to comb the e-mail for the identifying International Protocol number.

After a moment of study, he said, “Looks like they sent this around midnight, maybe a little after. Looks like it went through the same channels as before.”

The e-mail message was from the methmaker. Just seeing the word made Sam cringe with grim possibilities. Fear encompassed her. She felt it ready to swallow her whole.

In the subject line was the words …
For Your Eyes Only

The message was still bolded in bright blue letters.

David turned and looked at Sam over his shoulder. “Do you want me to open the file?”

She nodded, wondering how she could ever prepare herself to look at what would appear on her screen. The Barbie Doll was laughing at her now. She thought of the first night at Esther’s place and crawling into April’s bed, warm with sleep. She bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to cry now.

David double clicked on the message. The accompanying text read:

foolish girl, samantha christine.

traveling all the way to the pacific northwest just to see your little girl.  tsk ,tsk.  should have stayed put, foolish, foolish girl.  now we have her, too.  thought you might like to see how well she and the old man are getting along.  you’re next.  before long, you’ll all be reunited.  won’t it be fun a
gain to be one big happy family.  foolish, foolish girl…

Sam’s hands were shaking and she clenched her fists. “They followed me up there,” she said shaking her head. Her temples were pounding following her outburst in the ladies room. “I led them right to my daughter, David. Esther was right, it’s my fault. How could I have been so goddamn stupid? But I … I had no choice. April needed me and Esther said she was sick. I had to go. She’s my daughter. I had …”

David placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder to quiet her.
She looked at him.

“Sam,” he said. “It’s okay. You did what you had to do.”

She nodded and looked down at her fists knotted in balls so tight her knuckles were white.

“Maybe I’d better check out the photos myself, Sam,” he said.

“No, David,” Sam said and shook her head quickly, firmly. “I have to see them, too. I have to be ready for whatever comes up on that screen. They have my daughter now. I will stop at nothing to find her.”

David turned his attention to the computer and double clicked on the first JPEG image.