Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (4 page)

Sam muttered under her breath and let her briefcase fall to the floor with a heavy thud. She kept her eyes on his office door as she
threw her coat and scarf over the back of her chair. She started toward Nick’s office, but stopped for a moment to consider what she might say.

She sat down in her chair and began
to massage her temples, trying to sort through her thoughts. She knew she could not go into Nick’s office on the defensive, with her dislike for him glaring.

A conversation she and Wilson had once about Nick Weeks came to mind. She smiled a little as she heard Wilson’s sonorous voice, rich, soothing like chocolate. She was surprised that remembering the sound of his voice made deep stirrings in her chest.

“Don’t pay too much attention to what Nick thinks of you, Sam,” he had said. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that there will always be
those people in this world that you can never please, no matter what you say or do?”

“Not my mother
, but my grandmother,” Sam remembered saying to Wilson.

“She probably told you something similar to
what my mother had once told me; that some people are just that way and nothing you will ever say or do will ever change the way they think of you. So don’t die trying. You’ll see over time that it’s not worth the effort or the fight.”

Armed with Wilson’s words, Sam pushed herself up from her chair and walked to Nick’s office. Doing her best to contain her emotions, she knocked on the door with the knuckle of her index finger. Nick looked in her direction, eating a jelly doughnut. On his desk there was a coffee cup with a 7-11 logo and the lid off. He motioned her into his office without saying a word and pointed with his doughnut to the only empty chair in the room. She walked in and sat down. Nick took a bite of the doughnut and got up and closed the door.

He sat down and swiveled in his chair to face her. When he did, Sam noticed that some of the red filling from the doughnut was caught on the right corner of his mustache. He set the doughnut down and used a napkin he got from the convenience store to wipe some of the jelly filling from his fingers, but not his mustache. He looked at Sam over the top of his glasses, which were perched in their usual spot at the tip of his nose. It drove Sam crazy that he’d never push them up to the bridge of his nose where she thought they belonged. Sam guessed Nick to be in his mid forties. Not old by any means, but she always had the impression that he acted years older. “I should fire you right now,” he said.

Sam almost laughed. “I hear you thought I had skipped off to Mexico with Wilson,” she said instead, ignoring his comment.

Nick Weeks looked at her as if to say ‘well, didn’t you?’ Sam raised her left wrist to their eye level, her bandage the focal point between them. The reality of what Sam had been through was finally dawning on her. She drew a deep, involuntary breath.

“I was in hell last week,” she said, still holding her wrist in the air. “I don’t know where you really thought I was, Nick, but I can tell you it wasn’t Mexico. When Wilson and I left here last Tuesday night we were kidnapped.”

Sam hesitated only a moment. “We were jumped by three men and taken somewhere. And wherever that was, I think Wilson’s still there.”

Sam bit her bottom lip. For the first time since waking in the hospital and seeing Howard’s b
ald head, she felt like crying, and if she was going to cry about it, she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it in front of Nick Bloody Weeks. She straightened her shoulders, collected herself and told Nick everything she could remember about the kidnapping.

She ended by saying, “They obviously knew our schedules, knew that Wilson was leaving the next morning for Puerto Va
llarta and knew…”

Her voice trailed off, thinking of what Howard had said to her in the hospital.

“Why are you still in that apartment? Why don’t you come live with your grandmother and me? At least then, for Heaven’s sake, you wouldn’t be alone and we’d know to call someone if you didn’t come home at night.”

Sadness tugged at her heart. She was alone in her apartment and her life now more than she had ever been. With Robin gone and April living with her grandmother, Sam had no one except her
own grandmother and Howard. She remembered a day soon after she broke her big story. She had traveled to her grandmother’s ranch to ask if she could live with her until she got herself and her life back in order. Sam remembered how Nona had cried.

“Of course. Of course, Sammie.” Nona had said over and over.

She forced herself to tell Nick the rest of the story, over the lump in her throat and a sadness that tugged at her heart like a small child pulling on her sleeve. “And somehow they knew that I wouldn’t be missed.”

When she finished she directed her attention to a watercolor painting over Nick’s desk, an autumn landscape beneath a vast blue sky. She waited for Nick to speak, but he was speechless, just as Anne had been.

“I think we need to call the police,” Nick said finally.

“I think it’d be better if we waited to hear from the kidnappers instead,” Sam said.

There was an extended silence in the room, allowing Sam to hear the muffled voices of co-workers greeting each other as they began to arrive.

“You’re probably right,” Nick said.

Another extended silence, which Nick broke by saying, “
Shit
,” in a long drawn out sigh. “People are kidnapped for three reasons; money, headlines or they want…”

“Revenge,” Sam said, finishing his sentence. “That’s what it is, Nick. Whenever I think of the story we broke about the drug smuggling operation, I cringe. That’s what it is and it really scares me. These people don’t give a shit about money, they already have money and they certainly don’t want any publicity. They’re out for revenge. That’s all it is. Pure and simple. You remember what Wilson told the staff right after the drug story hit the newsstands.”

Nick nodded knowingly. “Yeah, he said ‘we put some very ruthless, evil people out of business today.’”

Nick’s comment threw both of them into another long silence. A knock at the door made Sam jump. David Best poked his head in the office. If he
was surprised to see Sam, he didn’t show it. He nodded quickly at her and then looked at Nick.

“My nine o’clock interview’s here. You wanted to sit
in on the meeting.”

“Yeah, right,” Nick said, glancing at his watch. “They’re ten minutes early. Let ’em wait in the lobby. I’ll be
done here in a few minutes.”

David nodded and closed the door. Nick leaned against the tall back of his chair and rested his elbows on the arms.
For once he actually pushed his glasses up on his nose and folded his hands and studied Sam over the top of them. The jelly filling was still in place at the corner of his mustache.

“What the hell are we going to do?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Sam said. “Until we hear from them.”

“I don’t know why they let you go instead of Wilson. You’re the one who wouldn’t quit your investigation, even after all those threats. How many did you get after all? You’re the one who wrote the story. You’re the one who should be punished. Wilson has done nothing for you, but try to help you.”

Nick’s comments were par and what Sam had expected from him. Still, she could not help feeling a stab of resentment. His lack of remorse. True. There was no love lost between them. It was the last thing Sam would have done had he been in her situation.

“I suspect I’ll hear from them very soon,” Sam said and got up to leave. “I asked Anne to keep this quiet at least until
we get our first contact from them. Maybe then we’ll have a better idea how to proceed.”

“You’re right,” Nick said and glanced down at the calendar on his desk. “Wilson’s supposed to be back to work a week from today.”

He looked at Sam over the rim of his glasses, which had slipped back down to their usual spot at the tip of his nose. Her lips were set in a thin straight line, as if to expect the worst from him. Nick did not disappoint.

“Don’t screw things up now, Sam,” he said. “Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

“Right,” Sam said, sarcasm all over her face. “As if I wouldn’t.” She put her hand on the doorknob, but hesitated before opening it. She turned around and looked at Nick. She wanted to say ‘use your napkin,’ but thought better of it.

She opened the door and left t
he office without another word.

Wilson didn’t know how long he had been alone since he had last seen Sam. His watch was gone, and the minutes and hours seemed to merge into one, into nothingness.

Sam had still been unconscious when the kidnappers came for them. Wilson knew they were going to be moved when the door opened and he saw one of the three men, the white one with the thick beard—Fuzz Face as Wilson now thought of him—holding rope and a hood. The twins stood at the door, watching, their faces impassive, their hands clasped in front of them. The smell of their leather jackets was thick in the room.

“Get in the chair,” Fuzz Face ordered Wilson.

With effort Wilson lifted his big frame away from the wall and got to his feet, doing as he was told. He wanted to lunge at all three of them and take them down. He had enough anger pent up inside that he felt he could have handled all of them at once, but he could not run the risk of something happening to Sam.

The twins came and stood on either side of Wilson while Fuzz Face stayed at the door. He waited for the twins to get in position. The twins wore T-shirts, one in gray, the other white. Wilson wondered if they ever went home to change. He had been trying to engage in small talk with the twins and Fuzz Face, hoping that if he could befriend at least one of them, he might have a way of getting out of here alive. He gave up before too long. The twins only spoke when they were spoken to. The tall, skinny one with the sharp nose and pencil-like fingers seemed to do all the talking and ordering around. There was no us
e trying to win his confidence.

Fuzz Face tossed the rope to the twin on Wilson’s right and the hood to the other one. Wilson watched as Fuzz Face removed a pistol with a long handle from his shoulder holster. He trained the nozzle on Sam’s head.

“She’ll never wake up again if you do something foolish,” he said.

“Don’t hurt her,” Wilson said, trying to keep his voice free of anger and pleading. “I’m doing what you asked.”

Wilson narrowed his eyes, keeping them fixed on Fuzz Face. He sat passively as the twins tied his hands behind his back. He turned his head back as far as he could over his right shoulder to watch. The twin pulled the rope roughly over his wrists and he winced. Wilson had rolled the sleeves of his white shirt to his elbows. Now a burning sensation traveled up his wrists to the top of his shoulders. He gritted his teeth against the pain. They pulled the rope so tight that Wilson couldn’t wiggle his fingers. His skin beneath the rope throbbed each time he tried to move.

The twin holding the hood shook it open in front of Wilson as he readied to lower it over his head. Wilson kept his eyes on Sam
, lying on the floor before him, her hands still bound. That was the last thing he saw as the room went dark.

Determined that fear would not overtake him and that he would not hyperventilate, Wilson took a deep breath as the twin lowered the hood over his head. He exhaled slowly as one of them pulled the drawstring. Several days beard growth made his face feel scratchy against the hood. His whiskers caught on the cloth as one of them tried to adjust the hood.

Wilson could feel the twins tuck their hands under his arms then pull him to his feet. As they did, he heard Fuzz Face say, “You know what to do with the girl.”

Wilson knew wherever he ended up, Sam would not be with him.

He could only pray they would keep her alive.

Wilson could not tell how long it took to get to the outdoors. He counted two turns before they ascended a short flight of stairs, which Wilson counted as six. Then they took an immediate right. They took several quick steps down what Wilson guessed was another hallway. Then they turned left and took longer strides until they reached more stairs. Unable to see that a set of stairs was before him, Wilson stumbled and lost track of the number of st
eps he climbed.

At the top of the stairs, he could tell that they had only taken a few short steps until one of the twins opened a door and Wilson could feel fresh, cold air against his forearms. It must have been late, or at least dark. Even wearing the hood, Wilson was able to tell the sun was not shining.

Wilson heard a car engine running and the air was thick with the smell of exhaust. The hood and the rope made it difficult for Wilson to move easily and once they reached the car, the kidnappers had to push his head down and help him navigate his body inside the vehicle. The drive to the new location was short, maybe ten minutes. Wilson guessed that it was the twins who helped him out of the car. They were the ones who had manhandled him so far. In a matter of minutes, they had taken several long strides and Wilson was inside and in another room.

Wilson gulped in air when the twins removed his hood. He coughed slightly from taking too much air too soon. Though the room smelled faintly of stale cigarette smoke and another odor Wilson could not immediately identify, he never remembered air tasting as fresh as it did as they removed his hood.

He looked for Sam, as his captors untied the rope. As he feared, she was not in the room. Wilson gingerly rubbed his wrists, relieved the rope was gone and watched the twins back away from him. Fuzz Face stayed at the door and kept the nozzle of his automatic weapon trained on the center of Wilson’s chest.

They shut the door and locked it. Wilson heard the sounds of his kidnappers’ retreating footsteps. A sense o
f relief to be alone, however small, flooded over him.

They had set him down on the floor with his back against the wall. The low light in the room came from a dim-watted bulb centered in the ceiling. It allowed enough light for Wilson to scan the room. It was empty and small, perhaps no more than ten feet by ten feet. Wilson took several deep breaths, thought a moment before determining that the strange odor that had assaulted his senses when they pulled his hood off was probably cat urine.

Cat urine.

He cocked his head, the thought stirring something deep inside, unsettling him. Fear brushed the back of his throat. He was certain now he knew why they had been kidnapped.

After an inventory of the room, Wilson guessed he might be here awhile, given the thin mattress on the floor covered with an equally thin blanket. There were two twelve-ounce plastic bottles of water near the mattress. Beside the bottles, there were four packages of orange-colored crackers and processed cheese and an apple.

Wilson pushed himself away from the wall and opened the water bottle. He took two long swallows, closing his eyes and savoring the cold, refreshing liquid. He went for the cheese and crackers and noticed that the packages had already been opened and the red plastic strips used to spread the cheese over the crackers were gone.

Wilson ate every bite. He used his finger to scoop out the rest of the cheese in the corners of the package that he could not get with the crackers. It was the first thing he had eaten since being kidnapped. He drank the last of his water, knowing the crackers would make him thirsty, but it didn’t matter. Though he was starved, he decided to save one package of crackers and the apple for later.

Feeling a small surge of energy, he got to his feet and went to the door. He placed both hands over the knob and tried hard
, several times, to open the door. The knob, nothing, would budge. He settled back against the wall and used the blanket to cover his legs. He tried hard to fight sleep, but the urge to close his eyes, if even for a few minutes, overcame him.

The next thing Wilson knew he was awakened by the sounds of someone opening the door. He tried to shield his eyes from the light streaming into the room, but someone kicked his hand away from his face and the outside light shone directly into his eyes. Wilson squinted. It took a moment to adjust to the sudden flood of light before he saw that the twins were back, standing over him like a pair of angry sentinels.

“Hey fellas,” Wilson said, casually, as if greeting old friends.

“Do you have to go to the john?” the twin in the gray T-shirt asked.

Wilson nodded. They helped him to his feet and this time handcuffed his hands in front of him. They loosely tied the hood over his head and when Wilson looked down he could see the tips of his black dress shoes. The men took Wilson by the arms and escorted him from the room. As they walked Wilson tried to keep his head down to watch for any markings on the ground that could become familiar landmarks to him, should he by some chance be able to escape. He also took several deep breaths to be aware of any kind of scents or smells that could serve as possible guides on the way out. Nothing, however, smelled as strongly as the cat urine in the room where his captors were keeping him.

He tried tracking how many times they had turned left and then right, but gave up after a few minutes, deciding that the bathroom was probably just down the hall and the kidnappers were taking him in all directions just to throw him off.

When they returned to the ten-foot-by-ten-foot room, they removed Wilson’s hood. He blinked a few times allowing his eyes to focus. Wilson saw that the lion tamer’s chair had been brought into the room and positioned directly under the bare bulb.

He could feel a bubble of apprehension begin to threaten his composure, as he worked to keep the look on his face neutral, his disposition calm.

The tall, bony man was back, or Pencil Fingers, Wilson decided until he learned his name. He was standing behind the chair. He motioned for them to bring Wilson forward. They pushed Wilson toward the chair and forced him into it. He held up his handcuffs, but the twins backed away without removing them.

Wilson recognized Pencil Fingers as the one who got out of the car the night he and Sam were kidnapped. Wilson looked down at his boots. They were the same pair that he had used to lift Sam’s lifeless arm off the ground. Anger replaced his bubble of fear. Wilson coul
d smell the leather from Pencil Finger’s jacket. The scent was strong and the jacket looked fresh and new and Wilson guessed it must have been a recent purchase.

Pencil Fingers coolly reached inside his coat pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes. When he did, Wilson again caught sight of the butt of the pistol nestled inside the shoulder holster. Wilson watched as Pencil Fingers shook a cigarette loose and pulled it from the package with his lips. He cupped his
long hands around a lighter.

He lit the cigarette and exhaled, then studied Wilson through a rising plume of smoke. Wilson returned his stare.

“Where is she?” Wilson asked.

Pencil Fingers laughed before he took a long drag on his cigarette. “In a safe place,” he said, blowing the smoke out of the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “In fact, I suspect that if she has not already been found, it won’t be long before she is.”

Wilson cocked his head and studied him skeptically.

“You can take my word for it. I assure you,” Pencil Fingers said as if he could read Wilson’s thoughts. “You don’t need to worry, she’ll be found soon.”

He took another quick drag on the cigarette and laughed harshly. There was something about his laugh, the cold and emptiness of it that put Wilson on edge.

“I have a feeling,” he went on, “That she may wish that she were still here with you by the time we get done with her.”

“What do you want from us?” Wilson said.

“Want?” Pencil Fingers echoed.

He laughed again and Wilson hated him.

“You can’t
give
me what I want, Mr. Cole.”

Wilson wasn’t surprised that Pencil Fingers knew his name. Pencil Fingers walked around the chair and Wilson followed him with his eyes as long as he could. He came to a stop in front of the chair.

“You know,” he continued, the cigarette bouncing up and down as he spoke, “I’ve never much cared for nicknames and given names that people abbreviate. Like Sam Church. Shouldn’t it be Samantha? Better yet, she should go back to her given surname, Marino. A good, strong Italian surname. Don’t you think, Mr. Cole? It goes so much better with her middle name, Samantha Christine Marino.”

Pencil Fingers’ voice trailed off as he removed the cigarette from his mouth, dropped it to the floor in front of Wilson and crushed it with the tip of his boot. He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled his 9mm from the holster. “My mother’s
name was Christine, Mr. Cole,” he said and lowered himself to be at eye level with Wilson, almost sitting in his lap. “She died of cancer a few years back, of the boobs.”

Pencil Fingers was so close
that Wilson could smell the stench of cigarettes as he breathed. He stared at Wilson a moment and laughed again as he backed away.

“Doesn’t that have a much nicer ring to it?” he asked using the nozzle to stroke Wilson’s chin. “Samantha Christine Marino?”

Wilson didn’t answer and tried to turn his head away. The man used the nozzle to stop Wilson from turning. Their eyes met. His dark sockets reminded Wilson of large black tunnels.

“I said, doesn’t that have a much nicer ring to it?”

Wilson nodded slightly.

“What’s your name?” Wilson asked, expecting him not to reply.

To his surprise, he did.

“Call me Juan,” Pencil Fingers replied. “You can call me Juan, ’cause we’re going to be together awhile.”

Wilson’s eyebrows drifted toward the top of his head as he nodded. Now Pencil Fingers had a name.