Blood.
Streams of blood.
Aqua water turned a garish red.
Bloated bodies.
Two small white caskets beside a larger, dark casket.
The overwhelming scent of roses.
“No!” she yelled, then realized what she had done. She took a deep breath. “I’m okay.” She directed her words to Sam. She would never be okay again, and surely anyone in their right mind would know these were simply words to appease those whose sympathetic offerings were given as though they could actually ease the burden of this horrific tragedy that was her life. Tessa truly appreciated any kind words, but they would not change the past, could not change it.
Nothing could right the wrongs of the past. There was no magical potion to reverse the clock. If it were possible, she would have given her soul to save her daughters. And Joel, too.
“Tessa?” Sam asked.
Shaking her head to clear the path down which her thoughts were going, she gave up what she hoped would pass for a half-ass smile.
In a no-nonsense voice, she said, “Let’s go inside.” And not bothering to explain her outburst, she went on. “I want to get this over with.”
Coming from humble beginnings, Tessa had always thought her house a bit on the lavish side—no, over the top—but she’d tried to make it as homey as possible given its size. Italian marble floors, two kitchens, one inside, another outside on the lanai, with a bamboo ceiling, and a large gazebo built around several sections of the swimming pool that branched off in every direction. It was almost like man-made canals, except for the Olympic-size pool in the center. A large fountain, with a separate bar and fireplace in the corner, completed the outdoor part of the mansion.
It had been so many years, and she knew that Sam had demolished parts of the inside of the house, but no matter how many walls were knocked down, floor tiles removed, and new furnishings installed, this was the place where her nightmare had begun. She would never have closure. Many professionals had told her that, in time, she would feel a sense of closure. Yet to this very day, she continued to grieve for her loss, the only difference between then and now being that she hid those feelings so that it appeared to all as though she had accepted her loss.
Never!
Her inner rage had been simmering much too long to cool down now.
Chapter 7
She entered the kitchen and stopped when she was just a few feet inside. Slowly, she directed her gaze around the large, airy, open space. The black-and-white tile had been replaced with cream-colored wood. The cabinets were of the same color. All of the appliances were stainless steel. None of the girls’ artwork, which had been attached to the refrigerator with magnets, was there. Gone were the pots of fresh herbs she had always kept on hand. Glass jars of her favorite teas no longer lined the windowsill. As it was, this kitchen held no memories for her. It was stark and sterile. Tessa found that she neither liked nor disliked the changes. It was simply a room. Cold, she thought, and shivered.
“I’ll turn the thermostat up,” Sam said, walking past her to the control panel in the formal living room.
Without hesitating, she followed him. The formal living room had been expanded. The windows facing the canal were unadorned, allowing one a perfect view from anywhere in the room. She took it all in, realizing that Sam had knocked out the wall separating the formal dining room from the living area. Cream-colored sofas, with matching plush chairs, were located in a semicircle opposite the windows. “It’s different,” was all she could come up with. Her throat suddenly felt dry, and her hands began to tremble. She closed them into fists to prevent Sam from seeing just how nervous she was. Squeezing her eyes shut, again, she could not block the vile projection that swept through her mind.
And the smell. Sharp, pungent, unidentifiable at the time. All this time later she recognized the smell.
Decomposition.
Feeling light-headed, she sat down on the nearest chair, surprised to find that it was leather. Soft and cool. Closing her eyes so that she could block the view, she was still for a moment. The swimming pool, the deck, everything in her line of sight was exactly as they had been that horrible day.
“Tessa, if this is too much . . .” Sam said. He positioned himself on the arm of the chair, which was big enough for two people.
“I just need a few minutes alone.” She felt the sudden urge to walk through each room in her former home. Unsure why, Tessa stood up, a bit dizzy, but she was okay. “Maybe you can fix us a glass of iced tea?” she asked, hoping he would take the hint to leave her alone.
He stood and brushed his hands up and down the length of her arms. “Are you sure?”
Shivering at his touch, Tessa had never been surer of anything in her life. The need to see each room was so overwhelming, it was as though she were being guided by some unseen force. She stepped away so that Sam could not touch her. “I need to be alone now. Please.”
“Of course. I’ll go fix us something to drink.”
As soon as Sam had left the room, Tessa headed upstairs, unclear about why but knowing she had to do this now and not a second later. She did not know why, but for some unexplained reason, she could not wait.
When she reached the landing, she looked at the closed doors to her left. Piper’s and Poppy’s rooms. Side by side, with their bathroom separating them. The master bedroom to her right. She wasn’t sure if she should go there first or to the girls’ rooms. Again, as though she were being guided by a force unknown to her, she went to the master bedroom, and before she could stop herself, she pushed the double doors open. Expecting to see her former room as it was, with its rich mahogany furniture, the custom-made chairs by the window that overlooked the Caloosahatchee River, she was stunned when she saw that it was empty of all furniture. She thought Sam might have left this room alone. Dozens of boxes were stacked against the wall opposite the door. The windows were bare, the celery-green carpet of her memory had been replaced with shiny hardwood. “Why?” she asked aloud, and walked over to the walk-in closet and opened the doors. Shelves that had formerly been lined with her sweaters, jeans, and shirts were empty. She traced a finger over the surface of the wood. Not a speck of dust. Sam must have hired a cleaning service. She looked at what was once Joel’s side of the closet. It, too, was empty. All of their personal belongings, collected throughout the years of their marriage and before, were most likely stacked in those boxes against the wall.
What had she expected? That Sam would remodel the entire house yet leave their personal possessions alone? Truly, she had not given it serious thought until now. The master bedroom had been stripped of everything. Nothing of her past was visible but for the boxes, which she assumed contained Joel’s clothes and hers in addition to personal items: her journals, his favorite crime novels. Memories of her and Joel picking out their bedroom furniture, the fabric for the drapes, the chairs, and all the myriad items that went along with decorating a home, flooded her.
She tried to recall exactly how she had left their bedroom the day she left for the mainland. The bed was unmade; she remembered that much. It’d been Rosa’s day to wash the linens, so she had not bothered making up the bed. And she remembered thinking this as she hurriedly packed for her so-called weekend getaway. What had happened to the Louis Vuitton luggage she had packed? And all the necessities she had packed for her daughters? It had been evidence—she hated using that word—she knew this, but wasn’t it supposed to be returned to the family? Had Sam packed it away with the rest of their personal belongings? She stepped out of the closet and stood in the middle of the room.
Never had she imagined she would return to her former home once she had been convicted. If she had ever dwelt on returning, she was sure she would have gone utterly mad. Disciplined after years of confinement, Tessa struggled with this new reality, a reality that allowed her thoughts to return to the past.
Inside prison, for the first few years, it was all she could do to not think about her freedom, and n
ow that she had been given a sort of freedom, albeit temporary and with harsh conditions that constrained her in a different way, she didn’t like the path her thoughts had ventured on since she had learned that her conviction had been overturned and she had been granted a new trial.
Before, she had accepted the fact that Liam had gotten away with murder and it truly didn’t matter where she lived because there was no life without her family. Now she wasn’t so sure about her future. At least inside prison, she knew the rules. There had been no reason for her to think about the what-ifs and maybes.
All of a sudden, a dozen thoughts were swirling in her mind. She needed something concrete to focus all her nervous energy on. At least until the trial, a date which still had not been determined. Tessa had never been happy being idle. She should see if Sam could find Lara, and possibly she could come for a visit. Maybe she could stay here with her. They could get to know one another all over again, like when they were little, and their mother was still alive. Before they were forced to live apart.
Maybe she could . . . she didn’t know, what, be a big sister to her again? Tell her all about her prison life? No, that wasn’t a topic Lara would want to discuss. Money, drugs, and the latest fashions were her little sister’s passions. In that order. Without money, there were no drugs or fancy designer dresses.
“Are you okay?”
Whirling around, Tessa almost jumped out of her skin. “Damn, don’t sneak up on me like that!” she shouted at Sam, who stood in the doorway holding two glasses of iced tea. “Remember where I came from,” she reminded him, but neglected to tell him what could happen in prison when someone sneaked into the showers, behind you in the cafeteria line, when a guard’s attention was elsewhere. No, he didn’t need to know about that.
“Sorry. You looked like you were a million miles away,” he said, and handed her the glass of tea.
She took a drink of the tea, reveling in its icy sweetness. “It’s been so long,” she observed, and she took another gulp of the tea. “The ice, I mean. We don’t get ice in prison.”
Sam appeared uneasy. “It’s the little things, I guess,” he said as he stood in the entryway to the bedroom, eyes downcast.
Tessa picked up on his awkwardness, and it took a few seconds for her to realize why. They were in her and Joel’s bedroom; obviously, he would feel uneasy here. Or she assumed that was the cause of what she decided was his uneasiness, but she didn’t really know him on that level, so she could be wrong.
Disturbed by his interference, she would have to put off going into the girls’ rooms for another time, when she was alone. She didn’t want him or anyone else around when she entered their rooms. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said. Though she dreaded doing so, she had to get used to the idea of living in her former home. The changes could not block out her memories of the life she had shared here with Joel and the girls or the scene she had come home to on that long-ago day.
Downstairs, Tessa was at a loss as to where she could sit and not see the pool area, so she plopped down on the bottom step. She needed to know why Sam had not gutted the pool area. Of all the spaces to leave untouched, it was the worst.
Sam sat beside her, and she scooted as far away from him as the step would allow.
“I don’t bite,” he said.
“Of course you don’t. I’m just making room for you,” she explained, then patted the extra few inches her moving gave him. Clearing her throat, then taking a deep breath, before she lost her courage, she asked, “Why didn’t you fill in that goddamned pool?” Anger spewed from her mouth, surprising her.
Sam shook his head. “I wanted to, Tessa, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
His face clouded with an emotion she couldn’t name.
“It’s a crime scene,” he explained. “I just couldn’t. It would have meant giving up all hope.”
A crime scene? All hope?
“But, it’s . . . I don’t understand,” was all she could say. “All these years, why can’t I just . . . excavate the entire area?” Tessa forced herself to look out the wide expanse of windows. “The evidence was collected,” she insisted, stating what seemed to her to be an obvious truth. It made her nauseated just to say the word evidence because throughout her short trial the only evidence had been the remains of her precious family. Tears filled her eyes, and she knuckled them to staunch the flow.
“I could never bring myself to destroy this part of the property. It’s always been in the back of my mind that the day would come when a second look was needed. Something in my gut told me to hold off,” Sam said.
Tessa didn’t understand. “Is there some new evidence you know about that I don’t, besides Rosa?” She knew that with today’s forensics, the possibility of new evidence was not at all unreasonable. There had been dozens of cases where evidence from as far back as fifty or more years had exonerated those who were innocent. Or, as with some arson convictions, even established that no crime had been committed in the first place. She didn’t believe there was any actual physical evidence that could change the outcome of her case, but she admitted to herself that she was not an expert in that area. She was innocent, but a jury of her peers had convicted her of three counts of murder in the first degree. Understandably, she did not have much faith in the criminal justice system.
Sam turned to face her. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be one hundred percent certain. I didn’t want to take the chance in case there was any.”
“You should have destroyed the entire grounds,” she said, motioning to the pool area. “It’s the one area that I would have wanted demolished.” She could hear the frustration in her voice, the sheer inconceivableness of Sam’s lack of forethought. Screw evidence. There was nothing to find.
“I’m sorry, Tessa. I . . . I simply do not agree,” was all he said.
She took a deep breath, gazed at the unfamiliar shoes she wore, the new leather waiting for her to break in. She removed them and the footies she was wearing. She had not worn a normal shoe in years.
“You hate the shoes?” Sam asked.
“No,” she quickly said. “It’s just that my feet feel confined. It’s been a while. It’ll take time for me to get used to . . . this.” She pointed at the shoes and the ankle monitor. “Flip-flops and socks in prison. What we were allowed to wear. No sneakers. The shoelaces could be used as a weapon, or”—and she had thought of this more than once—“a means of taking one’s own life.”
“Damn,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry. For all of this.” He gestured toward the pool area. “If you’re okay with it, I can see that it’s . . . filled in.”
What if there was evidence that the police had missed? Having no clue what could have escaped their eagle eye, and remembering that to her way of thinking there really had been nothing one could call an investigation since they had decided she was guilty from the get-go, she couldn’t really disagree with Sam’s decision just yet. The memories would be with her no matter what was present beyond the wide expanse of windows. Her memory of what she had found in that pool could never be erased.
“No. Leave it as it is. For now. I’m not saying I believe there is still evidence, and even if there is, how are you going to go about your . . . search?”
“You’re the sole owner of a giant pharmaceutical company with connections to forensic specialists across the country. I can get the ball rolling or not. Your call.”
Should she? She hated to get her hopes up, but at this point, what did she have to lose? She had already lost everything that mattered to her. “Go ahead, do whatever you have to do.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asked. “I know this isn’t what you had in mind when you came home, but I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy . . . the pool area.”
She didn’t tell him that it would have been the first area she would have chosen to destroy had she been given the opportunity, but that was the past, and the past was prologue. And in her case, it was al
l she had to cling to—her entire life of happy memories resided here in this house. “Just do whatever you have to. I don’t want to know the results unless they provide some new . . . lead.” She could not bring herself to use the word evidence again.
“All right, I’ll get started first thing tomorrow,” Sam promised. “Or I can start right now. You’re the boss,” he said, then added, “I’ll make sure Lee is on board before I call in the big guns.”
She rolled her eyes. “I think tomorrow is soon enough. I need some time to get used to all this.” She motioned with her hand to the space in front of her. “Freedom. Temporary, I know.” Suddenly changing the topic, she said, “I want to see Lara. Does she know about my release?”
“I told her when I spoke to her last week.”
For a brief moment, Tessa’s heart lightened, but then she realized that her sister was basically nothing more than a complete stranger to her now and had been for many years before now. Why the hurry to reunite, to bring up bad memories and broken promises of the past? she thought, but kept it to herself. “And?” she coaxed.
“She told me she would call when she could,” Sam informed her.
Tessa nodded but remained quiet, wondering exactly what Lara was up to that would prevent her from making a simple phone call. Eventually, she would have to see Lara. She felt she had no choice, but she wasn’t going to push the issue with Sam.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, she cleared her throat. “You’ll let me know then?” And that was all she said.
“Of course.”
Itching to go back to the master bedroom to search the boxes, she grabbed her shoes and stood. “I’m not sure how this is supposed to work, but I would like some time alone. To explore the house. Familiarize myself, I don’t know, just get used to the outside world.” She didn’t know any other way to explain herself other than just to say what was on her mind.
“Okay. I can see about stocking the refrigerator, get this place up and running again. Is there anything you’d like from the grocery? Publix delivers, so I won’t have to leave you.”
Sweet Vengeance Page 6
