Sweet Vengeance

by Fern Michaels

  Tessa shook her head. “Not really.” Then, “Sam, I know you’re acting as my guardian, but does that mean you have to monitor me twenty-four/seven?”

  Sam stood up and walked down the few remaining stairs, putting distance between them. “Pretty much. I’m to keep you within my sight.”

  Surely he wasn’t serious? Then again, why would Sam make light of her situation? He wouldn’t. Incredulous, she replied in a tight voice, “Okay. I see.” She didn’t really, but was not going to tell him so. She had planned on his being in the house during the day, but around the clock, no. This was going to be a problem. She had to find some way around it, and she would. She had to think and plan. She had to figure something out. It wasn’t as though she had a choice.

  “I’m going to tell Cal he can call it a day,” Sam said. “He’ll be driving us wherever we need to go.”

  Tessa’s heart beat double time hearing this. “Sam, where exactly does Cal live?”

  He shifted his gaze away from her, cramming his hands in his pockets. “Here.”

  “In my house?” she asked, knowing his statement needed no clarification but still wanting to hear him confirm this. “Around the clock?” she added for no reason.

  “It’s part of the terms of your release. The pool house has been converted to a guesthouse.”

  She took another deep breath and nodded, then could not help but wonder if any evidence had been compromised during the conversion. “Sam, tell me everything. Don’t bullshit me. What other terms of my release have I not been told? I need to know.”

  Glancing around as though he were searching for an answer from some unseen source, Tessa watched him. “Sam, is there more? Seriously, I need to know.”

  “No, not really,” he said a bit sheepishly.

  “That sounds like there is, so just tell me.” She wasn’t used to playing cat and mouse. In prison, dialogue was fairly succinct and straightforward, at least most of the time.

  “I’m to keep you within sight at all times. That’s it. Cal’s staying here is merely a convenience,” Sam explained.

  “Basically, I’m not allowed any privacy. Is that it?”

  “Tessa, I am not going to sleep in the same room with you. I’m not going to watch you shower or take a bath, and if you want me out of the way, this is a large house with a number of rooms where I can go. I’m not a prison guard, okay?”

  He sounded a bit ticked off, but she didn’t care. “All right,” she relented, “but if something changes, no matter how insignificant you think it is, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “Of course I will.”

  She hoped he was being honest with her but didn’t tell him so. Whatever it took, she couldn’t raise his suspicions. She needed time to prepare. Nodding in agreement, she spoke softly. “I’d like to see the girls’ rooms, maybe go through a few of the boxes in the master bedroom. You’ll take care of the groceries while I do that?” Her way of telling him she wanted to be alone and that he could do whatever he needed. Groceries, anything, it didn’t matter, as long as he was out of her way.

  “I have got it covered,” he said.

  “I appreciate all that you have done for me, Sam. I really do. I’m very sorry if I sounded mad at you.”

  “I know,” he said, and headed to the kitchen.

  Finally, she thought.

  Alone.

  Chapter 8

  “About time,” Tessa muttered to herself as she returned to the master bedroom. She was grateful for Sam’s taking her case to Lee, but having him and Cal underfoot twenty-four/seven was going to be tough, given her plans. She would have to make adjustments.

  In the master bedroom, she saw the boxes against the wall and decided there was no time like the present. Before she could stop herself, she ripped the heavy-duty packing tape off easily as the tape was dry and yellowed with age. Tessa assumed these boxes had been sitting there for a very long time. Possibly as long as she had been in prison. Had Sam packed the boxes himself? Did it matter who packed them? Maybe. Maybe not.

  Removing several pieces of balled-up newspaper from the box, Tessa dropped them into a small pile on the floor. Not knowing the contents, as they weren’t labeled, she took her time when she reached inside. Carefully, she removed a stack of envelopes held together with a rubber band. The return address read, The Bank of The Cities, where they’d shared a personal checking account. Tessa sifted through a few of the statements. Seeing nothing important, she crammed the envelopes back in the box, along with the old newspapers. No point in making a mess as she would be the one responsible for cleaning the place.

  Tessa thought of Rosa and wondered what she had seen on her last day of work. Knowing she had spent more than ten years with information that might have cleared the way for the investigation to focus solely on Liam, or at least on someone other than herself, Tessa wanted to question her privately. She added this to her mental list of people who could have made a difference but, for reasons yet unknown to her, had chosen not to.

  The next box held more of the same. She flipped through several file folders, recognizing the deed to the house, car titles, and old vehicle registrations that were once kept in the glove compartment of their cars. She would ask Sam about the cars. Had they been given to charity as she had requested? She had asked her attorney to see to that but had never followed up on it once she had been convicted. She had no use for them now, anyway, because she would need another vehicle when the time was right. Tossing the box aside, she opened the third box and was stunned when she saw what it contained.

  With trembling hands, Tessa removed the sheet of green construction paper, crossing the room to stand by the window where she could see clearly. A crayon drawing of a cutout red Christmas tree was glued to the page. Yellow, orange, and purple squares of different sizes had been pasted around the tree as presents.

  Tears blurred her eyes as she remembered the day Poppy and Piper had brought the artwork home. It’d been their first Christmas project in preschool at Saint Cecelia’s. Both had been so proud and excited to show her their work. Piper had reversed her sister’s work, using red paper to glue her green cutout Christmas tree on.

  Tessa had laughed, telling them they were twins but polar opposites in so many ways. They’d asked her if they were polar bears. Tessa explained what she had meant, and it had confused them even more. She had told them that when they were older, they’d understand.

  Knowing that day would never come for her precious daughters sent a jolt of rage through her. She held the construction paper against her chest as she took several deep breaths in order to regain some semblance of calm. In time, she told herself, she would avenge their deaths.

  In time.

  She placed the paper on top of the boxes she had gone through, then continued her search. There were faded family photos, and they took her breath away. One in particular caught her eye. A weekend spent with the girls. They’d hunted for shells, finding hundreds of the little white clamshells that were so common but each unique in its size, shape, and coloring. The girls broke out in a fit of giggles when she identified one of their finds as a kitten’s paw, a fairly simple-looking shell, that did look like a kitten’s paw, but the name was funny to the girls. Jingle had been another shell they thought silly, and their little-girl laughter had made her day.

  She smiled at the memory and placed the photo next to the artwork she planned to take downstairs and hang on the refrigerator door. Why not? It was her home, her children, her memories. She dabbed the tears from her eyes. It was the first memory of her girls that had actually made her smile.

  In the next box, several envelopes of photos with their negatives were stacked in neat rows. She put these aside for later—when she could look at her former life without rage and tears, which Tessa didn’t see happening at any time in the near future. In fact, ever since her release, it had been worse, not better. In prison, one adjusted, knowing that her new life in prison was all there was. There was no real life, however long her s
entence might be.

  Now, it was different. All the emotions she had tucked away in a safe place were running rampant. Just get through this first day, she told herself. One. Minute. At. A. Time.

  She pushed the box aside and decided she had to search through one more before going to see the room in which she had spent so many happy days and nights.

  Hefting a larger box on top of another so she could see the contents as she peered inside, she pulled the yellowed tape off, then removed more rolled-up newspapers. A man’s watch, one of many probably belonging to Joel, but not the Rolex he usually wore. This was a Bravado, with a royal blue face and tiny diamonds representing the numbers. She didn’t remember seeing this particular watch but was sure it had belonged to him. It evoked no memory or any real emotion. She looked closer and saw the date showing on the watch. To her horror, she realized that it was the day after she had left for the mainland. It had stopped at 6:47 on Saturday, May 3, 2011. Had her daughters been alive then? Had Joel worn the watch while he fought for his life? Their daughters’ lives?

  What did this mean? Or did it mean anything at all? Was she being paranoid? Maybe Joel’s battery had failed, and he’d switched watches. That was highly probable. Since their first date, she had rarely seen him when he was not wearing a wristwatch. He’d been extremely punctual, a trait she had admired, as she, too, respected others’ time and thought it quite rude to be late for any event, unless, of course, circumstances dictated otherwise.

  She put the watch aside as she made the decision to tell Lee. Maybe it was evidence. Hadn’t all the evidence been collected already? Had this been missed? Tessa decided the watch had to be important though she wasn’t sure how.

  With this in mind, she used the tail of her blouse to pick up the watch and place it on the windowsill. Before she went any further, she hurried downstairs. Not bothering to give the slightest glance to the view outside, she found Sam in the kitchen. Apparently, Publix deliveries were fast, too. She had been upstairs just over an hour.

  “Do you have a paper bag, or a storage bag of some kind?” she asked.

  He turned away from unpacking the groceries to stare at her. “I think I added Ziploc bags to the list.” He rummaged through the three brown bags before finding them.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing her the entire box.

  “Thanks,” she said, and raced out of the room before he asked her what she needed the bag for.

  Upstairs in the master bedroom, once again, she used her shirttail to pick up the watch from the windowsill and drop it inside the plastic bag. Breathing a sigh of relief, she didn’t know if she was being foolish, overdramatic, or just careful.

  Maybe a little bit of each.

  Tessa went back to the box, this time being more cautious as she removed the contents. A checkbook, with a brown-leather cover. She flipped it open. It was a personal check, but only had Joel’s name, not hers. Odd, she couldn’t remember his having a personal account, either. She saw that the checks were the kind that held a carbon copy of the original. Tessa tried to make out the faint letters on the carbon copies of the used checks, but they were too faded to read. She supposed it wasn’t unusual for a man of Joel’s profession to have a private checking account, and maybe he’d mentioned it to her, but so much time had passed, she didn’t remember. It wasn’t important, but just for the hell of it, she added the checkbook to a fresh Ziploc bag.

  The rest of the items in the box were an outdated bottle of Tylenol, the red label faded to a slightly orange-yellow, a box of staples, a comb, and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. Nothing unusual. Tessa carried the box across the room and placed it by the window.

  Feeling as though she was stalling, she knew she had to do what she had come upstairs to do.

  She needed to see the room where Piper and Poppy had spent the last day of their young lives.

  Chapter 9

  She stood in the hall outside Poppy’s room, then walked a few steps and stood next to the door to Piper’s room. How could she possibly decide which room to enter first? If she chose one over the other, wouldn’t she feel a sense of betrayal? As though she favored one twin over the other?

  No, this was not the way she should go about this. Tessa paced back and forth, stopped, and closed her eyes. Whatever room she was closest to she would enter first, then open the doors to the bathroom that separated the two rooms.

  Her hand touched the doorknob, and she turned it, pushing the door aside.

  Piper’s room.

  Hot tears instantly filled her eyes. Memories assailed her.

  The room was exactly as it had been the day she left.

  Before she could stop herself, she screamed, “Sam, you son of a bitch, how could you?”

  Tessa ran out of the room, not bothering to close the door. She was at the top of the stairs, and Sam met her halfway up.

  “Tessa,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. “I wanted to warn you, but I was waiting for the right time. God, I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t bother stepping out of his embrace as sobs shook her. Of all the brutal images she had tried to erase from her mind, this was the worst. It exemplified their utter innocence, which had been so savagely taken.

  Pulling away from him, she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “Why, Sam? Is there a reason?”

  “Let’s go downstairs. I’ve made a salad and a couple of omelets. We can talk down there.” He turned and headed downstairs.

  Trailing behind for lack of a better choice, she saw that he’d closed the automatic blinds that covered the wide expanse of windows.

  “In here,” he called from the kitchen.

  She reached the kitchen and stood in the doorway. The island that had been added during the remodeling was set for two, with blue place mats and matching cloth napkins.

  “Go on, have a seat,” Sam said, without turning away from the stove.

  Tessa watched as he slid two perfectly formed fluffy yellow omelets onto two blue plates. Looked like Fiestaware, she thought as she sat down on the barstool.

  “I hope you like spinach and mushrooms. It’s kind of my specialty. Oh, and Pepper Jack cheese.”

  Tessa could not remember the last time she had eaten an omelet. “It smells delicious. I like spinach and mushrooms, just so you know.”

  He smiled. Her heart raced a bit, but she was not going to focus on that. She would probably smile at any man who cooked for her on her first day out of prison.

  He removed two blue bowls from the refrigerator. “Another one of my specialties.” He set the fruit salad next to their plates. “I’d offer you a glass of white wine, but it’s not allowed.” He filled a glass with ice and poured the tea he’d made earlier.

  She nodded. “Thanks. I was never much of a drinker anyway. This salad looks awesome, just so you know. I haven’t had good fresh fruit in . . . a while.” Of course she had had fruit, but it had been out of a can.

  “Strawberries, cantaloupe, kiwi, oranges, and coconut. Won’t tell you my secret fruit-salad sauce. If I did, I might have to kill you.”

  As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Tessa saw by his expression that he wished he could take them back. “It’s okay. Really,” she offered. People used that expression all the time. “You don’t have to censure your words, Sam. I won’t break.”

  He sat down on the barstool beside her. “Thanks. I’m sorry. That was insensitive. Let’s just eat the omelets before they get cold. You eat, then we’ll talk. That okay with you?”

  She nodded and dug into her omelet. Tessa’s mouth practically watered when she took the first bite. Sam was an excellent omelet maker. She took a bite of the fruit salad. “Sam, this is divine! The secret sauce, right?” she teased, and proceeded to finish the omelet and salad. She used the blue napkin, then took her plate and bowl to the sink.

  “I take it you approve?” Sam said, still seated at the bar.

  She rinsed her dishes in the sink and placed them in the ultra-fancy dishwasher. “I can
honestly say it’s the best meal I’ve had in a decade. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, though I have to warn you, my culinary skills are limited to just a few simple dishes.”

  She gave up a bit of a smile. He was trying to make this easy for her. The least she could do was show him she appreciated it. “That’s a good thing, I guess, that you know your limitations. I used to enjoy piddling around in the kitchen myself. I used to bake, as I found it relaxing. Maybe I can bake something for you and return the favor.”

  “I’d like that,” Sam said. “Any favorites?”

  Small talk; this was easy for her. “I used to make a pretty mean Red Devil’s Food cake. A friend in college made it for me once, and it was the best cake I had ever had at that point in my life. She gave me her recipe, I tweaked it a bit here and there, and made it my own. I suppose I could make you one, that is, if you like chocolate?”

  He brought his dishes to the sink and stood next to her. “What kind of human being doesn’t like chocolate?”

  She stepped away from him, the closeness causing a zing and zang in places it shouldn’t. “I’ll make a list of the ingredients, and the next time you make a grocery order, you can get them. Are there pots and pans here? Rather, cake pans?”

  “I had my secretary on Google for days ordering household necessities. I’m sure she didn’t leave out anything one would normally require in the kitchen. She’s very thorough. Let’s have a look,” he said, and started opening the cupboards.

  Tessa searched, too. “Here they are,” she announced when she saw a cupboard stocked with every kind of baking pan one could imagine. “She is very thorough.”

  “Darlene’s fantastic. That’s why I keep her on,” Sam explained.

  Out of the blue, Tessa wondered if Sam’s secretary was more than just an employee.

  “She has three of the cutest grandsons and updates me daily on their antics. Jamison was lucky to hire her. Her husband passed away a few years ago, and he left her almost penniless. She’s a true peach.”