Sweet Vengeance

by Fern Michaels

  “And let’s not forget the media. This is fodder for all the new crime shows on damned near every local and cable channel. Just know you can come to me anytime, okay? I’m with you every step of the way.”

  “I appreciate your sticking by me, especially after the way I treated you. Denying your visits. Refusing your letters. When I was locked up, I just wanted that to be my life. I’d accepted it, and I still do, but now there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe. And I want to move past this, but it’s hard, Jill. Harder than my life before. You know, when I was a kid in and out of foster homes, that was a breeze compared to losing my family.”

  “Of course it was,” Jill said, her voice soothing.

  Before Tessa could respond, Sam returned to the kitchen again. Tessa quickly ended her call with Jill so she could listen to Sam’s update.

  “Harry’s expecting the new bones. Apparently, there are quite a few of them, though not large. Pieces.”

  “What does this mean?” Tessa asked. “The pieces part?”

  Sam raked his hand through his mussy hair. “Just that. The bones are small, in tiny pieces. Hard to say if they’re human just yet, though the tech is pretty sure they are. They’re taking them to Harry now. I spoke with Lee, and he has spoken to Rachelle and arranged for her to meet him in his office first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Tessa felt a strong surge of irritation. Rachelle’s son killed her family. Why would she be so quick to involve herself in the case again? Did she think she could get more money out of Jamison Pharmaceuticals? Or was this her way of playing the role of grieving mother as she had for a decade? Keep the investigation away from Liam.

  Tessa didn’t know what to say as she had not expected Rachelle to comply so easily. But she was sure the woman had ulterior motives.

  “Tess?” Sam coaxed. “Are you good with this?”

  “No, I’m not. Her lousy-piece-of-garbage son ruined my life, took my family’s lives. Of course I’m not good with it. However, I know it’s necessary. I’m just surprised she agreed.”

  “She’s insisted all these years she’s had no contact with him. Lee says he wants to go over her testimony, and she’s agreed. She also said she would provide a DNA sample. Usually, people who have something to hide aren’t so quick to involve themselves in a case that has supposedly been solved. So, think what you will, but again, Tess, this is all good for you. The more people who come forward, the more evidence we discover that wasn’t presented at your first trial, the more likely it is that you win this time around, either because the case is dropped or you fight through to an exoneration.”

  “You believe her?”

  “I need to see her. Face-to-face. Lee said she sounded as though she was encouraged by the new evidence. Again, I don’t know. Maybe she’s just a damn good actress, or maybe Liam really did fall off the face of the earth, and he hasn’t contacted her. If he’s the ass you say he is, and I’m sure you would know, he just might be the type who wouldn’t care if his mother knows whether he’s dead or alive.”

  “He’d need money,” she added.

  “Liam had a trust fund. Though there hasn’t been any activity, at least none that could be traced, and that’s virtually impossible in this day and age. We don’t know, but we are going to find out. I promise you, Tess. We, I, will find out what happened to your family.”

  She hoped he wasn’t telling her this just to calm her. She knew what had happened to her family. She knew they were killed in such a savage manner that it defied all belief, and she knew that Liam Jamison was responsible for their deaths. Her brother-in-law, the girls’ uncle, Joel’s brother. She needed him to suffer as she had, to feel such angst, loss, the broken heart that had been her life since she walked into her home all those years ago and discovered their bodies. He had to suffer because Tessa wasn’t sure how she could move forward if he didn’t.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Tessa told him. “I don’t think I could deal with . . . life, at least a disappointment of this magnitude,” she ended flatly. And she knew that she spoke the truth. It was tough enough to get through the days and nights in prison. Now that she was on the outside, in the real world, getting through a minute was ten times harder than she had ever anticipated.

  “I’m not making any promises, just so you know. I do have faith in Lee and his team. I don’t think you’d be here now if he didn’t believe in your innocence. I wouldn’t be here, either,” he added.

  The room was quiet for a moment, then Tessa spoke. “Evil destroyed my family. And it’s about time I fought back.”

  Chapter 17

  Later, Jill, Tessa and Sam gathered around the glass coffee table in the living room. Tessa sat on the soft leather love seat, with Jill at her side.

  Two of the three people who had the power to change her life were expected any moment. She had showered and changed into a pair of navy capris with a matching silk top, again, the clothes courtesy of the fabulous Darlene. The ankle monitor was irritating, but she was already starting to get used to its weight, the bulkiness of it around her ankle its own sort of prison but mild in comparison to the hellhole she had been confined to for more than ten years. Briefly, she wondered if it would ever be removed. And if so, would it be because she was a free woman or because once she was returned to prison, it would no longer be required?

  The front doorbell rang, and Sam quickly stood and excused himself. They’d all agreed he would be in charge of this task as he was quite expert at handling the gentle and not-so-gentle men and women of the media, who continued to linger outside the gates and could be counted on to try to get someone in the house to speak to them.

  Lee Whitlow sat opposite her. He’d dressed down, wearing faded jeans and a pale pink polo. Tessa so admired his dedication to his wife and her battle with breast cancer. Had Tessa still been actively employed at Jamison Pharmaceuticals, she, too, would have involved herself in the search for a cure. Maybe if she was released, she could involve herself in the research, but that was a distant thought, one she couldn’t pursue until she knew if she even had a chance of returning to her profession. She had been away from the pharmaceutical industry for so many years, she wasn’t sure if she could even qualify for employment in her own company, but that was for another time. Now, she had to face the facts, and only then would she be able to make a decision that would affect her future.

  Sam cleared his throat, garnering their attention. “This is George Atkins. His uncle owns Atkins Moving and Storage. Have a seat, George.” Sam pointed to the plush leather chair beside Lee’s.

  Tall and pale, with bright red hair, George appeared nervous, his light blue eyes glancing around at his surroundings, and his right leg shook so fast when he sat down that Tessa wondered if he was on drugs.

  Thankfully, Lee took over. He made quick introductions, and once that ritual was completed, George seemed to have controlled his spastic leg movements.

  Not wasting a minute, Lee began his questions. “Tell me about that day, please. What you observed.” Direct, and to the point, Tessa waited for George to explain what he’d seen the day he’d packed her family’s life away, or that of her daughters, as she wasn’t sure if George had packed away Joel’s personal belongings. At this point, she wasn’t sure that it mattered.

  George appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. When he’d worked for his uncle, according to Lee, he’d been young, so given the passage of time, she assumed this was probably a good guess.

  He looked at Tessa before he spoke. She nodded, and he began his story.

  “I was nervous when Uncle Walt told me I’d be coming with him to pack the place up. I . . . I’d watched the news, so I knew what had happened here. I packed up the kitchen and the dining room.” He paused as though he were looking to Tessa for permission to continue.

  “It’s okay,” she said in a reassuring voice, though she felt anything but calm. “Please go on.”

  “I went upstairs and started emptying
the drawers. Clothes and stuff.” His face deepened to a bright pink shade. “I was curious, and well, I kinda wanted to . . . brag to my buddies about the job.”

  Tessa wanted to smack him but controlled herself.

  “Tell me where you found the sketchbooks,” Lee prompted.

  George nodded. “They were in the closet.”

  Tessa tried to recall if she had seen the sketchbooks the day she had raced through the house packing the essentials she would need for the girls’ extended stay in San Maribel. She had grabbed a couple of sketchbooks from Poppy’s desk and one from Piper’s night table, but she did not remember seeing one in either closet.

  “Where in the closet?” Lee asked.

  George’s face grew red. “The floor, under the board that’d been loosened.”

  Tessa leaned to the edge of the love seat. Jill placed an arm around her shoulders.

  “What do you mean?” she asked him. “There was no—”

  “Would you be able to locate the board now?” Lee interrupted, holding up a hand to silence Tessa. “It’s very important,” he added.

  Tessa thought that was putting it mildly.

  “Show me,” Lee said, then stood. “Tessa, you might want to see this.”

  “I certainly do,” she replied.

  Without saying another word, they all followed Lee upstairs. Once they were inside Poppy’s bedroom, Tessa had to force herself not to cry, not to howl in utter pain at the sheer horridness of what they were doing, why they were there.

  George hesitated as he approached the closet. “I’m sorry,” he said as he looked at Tessa.

  She shook her head. “Just show me where you found those sketchbooks. You were doing your job,” she added, hoping to reassure him, even though she herself felt as panicky as she had when she had entered this very room yesterday.

  He entered the walk-in closet. The floors were the same as they were before. Wide planks of oak that still appeared relatively new. George wedged himself into the far right corner of the closet, then bent over. Tessa held her breath as she watched as he removed a plank of wood at least eighteen inches long. He held the wood out to Lee. “It wasn’t this easy before.”

  Lee examined the wood, then gave it to Sam. “Send this to Harry.”

  “How were you able to spot this?” Tessa inquired. “I lived here and never saw any sign the floor had been tampered with.” Tessa was sure she would have noticed the loose board had it been here before, but again, she reminded herself, she didn’t routinely inspect the closet floors. Rosa cleaned in here. Possibly there would be an answer when Lee questioned her later.

  “When I entered the closet, this piece of wood just stuck out like a sore thumb. The seams were . . . fresh. Like it’d been recently moved, or replaced. Knowing what’d happened here, well, I just thought I would have a look, and that’s when I found those art books.”

  Lee nodded. “Did you look at the pictures?”

  George’s face reddened again. “Yes. I did.”

  “And why didn’t you report this to the police?” Sam interjected. “You knew a crime had been committed in this house.” His voice was tight, restrained, as though he was holding back a flood of anger.

  “I called my uncle. He said to just do my job and pack the books away. You”—his expression stilled, grew serious—“you’d been arrested, and well, me and Uncle Walt just assumed . . .”

  “What? You assumed this was just a little girl’s drawings that had been passed over? Dear God, didn’t you see what the drawings were? Surely you couldn’t have been that naive!” Tessa wanted to shake some sense into this idiot, but it was too late for that; plus, she didn’t want to have a charge of assault filed against her, which would certainly land her right back in prison.

  George shook his head. “It was wrong. I know that now, and I told my uncle, but he said it was up to the police to locate evidence. If it had been important, he said, they would have found it. I packed the boxes, and when I heard you were being released, I told my uncle that if I was contacted, I would not keep silent this time around. I was a dumb sixteen-year-old kid then. I was afraid.”

  Knowing his age at the time didn’t change the fact that he’d kept crucial evidence out of the hands of the authorities, but Tessa could see his point. He was young, scared. The uncle, now that was completely different.

  “It’s not an excuse,” Lee said. “You’re willing to testify to this? Under oath?”

  George nodded. “Yes. I should have spoken up all those years ago, but . . .”

  “It’s too late for an apology, whatever excuse you have. This might have changed the outcome of my trial. Do you realize the consequences of what you did?” Tessa asked, her voice several octaves higher than normal. “I . . . swear.” With that, she walked out of Poppy’s room. She was not going to resort to violent behavior and wind up back in prison because this stupid young man had not had the guts to tell the truth. Such cowardice had contributed to her being in prison in the first place.

  Chapter 18

  Tessa wanted to run out the front door, and would have if not for the large number of media people gathered at the gates outside her house. She forced herself to stop at the bottom of the staircase before she acted on the impulse and continued to run outside, only to find herself surrounded by unfriendly reporters of various kinds. Trapped inside her house was turning out to be almost as bad as being in prison, although, to be sure, she didn’t have a guard like Hicks teasing and taunting her. The media had taken her place.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Jill asked as she came up behind Tessa. “You ran out so fast.”

  Tessa took a deep breath, hoping to calm herself, but it didn’t help. “How can that little . . . punk live with himself? I am so . . . angry! His testimony could have helped my case. I am, I don’t know—” She twisted her long hair in her hand. “I feel as if I need to act, to do something other than just sit here and wait on Rosa and Rachelle, and that”—she pointed upstairs—“total jerk. It’s hard, Jill. Very hard.” Tears surged again, something she was becoming quite used to, and, as was becoming more common now that she was out of prison and did not have to hide her emotions, she let the tears stream down her face.

  “I know, sweetie, I know. We are going to make this right no matter what we have to do. I promise. I think Lee Whitlow is top-notch, and I swear I haven’t Googled the man. He’s smart and seems to know what he has to do for you; and Sam does as well. You’re the toughest gal I know, Tessa. I couldn’t have endured all this and kept my sanity.”

  Tessa gave up a halfhearted smile. “Bull. I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  Voices coming from the top of the staircase were heard before Jill could respond.

  Lee, Sam, and George came down the stairs.

  George held out his hand to her. “Mrs. Jamison, I can’t even begin to know what you have been through, but I . . .” He stammered, and this almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. “I will do anything I can to help with your new trial. It was totally wrong of me and my uncle not to go to the police and the DA to let them know what we had found.”

  Hesitantly, Tessa took his offered hand. “Yes, it was wrong, George. Very wrong, but I do not suppose there is any point in my rehashing your reasoning. As long as you’re willing to tell what you saw now, I’m okay.” To be sure, Tessa was fudging a bit on this, but anger, recrimination, and holding on to the past could not change her future.

  George nodded, looking relieved, and Sam led him out the back entrance. Once the people of the press saw him, they were likely to put two and two together, if they hadn’t already. And neither Tessa nor any of the others wanted them to get too much of a head start on learning about the new witnesses and what they might testify to.

  Lee looked at his watch. “It’s almost eight o’clock, so Rosa should be here pretty soon. Are you sure you want to sit in on this one?” he asked Tessa, as they all returned to the living room. “You can tell me what you want to ask her, and I will.�
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  “No, I want to confront her myself,” she said adamantly. “I know her, and I need to know why she . . . No, that’s not it. I do know why. What I want to hear from her own mouth is exactly what she saw that day.”

  “Fair enough,” Lee said. “Though I’ll want to question her, inform her what to expect when we go to trial. I don’t want her running off.”

  “Isn’t there something you can do legally to make sure she stays here to testify?” Jill asked. “I would hate to see her take off because she was afraid.”

  “There are a few tactics I can use,” Lee said. “I doubt I’ll have to. When I spoke to her, she was extremely remorseful, and without having the threat of being deported as an excuse this time around, I don’t think I’ll have to resort to any legal razzmatazz.”

  Sam came back into the living room. “I have taken the liberty of ordering take-out from Papa Luigi’s. I know the owner, and asked them to call me when they were close, so I can meet them around back,” he announced. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am famished.”

  Tessa realized that she was hungry and was thankful that Sam had taken the initiative to feed them. Half an hour later, Sam’s cell phone rang, telling him their dinner was right around the corner.

  There was still no sign of Rosa, and it was way past eight o’clock.

  Sam met the delivery driver before he had a chance to enter the screened-in pool area. Sam returned carrying three large bags with heavenly smells emanating from them.

  “Hope Italian works for everyone,” he said as he took plates from the cabinets and placed them around the bar in the kitchen.

  Tessa took knives and forks out of the drawer and put them next to the plates. “It works for me. I can’t remember the last time I had real Italian food.” She was reminded of the cans of SpaghettiOs she used to order from the prison commissary. Was that considered Italian?