Revenge

by Debra Webb

  ‘Well, don’t you look lovely today?’

  Dread settled like a big rock in her belly. Jess turned to face Dan’s mother. The queen. The woman who was sure Jess would never in a million years be good enough for her one and only boy. The thought of having this woman as grandmother to her future children was all the reason Jess would ever need to remain childless.

  ‘Katherine.’ Jess drummed up a smile.

  ‘They were talking about you on the news yesterday.’ Katherine nodded, her expression somber. ‘You solved a triple homicide and exposed the truth about a murder more than a decade old. Gracious.’ She set her silk fan to fluttering. ‘Too bad you couldn’t prevent that young man from jumping. His family is devastated. Just devastated.’

  That was Katherine’s specialty. Always find the negative in everything except her own actions.

  ‘Oh.’ Jess waved her off. ‘But think how much money I saved the taxpayers. No trial, no having to house and feed the poor guy. Why, I just feel he did us all a huge favor.’

  ‘Well.’ Katherine cleared her throat. ‘Better luck next time.’

  She strolled away before Jess could dredge up a fitting response. Just as well. She was Dan’s mother. She couldn’t exactly box her up and ship her to Siberia.

  Jess found the lemonade and had herself a nice tall glass. Whoever had organized this little party had fabulous taste. No plastic or paper cups for this crowd. No sirree. The real thing. Crystal stemware and delicate little bone china plates.

  Dan came up behind her and whispered in her ear. ‘We can escape now, if you’d like.’

  ‘I would like that very much.’

  Jess left her glass on the nearest table and hurried with Dan to his SUV. As soon as they were out of the church parking lot, she relaxed.

  ‘My little goddaughter is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen,’ he bragged.

  ‘She really is.’ Cute and cuddly and smelling all like baby powders and lotion. Normally Jess was allergic to those smells but not today.

  ‘How do you feel about that?’ He glanced at her. ‘Kids, I mean.’

  They’d had this discussion about twenty years ago and agreed that careers and financial stability should come first. At this point both those arguments were out the window to some degree.

  ‘I think there has to be a committed couple first. Babies need two parents.’

  ‘I get that.’ He maneuvered the needed turn. ‘But do you want children someday?’

  Generally she would argue that the window was closing on that opportunity but she opted to keep her mouth shut on that topic. Mainly because she got the feeling he wanted kids. She’d seen the look on his face in that church when he held that tiny little human.

  ‘I’m not opposed to having children. Obviously you want to. I saw the twinkle in your eyes back there.’

  ‘I do. Absolutely.’

  Her throat got a little tight. Was he saying that there was no hope for them unless she wanted to have children?

  Wow. She hadn’t considered there was a shelf life on where they were just now. If she dallied too long, she would be out of the baby-making business and it sounded like that would present an issue.

  Unless the baby-making had already begun. Don’t be ridiculous, Jess. You’re not even late yet. At least not according to her pill pack.

  ‘I went to see Nina this morning.’

  Nina? He couldn’t be talking about the crazy Lopez woman who had kidnapped her. She was on house arrest out in LA. Wait, wait. He was talking about Nina. His second wife. Sylvia Baron’s sister. The senator’s daughter.

  Like she didn’t know that and wasn’t dying to hear more.

  ‘You never told me anything about her, remember?’

  ‘It’s a long and sad story.’

  She shifted in the seat and faced him. ‘We have all evening.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you everything and then you’ll tell me everything about Wesley.’

  ‘You know everything about Wesley,’ she argued.

  Dan cut her a glance that challenged her statement.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘We’ll get that out of the way too.’

  At least they weren’t talking about babies anymore.

  As he drove along the quiet Sunday afternoon streets, he told her about how he’d met Nina at a fund-raiser for her father’s bid for reelection to the senate. Nina had been an up-and-coming attorney and they’d hit it off. He’d bypassed thirty and decided it was time to try the marriage thing again.

  Jess knew that feeling, only hers had come at forty. Wesley had just been in the right place at the right time. Or maybe not since they’d divorced barely two years later.

  By the time Dan parked in her driveway, Jess understood why he’d been reluctant to talk about that particular marriage. She was glad he finally had. She also understood Sylvia a lot better. No wonder she made it so difficult to get to know her – or to want to, for that matter. The kind of dark and painful secret her family had been keeping made opening up difficult.

  ‘You had no idea about her mental illness?’

  ‘None.’

  Just went to show that even growing up in a community and thinking you knew someone didn’t mean you really did. Geez Louise.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was really awful for you.’ The idea that he had come so close to being killed by someone he trusted so completely was terrifying.

  He parked next to her Audi. ‘Maybe she’ll get the help she needs in New York.’

  ‘Maybe so.’

  He sounded so sad when he talked about her. Ten years was a long time to grieve. When they’d gotten out and headed for her stairs, she ventured into that sensitive territory. ‘You do understand that what happened wasn’t your fault?’

  ‘I have my moments,’ he admitted, ‘when I can see how it wasn’t.’

  ‘We’ll have to work on that.’

  As they climbed the stairs to her door, her cell started that annoying clang. She dragged it from the clutch purse she’d carried to the christening and was surprised to see a Virginia number. ‘Harris.’

  ‘Jess, this is Patricia Lanier.’

  The real estate agent who had the contract on her house. Hope dared to rear its head. ‘Patricia, great to hear from you. Do you have news for me?’ Besides the possibility that her house had burned to the ground or been blown up?

  ‘I do. We have an offer for full asking price.’

  That was way better news than she’d dared to hope. ‘That’s great.’ On the landing, Jess turned to Dan and gave him a thumbs-up. ‘What do we need to do next?’ Getting that mortgage payment off her back would be a tremendous relief.

  ‘I’ll fax you the necessary papers and we’ll set up a closing date.’

  ‘Thank you so much!’

  ‘Congratulations! You’ll be hearing from me again soon.’

  Jess ended the call and let out a whoop. ‘We have a full asking price offer on my house!’

  ‘Sounds like a celebration is in order.’ He leaned down and picked up a package that waited at her door. ‘You expecting something?’

  ‘No.’ She hadn’t ordered anything. But she just might start when that mountain of debt was lifted from her shoulders.

  The package was a priority box from the post office. Medium size.

  Their movements seemingly perfectly choreographed, they stared first at the package, then at each other.

  ‘We should check this out before we open it.’

  She wasn’t going to argue.

  Dan set the package back down and they returned to his SUV. He called a bomb tech and an evidence tech. And for the next forty-five minutes they waited.

  If Mr Louis was home, he never came outside. Even so, she kept getting that creepy-crawly feeling she experienced when someone was watching her. Each time she looked around, there was nothing. No one.

  Finally their backup rolled in.

  Bomb tech found nothing. The evidence tech lifted a number of fingerp
rints but those could be a postal worker’s. No suspicious residue on the outside and nothing inside that posed a hazard.

  The bomb tech opened the package and shook his head. ‘Looks like a scarf.’

  A scarf? Who would send her a scarf?

  The answer to that question slammed into her brain. No. She shook her head as if that would make it so. No. No. No.

  With a gloved hand, Dan lifted the silk scarf from the box. Beneath it were three wallet-size photos. All three were female. All three were brunettes. All were gorgeous. No names or markings on the front or back of the photos.

  The air seemed to avoid filling Jess’s lungs even with her heart pounding a hundred miles an hour. This was wrong. He never sent photos. This couldn’t be . . .

  She felt the cell phone in her purse vibrate. As she was digging for it, Dan was already getting Gant on the line.

  Jess stared at the screen and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

  Eeny, meeny, miny, moe . . . let’s play, Jess.

  ‘Spears?’ Dan demanded.

  The floor seemed to shift under her feet. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself. Gant had warned that he suspected Eric Spears was back in the country. She had sensed he was watching her . . . had known this moment was coming . . . but none of that knowledge made this any easier.

  She nodded in answer to Dan’s question. ‘He’s back. And one of these three women is about to become his next victim.’