The Best Revenge

by Justine Davis

  He looked at her then, because he had to. She was watching him, her eyes full of anguish and worry. For him. Some new, fierce emotion ripped through him, something so big he knew he couldn’t deal with it now.

  And he knew he couldn’t deal with her witnessing this.

  “Jess. Go. Please.”

  He was almost surprised when, after a moment’s contemplation, of studying his face, of looking as if that agile mind of hers was racing, she nodded. She whispered to Maui and led the dog back toward the store. Alden watched her go, looking as if he wanted to go after her. Typical, he thought, to want to go after the prey he would consider weaker, and probably only leery because of the dog.

  She’s not one of the frightened, cowering women you prefer, St. John thought, knowing that Jessa would fight him with every weapon she had, including that quick mind and a warrior’s heart.

  And that knowledge renewed a steely resolve to never, ever let that happen.

  Apparently deciding against his urges for once, Alden shifted his gaze back to St. John.

  “What has she done with that little brat of mine?”

  The rage, so deeply buried, uncoiled a bit more. “He’s not yours.”

  “I’ve legally adopted him, despite his problems. Everyone knows how difficult it’s been. He’s such a problem.” Even now, St. John thought, he couldn’t stop the campaign rhetoric. It was automatic, as was the long-suffering sigh as he added. “But I still treat him like he’s my own.”

  “That,” St. John said, his voice ice, “I believe.”

  Something in that voice got to Alden. He stared, as if he’d finally understood there was something much more going on here.

  Finally, sounding shaken, he whispered, “Who are you?”

  It was time, St. John knew. Time to end it all. Delaying, hesitating, gave the man power. With conscious intention, he let the ferocious beast within him loose.

  “Grooming Tyler, are you?” he said with a calm precision that made the words even more intense. “That’s why you’re so upset he’s gone.”

  “Of course I’m upset.” Alden said it imperiously, but St. John could almost smell the uncertainty beneath the words; he was still wondering what he was up against, and with that shrewd cunning he’d always had, he knew it wasn’t just some generic political consultant.

  “He’s almost the right age, isn’t he? And you’ve almost gotten him beaten down enough, when you make your move he’ll be too frightened to resist. He’ll let you do it, let you commit your twisted, ugly, perverted sins, because you’ve convinced him he has no other choice. But inside he’ll start wondering, if maybe death wouldn’t be better, better than this.”

  It was more than he’d said in one breath in years. But once he’d begun, once the walls had been breached and the beast freed, it had come easier, faster.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Alden said, diving back into an explanation that came so smoothly St. John knew he’d used it many times before. “The boy needs discipline, yes, but boys do. They need a strong hand.”

  Memories of that “strong hand” churned. St. John quashed them. It was harder, here in the presence of evil, but even they were no match for the beast.

  “You’ll convince him that finally he can do something right, that this is the way to please you, to submit to your twisted, perverted needs.”

  “How dare you! I don’t have to stand here and listen to this garbage.”

  He began to turn as if to go, his concern for his stepson apparently forgotten. St. John’s voice lowered to a whisper that conveyed every bit of the deadly rage he was feeling. And he delivered the words that he knew Alden would recognize.

  “You’ll tell him it’s a special thing, a rite of passage. That this is what sons do for their fathers.”

  Alden stopped dead. Stared at him. No denial broke through his shocked bafflement. No anger at an unjust accusation, no righteous indignation. Not even another threat. “Who are you?” This time it was a hoarse, choked whisper.

  St. John knew he was closing in now. On some level he was aware of movement off to one side, but didn’t look that way or veer from his course. He knew who was there, could almost feel her presence, he didn’t have to look.

  “I’m hurt,” he said with feigned chagrin. “You don’t even recognize me.”

  Alden looked him up and down, as if he were seeing him for the first time. Denial was clear on his face, and calculation, as he tried to figure out how much this stranger knew and how he knew it.

  “Don’t bother. I don’t look like him anymore. More important, I don’t think like him.”

  “Like…who?”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you. Not many could take the onus of two suicides and still build a power base.”

  “Two suicides? My son drowned in a horrible storm, everyone knows that.”

  “Except those who knew—or suspected—the truth. And your son, of course. Which did you miss most, your plaything, or the money he took out of the cash box? Or maybe the fancy money clip you prized so much?”

  “Who are you?” Alden nearly screamed it this time. And St. John saw, deep in the furtive, too-glassy eyes, the dawning of knowledge he’d been waiting for.

  “You know who I am. Torturing me was once the prime focus of your warped, disgusting life.”

  “That’s impossible. He’s dead!”

  “Ever hear the legend of the phoenix?”

  Alden shook his head, but his face was pasty white. “You can’t be. You look nothing like him.”

  “Modern surgery’s a wonderful thing. They fixed that jawbone you broke so badly I couldn’t eat for a month. Took that dent out of that cheekbone you shattered. And while they were at it, they erased the rest of the face you used to use as a punching bag.”

  “No. No,” Alden said, backing up a step.

  “I kept this one, though,” St. John said, touching the remaining scar. “It’s the one I got that night at the river. The one you didn’t give me. It’s my badge, my reminder to never let anyone own me again.”

  St. John saw it hit, saw the denial die away as his father confronted the fact of who was actually before him. And then, belatedly, what that fact meant.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I’m the man who’s going to bring down your house of cards. The man who’s going to end it all. Take it all away from you. Everything you crave—including Tyler—is gone or going. And you can’t do a thing to stop it.”

  Alden shook his head, but there was a touch of panic in the motion.

  “And if you’re thinking you’ll slip away, maybe escape to the Caymans and live on your pile of cash you’ve been squirreling away, think again. It’s gone, too.”

  Alden’s eyes went wider, and St. John knew he’d thought of it, thought of his bolt hole, and imagined his fear as the last option was erased.

  “And it’s all going to come out. Everything you’ve done, to Jessa, to Tyler, to my mother…to me. All of it.”

  “It’s all lies!” The panic had made it’s way to his voice. “No one will believe you. No one will even listen to you.”

  “Think not? Want to know where Tyler really is?”

  “No one will believe him, either.”

  “Counted on that, didn’t you? Just like you did with me. But Tyler’s got help now.”

  “If you mean that little bitch—”

  St. John unleashed the blow before he’d even realized he was doing it. He felt the smash of pain in his knuckles in the instant before his father hit the ground.

  And then Jessa was beside him. “Before you actually kill him,” she said, as if she were discussing nothing more serious than her supply of bird seed, “you should know half the town’s here.”

  So that was what he’d sensed. Jessa had brought the cavalry. Or at least, witnesses.

  “I won’t. He’s not worth it.”

  Jessa took his hand, squeezed it. “No, he’s not. And what he’ll be facing will be worse tha
n death, to him.”

  Alden was gingerly getting up when St. John realized she’d meant it, that there were at least twenty people standing in the yard between the back of the store and the barn, staring at him in shock, what they’d heard reflected in their expressions of horror and disgust.

  “He didn’t mean I’m Tyler’s help,” she said, eyeing Alden much as she would have a worm-infested sack of feed. St. John was oddly starting to enjoy this at last, now that Jessa was here. “If you’re really wondering where Tyler is—which I doubt, the only thing you’re worried about now is yourself—he’s with someone everyone will believe.”

  “Mr. Alden?” The voice that came from behind him spun Alden around. A man in a sheriff’s uniform was closing in, his jaw set as if he didn’t care for the task at hand. A second deputy was behind him. “You’ll need to come with me, sir. Some very serious allegations have been made.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” He gestured at St. John and Jessa. “I don’t know what they’ve told you, but it’s all a pack of lies!”

  The deputy frowned. “Actually, the charges were made by an outside source. A very credible one.”

  “What?” Alden said blankly. “Who?”

  “Joshua Redstone.”

  St. John saw Alden’s expression change at the sound of the famous name. And heard a murmur ripple through the gathered watchers.

  “What the hell does he have to do with anything?” Alden demanded.

  “My boss,” St. John said simply.

  “And,” Jessa added quietly, “one of his oldest, closest friends. You,” she added, her tone suddenly one of deep relish, “are going down.”

  Alden swore, backed up a step. The deputy took his arm. When he tried to jerk away, the second deputy stepped up quickly and took the other.

  “Hard and ugly,” St. John added, his voice, in contrast to the words, almost sunny.

  “You son of a bitch!” He was staring wild-eyed at the man who had been his son. “I was glad to be rid of you. You were getting too old for me anyway.”

  The gathered townspeople gasped in unison. Alden seemed startled, as if he’d forgotten there were witnesses, and so many of them. He looked at them, saw what was there, in their shocked—and believing—expressions. The Redstone name had tilted the balance completely, and Alden knew it.

  “Damn you!” he yelled. “Damn you to hell!”

  “Already did your best on that,” St. John said.

  “And failed,” Jessa said. “He’s so much stronger than you. He always was.”

  “You,” Alden spat out. “I always knew there was something between you two. I knew you were—”

  “You knew nothing about me,” St. John cut him off, his tone so calm now it was even more ominous than when the rage had been loosed. “Just like you know nothing about Tyler. And now you never will.”

  Alden tried futilely to pull free, but the deputies, who looked convinced now themselves, only tightened their grip. And one, belatedly seeing the light, took a pair of handcuffs from his belt and slapped them around Alden’s wrists, the distinctive ratcheting sound seemingly the final punctuation mark. Albert Alden drained like a punctured abscess. Spittle gleamed on his chin as he stared at the son he hadn’t seen in twenty years.

  “Tyler was a poor substitute,” he said.

  St. John went rigid.

  “You’ll never forget,” Alden said, for the first time the pure evil of his soul showing in his eyes. His voice was bloodcurdlingly gentle as he added, “And neither will I. Nothing feels as good as your own flesh and blood.”

  Jessa’s grip tightened on his hand, and in that moment her touch was the only thing that kept him anchored, the only thing that kept him from slaughtering this monster where he stood.

  Chapter 24

  “Tyler will be fine,” Josh assured her. “Redstone will see to that.”

  Jessa nodded; she’d only known Josh Redstone a few hours, but she already knew he meant what he said and would get it done.

  “I’ve got good people with the Westin Foundation who have a lot of experience dealing with traumatized kids.”

  Jessa nodded again. “I wish something like that had been around for him,” she said quietly.

  She didn’t have to explain who she meant—she knew Josh knew all too well. “It’s a wonder he functions as incredibly well as he does,” Josh said. “And I’m thinking we may need to expand the foundation, a program to deal with the aftermath of things like this.”

  Then, looking at her steadily, he went on. “You know he’s already at the plane.”

  “He’s going to run, isn’t he?”

  Josh nodded. “For now. And probably, occasionally, forever. Can you deal with that?”

  “I know he’ll never be the same as a man who had a normal childhood. But I also know how strong he is, what it took for him to get to where he is from where he started.”

  “Don’t give up on him, Jessa.”

  “I won’t. Ever. He won’t let it rule him. Not once he gets through all this, and the pain of confronting it all when he’d thought he left it behind forever.”

  Josh smiled at her, a warm, welcoming sort of smile.

  “That you know tells me you are indeed what I’d hoped. You’ll be his final salvation, Jessa.”

  She shook her head. “I’m just me. I can’t save him. I couldn’t before, either. But he can save himself. He’s that strong.”

  “Yes, he is. Not many could see that, with his leaving you like this. But it’s there, Jessa. He’s running from possibilities he’s afraid to believe in, because he once had to run from a reality too ugly to be borne.”

  “I know.”

  “Give it some time. Then call me. Or I’ll call you when he’s in a better place than he is right now.”

  The idea of calling the great Josh Redstone made her smile. “Sure. I’ll just pick up the phone and demand to talk to one of the most important men in the world.”

  “I’m just me.” Josh repeated her words with obvious full intent. “And I’ll always take a call from you.”

  Jessa looked into his smoky-gray eyes, seeing what so many others had seen. “I understand now why Redstone is what it is. Because you are what you are.”

  “Redstone is its people. Always has been.” He reached out and put a warm, gentle hand on her shoulder as he looked at her intently. “Always will be.”

  When he was gone, she wondered if there had been some extra meaning, directed at her, in those last words.

  St. John shivered as he shook off the icy water, but he made himself focus on every aspect of his being. The cold from the lake, the further chill of the slight breeze on his wet body, the contrasting warmth of the sun that managed to penetrate through the canopy of the trees, the sensation of being clean again, physically at least, and the rough feel of his beard as he rubbed a hand over the jaw he hadn’t shaved in nearly a week.

  He knew if he stepped just a few yards to his right, he would be in a patch of full sun, and the shivering would ease. He pondered for a moment if he should allow himself that. He wasn’t certain. Wasn’t certain he had rebuilt the cage strongly enough to keep the old memories at bay.

  He hadn’t expected that vanquishing the fiend who had contributed half his DNA would erase it all. Nothing could. So he hadn’t even hung around to follow the sensational stories of his spectacular downfall. He knew there would likely be a day in court—he couldn’t picture the man who had haunted him going down that easily—when he would have to publicly tell the story.

  He dreaded that day, but he could hardly leave Tyler to carry that load alone. And he was alone; his mother, incredibly, had sided with her bread and butter, and was vowing to stand beside her husband to the end. The boy was with a foster family vetted by the Westin Foundation, and St. John knew from his own experience that the relief would be nothing short of life-altering. Life-altering.

  And there it was again. The realization that his time in Cedar, his time with Jessa, ha
d been just that. Life-altering.

  And yet he’d left her. Without a word of explanation why. And no contact in the month since. She’d probably given up on him, and would eventually find some sane, normal man who could give her the kind of life she deserved—decent, sane and happy.

  The thought made his gut twist worse than remembering his father’s abuse had.

  He had to get a grip, he told himself. It’s what he was here for. Josh had sent him to this remote cabin in the woods of Washington State, a place Josh himself went to often, for exactly that quality; the setting and the opportunity not to see another soul for weeks on end. The only sign of civilization he’d seen or heard in the last month was the occasional distant sound of a vehicle on the rural gravel road, and as he’d started his walk to the lake this morning, the sound of the Forest Service helicopter that went over now and then.

  “You deserve time and space to regroup,” Josh had said. “It’s a good place for that.” And then, with that piercing insight that had helped him build Redstone into the amazing thing it was, he’d added, “But don’t kid yourself, Dam. Don’t keep running from the one thing that might actually balance out what was done to you.”

  Jess.…

  He made no sound, but his mind screamed it, the name he couldn’t bear to say. He shivered again, but this time it wasn’t so much from the cold. Abruptly he decided he was dry enough, and besides, he’d welcome the battle of trying to drag clothes over damp skin.

  He paused in the act of dressing when a strange tickle crept up his spine to the back of his neck. His head came up sharply. While these woods were relatively safe, the biggest predator generally seen being the ubiquitous coyote, the occasional bear wasn’t unheard of.

  He glanced around, looking for anything big enough to be threatening.

  What he found was petite, blond and a bigger threat than any creature who made its home in these woods. “Jess.…”

  It escaped him this time, that name he’d never expected to speak again.

  For a moment he thought he might be hallucinating, some aftereffect of the shockingly cold water, or the fact that he’d been isolated here for so long. And then she stepped out of the shadows into that patch of sunlight. It turned her tousled crop of hair impossibly golden, she looked like some delicate forest elf caught for a moment in the human realm. But he knew she was real. His fingers curled with the knowledge, the memory of that slender body, of that sleek, satin skin, of the fiery, slick heat of her in those moments when he’d found a joy he’d never thought to know.