Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery, Book 2)

by Betta Ferrendelli

  Sam could hear music in the background and guessed it was coming from his stereo. She realized how little she knew about David Best. She didn’t know if he had a girlfriend, if he had any siblings or even if his family lived in Denver. But she knew he hadn’t been a reporter long. The Perspective was his first job out of college. Though Sam was less than ten years older than David, she felt old enough at times to be his mother. There was still a youth’s sensitivity and freshness about David that Sam continually found refreshing. Because of her professional experience, she felt like she should be more of a mentor to him. When he had a question about a lead, or how to structure a feature story, he always came to Sam for help.

  Whenever that thought crossed her mind, however, she had to laugh at herself for being so foolish. She couldn’t take care of her own life, and had been fired from the Denver Post—hardly the qualities of a mentor for a cub reporter.

  “No, Sam,” David said and there was a genuine cheerfulness in his voice. “I’m up. I’m a night owl so to speak, so it’s still kinda early for me. What’s up?”

  “Are you busy?” Sam asked.

  “Some of my college buddies are here and we just finished a couple of pizzas and we’re watching a Star Wars movie. The sound is great, I just got it hooked up through my new sound box. Are you comin’ back to work tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I’ll be in the morning.”

  “How was your trip to see your daughter?”

  Sam took in a deep breath. The look on April’s face when Sam told her that she couldn’t come home with her flashed in front of her. Sam envisioned her daughter’s green mind trying to process what she just been told. That a promise wasn’t always necessarily a promise, at least one not to be had at that moment.

  “It went pretty well up until last night,” Sam said and closed her eyes. April’s image was still before her. When April realized she would be staying, her face went smooth with recognition, the way it does when something finally becomes clear. Then a wounded, fragile look grew in her eyes and her mouth formed the small shape of an O. The look on her daughter’s face had become the watermark of time since.

  “Wilson wasn’t there today either,” David said sensing that the subject was sensitive, one that Sam didn’t want to discuss. “Wasn’t he supposed to be coming back today?”

  Sam hesitated a moment, then cleared her throat. “Well, yes he was. That’s what I want to talk to you about, David.” Sam guessed that David must have been talking on a cordless phone and that he went into another room. Sounds from the television were gone.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “Something’s happened to Wilson …” Sam heard herself say. The words spilled out of her mouth as if she had no control over them.

  “I thought so. You and Nick were acting so weird, so I knew something must be up,” he said, his voice confident.

  Sam smiled and found that she wasn’t so surprised he already suspected something. The phone crackled in the few moments of silence that followed. “You have to promise me you’ll keep this between us.”

  “You have my word,” he said.

  Then Sam told him everything that had happened from the night she and Wilson were grabbed in the parking lot until the moment she walked in her apartment door just over an hour ago. She ended by saying, “Of course with my history there, everyone just thought that if I’d blown off coming in for a few days. That was just Sam Church.”

  David was too polite to say anything negative about her. Instead he said, “Do you think they had any idea Wilson was going to Mexico?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Hard to say. Maybe they did, then maybe not, or maybe Wilson told them after they let me go. But I’m sure they’ve been watching us for a while. They had to be, so my guess is they knew his schedule and mine. In fact, I told Wilson the night we left the building that I’d been having this odd feeling that we were being watched. Who knows how long that black car had been following us?”

  “Do you think they’re still following you since they let you go?” David asked.

  “It’s possible,” Sam said and then she proceeded to tell him about the shiny black sedan that had been parked outside her apartment window last week.

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  Sam smiled into the phone at his willingness to help without even being asked. “We need to find out where the kidnappers sent that e-mail. Can you do that? Because I have to confess I really don’t know a thing when it comes to computers.”

  “It’ll be a snap,” David said, the confidence in his voice still evident. “People might think they’re being anonymous when they send nasty missives because they’re sure that no one will be able to figure out that the e-mail came from them because they’ve set up a phony web address. But that’s not how it works, Sam.”

  Sam was silent a moment, tapping an index finger against her chin as she thought. “You mean the e-mail contains invisible information about the sender that they might not know about or that they don’t know is included?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “That information is in the header. All major e-mail programs can display header information.”

  Sam laughed at how little she knew about computers, the Internet and e-mail. She had always looked at cars and computers the same way: She wanted to get in her car, start the engine and drive. She didn’t care how the car worked. She just wanted it to run. That’s how she felt about computers. She wanted to sit down at her desk, turn on the computer and write. That’s it. She didn’t have a single desire to know the inner workings of her computer. “David, you’ll have to be a little more exact. I’m clueless at the moment.”

  “All major e-mail programs can display header information,” David repeated. “In Microsoft Outlook, you double click the e-mail, then click view, the greater than arrow and options. In Microsoft Outlook Express, all you have to do is click the e-mail, then click file, the greater than arrow, then you select properties and choose the details tab. In Eudora, double click on the message, then click the blah, blah button.”

  “Is there really a blah, blah button?” Sam asked, thinking he was joking.

  “There really is. And finally in Netscape, you click the message to open it, then click view, the greater than arrow, and then message source to display the header.”

  “David, my ignorance is glaring here, but what do we use at work?”

  “Microsoft Outlook.”

  She hesitated a moment, trying to recall his instructions. “Which means you double…”

  David finished her sentence, “you double click the e-mail, then click view, the greater than arrow and options. It’s pretty easy.”

  Sam smiled into the phone. She knew it was foolish, because there was no guarantee that this would lead them anywhere, but she already felt closer to finding Wilson.

  Sam did not want to wait until morning to try David’s theory. He was a night owl and she could tell in his voice now that he knew about Wilson, he was ready to do whatever he could to help. “Can we go to the office and try it now?” she asked.

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said without hesitation.

  “David, thanks, you’re the best,” she said.

  “I know,” David said and there was a chuckle in his voice. “That’s my last name.”

  Sam laughed too, not realizing the play she had made on his surname.

  “I’ll see you there in half an hour,” she said and hung up the phone.

  Nineteen

  By the time Sam returned to the Perspective, David Best was already there. His car, a maroon SUV, a make she didn’t recognize, was still running. Exhaust fumes were spiraling upward in the night air. The temperature had dropped noticeably since the time Sam had arrived home from Seattle. On the drive over to the newspaper, the gray clouds had covered the length of the sky, glowing orange with city lights.

  Sam pulled the Accord next to David’s car. She waved and rolled down the passenger side window. “Been here long?” sh
e asked.

  David shook his head. “Maybe about ten minutes.”

  “Sorry I’m running late,” Sam said. “But I think you’ll understand why in just a few minutes.”

  David looked at Sam, puzzled when she motioned for him to come to her car. She watched as David crossed in front of the Accord, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He stopped at the window and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. He was wearing a white pair of tennis shoes that looked as though they had just come from the box. A Colorado Rockies baseball cap covered his hair, which had recently been cut. He wore a gray sweatshirt and a pair of purple nylon shorts that stopped at the top of his knees. His clothes hung on his tall, slender frame. Sam had not bothered to change when she got home from the airport. She was still in her jeans and sweater that was probably covered in dog hair. “David!” she said, “Aren’t you freezing in those shorts?!”

  David shook his head. “I wear shorts any time I can.” He bounced a moment more and then asked, “What do you want me to see?” Steam rose from his mouth as he spoke.

  The look on Sam’s face clouded. She shook her head and said, “I don’t know what made me notice it when I got in the car to come here now. For all I know it’s been here longer than that and this is the first I’ve seen it.” Sam paused a moment and then said, “Listen.”

  He leaned his head closer to the car window as she pushed a cassette tape into the radio dial on the consol and hit the play button.

  “Sam, it’s Wilson. They, uh, they tell me you’re all right. That’s really all I wanted to know, as long as you’re safe and doing okay then, I can live with that. I’m okay too, but not for long.”

  There was a pause in the tape and it crackled slightly, as if the kidnappers were giving Wilson instructions about what to say next. Seconds later, he spoke again. “This is all about revenge, Sam, revenge. It’s about the article you wrote and I gave the okay to publish. It’s about stopping something that had been operating smoothly and without a single interruption for many years. It’s about you, your sister and that stupid cop and about not knowing when to stop. Now you’ve ruined it for both of us.”

  Sam and David listened another moment more before the tape crackled again and went blank. When Sam looked at David, she noticed his eyes were dark and round, intense with the uncertainty of what to think about the tape. The same reaction she had when she first heard the tape.

  “The article?” David asked, “The one about the drug smuggling operation that your sister started to uncover?”

  Looking at David, Sam nodded slightly and her upper lip curled. “Yep,” she said and turned her attention back to the cassette recorder and hit the rewind button.

  Wilson’s voice again filled the interior of the car.

  “Who’s the cop?” David asked.

  He nodded as Sam told him about Rey Estrada. “Obviously they’re making him say that,” he said.

  “Of course they are,” Sam said and she continued to stare at the cassette player. “His voice sounds weak, David.”

  “And you didn’t notice the tape in there before tonight?”

  Sam shrugged and hit the eject button and the tape popped out. “I don’t know how long it’s been in there. I haven’t been in the car since Friday. And I was in such a hurry to get home so I could get my flight that I didn’t notice anything. The radio was off and I didn’t feel like listening to music anyway. Could’ve been in there then, could’ve been in there longer who knows? Maybe they put it in there the night we were kidnapped. Or maybe someone planted it just before I drove around the corner from the airport tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  David watched as several cars passed along Wadsworth Boulevard going north and south to destinations unknown. He thought a moment and said, “Well, obviously someone was able to get into the car without breaking the window. Maybe it’s that black sedan.”

  Sam nodded. “They probably followed Howard and me to the airport and came back and did it. Who knows? They didn’t have to wait for me to leave town either. They probably did it right under my nose. Assholes.”

  Sam turned off the car and they waited in silence a moment listening to the pop and ping from the engine as it settled.

  “Let’s go inside and see ’bout the e-mail,” David said. He stepped back and Sam got out of the car. They stood facing each other. He was nearly a head taller than her. She folded her arms and began to rock back and forth on her feet to stay warm.

  “Wilson is right, David. It is about revenge. Nothing else. This isn’t one of those kidnappings where the kidnappers will demand a lot of money or publicity for their cause. They don’t give a shit about their cause. Hell, they can go to the other side of town and start another one for that matter. They’re going to kill Wilson. I know it. They’ll play this cat and mouse game only so long before they kill him. Then they’ll come for me.”

  David wrapped his arms around her. She kept her arms folded but allowed herself to rest against his chest. She was surprised at his body heat. It washed over her like warm running water. They stood in silence for a few minutes. “I’m sorry you had to carry this burden by yourself these last few weeks, Sam. But we’re going to try and not let that happen. We can’t be thinking that way. It’s not going to help Wilson. Let’s not think like Wilson’s going to be murdered. Okay? Let’s think like we still have a chance to find him. We may have to bring the police in on this.”

  Sam pulled away from David and looked him in the eye. “No, David, that’s not an option,” she said and her voice was firm. “I had specific instructions not to do that. That’s something we can’t do, at least not yet. I feel like if I do what they ask, then maybe we can buy Wilson some time.”

  “Okay then let’s go take a look at the e-mail they sent you,” he said.

  David followed Sam up the stairs and waited as she unlocked the door and deactivated the alarm. The light from the green exit sign just above them produced enough light to find their way down the stairs into the newsroom. A female dispatcher’s voice coming from the police scanner greeted them as they entered the newsroom. In the quiet she seemed to shout a set of street coordinates into the scanner. David followed Sam to her desk. He brought a chair and situated it next to Sam’s chair as she removed her jacket and threw it over the top of her desk, covering the box wrapped in brown mailing paper.

  She turned on her computer. The screen illuminated their faces in a bluish color. They waited in silence for Sam’s computer to load. Sam looked at the large round clock on the wall above the reporters’ desk. Its distinct white face stared back. It was situated so that reporters working on deadline would make no mistake about just how much time they had left to file a story.

  Sam watched as the red second hand swept one full time around the dial. It was now 12:05 a.m. She looked at David. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  “Let’s see the e-mail,” he said.

  In unison, they leaned closer to the screen.

  Twenty

  Sam moved her cursor over the e-mail message marked ‘Revenge’ and clicked. David pushed his ball cap up on his head and leaned closer to the screen, his brow tight as he looked on. After giving him time to read the contents, Sam asked, “Do you think you can tell where it originated?”

  “Should be able to,” David spoke in a faraway voice, his concentration directed at the screen. He took the mouse from her hand and began to scroll down the document. “We’ll see here in a minute as soon as I can…” David’s voice trailed off as he studied the screen before him. The room was quiet before the police scanner barked to life again with the same female dispatcher’s voice relaying a new set of street coordinates. “Okay, here it is,” David said still staring at the screen.

  Sam scooted her chair in closer as David went on, “The sender’s revealing information is in the section that begins with the word ‘received.’ But it depends, though, because there may be several of these.”

  “Depends on what?” Sam asked.

/>   “On the number of computers that the e-mail has traversed,” David answered.

  Sam felt her face flush with embarrassment. She couldn’t look David in the eye and averted her attention to her lap. She smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle with her palm and when she spoke, she directed her comments toward it, full of frustration and irritation at her own ignorance. “David, I’m so dumb when it comes to computers. It’s a wonder I even know how to turn one on. The sender’s information has probably been there all along and I was just too stupid to realize it.”

  David ignored her comment and continued to study the screen. “You’ll see that the originating computer is in the bottom ‘received.’ That section will have an Internet Protocol, which is also referred to as IP ...” his voice faded as he allowed his thoughts to process. The police scanner squawked to life again with the female dispatcher’s voice providing new information about a domestic disturbance in progress. She spoke in a cool, collected voice that Sam knew would help keep the officers on the street calm.

  “Could be an IP number such as,” David took his hand off the mouse and gestured with it. “Something like, 124.213.45.11. The good thing about the IP number, Sam, is that the number can be traced on a number of websites.”

  “Which means that the IP number is assigned to the sender’s Internet Service Provider, and not the sender?” Sam asked.

  David nodded. “Right. Well, most likely it is, but the Internet Service Provider or ISP, will be able to identify the sender using that number.”

  “What if they’ve set up a phony web address?” Sam asked.

  David turned to Sam and shrugged indifference. “There’s no doubt they have, but it doesn’t matter.” He directed his attention back to the computer and covered the mouse with his hand. “Let’s print this baby out and see what we have.”

  “I’ll get it,” Sam said and headed for the printer.

  She reached the printer and waited, listening to the printer whirr and groan until it spit out a printed copy of the e-mail. She picked it up and began to scan the document looking for the IP number. There was more verbiage contained in the body of the e-mail about sending the e-mail than the entire text written by the kidnappers.