Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (26 page)

Howard was silent as he drove to the end of the street and turned around. He parked the wagon in the same spot where the Accord had been only hours before.
“We’ll stop here and walk back to the house,” Howard said. He killed the engine and pointed toward the glove box. “There’s a flashlight in there.”

David pushed the button with his thumb, the compartment door popped open and he retrieved the flashlight.

“I want to get something out of the back before we go,” Howard said and opened the car door and began to lift his big frame out of the wagon.

David got out of the car and walked with Howard and watched as he opened the back door. He stepped back as the mouth of the car opened wide and Howard leaned inside and rummaged a moment before he came out holding a tire iron and another flashlight. He stuffed the flashlight in his back pocket. He looked at David as a slight smile spread over his face. He arched his right eyebrow high over the top of his glasses and tapped the iron hard several times in the palm of his hand. David was smiling, too as he reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol. He pulled the magazine from his back pocket and shoved it in the handle of the weapon with a loud smack. He held it up for Howard to see.
“A Glock 45,” Howard said and nodded.

“Let’s go,” David said.

Howard closed the back door quietly and the two men headed for the meth house. The night was still, the sound of Howard’s boots hitting the ground echoed lightly as they made their way across the street. The waxing moon had set, leaving them surrounded by light from a pair of street lamps at opposite corners of Chester Street. Howard saw it even before they reached the beginning of the yard. He stopped and pointed. “Look,” he said almost whispering.

David stood his ground and looked where Howard was pointing, unsure what had captured his attention. “What?” David said, squinting.

“There,” Howard said. He stepped on the grass and began to walk toward the object. Brown, dried and frozen, the grass crackled and crunched under the weight of his work boots. He walked to the tree trunk, where he bent down and picked up the ax handle. He ran his hand along the smooth finish, clearing off bits of grass and debris. He turned to show David. The yellow police tape began to flicker brought on by a sudden gust of wind. Howard nodded. “Sam’s been here,” he said holding the ax handle out for David to inspect. “Wouldn’t keep a gun with bullets in her house and that was okay with me, so I made this for her a year or so ago. She kept it by her bed.”

David looked toward the house and swallowed hard. “She must’ve been planning to come here all along tonight and brought it for protection.”

Howard snorted. “A lot of good it did her.” He handed the ax handle to David. “It’s yours to hold onto now.”

The men walked in unison toward the front door. When they reached it, they noticed
it was ajar. David turned on his flashlight and held it next to his weapon the way a police officer would. Howard pushed the door open and stepped inside, looking right, then left. He stepped on something and looked down at his feet. He bent down to pick it up. “Sam’s hat,” Howard said, holding it up in David’s direction.

Howard dropped the hat and stepped aside as David entered the living room. The room was empty save for the stereo speakers on the floor. David directed his beam toward the kitchen, the light reflecting brightly off the white refrigerator. David tapped Howard’s shoulder and pointed. Howard followed his beam of light. They saw the dining room chair in the kitchen, overturned.

Howard turned on his flashlight and began to scan it along the floor in the living room. He stopped when the light fell on a pool of blood the size of a salad plate. The puddle of blood showed up easily on the light colored carpet. Howard clenched his jaw, the muscles along the sides of his face flexing. “David, look.”

David looked down and followed Howard’s light. He bent down and touched the area with the tips of two fingers. Howard scanned his flashlight along the rest of the carpet looking for more blood. “That’s all there is,” Howard said, panning his beam of light back to the original spot. “Could be that someone had fallen here and bled for a while until they were taken away.”

“That’s probably what happened. The blood’s fresh,” David said, rubbing his fingers together. “Someone’s been hurt.”

“Let’s hope it’s not Sam.” Howard said.

They continued their police-style approach and searched the rest of the house from bedrooms to the small, hidden room down the stairs, but found nothing to indicate that Sam or anyone else had been there.

It was just after two a.m. when they left the meth house and started back toward Howard’s wagon, feeling defeated and uncertain about what to do next. Howard had his flashlight in hand just as they reached the vehicle. He pushed the button and the flashlight flickered to life. He shone it along the ground and stopped it just before he reached the headlights. He bent down to study the ground more closely.

“Look, David.”

David lowered himself to Howard’s level and he saw what he did. Tire marks.

“Could be from Sam’s car?” David said and looked at Howard hopefully. His heart began to pound a little harder in his chest.

“Could be,” Howard said and shrugged indifference. “But could be they’ve been here for a long time too.”

They studied the marks a moment under the strong beam of Howard’s flashlight and what they could see of each other from the light offered by the corner streetlamps. Both were in agreement about the tracks. “I say the tracks are fresh,” David said.

Howard looked from the ground blackened by the tires to David and nodded in agreement. “I say you’re right. Let’s go.”

They got in the wagon, drove to the top of the street. The car came to a rest at the stop sign. David glanced over to Howard as if to say ‘what now?’ Howard looked left and then right. A heavy silence fell in the car as he thought.

“That way,” Howard said, nodding right and turning the wheel in that direction. In the distance Howard could see that another right turn would take them onto a gravel road. “That way,” he said and took his right hand off the two o’clock position on the steering wheel to point. David looked in the direction that Howard pointed and nodded. Within seconds the wagon was on the gravel road, loose rocks and dirt kicking up beneath the tires, dust clouding the rearview mirror. Howard illuminated the high beams and they could see that open fields lay on both sides of them. Howard slowed the wagon. Both men looked to their left, then right. David rolled down his window and stuck his right arm out and let it hang over the edge. Cold air blew his hair about his face.

David was the first to spot the car resting on its top about a hundred yards from the dirt road. “Howard! Look! That’s gotta be Sam’s car!” David was pointing to his right.

Howard pulled the wagon to the side of the road. They got out and headed toward the car, walking side by side carrying flashlights. The cloud cover had broken, revealing a vast black blanket netted with stars. From a short distance David directed his beam toward the back of the car, light reflected off the license plate.

It read
Page 68.

“It’s Wilson’s Accord,” David said. “That’s his vanity plate.”

Howard read the plate. “What does Page 68 stand for?”

David shrugged. “Beats me.”

They reached the tail end of the car and saw the extent of damage. “Someone hit her from behind,” Howard said, examining the area closer. “Probably more than once and they were going pretty fast. She probably lost control of the car when they hit her. She had to turn over at least twice.”

They walked toward the driver side door.
“The window’s busted,” David said.

Howard nodded, his chest tight in anticipation.
Both men dropped to their haunches. “Sam?” Howard called, knowing the interior was empty. He waited a moment, then shook his head, the tightness in his chest giving way to anger. “She’s gone. Whoever hit her, has taken her.”

Howard stuck the flashlight in the window, saw something, carefully reached inside and pulled out one of Sam’s gloves that had been covering the dome light. He showed David. He swallowed hard and stuffed the glove in the back pocket of his Levis. They rose to their feet, defeated, walked back to the car in silence, beneath a ribbon of expanding light that was the Milky Way.

“Look! A ladybug landed on me!” April pointed to the red bug with black spots that had landed on her knee.

“Let it stay there and if it flies away on its own, then it means good luck,” Wilson said, eyeing the little bug along with April.

“Really?” April was curious now, circling the ladybug with her index finger. “How’d a ladybug get in here?”

“Don’t know,” Wilson said. “But I know they’re good luck.”
Something they could both use now, a little bit of good luck. When Wilson regained consciousness April was touching a large white bandage that completely covered his left hand. When she asked what happened, Wilson made up a story that somehow he had broken his hand when their captors had taken him to the bathroom, so they wrapped it as tightly as they could so it wouldn’t keep hurting. Wilson was surprised that there was little pain, at least at the moment, and he tried to keep his thought free of the implications this was going to bring for him.

“I like ladybugs, I don’t mind when they land on me, not like grasshoppers. Do they really mean good luck?” April asked, looking up at Wilson.

“They really do,” he said and nodded. “Lots of countries around the world think that a ladybug is a sign of good luck. Did you know that in England each spot means a lucky month to come and that the people in Canada say that you should make a wish and when the ladybug flies away, the direction it flies is the direction that your wish will come from.”

“I better make a wish,” April said and closed her eyes. “Okay. I made it!”

“Now we have to wait and see which way the ladybug flies away and then from that direction your wish will come true,” Wilson said and forced a smile, because he wasn’t feeling especially lucky at the moment.

Wilson and April were still huddled together, she seemingly content to stay where she was, and Wilson happy to hold her near him. He would hold the fear for both of them, wondering what could be coming through that door at any moment. April hadn’t mentioned food in the time that she had been with him, but he guessed she should be getting hungry. He smiled over the top of her head, marveling silently at her preciousness. And her fearlessness.

Forgetting the ladybug momentarily, April looked up again to Wilson. “When are we gonna get to go home?”

“Soon, hopefully, April,” Wilson replied trying to sound hopeful. “Is that what you wished for?”

“Nope,” April said. “Something better.”

Across the room, sounds that the door was being unlocked captured their attention. They looked in the direction of the door, rapt with anticipation, waiting for it to swing open. April jumped to her feet. Wilson struggled to get to his
, holding his left hand high in the air. His legs were wobbly with sleep from April sitting on them and he was having trouble getting his right knee to straighten. His sore foot began to throb at the sudden movement. He groaned and managed with the help of his good foot get to a standing position. The moment he stood up straight, he felt light-headed and a wave of nausea passed over him. He set his sore foot down gingerly and steadied himself, resting a hand against the wall. “April, come here, and stand by me,” he instructed and held out his arm.

She went directly to him, grabbed him by the wrist and wrapped his arm around her. They watched and waited for the door to open. The twins stepped into the room and April immediately recognized them as the ones on her bus. “That’s them!” she said, grasping Wilson’s hand a little tighter.

“It’s okay,” Wilson said.

The twins stood on either side of the door like sentinels, their hand resting firmly on their hips. Their black leather jackets were open, allowing Wilson to see the butts of their guns strapped in shoulder holsters. He held April closer.

“Stay where you are,” one of the twins commanded.

“Don’t worry,” Wilson said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Wilson looked beyond the doorway where he could see the others in the hallway. And something else that he couldn’t quite make out, like a bundle of sorts or a large bag. He squinted, trying to determine what he was seeing. The outer area wasn’t lit any better than the room where they were. He tried moving slightly to one side, hoping that would allow him a better look, but that meant putting weight on his bad foot. He tried. Pain shot through his leg like a canon. The nausea returned. He stayed where he was, unable to move to see anything.

Moments later, Juan came through the door, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Wils
on instantly felt his anger begin
to rise, a black storm of emotions, twisting and turning. Juan’s gaze flickered briefly to April before settling on Wilson with a cold, empty stare. “How’s the hand?” Wilson only glared at him. Juan stepped casually to his right and motioned with his hand. Fuzz Face followed Juan into the room, carrying the bundle over his shoulder.

He turned slightly, enough that Wilson was able to see a hand dangling lifelessly off to one side.
“Sam!” Wilson could not help saying her name. He didn’t mean to, but her name escaped his lips before he could stop it.

Fuzz Face dropped to one knee and Sam slid off his shoulder like an old rag doll, landing on her side on the floor with a dull thud. She stayed there motionlessly.

“Mommie!” April screamed and tried to run to her mother, but Wilson squeezed her against him so she couldn’t move. She turned toward him, wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his belly and hugged him as hard as she could.

“Stay with me,” he said softly but in a firm voice that April knew to obey. He would not let April turn to look at her mother.

Fuzz Face raised his boot and pushed against Sam’s shoulder just enough that she rolled lifelessly to her back. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open slightly. Hair, matted with mud, clung to the left side of her cheek and what Wilson could see of the rest of her face was stained with dirt. Her clothes and boots looked as if she had been dragged through the mud. Her jeans were ripped just above the left knee. It was hard to tell if the material was just wet in that area, or if it was blood he saw.

Wilson’s eyes darted from Juan to Fuzz Face, his face hardening in anger. Wilson clenched his jaw, trying to control that tornado of rage continuing to build inside of him. “What did you do to her?” he demanded.

Juan looked at Wilson, a cold, flat stare that reminded him of fish eyes. “It wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped,” Juan said, pretending to stifle a yawn. He threw his cigarette on the floor next to Sam. “In fact, it was quite boring. She made it too easy for us. She’s a lousy driver.”

Wilson looked down at Sam. He did not like the way her left arm was positioned against her body.
“She’s been hurt,” Wilson said. “She needs help.”

Juan
looked at Wilson as if to say ‘you should talk,’ and then glanced down at Sam. He casually waved off Wilson’s request for medical attention. He left the room without another word. The twins and Fuzz Face following like obedient children.