Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (17 page)

Sam nodded, closed the car door and watched him drive from the parking lot, exhaust following the car like a shadow trying to catch up.

“David?” Sam said, hoping she didn’t get him out of a deep sleep. She glanced at the illuminated numerals on her DVD player and saw 11:30 p.m. She had guessed right about landing at DIA just before ten. She had hurried home, picked up the phone first thing and dialed David’s number only to discover that the number now belonged to someone else. Then she remembered hearing David talk about the new apartment he moved into just before Thanksgiving. Then she discovered that though she meant to get his new phone number and write it down in her address book at home and program it into her cell phone, she never did.

Sam would not wait until morning to call him. She fed Morrison, jumped in
to Wilson’s Accord and drove to the Grandview Perspective to get the home telephone for reporter David Best. Luckily, little snow had fallen, the streets were clear and she made it to the newspaper in the less than the twenty minutes it normally took her.

The office was quiet and dark when Sam used her key to unlock the front door. She immediately turned off the alarm and prayed she’d remember to turn it back on when she left. She took the stairs two a time to the reception area. She knew that Anne kept a log of home phone numbers for the entire staff at her desk. There was enough light streaming in from the streetlamps just outside the windows in the reception area that she didn’t bother with extra lights. Sam scanned Anne’s desk and quickly found the numbers. She wrote David’s new number down on a
yellow sticky note and double-checked it off Anne’s log. The last thing she wanted was to get home, dial the number, only to realize that she had written it down incorrectly.

Before Sam left the building, she went to her desk to check her e-mail. There were the usual after-hour lights on in the newsroom downstairs that provided enough light to get to her desk.
She pulled out her chair. On her seat she found a flat box slightly smaller than a shirt box wrapped in brown paper. She picked it up. The package had her name on it, but Sam noticed that it hadn’t been mailed. There was a yellow sticky note from Anne’s desk, with her handwriting that said, “Sam, this came for you shortly after you left on Friday.” Sam shook it gently. It didn’t seem to weight much. She set it on top of her desk while she fired up her computer. She thought nothing of the package.

As she waited for her computer to boot, a soft whirling noise filled the quiet room. She turned on her monitor, which cast an eerie glow of light across her desk. She kept looking around the office. In the quiet, she could hear herself breathing. She had never been in the office this late and it unnerved her. She found herself jumping each time she thought she heard a noise. She wanted to hurry, check her e-mail and leave. Sam quickly scanned her
inbox, but just as she expected, nothing from the kidnappers.

She turned off her computer and headed up the stairs, relieved that they had not tried to contact her while she was in Seattle. She remembered to set the alarm, locked the door and dashed back to the Accord. She hit the automatic door lock as soon as she got in the car, feeling safe again. Sam started for home and did not realize until she had made the turn onto Sixth Avenue from Wadsworth Boulevard that she had forgotten the package. She had been in such a hurry to leave the office that she had not given it another thought. She wasn’t going back for it now. She’d open it in the morning. It was probably from someone who wanted her to do a story on them or their company. Reporters were always getting free promotional items and packages from people wanting stories. Sam had received her share, everything from free coffee, lunches and dinners, to weekend stays at hotels to hot air balloon rides, from people wanting her to write about them. She sped home to call David, praying that she wouldn’t be pulled over and get a ticket on the way.

David Best was a general assignment reporter for the Grandview Perspective but also the unofficial IT expert for the office. He had always called himself a computer geek, and had once considered studying computer science in college. He opted for a journalism degree, but took a good number of computer courses anyway. When there was a problem with a computer, or the server at work, everyone turned to David.

“David? It’s Sam Church. Did I wake you?”

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 th
at 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.

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?” she 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 Levis 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.