Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (24 page)

Sam drove to the end of the block and made a U-turn in the middle of the street. She parked the car a few driveways down from the meth house. She turned off the engine and waited in the dark and watched the house as the car settled. The heat spilling out from the heater stopped and the warm air that Sam felt on the top of her shoes and legs quickly dissipated. She slipped on a pair of black leather gloves. She took the flashlight, pushed herself up slightly off the seat and stuffed it in the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled the rope of the ax handle over her right wrist.

She got out of the car and walked slowly toward the meth house, her boots making a light crunching sound on the empty street. Her heart was thumping so hard in her chest, she thought it might come out her mouth. She reached the front lawn. Somewhere in the distance a dog began to bark. She stopped a moment and listened, looking left, then right. She waited. The sound stopped. She continued up the driveway. She was close enough now that she could see paint chipping away from the eaves on the house. She stepped on the porch, gripping the ax handle so tight that the inside of her hand was sweating. She looked in the front window, cupping her left hand around her eye. Darkness stared back.

She moved to the front door, trying hard to swallow her fear. She wanted to turn back, but the JPEG image of April sitting cross-legged on the floor with Wilson sprawled out next to her haunted Sam and pushed her forward.

She put her hand on the doorknob. She clenched her jaw as she squeezed the knob. To her surprised it turned eas
ily. She hesitated only briefly before she pushed it open. Dank air surrounded her face like fog. She took a deep breath. The air was stale, the way a room smells that hasn’t been ventilated in some time. She pushed the door open further and, just as she was about to step inside, a dog began to bark. The sound startled Sam and she gasped. She would have dropped her ax handle had it not been for the rope. Sam listened a moment more, her heart racing and her right leg beginning to shake uncontrollably. She was scared. Her right leg only shook that way when someone or something truly frightened her.

The barking continued. It sounded as though it was coming from
inside the house, the kitchen or perhaps just inside the living room. More barking. But something about it didn’t sound right. It had the same continual pitch and tone, so constant that it didn’t sound real, but mechanical. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough that she could see a set of stereo speakers on the floor just beyond the front door. That’s exactly what it was, a device rigged up to sound like a dog barking. The sound would begin when motion was detected and emanated from there. She had to get inside and turn it off. She stepped inside the house and stumbled slightly over the threshold, almost falling. She caught herself and took the ax handle off her wrist to find the electrical cord. The barking was piercing her ears.

She found the cord,
followed it to the wall and yanked it out. The barking stopped immediately. Sam’s ears rang in the sudden silence. She leaned against the wall, collecting her bearings and letting her fear settle. Her leg stopped shaking.

Enough light came from the street that she could make out the interior of the living room. It was empty of furniture, save for a single dining room chair made of light wood. It was positioned directly in front of the living room window, as though someone had been sitting there looking out.

She glanced down a short hallway. To her left, it jutted off into darkness to what Sam guessed were the bedrooms and bathroom. Most houses like these had only one bathroom. The refrigerator was directly in front of her. The ringing in her ears had stopped, and she could hear that the appliance was humming loudly. The Barbie Doll and Wilson’s hand popped unwillingly into her mind. It unnerved her to think that there might be something besides food and drink waiting for her inside the refrigerator.

She took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the wall. She took small, cautious steps toward the kitchen. She reached the threshold, but it was too dark in the kitchen to see much. She retrieved the flashlight. She waited a moment before turning it on, to brace herself for what she might find. She bit her bottom lip and flipped the light on. The flashlight cast a bright light over the room. She panned the light from the refrigerator over the stove to the cabinets. She could tell that it had been some time since anyone had actually lived here. Paint was chipping away from the cabinets. Some of the cabinets were open and she could see that nothing, no dishes, cups, glasses or staples, was inside. She directed the flashlight along the countertops. The ones that weren’t nicked were heavily stained with something she could not identify.

Sam entered the kitchen. She followed the beam of her flashlight toward the sink. The tap was dripping and a small rust stain had started to form at the back of the sink. Just as she turned around, she felt something run across the top of her shoe. She stifled a shriek, and kicked at it and then jumped back. Her stomach cramped with fear and her heart roared in her chest as she quickly panned the flashlight to the floor. The light caught a mouse scampering across the linoleum. She followed the creature with the flashlight as it made its way quickly across the floor. The mouse disappeared into the looming darkness.

That’s when she saw the open door.

Sam’s breathing was labored and sweat had beaded up on her brow, soaking the front of her hat. She tried swallowing, but her mouth was dry. Her right leg began to shake again and she put a hand over her thigh to try to make it stop. She inched toward the open door, sorry now that she didn’t take the time to find the bullets for the service revolver and bring it with her. She reached the threshold and cast light into the hole filled with darkness. The tall beam rose and fell where she directed it. There were stairs down as far down as she could see. She was afraid to shine the light any farther down the stairs, unwilling yet to see what might lie ahead.

She braced herself a moment against the door
jamb, wondering how wise it was to proceed any further alone. The morning she left to come home from Seattle, and the image of April walking across the yard holding hands with Esther to the bus flashed before her. As did the hopeless moments she waited in the cab outside April’s school, looking off in the direction of a place she was forbidden to enter. There was nothing to stop her here. Moved by the desperate desire to see her daughter again and hold her close, Sam started down the stairs.

Sam descended the stairs stepping as softly as she could, but everything around her was so quiet that her footsteps sounded heavy as though she were a giant. One step. Then another. She gripped the railing. The ax handle was dangling from her wrist and every so often knocked against the wall. She couldn’t help the noise. She had to hold the flashlight with one hand and the rail with the other. She didn’t want to fall.

On the sixth step she stopped. She held her breath as she directed the beam toward the bottom, hoping the last of the stairs would be in view. The light stopped at the foot of the last step. Sam counted nine more stairs.

In the semi darkness just beyond the stairs, she could see a short landing. She cast the light a little farther in that direction. It stopped at a door, a plain simple white door with a silver knob. It was closed. She swallowed hard, focusing on the doorknob, weighing her options and wondering if she were about to walk into a trap. She considered turning around. But she had moved beyond the point at which returning was an option. She took each step until she reached the bottom, her lips pursed in a thin straight line and breathing heavily through her nose.

Once she reached the landing, she
gripped the ax handle firmly and headed for the door, reaching it in several short steps. She put her hand on the knob and hesitated only a moment. The door opened easily.

Sam cast the beam inside the room. She saw it was only an entrance, a portal that led yet to another door. She wondered if the passage was the start of a labyrinth where she might lose her way. She stepped cautiously toward the door. The thought of seeing her daughter on the other side propelled her forward. She reached the door, and only then realized that it was not completely closed. She shone the flashlight through the partially opened door, but couldn’t see anything.

Momentarily forgetting her fear, she placed an open hand on the door and pushed it slightly. The hinges creaked against the movement. Sam bit her bottom lip and pushed the door open. The beam of light fell into the room, her eyes wide with fear, followed.

The room was empty and small. She was hit immediately with a distinct odor.
“Cat urine.” Sam said in a confident whisper, remembering the night she and Rey talked about it in the police cruiser when they stalked High Pointe Warehouse. He had told her it was a byproduct of making meth. She stifled a cough as the stale but still pungent odor assailed her. Letting the ax handle dangle from her wrist, she squeezed her nose between her thumb and index finger and breathed through her mouth. The scent from her leather glove made it slightly easier to breathe.

She pushed the door open as far as it would go and stepped into the room, moving the flashlight from wall to wall. She guessed that the room was no bigger than eight by ten feet, twelve at the most.
She brought the flashlight to the center of the room, unprepared for what she was about to see. She felt the hair on the back of her head stand on end as a shriek quickly and loudly escaped from her lips.

A small man dressed in dark clothes stood before her. Sam had never seen hair so white. She guessed him to be her height, perhaps an inch or two shorter. At the sight of her, he folded his arms across his chest and smiled in a smug way. He began to tap his foot. She expected his smile to reveal long, sharp white teeth, just waiting to rip into her flesh.

“Well. Well. We’ve been waiting for you, Samantha Christine.”

But it wasn’t the man with the white hair who spoke. The sound came from another corner of the room, out of sight from the beam of Sam’s flashlight. The voice was cool and collected, seemingly satisfied that she had, in fact, been snared. Her right leg began to shake as she fumbled to center the ax handle securely in her hand.
“Who are you? Where’s my daughter? I want them back right now,” Sam said, keeping her voice firm while trying to control her growing fear. She could not stop her leg from shaking, with one hand holding the ax handle, the other the flashlight.

She h
eard the man in the shadows begin to laugh. Empty. Evil. Cold. The sound of it moved over her skin like a dull razor. “Have you come to save them with your ax handle?” he asked.

Sam
gripped the handle tighter.

“Tough talk for such a fragile woman,” the man in the shadows said.

Sam held her ground, her right leg still shaking. She tried pressing her right foot firmly against the floor, but it didn’t help. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” came the reply.

“Are you the one who’s been following me in that black car?”

With that, the man in the shadows stepped into the light. He was a tall, slender Hispanic man, with a shock of thick black hair, wearing a black leather coat that stopped just above his knees.
“As a matter of fact,” he said coolly. “I am. Good little Samantha Christine always using her turn signal. Wouldn’t want to get stopped by the police for failing to use our signal now would we?”

Sam swallowed hard when she saw him reach into his coat pocket. He took note of her fear and laughed. “Don’t worry, Samant
ha, I am not going to shoot you…” his voice trailed off as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from an inside pocket and shook one loose. “Just yet.”

“The methmaker,” Sam said and nodded as if she had added a missing piece to a complex puzzle. “You’re the methmaker.”

He looked at her with indifference. “I prefer Juan.”

“Juan Garcia
,” she confirmed.

Juan pulled the cigarette from the pack with his lips, watching her. He brought a lighter to his mouth and lit it, covering his face with his long, thin hands. He blew smoke from his nose and placed the cigarettes back in his pocket. He nodded. “That’s right Samantha. That’s who I am.”
His name was Juan Garcia. At least that’s what everyone called him. He wanted a common, unassuming name, not one that would stand out as did his given name: Alajandro Luis Barraza.

Juan looked at the white-haired man and then surveyed the rest of the room. “I wanted you to come here first,” he said grasping the cigarette between his index and middle finger and taking a deep drag on it before
pulling it away from his mouth. “Because I wanted you to see this.”

Silence fell for a brief moment in the small room.

“Take a look around,” he said, extending the hand with the cigarette out over the room, as if it were a place of beauty and something to admire.

Sam did as she was asked.

“For more years than I can remember, Samantha, I made a great deal of money working out of this little shithole,” Juan said before taking a moment to look around the room. “Then this woman came along and starting poking around where she didn’t belong,” he said, his eyes black and void. Juan’s reptilian stare was so penetrating that Sam had to look away. “Of course, we had to do away with her,” he added matter-of-factly, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “I’m sure you know who I am talking about.”

Sam’s heart dropped and her right leg stopped shaking momentarily. The image of identifying her sister’s body at the morgue on Christmas morning flashed before her. She clenched her jaw.

“She was a foolish, foolish girl, Samantha, just like you. But even I had to give her credit for her persistence, which cost her her life. And then you came along. You were far more damaging to us than I believe she was. Because look…” Juan’s voice trailed off as his long bony hand made another full sweep around the room. “There’s nothing left. And you’re the cause of it and now you will pay.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Sam said and her voice was defiant. “Where’s Wilson? I want my daughter back now. I want both of them back now.”

Both men laughed at Sam holding her flashlight and ax handle. Juan flicked an ash, then took another hit off the cigarette. “You’re a foolish, foolish girl, Samantha Christine, coming here all alone thinking that you were going to walk right out of here with the old man and the little girl so you could be one big happy family again.” Juan dropped the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, twisting and turning it hard into the ground. He spoke with indifference. “What makes you think they’re even still alive?”

“I know they’re still alive,” Sam said with an authority she did not feel. “You wouldn’t let me off that easily.
I saw what you did to Wilson.” Her eyes narrowed to thin, angry slits. “People like you like to see people like me squirm, and beg, and plead.”

Juan nodded and a crooked smile spread over his face. He looked to the white-haired man and gave a quick flick of his head in Sam’s direction. Before the white-haired man had a chance to move, Sam turned and bolted from the room, moving with speed and agility she didn’t realized she had. She slammed the door hard in their faces.

Juan calmly pulled another cigarette from the pack and took the time to light it. “Go get her,” he said.

Sam bolted through the entryway and slammed that door, falling against it with all her weight, the flashlight and ax handle extending from her wrists and flapping beside her like wings. She raced up the stairs trying to take two at a time, but stumbled half way up and had to grab the banister. The ax handle knocked loudly against the wall and was hitting her hard against her leg.
She ignored the pain and, propelled by terror, went up the remaining stairs so fast that she plunged into the kitchen and fell face first on the floor, hitting her chin hard against the linoleum. The fall knocked the flashlight from her hand. It rolled to a stop in the living room, producing a pool of light, before it flickered and died out.

She struggled to her feet, breathing furiously. She could hear one of the men in the stairwell just below her, shouting obscenities. She bolted from the kitchen toward the living room. Just as she reached the hallway, she heard one of them enter the kitchen.

She screamed as if she were drowning. “Help me! Help me! Somebody help me!”

She reached the living room sick with fear, looking left, then right, then left, feeling trapped like a doomed animal. She had left the front door open. A draft of cold night
air
was hitting her face. She started to run toward it, but one of the men reached her and wrapped his arms around her legs, tackling her from behind.

She grabbed for the wooden chair to stop her fall, but it was just beyond her reach. She could feel herself falling helplessly to the floor. Somehow the ax handle flew off her wrist. It tumbled out the front door. Sam heard it hit the ground, bounce off the porch and then roll out into the grass. Sam landed hard, her head narrowly missing the chair. She fell on her right shoulder with such force that it pulled away from the rest of her body. She cried out. The pain in her shoulder was all encompassing, momentarily blinding her.

She managed to look behind her to see who had tackled her. It was the white-haired man. Given his size, she was surprised by his strength. The fall had knocked the wind out of her assailant, giving Sam a moment of reprieve. The heel of her hiking boot had hit him squarely in the stomach as they fell to the floor. He was struggling for breath. She tried to kick out from beneath his grasp, using every ounce of strength she had left in her body, now weakened by fear and pain. But she couldn’t shake free from his grip.

He struggled to get to his feet, keeping Sam pinned to the ground. He straddled her, reached down and tried to grab
a chunk of her hair.

Sam screamed. “No!”
With all her strength, she lifted her right leg straight up and directly hit him in the groin. He howled in pain, shouting another stream of obscenities. He fell to the ground beside her, shuddering and clutching his groin.

Sam rolled off her back and managed to lift herself to her hands and knees, trying to find her breath. She coughed so hard, she almost started to choke. As she struggled to her feet, the white-haired man reached out and grabbed her ankle.

“Let go of me, asshole!” Sam screamed and kicked loose from his grip. She grabbed for the flashlight and whacked the white-haired man as hard as she could over the head. He immediately let go of her ankle, and went motionless on the floor.

Sam stood in the center of the living room, gasping for breath trying to figure out what to do next. Her thoughts were clouded with pain. She grabbed the chair and dragged it back to the kitchen. Her movements and weight from the chair caused new agony in her shoulder, but she ignored it. She slammed the door shut and rammed the top of the chair beneath the knob. She turned and ran out of the house. She stumbled down the street, glancing over her shoulder. No one was following her, but still she ran as fast as the pain in her shoulder would allow. She reached the Accord completely out of breath, her lungs burning for air. She fumbled with the keys. “Come on! Come on!”

Finally she opened the car door. Once inside, she slammed the doors locked and shuddered a heavy sigh of relief. Her right arm was nearly useless. She struggled with her left hand trying to insert the key in the ignition. She was so shaky with nerves that the keys slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

She looked to the floorboard. Somewhere during the struggle, her hat had come off. Most of her hair had come loose from her ponytail and it was dangling in front of her eyes, but it didn’t matter, it was too dark to see anyway. She fumbled on the floor groping for the keys. Finally she found them and tried again, this time inserting the key with little effort. She
started the engine and left so fast that her tires screeched loudly, piercing the night air.