The Best Revenge Read online

  Problem was, she was probably the only one in town who didn’t believe the man’s polished exterior, artfully tinged with a practiced sadness over the tragedies in his life, went any deeper than his bright, white smile.

  So, isn’t that practically a requirement for a politician? she asked herself rhetorically.

  But the joke sounded feeble even in her head. Especially when stacked up against what she knew about Cedar’s most well-known pillar of the community. That she couldn’t prove any of it didn’t change the slight nausea she felt, even after all these years. And part of it was guilt; she’d only been a child at the time, but she still felt she should have done something. That the one who had the biggest stake in it begged her not to say a word was the only thing that had kept her silent.

  But now she was an adult. And surely there was no statute of limitations on such things? But with the victim long dead, what could she do now?

  What should she do?

  Could she really stand by and let the man sail into the office her father, and his father before him, had held with such dignity and honor? Could she stay silent, suspecting what she did, even if she couldn’t prove it? Just whispering her suspicions against a man with his standing would not only be useless, but probably earn her astonished disbelief.

  And with that, she arrived at the bottom line.

  Could she let her beloved hometown put Albert Alden in charge of Cedar’s six schools, when her deepest, most silent suspicion was that he would abuse the power in the worst possible way?

  She sank down to sit on the crate of salt blocks.

  “No,” she whispered to the empty store. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  But she wasn’t sure if she meant she couldn’t afford to try to stop him, or couldn’t afford not to.

  Chapter 2

  “You what?”

  Josh was looking at him as if he were a jet engine that had suddenly meowed.

  “You heard me,” St. John said. He was so full of reluctance, disquiet and anger at himself for not being able to let this go, that he was sure he sounded more like a junkyard dog growling.

  “Why?”

  “By my calculations I have 333.6 vacation days coming,” he said, giving his boss and the head of Redstone something he rarely graced others with; full sentences.

  “Which I know darn well and doesn’t answer the question.” Josh shot the response back with narrowed eyes, and St. John knew his effort to avoid a direct answer had done the opposite of what he’d hoped. Instead of diverting Josh, he’d sharpened his attention. And that, St. John thought wearily, was the last thing he’d wanted.

  “Saying no?”

  Josh leaned back in his chair. “You’ve known me since you were a teenager,” he said after a moment. “You know better.”

  He did know better. He’d just been hoping Josh would let this go without prying into the reasons. A fruitless hope, he realized when the man who never missed a thing slowly unfurled his lanky body from the big leather chair.

  “You’re also my right-hand man, as close to indispensable as anyone is at Redstone, including me. Redstone wouldn’t be what it is without you.”

  St. John didn’t politely protest the statement; he knew he was damned good at what he did, even if there was no formal job description behind his rarely used official title of Vice President of Operations. Mainly because, as Josh’s personal pilot Tess Machado often said, it would take the Oxford English Dictionary to hold it.

  “I owe you all the time you could want, even though your absence will have a tremendous impact. But none of that matters,” Josh added as St. John remained mute.

  The silence spun out long enough to make most people edgy. But silence was his preferred default, so he had no problem simply waiting for Josh to get to whatever he was going to say. Finally Josh’s mouth twitched at the corners, and St. John knew he’d given in with his usual amusement.

  “What matters,” Josh said as if the long pause had never happened, “is that my right-hand man, who hasn’t taken a single vacation day in over a decade, who lives upstairs so he can sneak into work on holidays, I suspect even Christmas, suddenly wants time off.”

  “Yes or no?” St. John asked gruffly.

  For another long moment Josh just looked at him. St. John wasn’t intimidated that his boss topped his just under six-foot height by a good three inches. Or maybe it was just that Josh never tried to intimidate with his size; it was all part of his highly successful approach of letting the people who didn’t know better think of him as some stupid hick with a country-fried accent right up until they realized they’d been bested by a master.

  When he spoke again, it was almost a whisper. “And if I said no?”

  I’d be relieved, St. John thought. Glad of the excuse not to go.

  And that admission, even inwardly, rattled him. Hadn’t he learned the hard way that avoiding reality never worked? It was what it was, and you either dealt with it or you didn’t, but it never changed. And not dealing with it, not facing it, hadn’t been an option since he was seven.

  “Won’t,” he finally muttered, lapsing into his usual monosyllabic response style.

  “No,” Josh said with a sigh, “I won’t say no. But at least tell me where you’ll be. You’re the only one at Redstone who could step in if anything happened to me.”

  “Won’t. Draven.”

  Josh lifted a brow, indicating he’d noticed the retreat into nonconversational mode, but he didn’t press.

  “Yes, thanks to John and his people I’m as safe as I can be. But that doesn’t change the fact that I may need to reach you. Where will you be?”

  St. John reached into a pocket and pulled out his customized, Redstone-built smart phone, an intricate, multifunction pocket computer with global communication capabilities, presenting rather than speaking the answer.

  Josh let out a wry chuckle. “I know it’s hard for your technological mind to accept, but there actually are places where that baby of yours won’t work.”

  “Shudder,” St. John said.

  Josh blinked. “A joke? You made a joke? Now I’m really worried.”

  St. John lowered his eyes. “Don’t.”

  Josh went very still, abandoning even the pretense of humor. “Dam,” he said, using the shortened version of St. John’s rarely used and hastily chosen first name, Dameron. The world insisted he have a last and first name, and at the time he hadn’t wanted to draw the attention not having one would, so he’d picked one in much the same manner he’d chosen St. John.

  St. John waited. Silently.

  “I’ve never pressed you on anything you didn’t want to talk about,” Josh said. “Which means nearly everything.”

  “More than most,” he muttered.

  “Maybe I do know more than most, but that only means they know nothing. That’s not the point. You can’t just ask for time off for nearly the first time in history, tell me nothing and expect me not to wonder, if not worry.”

  St. John resisted the urge to run. He was feeling the pressure this man, unlike any other on the planet, could exert on him without even trying, simply by virtue of the fact that had it not been for Josh Redstone’s appearance in his life those many years ago, he’d be dead. And despite the moments when he slipped into the old habit of thinking he’d be better off that way, one thing never changed.

  I won’t give him the satisfaction.

  The mantra aimed at the demon who had set the course of his life from the day he was born was old, well used, but no less powerful than it had ever been. The fact that that evil walking would never know how badly he’d failed, never know that the son he’d tried to destroy had not just survived, but managed in his own way to thrive, didn’t matter. St. John knew.

  “Where are you going?”

  The question was quiet, even gentle. And this was Josh, the man who had made it possible for him to turn the tables, to prove the dire predictions wrong. He deserved an answer. He even deserved the truth.

&
nbsp; St. John drew in a breath. With an effort he didn’t like admitting it took, he met those steady gray eyes. And the word he’d resisted saying, or even thinking, for twenty years came out.

  “Home,” he said.

  In the early-morning light, Jessa sat in her father’s big, leather chair, Maui sprawled at—or rather on—her feet. She took comfort from the dog’s warmth as she stared at the school yearbook in her lap.

  She both liked and hated sitting here; sometimes she swore she could catch a whiff of her father’s aftershave, and if she was deep into something her subconscious processed that spiced scent into his presence. And that made returning to the reality of his forever absence even more of a jolt. It also made her decision, when her father had become ill, to temporarily move back into the house she’d grown up in both the worst and best of her life.

  She turned the page of the yearbook. It wasn’t the formal, posed portraits of the students she was looking for. In that shot, the son of the man who would be mayor looked just like the rest of the boys in his class, stiff, overly tidy and uncomfortable. But in the section rather grandly labeled “campus life,” she found the photograph she remembered. A large group of kids, laughing, sitting in a loose circle on the grassy quad area of the school. And off to one side, barely in focus, a lone, dark-haired boy sat looking at the group with an expression she’d never been able to quite decide on. Was it envy? Dislike? Longing? All she knew for sure was that he was not part of that group.

  Adam Alden never had been.

  She’d never been quite able to figure out the why of that, either. Was it that his father was a successful attorney, with two offices in this rural county? Was it envy on the part of those kids that kept him isolated? She couldn’t see it; Adam had never lorded it over anyone, in fact, he often did without the latest, greatest craze item that others had, his father saying he was making sure he didn’t grow up spoiled.

  Back then she had, with all the intensity of a very bright ten-year-old, decided that it was Adam himself who kept his distance. It wasn’t that this group was a clique who kept others out: Adam just stayed apart from everyone. That made many feel he was aloof, or even weird. Jessa had just thought him sad. But she knew more than most, despite the fact that she had been nearly five years younger.

  She had never been sure what had drawn the fourteen-year-old back again and again, after that first chance meeting in her special place along the river. Nor had she ever been sure what it was about her that had made him talk to her the way he had. Perhaps, she’d thought when she herself had turned fourteen, it had been that there were few things less threatening than a ten-year-old girl. Or perhaps it had been simply that she listened, both fascinated and aching inside, offering the only thing she could, quiet support and refuge.

  Yes, she knew more. She had wrestled with her suspicions, trying with all her ten-year-old earnestness to decide if she should violate the promise of silence she’d made to the dark-haired boy with the vivid—and haunted—blue eyes.

  And then the hundred-years storm had hit, young Adam Alden was dead, and none of it seemed to matter anymore.

  She didn’t have the heart to do what she usually did, go to the shelf and pull out her own elementary school yearbook, the one that he’d signed for her, just days before he’d died. She didn’t need to look; the words he’d written had been seared into her mind for two decades now.

  Jess—To the brightest place in this dark world. A.

  He’d been the only one allowed to call her that. Jess was her father, and while she was thrilled to have been named after him, the shortened form of Jesse was his alone. But when Adam used it she liked it, as if it were something personal, private between them, shared with no one else.

  Maui stirred, letting out a sigh that told her that while he’d patiently wait until she was done, he’d much rather be outside chasing whatever she’d throw for him until her arm ached. Which was exactly what she should do, before it got dark, instead of wasting time mulling over sad memories and useless should-haves.

  “Come on, boy,” she said, slapping the yearbook closed and returning it to the shelf; as mayor her father had received copies of every album from every school for every year, so although she’d been four years behind him in school, she’d been able to trace Adam Alden’s progress and changes from an early age to this last yearbook, the last he would ever be in. That he was the only child among the half dozen people who had died in that horrible storm had made him, if not a legend, then at least the featured player in a tragic story of mythic proportions, by Cedar standards at least.

  The big golden retriever scrambled to his feet, expressive brown eyes alight, plumed tail waving in hopeful excitement. As clearly as if he’d spoken, Jessa could hear the “Now? Now, Mom, can we play now?”

  She reached to scratch behind the gentle dog’s ears. If it wasn’t for Maui, she could easily slide into a morass of grief so deep she’d never see daylight again. But the dog’s quiet support and his need for attention and care had kept her going when the last thing she wanted was to get up and face another day. She even found a pained sort of comfort in his name, the latest in the Hawaiian name tradition started by her father because her parents had honeymooned in the islands.

  “Come on, golden boy. Let’s find a nice, grubby, slobbery tennis ball for you to chase.”

  The clever dog may not have understood everything, but “come on” and “ball” were all he needed to hear. He let out a happy yelp; all was now right with his world.

  As she stood in the huge yard between the house and the back of the store, watching the tireless retriever retrieve and return for more, in the back of her mind was a silent apology to the loving, happy animal whose life she was about to turn upside down.

  “Enjoy it while you can, boy,” she whispered.

  Because looking back at those pictures, at the flat, captured images of the boy who had been such a dramatic part of her life, who had told her things he’d told no one else, and who, in death, had become part of the lore of this small town she loved, had decided her.

  There was no way she could let the man who had put the haunted, hunted look in Adam Alden's eyes—and the bruises on his body—take charge of this town without a fight.

  Chapter 3

  St. John drove slowly. He was able to tell himself it wasn’t reluctance, it was because the speed limit was twenty-five, and Cedar’s single assigned deputy—at least, that’s all there had been twenty years ago—liked to sit in a turnout just beyond the city limits and wait for those who didn’t slow down in time.

  But now there was a warning sign a good quarter mile ahead, telling drivers of the drop in speed limit on the two-lane road. And when he got there, no cop. Maybe somebody had listened to the complaints that it was a speed trap.

  Common sense told him there would be many other changes, but he hadn’t expected the next one he came across, literally; a new, sturdy, truss-style bridge over the Cedar River. Since the old bridge hadn’t been that old, as bridges go, he wondered what had happened, wondered for a moment if it had been damaged in a flood. Perhaps even that flood. It wasn’t like Cedar had a lot of money to throw around. Of course, it was a county road, so likely—

  The disgusted realization that he was rambling in his head to avoid thinking about where he was and why cut off his own thoughts.

  He has no power over me anymore.

  The words echoed in his head for the first time in a very long time. He’d begun chanting it at fourteen. By the time he’d turned twenty, thanks to Josh, he’d finally believed it.

  So why are you acting like he does?

  As the road rounded the final curve, he saw another addition; a large shopping center with a couple of major anchor stores. He vaguely remembered the hearty discussions about the proposed development all those years ago, with then mayor Jesse Hill as one of the strongest proponents. And he wondered if the increased tax revenue from the center had helped pay for the new bridge. Mayor Hill.

&nbs
p; Jessa’s father.

  He shook his head sharply. The man’s death had, in a way, spurred all this, but he hadn’t thought about it beyond that at first. He’d been focused on the man who wanted to replace him. But finally it had hit him, the personal cost of that death. To the one person in Cedar he’d let himself think about since the night he’d left it behind forever. Jessa.

  Logically, intellectually, he knew she must be devastated at losing the father she so loved, the man she’d been named after. He had no other way to look at it; he’d never known the kind of relationship they’d had. He’d marveled at it at fourteen, even been envious of the way she talked about her father as if he’d invented water. He’d tried to tell himself it was because she was so much younger, that things would change…but in his gut he’d known they wouldn’t, that Jess Hill was as light, as true as his own father was dark and deceitful.

  He had wondered if Jessa was even still here, or if she’d finally grown tired of small-town life and had moved on. She’d been a smart, wise-beyond-her-years child, someone he could easily imagine living a fast-paced, successful life in a big city. But she’d loved Cedar and the more rural life, with her horse, her dog and, as she’d put it even then, real dirt that soaked up the rain, not concrete.

  And if she was still here, and he ran into her…

  He wasn’t really worried she’d recognize him. No one would. It had taken a few surgeries to repair the damage he’d left Cedar with. His cheekbone, his crooked jaw. Even his three-times-broken nose had been repaired and straightened, so he could breathe normally, not because he gave a damn what it looked like. And while they were at it, he’d had them change a lot more, leaving only the scar he’d gained that night as a reminder of his escape. There was very little left of that kid who’d lived here.

  No, not even Jessa would recognize him now. But wherever she was, he wished her well. More than well. She’d saved him, in her own way, much as Josh had. If he hadn’t had her to talk to—