The Best Revenge Page 4

  Although she’d never gotten a satisfactory answer to…well, to most of her questions, there was no denying this guy knew his stuff. In the hour and a half they’d spent here in the office, he’d come up with more ideas than she had in the week since she’d reluctantly joined this circus.

  Using online ads targeted at Internet-savvy residents, and print ads in the weekly community newspaper for those who preferred that medium, she would likely have gotten to on her own. But offering an interview to the radio station in neighboring River Mill, the bigger town twenty miles up the road, wouldn’t have occurred to her. The station drew a large audience from Cedar, and an interview for free was much better than paying for a ton of ad time. Nor would sponsoring the local high school’s academic decathlon team’s trip to the state championships have occurred to her, or providing a special trophy cup at the county fair rodeo competition, in her own favored event of barrel racing.

  Neither, he pointed out in that sometimes tricky to follow, extremely abbreviated way, could be put down solely to her campaigning; she’d been involved in both the decathlon and the rodeo during her schooldays in Cedar.

  “And just how did you know that?” she had asked.

  “Homework,” he said.

  Meaning he’d done his, she’d quickly figured out. Which brought her back to that same old question: Why? But she didn’t ask again, already knowing she’d get the same, nearly useless answer.

  She was looking at the back of the envelope that sat propped up against the equipment catalog on the table she’d cleared for them to work on. Clearing the desk in here was not an option. She was so behind already, after just a week of this silly campaign stuff, she didn’t know how she was going to manage both and still keep an eye on her mom. Thank goodness Uncle Larry was stepping in more there.

  The logo St. John had come up with, in about twenty seconds and a few quick strokes with a pen, was striking and effective. And she had to admit the slogan he’d added, about keeping Cedar in good hands, had a lot more punch than simply “vote for me” in its various incarnations.

  “What is it that you do, when you’re not meddling in small-town mayoral campaigns?”

  “I…facilitate.”

  “I’ll bet,” she said wryly, thinking it sounded vaguely nefarious. Not that she had anything against that if it would beat Alden. And obviously, he was very good at it. But she wondered just who he facilitated for. Wondered if she should be more worried about that than she was. Wondered if she was foolish enough to let the fact that she was strangely fascinated by this man cloud her judgment. Wondered if—

  “—that picture.”

  Yanked out of her thoughts, she looked up to see he was gesturing at the framed photograph on the opposite wall, behind what had been—and in her mind still was—her father’s desk. She didn’t remember the day it was taken—she’d been barely five—but it was unmistakably herself. Her then long, blond hair was held back with a headband, as she looked up with utter adoration at the man who held her hand as they stood in front of Stanton’s Café on Broadway, a grand name for the two-lane main road of Cedar, which was even less grand than those twenty-five years ago.

  As always, the image of her father, so tall and strong in that picture, made her throat tighten and her eyes brim.

  “Connection. Use it.”

  She blinked rapidly, then, as the sense of what he was saying got through to her, she turned to look at him. “What?”

  “Flyer. That picture.”

  They’d been talking about a campaign flyer, and what form it should take. Or rather, she’d been talking, he’d been mostly saying yes or no.

  “I won’t use my father,” she said, getting to her feet and beginning to pace again, as she had several times since they’d begun this. Something about this man made her edgy, almost nervous, a feeling she wasn’t used to. And when he touched her, either inadvertently or with intent, to point something out to her, the feeling got worse. Much worse.

  “Not use. Remind.”

  “They all know who my father is. Was. They don’t need a picture to remind them.”

  “Thousand words,” he said.

  She nearly laughed. As it was, she turned to look at him, barely able not to grin. “And just what,” she asked, “would you know about a thousand words?”

  For the barest instant, the corners of his mouth twitched. Whether, had he allowed it, it would have become a smile or a grimace, she wasn’t sure. But she’d gotten to him, that she was sure of. And the knowledge sent a jolt of triumph through her that she didn’t quite understand.

  “Silly not to,” was all he said.

  “Manipulative to,” she shot back, mimicking his mode of speech.

  “Politics,” he said, paring it down to the essential. And she couldn’t argue with that; what was politics, except manipulation? At least, the way Alden and others of his ilk practiced it, even on a small-town level.

  “My father didn’t,” she said as she came back from the doorway to the table. “He just talked to people, they knew him, knew he had their best interests at heart.”

  “Good intentions.”

  “And the road to hell, yes, I know. And so did my father.”

  She walked over to his desk, looked at the big calendar that served as a blotter. It still sat on January, the month he’d died, still had some of the scrawled notes that were sometimes the only record of verbal agreements for purchases. That was all you needed with Jess Hill. And the people of Cedar knew it. They trusted him. Enough to elect him to a record six consecutive terms.

  In the beginning she’d told herself she needed those notes—not all the transactions had been completed. But she knew now she just couldn’t bear to remove those scribblings in his familiar, loved scrawl.

  “He didn’t just intend,” she said softly, “he did. He got results.”

  “Yes. You, too.”

  “If I win.”

  “Use the picture.”

  Exasperated, she turned sharply to face him. “And just how would that make me any different than Alden, playing on the death of his first wife and his son, going for the sympathy vote?”

  He seemed to go very still for a moment.

  “It’s enough to make me sick, the thought of him in my dad’s place,” she said, meaning it. “Not just that, the sympathy ploy, but all this ‘welfare of the children’ stuff, when in truth he—”

  She broke off suddenly, realizing she’d very nearly gone way too far with this man who, despite the intensity of the last ninety minutes, was still a stranger. It didn’t matter that, despite his cryptic manner, she felt oddly comfortable with him; he was still a stranger, and she had no business mouthing off about her unproven and at this late date unprovable suspicions. “What truth?”

  His voice was soft, quiet, but there was an edge beneath it that made her even more wary.

  “Nothing I can prove. Not against a man everyone thinks is a paragon.”

  “Not everyone. You.”

  “I’m a minority of one.”

  “And who recruited you?”

  She shrugged, anxious to leave the subject behind. “Okay, maybe a half dozen who aren’t under his spell. But it’s still a solid brick wall.”

  “Use the picture.”

  “No.”

  “He’s the reason.”

  “That I’m doing this? Yes. No one would ever have even approached me to run, if not for my father. But I’m still not going to use him. Or his…death, to try and gain some kind of advantage. I just won’t.”

  She was aware she was saying too much again. There was something about that annoyingly terse way of speaking that made you feel you needed to make up for his lack of words with too many of your own.

  It suddenly occurred to her that that could be a very useful tool. And one he no doubt used to his advantage. “A factor.”

  “I know. Some people will vote for me for that reason alone. But I won’t use it. I made that clear to the ones who asked me to run. Told them
they should find someone else, if that’s what they wanted.”

  “If they had,” he said. It wasn’t a question by inflection, but she knew it in fact was.

  “I’d still be working against Alden. As hard as I am now.”

  For a long moment he said nothing. And then, slowly, he nodded. “You would.”

  Again it wasn’t a question, only this time it sounded more like a benediction. And that warmed her in a way that was absurd, given she barely knew the man.

  It was a feeling she savored even as she worried about it.

  Chapter 5

  It was worth the twenty-mile drive, St. John thought, to not be staying in Cedar. Although he hadn’t liked it much when he’d realized what he was feeling at the discovery that the one inn Cedar boasted was closed for renovations was relief. He’d been so damn sure, so positive that nothing could touch him here anymore, that those demons were long slain, never to rise again. He didn’t like thinking he’d been wrong.

  He walked across the surprisingly spacious room he’d rented. From the road the place hadn’t looked like much, just an older, well-kept motel with fewer than a dozen rooms. But the room was large, with furniture actually made of wood, not some veneered wood by-product, a comfortable seating area and a desk beside the unexpectedly large window with the even more unexpected view.

  But St. John wasn’t looking at the view. He knew the sweepingly wide and long territorial expanse, with a glimpse of the river through the thick trees, would be beautiful to most, but to him the river was only a jabbing reminder.

  He was looking at the screen of the laptop that was open on the desk. The place didn’t run to a wireless connection, or even broadband; that nicety of civilization hadn’t made it to this largely rural area yet.

  Fortunately he had at his disposal one of Redstone’s resident geniuses’ handy devices. Ian Gamble’s encrypted adapter for his unique cell phone made it possible to use it as a modem with total confidence. It also gave him access to every part of the Redstone network, and, with a few keystrokes, his own personal system in his office.

  It made the research brought on by what Jessa had said quick and easy.

  Alden, playing on the death of his first wife…

  His first wife.

  For all his talk about doing his homework, he’d failed miserably. He’d been in such a hurry to stop this abomination that he’d jumped the gun. Several guns. He, who prided himself on always being three steps ahead, who anticipated every possibility, hadn’t just fallen down on that job, he’d taken a nosedive.

  And here of all places—here where he’d first realized that knowledge and preparation and prescience was safety, and that lack of it brought terror and pain—he should have been completely prepared.

  But he wasn’t. Which brought him back to the irksome realization that perhaps he hadn’t vanquished those old demons as thoroughly as he thought he had.

  Good thing you brought the laptop, he thought, still angry at himself, so you can do what you should have done before you ever left Redstone.

  For shorter jobs, he usually relied on the efficient phone’s browsing capabilities, but he’d had no idea how long this would take, so he’d packed up the equally efficient and also customized laptop that was now showing him what he should have known long ago.

  Of course, knowing this evil as he did, he couldn’t imagine Alden would find another woman to marry him. But he saw how ridiculous that was now; of course he had. To the outside world he was charming, polished, the most upstanding of citizens. Women had always fawned over him, a fact he’d never failed to rub in his wife’s face to remind her of her own shortcomings.

  St. John remembered once when he’d been about nine, overhearing his mother beg his father to divorce her. He would never forget the sound of the laugh that had burst from the man. It had sent shivers down his spine.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” his father had sneered. “Get your hands on my money, so you and your brat can live high?”

  “He’s your son.” The protest had been feeble. Only later had St. John appreciated the courage even that much had taken.

  “I won’t let you embarrass me in front of the whole town. They would never believe you, of course, but I don’t want them knowing what a stupid, crazy, inadequate woman I had the misfortune to marry.”

  “I don’t want your money,” she’d said with a whimper, so belatedly responding to the original words that St. John, hiding in the crawl space beneath the house where he often hid to avoid his father’s wrath, wondered if she really was stupid, or at least very slow. “Just let us go.”

  The laugh, that hideous, stomach-roiling laugh, came again. “The only way you’ll leave is in a box,” he promised her. “And I’ll have a use for that boy, someday soon.”

  He hadn’t understood, at nine, the box reference. And in his innocent ignorance, he’d dared to hope his father truly might look at him differently, someday soon, when he’d said he’d have a use for him. “Damn you!”

  The words burst from him as a nausea he hadn’t felt in years churned up his gut at the memory of just what that use had been. And he wasn’t sure if the curse was aimed at his father or himself.

  He went back to the screen, this time making himself read the entire piece that was dated three years ago.

  How like the man, he thought, to turn what should be a private, personal celebration into a carnival. The wedding had been held in the public square, and the entire town had been invited. And many had apparently shown up, possibly, he thought sourly, as much for the elaborate catered banquet as anything else.

  He wondered if any of them thought the ostentatious show in poor taste at the time. Or perhaps now, looking back, the cynical might think he’d done it to put himself in the public consciousness, already with an eye toward challenging the mayor in the next election. That it had come sooner than expected, with the death of Jesse Hill, would have just been a bonus.

  He interrupted his reading to look again at the photograph; the woman was attractive enough—his father would settle for nothing less—and not particularly cowed or timid-looking. But perhaps that was how it started, perhaps the rest only came later, when she was so thoroughly broken and trapped there was no escape.

  When had she discovered she had married, not the smooth, urbane, amiable man of her dreams, but a monster? Did she even know yet? Could Albert Alden keep his true nature hidden for so long?

  He went back to the article, his mouth twisting into a grimace at the near gushing tone of it; the writer had obviously been impressed. Awed, even. The list of notable guests included a couple of county officials, even a local congressman. And, of course, the mayor and his wife. Jessa’s father and mother.

  The list did not, however, include Jessa herself. An unlikely oversight in the exhaustively thorough article? Or had she purposefully not gone?

  Had she even been around?

  As often as he’d thought about her, the one memory he allowed himself from that time, he’d never checked on her. He’d never turned the prodigious network he’d built on her, never tried to trace or track her. He’d told himself he wanted the one, single, bright spot of that dark time to remain untarnished.

  But even now, after he’d wondered if she was still here, he hadn’t done the research to find out what she’d done in the intervening years. He wasn’t certain why he was so reluctant, when the information might well be pertinent to why he was here. He was even more uncertain why he knew this reluctance was different than simply dodging old demons, which was, if humiliating, at least understandable.

  He had no idea why he didn’t want to probe into Jessa’s life. Unless he was afraid of what he’d find. Which made no sense, either.

  An image flashed through his head of that odd moment in the office when Jessa had looked at him so intently, her brows slightly furrowed, staring into his eyes as if she were searching for something.

  As if she were searching for something she thought she should find. />
  Something familiar.

  He’d stopped breathing for a moment, wondering if somehow, some way, she had recognized him. And his heart gave a ridiculous leap, as if impossibly in hope. He’d sneered at himself the instant he’d recognize the long-lost emotion; he didn’t indulge in hope. It accomplished nothing, helped nothing, saved nothing.

  But the moment had passed. She had seemed to shake off whatever feeling had gripped her and moved on.

  And he’d had to fight down the urge to tell her.

  He swore under his breath again. Focus was his best skill, along with compartmentalization. Yet he seemed to have lost his grip on both. Compartment doors seemed to be springing open, and his brain was reeling under the impact of the chaos.

  He quickly turned back to scan the rest of the report on the “wedding of the century,” a piece of hyperbole that nearly made him gag.

  And near the end of the glowing report, he did gag. Because he saw a single thing that made too much too clear.

  Also in attendance was the bride’s seven-year-old son, Tyler.

  Seven. Three years ago. Ten now.

  His stomach clenched violently.

  The demons broke lose.

  His father had a new target.

  Chapter 6

  “We’re small, but we can grow,” Albert Alden trumpeted from the gazebo in the town square to the gathered faithful. “We can move ahead, leave the stubborn old ways behind, and prosper. We can make life better for everyone in Cedar.”

  Listening from the back of the crowd, Jessa was thinking inevitably of her father. Her father had understood Cedar and its people. Had understood the stock from which they’d descended—hardworking, independent sorts, determined to make their own way. He’d been one of them. Stubborn? Perhaps they were. But as her father had been fond of saying, sometimes pure, cussed stubbornness was all that got you through.

  A slight movement from the side of the small stage drew her attention; Tyler Alden was restless. The ten-year-old was dressed up in a suit and tie that looked suspiciously like a replica of his adoptive father’s, and Jessa couldn’t help thinking that a father who dressed his son like himself was slightly odder than a mother who did the same with a daughter. She wondered if she was being sexist about it. Or just suspicious of everything Alden did, from the similar attire to adopting his stepson in the first place, an act that had earned him kudos from most of the town.