Sweet Vengeance by Fern Michaels (15)

Chapter 14

“So?” Tessa said, when Jill sat down at the bar.

“I didn’t find anything unusual. The rooms are the same, but their personal items are gone. Someone had to pack them away. Do you know who, and if so, where they are?” “I’m not sure,” she replied. Had Sam packed their things himself?

“I’d like to find out,” Jill said. “Basically, except for the linens, the rooms are empty. I didn’t see anything unusual there.”

Tessa breathed a sigh of relief. “What about the sketch?”

“It’s been ripped from a sketchbook, no doubts there. I’d like to see if we can locate it. One drawing, while it might indicate Poppy was angry at Joel, or a man—and that’s a far overreaching educated guess—I wouldn’t want to make a judgment without thoroughly searching through Poppy’s sketchbooks.”

“I’m not sure, but I can ask,” Tessa said. Jill was right. The rooms were empty other than bedclothes, and that wasn’t so unusual. She had remembered the rooms as they’d been when the girls were still alive. Gone were all the knickknacks, posters, all the paraphernalia that made up a ten-year-old’s bedroom. Why didn’t I see that?

“I thought they were exactly as they looked the day I left,” she explained.

“A trick of the mind, Tessa. It’s what you wanted to see. The mind is a miraculous machine.”

“I’ll find Sam and ask him,” she said. “I know that he packed up what was in Joel’s office, but I’m not sure who packed up the stuff from the house.” She had just assumed Sam had. Now, in reality, it seemed rather juvenile for her to have thought so. As CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, when would he have had the time to pack up their possessions?

“I’ll wait here,” Jill said.

“I’ll go find Sam,” Tessa said, walking into the kitchen.

Since he was most likely outside with Harry’s forensic team, and she did not want to leave the protection of the house, as the media remained at the entrance to the gated community, just waiting like a pack of hungry wolves ready to snatch the first bite of her if she emerged, she dialed his cell-phone number, which he had scribbled on a pad next to the telephone, and stood by the glass doors. He answered on the second ring.

“Sam, it’s me. I need to see you inside. It’s important,” she said, then saw Sam as he walked toward the house.

“Two seconds,” he said, then hung up.

When he opened the door, he placed an arm around her. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll never be okay, Sam; you of all people should know that. However, I have someone here who wants to speak to you.” She turned toward the living room.

Jill was sitting where she had left her, with the drawing spread out in front of her. When she saw Sam, she flipped the sketch so that only a blank piece of paper showed.

“It’s okay, Jill,” Tessa said when she saw her flip the paper over.

Tessa introduced them, surprised that their paths had not crossed during the investigation.

“Jill wants to see some of Poppy’s sketchbooks. Do you know who packed them and where can we find them? It’s important,” Tessa said. “Show him the drawing,” she said to Jill.

Jill turned the paper over and handed it to Sam. Sam held it toward the window, studied it, then returned it to Jill. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know just yet. That’s why I need to see her other drawings,” Jill explained.

“Sure, that’s reasonable. I’m sure the boxes are in the master bedroom. I packed up Joel’s office but hired professionals to pack the personal possessions from the house,” Sam explained. “Between the three of us, we should be able to find the girls’ belongings, the things that were in their rooms.”

Tessa heard the hesitation in his voice. Sam had known the girls, too. How could she have forgotten that? It was bound to be stressful for him, or at least she thought so.

“What about Lee?” Tessa asked when she remembered that he was coming over this afternoon.

“We can start now and take a break when he arrives.”

She nodded. “Jill, do you mind?”

“No, I cleared my schedule for the rest of the day. I want to help in any way that I can.”

Am I ready for this? She had barely been out of prison twenty-four hours, and things seemed to be moving too fast. That was good, maybe. Her life had been so regimented, so routine for so long, it was going to take her a while to get used to the world outside. “Then let’s get started,” she said, knowing there was no reason to put this off.

The drawing had brought back so many memories of the girls seated at the kitchen table, drawing while she made dinner, talking about colors, why they were named the way they were. Poppy always had an explanation, and this would send them off into other topics of conversation. Tessa always felt so proud of them; they were smart, insightful, open to learning. She had enjoyed these times so much. Tears spilled over, and she didn’t bother trying to stop them. Cleansing, she thought, as she braced herself for the task ahead of them.

“Tessa, if you don’t want to do this, don’t,” Jill said when she saw her crying.

She shook her head, then took a tissue and wiped her tears. “I need to. It’s . . . I just need to do this. I’m fortunate to have this opportunity, I need to take advantage of it.” She knew it would hurt, but avoiding the memories wasn’t beneficial to her or her future.

“Let’s get started,” Sam said. “Who knows what we’ll find?”

Tessa agreed, but still couldn’t keep from feeling frightened at what they might discover. She picked up their coffee cups, went into the kitchen, and rinsed the cups and placed them next to the fancy coffee machine. Returning to the living room, she announced, “I’m ready.”

Sam led the way as they headed upstairs. Tessa took another deep breath, hoping to calm her nerves. She had practiced deep breathing over the years and learned to calm herself. In prison, it seemed fairly easy. Now, in the outside world, not so much. She flinched when Sam touched her arm.

“Hey, if you don’t want to do this, don’t,” Sam said. “Jill and I can handle it, right?” He looked to Jill for confirmation.

“Absolutely.”

“No, I need to do this. For myself. And my daughters.” She motioned for Sam to open the door to the master bedroom.

Inside, stacked against the wall opposite the doorway, were dozens of boxes. Tessa scanned them for some kind of writing but saw nothing. “They’re not marked,” she said to Sam.

He pulled a few boxes away from the wall, then turned them around so that she could see. “The markings were just facing the wall.”

Clearly, the boxes were marked. Why wouldn’t they stack them where they could be identified? Though honestly, she realized it had not mattered as she had been locked away for life, and other than Lara, there was no family to claim them. And she doubted that her sister would have taken the time to sort through them even if she thought there might be something worth pawning.

“I see,” she said. “Then let’s start with Poppy’s room. Maybe I can find her sketchbooks.”

Five minutes later, Sam had both boxes from the girls’ rooms moved to the center of the master bedroom. “How do you want to do this?”

“We can each open one box. If we find Poppy’s sketchbooks. . .” She turned to Jill.

“I’ll have a look at them, and we’ll go from there,” Jill said.

Sam pushed a large box in front of her, another for Jill, and one for him.

Stalling for a few seconds, Tessa easily ripped the dried-out packing tape from the box. Inside, she saw stacks of clothes. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her face like two silvery canals. A deep breath. I can do this. I owe it to Poppy and Piper.

A Harry Potter shirt that she remembered buying, knowing there had to be a matching one in Piper’s things as both were Potter addicts. She went through the rest of the clothing, deciding she would donate most of it, minus the Harry Potter shirts.

Going on to a second box, she was surprised to find the sketchbooks. She had not thought it would be so easy.

“Here they are,” she said. “It appears as though they’re all in this box.”

“Tessa, why don’t you let me go through them first? I know this is hard.”

“No, I’m okay,” she said, and used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to blot her tears. “It’s not all bad,” she explained.

“Then let’s start looking through them,” Jill said.

Grabbing several spiral sketchbooks between them, they flipped through the pages.

“This might be something,” Sam said, handing the sketchbook to Jill.

“Okay, let me see what you have found,” Jill replied. She took her time as she perused the pages, thumbing back and forth, then closing the book.

Sighing, she spoke. “It’s . . . it may be.” Jill stopped and seemed to be deliberating. “Tessa, did the girls, Poppy in particular, resent Joel, or men, Liam in this case, in any way?”

She thought about it but could not remember a time when Poppy or Piper had any issue with their dad, or any man, at least nothing out of the ordinary. Joel worked long hours, and Tessa knew the girls were closer to her than they were to Joel, but that’s how it worked in their family.

“I don’t believe either had any reason to feel anything but love for their father. The only men they were around were Joel, and Liam, and of course, teachers and such at school. I’m sure neither had any issues with men. They were quite open with me. I’m sure if there was a problem, they would have come to me.”

“Then why keep Liam’s . . . abuse to themselves?” Jill questioned.

“Fear? He told them he would kill them and their family if they told. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m sure they took him at his word. Can you imagine how . . . frightened they must have been?” Tessa felt her heart rate increase as it always did when she spoke of this. “Maybe they were simply too scared to tell. It’s such a leap of faith to me, as I’m sure it was to them, that their uncle would even consider touching them inappropriately.” This still didn’t justify her surmise. She had not known her daughters’ innermost secrets, and not knowing sooner might have cost them their lives.

Jill draped both arms around Tessa’s shoulders. “Don’t blame yourself. Actually, it’s quite common for victims to protect their abusers. Statistically, eight out of ten children know their abusers, and more often than not, it’s a trusted family member or a friend. The girls were afraid; I know this for a fact. They truly believed Liam would harm them, you, and Joel. Those were certainly not their exact words, but I understood what they were telling me.”

“Let me see the sketchbook,” Tessa stated.

Jill held the book against her chest. “Are you sure you want to see this? They’re very disturbing.”

“Of course! Good grief, Jill, if there is something in Poppy’s art that . . . I don’t know, just let me see the damned thing.” Tessa held her hand out, palm up.

Jill closed the sketchbook, then handed it to Tessa. Tessa’s hands shook as she flipped open the cover on the book. One by one, she viewed Poppy’s drawings, her mouth agape.

She tossed the sketchbook back to Jill. “I . . . I don’t know what to say. This is horrifying.” Tessa wanted to kill Liam, the son of a bitch. How could this have happened without her knowing? And when? Where? She had spent ten years in prison trying to recall when the girls were alone with Liam. There had been a few occasions when they’d had him over to the house for dinner, and of course then he wouldn’t have been completely alone with them, but they had dinner parties with Liam and dozens of acquaintances. With her acting as hostess while Joel mingled, there was plenty of opportunity for him to spend alone time with them. In their rooms, possibly the pool house. She couldn’t wrap her head around the situation. Both girls, on different occasions; according to Jill, neither one had told the other what was happening until the morning Poppy said something about it to Tessa. Tessa couldn’t begin to fathom how this could have gone on in their home without her knowing about it.

Breaking the silence, Sam said, “It’s not pretty.”

Tessa nodded. “No. I wish I would have . . . well, I hadn’t the faintest idea.” The fight had gone out of her, and she plopped down on one of the unopened boxes. She looked up at Jill. “What’s your professional take on the drawings?” Drawings of adult male penises with a knife slashed through them. Another of a little girl with a single giant blood-red tear streaming down her face. It was a face Tessa did not recognize.

“Whoever drew these pictures was definitely sexually abused,” Jill stated flatly. “Of course, we know it was Poppy. What the drawing indicates to me, the emphasis on the desire to mutilate the genitals, and Poppy’s artistic abilities are excellent, is that she wanted to reveal the abuse but was fearful. Possibly, she hoped you would find her sketchbooks and open the door for her to tell. Their behavior, keeping their lights on at night, wanting to go back to sharing a room, crankiness, all are clearly indicative that something was not right. Of course, I knew the girls, but I wasn’t aware of this until you told me.” Jill sighed. “Of course I asked them questions, gentle questions. I didn’t want them to be fearful in any way. They both said the touching hurt. I reviewed the medical examiner’s reports, and I remember reading—” She stopped, closed her eyes, then opened them, tears brimming in her brown eyes.

Tessa nodded, remembering the horrifying details from the medical examiner’s testimony.

“Son of a bitch,” Sam muttered. “I’d like to get my hands on that low-life bastard.”

Again, Tessa nodded. Feeling empty and bereft, she wanted to scream, to run through the streets, asking why? Why my girls?

They were innocent little children. Thinking of the fear they’d suffered enraged her, but now, with this new revelation, Poppy’s drawings, the wall Tessa had built around her emotions came crashing down. What kind of mother am I? How could I not have known? Her eyes filled with tears, and she let them flow freely. Jill stood behind her, rubbing her shoulders.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Sam said.

Tessa stood and followed Sam and Jill downstairs. She wasn’t sure what to say. The pictures pretty much said it all, she thought as she trailed behind. “I’ll make us some iced tea,” Sam told her.

“Thanks,” Tessa said, then focused her attention on Jill. “I wish I had found that sketchbook. You realize that I could have saved their lives.”

“Stop, Tessa! You’re not helping yourself with those thoughts. I don’t want to go all psychiatrist on you, but this wasn’t your fault, and as much as I hate it, it was probably inevitable. You didn’t know Liam’s background any more than I did, or it seems unlikely that Joel knew that his brother was a pedophile, a sick child molester. If he had known, he would never have allowed him to spend any time around Poppy and Piper.

“Whenever someone learns about something like this, it always comes as a terrible shock, especially when it’s a family member or a close friend. You just don’t think that anyone you know could possibly do anything like this. The people who do these things are totally other people, not your friends, relatives, next-door neighbors. But the fact of the matter is that child molesters do not come with horns on their heads or identification tags that read: CHILD MOLESTER—STAY AWAY. “You are not responsible, Tessa. I want you to remember these words every time you start to think otherwise. You were an excellent mother,” Jill insisted. “And don’t say a word. We will get through this. Together this time, okay?”

“I will try, but I can’t promise,” Tessa told her. “Those pictures—I don’t understand why they weren’t entered into evidence at my trial. Who could have overlooked them? They had ample evidence that Poppy had been molested. It doesn’t add up.”

Sam placed two tall glasses of iced tea in front of the women, who were sitting at the bar. “If these sketchbooks were collected as evidence, we would have known about them during the trial. I doubt that even Michael Chen would stoop so low as to not disclose this kind of exculpating evidence. He’s an ass, for sure, but he does follow the rule of law as much as any prosecutor ever does.

“More importantly, if these drawings had been available to the investigators, I doubt that you would have even been prosecuted. And if he had allowed these drawings to be presented as evidence at the trial, I’m pretty sure your trial would have ended with a not guilty verdict. These drawings would create reasonable doubt in any jury that saw them, especially given the total lack of forensic evidence against you. Lee will jump on this right away.”

“I agree. These drawings should certainly have been considered,” Jill said. “Speaking as someone who has given expert testimony many times, I am absolutely certain that no jury seeing them would convict any woman unless there was overwhelming evidence that she murdered the victims. And the one thing that is certain is that there was no such evidence ever presented. Everything was circumstantial at best and pure fantasy at worst.

“But what I want to know is where were they during the investigation? Tessa, did you take the sketchbooks to San Maribel?”

She shook her head. “I took sketchbooks, of course, but I didn’t take these. The girls always shared their work with me. It’s more than apparent that Poppy hid this particular book away.”

“Maybe,” Jill said.

“What do you mean?” Tessa took a drink of tea. Her hands were shaky, and her stomach churned. She needed to calm herself, so she took a deep breath and released it slowly, just as she had taught herself to do.

“Just what I said. Maybe it was Poppy who hid the drawings, and we’ll never know where, unless we can locate the person who actually packed up her room. Did she have any hiding spots? Most kids do.”

“I don’t understand,” Tessa stated. “What are you trying to say?”

“They weren’t discovered during the investigation. It’s possible that whoever packed up their rooms found the sketchbooks and packed them away without looking at the contents, which would be perfectly normal, and they have been here all this time.” Jill turned to Sam. “Is it possible to locate the person who packed the rooms?”

Sam nodded. “I’ll get Darlene to check. If anyone can find out, she can.”

A loud knock on the front door silenced them.

“Stay here,” Sam said. “I didn’t tell Lee to use the back entrance.”

Tessa and Jill did not speak as they waited for Sam to answer the door.

Praying it wasn’t a member of the press banging on the door, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Lee Whitlow enter the kitchen.