“If I may, Ms. Jamison?” Warden Ryce asked when she returned the paper to the stack on the desk.
“If you may what, Warden Ryce?” Sam asked, his tone stern.
“Mr. McQuade, I simply wanted to wish Ms. Jamison well. She has been one of the state’s most cooperative prisoners, and I simply want to wish her well.” She said this as though Tessa were out of hearing range.
“Thank you, Warden. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but I appreciate your kind words,” Tessa said, letting both know that she was quite capable of speaking for herself.
“You may go,” Warden Ryce said.
“Yes, uh . . . thank you,” she said even though the warden had no part in her early, albeit possibly temporary, release from prison.
“Good luck,” she said, surprising Tessa.
Tessa gave the warden an acknowledging nod and wondered briefly if the warden really meant it or just said it to every inmate about to leave the prison. Does it really matter? she asked herself.
Without another word, Sam escorted her out of the office, through several long hallways, through two steel doors, and finally, the door that led to the world outside the prison gates, a world she had not seen in over ten years.
The door to freedom. The door to a new chance at life.
The door leading to her search for Liam Jamison.
And when she found him, she would make him pay for killing her family and robbing her of the last ten years of her life.
Chapter 5
“How does it feel to be free?”
“Are you going to take over at Jamison Pharmaceuticals?”
“Will you have more children to replace the twins you killed?”
Tessa looked up and appeared ready to commit mayhem when she heard the horribly cruel words a local TV reporter had just uttered.
“Don’t say a word,” Sam cautioned, guiding her to the shiny black SUV parked close to the area where the members of the press were gathered. “All they want is to get a response from you, preferably a negative one. Remember, you don’t want to be the lead story on the six o’clock news. Be assured that I have noted who it was who asked that last question. And once this is over, I will personally see to it that she never again works for any television, radio, or newspaper company again. And you can take that to the bank.”
She walked as fast as she could, Sam’s arm around her waist holding her close to him, away from the reporters, with their hands outstretched, holding smart phones and recorders in hopes of getting a comment on the record. Trying to absorb as much of the outside as she could, Tessa raised her head, letting the warm December sun of Florida caress her face. A cool breeze carried the scent of the inmates’ next meal. She reveled in the fact that she would no longer be subjected to the tasteless slop they tried to pass off as food. Seafood, fresh vegetables, and fruit would be her diet for as long as she was free.
She took a deep breath, inhaled the noxious odors for what she hoped was the last time in her life, then, as soon as she reached the vehicle, a door opened, and she slid across the smooth leather seats. She inhaled the rich scent of leather and remembered her own vehicle. Briefly, she wondered if Sam had taken care of that as well but recalled she had asked her attorney to donate her vehicle and Joel’s to a worthwhile charity.
Slamming the door as soon as he was inside, Sam spoke to their driver. “Get us out of here, and make sure we’re not followed.”
Tessa felt as though she were in another world, sort of like Alice in Wonderland, through the looking glass, this large vehicle her own personal rabbit hole, where everything was the same but somehow her perception of it was warped, almost freakish. She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping to dispel the distorted image.
“Where are you taking me first?” Tessa asked, realizing she had not bothered to ask exactly where she would go immediately upon her release. The words sounded false to her ears; she couldn’t even imagine what they sounded like to their driver and Sam. She had been told the process, but until she had actually walked out the prison door, she had resisted really taking in anything beyond getting out the door to the prison.
“You’re going home, Tessa,” Sam stated. “It’s what you agreed to. They”—he nodded toward the back window of the SUV—“won’t follow us all the way to San Maribel. Though I suspect we’ll have our share of media to deal with there, too.”
She nodded, admitting to herself that she had not thought that far ahead. It was her fear of her twin girls’ exposure to the jackals of the media that had sent her running to San Maribel all those years ago. And that fear had cost her everything she valued in life. She wouldn’t fear the media this time around. She might even find a way to use them to her advantage, but that was for a later time. When she had had a chance to think, time to plan how she was going to get at Liam Jamison, the son of a bitch.
“As soon as we get your ankle bracelet, you’ll have some time to yourself.”
Tessa inhaled and slowly exhaled. “At the sheriff’s office?” She knew this but wanted it confirmed.
“Yes, that, too, was part of the judge’s conditions for release,” Sam explained.
“I know, it just seems a bit, I
