Sweet Revenge

“Why are you offering this to me?” I asked. “What makes me so special?”

Taylor smiled. “Anyone can see you are special. You deserve this and I’m going to help you get it.”

It was then that an idea began to form in my mind. I would wait just a little while until Ted assumed that his plan worked and I was dead. And then I could have had the police arrest him for attempted murder and get my kids back. After the procedure was done I would be able to return to public life and move this whole chapter behind me.

However, nothing is ever as simple as first planned.

Chapter Twenty

Ted

Three Years Later

I revved up the engine on the bike and it exploded like a thing of beauty with speed as it roared down the highway. The sun was shining brightly on my shoulders, the warmth of southern California was snuggling my body softly, and I felt like I was on top of the world. It was a great feeling, and one I had become accustomed to. It was enough to make you nostalgic, and it often did. I often thought back to times when I was struggling and looking at an uncertain future, but now I was the head of a few large corporations and there was absolutely nothing out of my reach.

Everything had worked out perfectly.

I pulled the bike into the large office building in front of me. I was there to have a business meeting with Jay Polling, the owner of the San Diego Padres. I had become very interested recently in buying the team and I was prepared to pay a hefty price. It had always been a dream of mine to one day own a baseball team. And now it looked like that dream was about to become a reality.

Parking the bike, I got out and walked across the parking lot. Along the way I smiled at a couple beautiful ladies who were walking by. They both kind of looked like the hot blonde I’d picked up at the club the night before. That woman was almost as insatiable in bed as I was. She’d almost worn me out.

I laughed about it then, knowing that I never had to call her again. And she’d probably be fine with it. When you had the kind of money I did now, love was not something you even thought about. Or maybe it was just me? I didn’t think so though. Most of the rich friends I’d made since becoming the sole owner of Daniels Cosmetics, as well as the owner and founder of Ridgeway MotoSports felt the same way I did. When you had that much money, you really didn’t have any room in your life for love.

After I was inside the building, I walked through the lobby to the elevator and selected the top floor. I was ten minutes late, but with what I was preparing to pay they knew better than to try to weasel me around. They would wait for me until I was ready.

If only Leia could see me now…

Yes, Leia… my departed wife. It was weird that occasionally I did miss the bitch, but then I reminded myself of how sweet everything was with her gone and it always put a smile on my face. I’d been a bit nervous for a few months after the fire though. The cops never could find her body and she never turned up anywhere. It was basically assumed that she’d set the fire and faked her own death. It was not exactly unheard of for people in her position to become overwhelmed by their wealth and responsibility and to just disappear. The cops figured she’d turn up somewhere, but when someone with her kind of money wanted to disappear, it was easy for them to do so.

That explanation worked fine for me because it got me off the hook as a suspect, and it meant the cops were not really looking for Leia anymore.

Now, as for what really happened to my dearly departed wife… I had no clue. But it had been three years. The nearest I could figure was that she somehow made her way out of the house and survived long enough to get off the property. She either went deep into the woods and was eaten by critters or predators, most likely a mountain lion or a coyote, or she made it far enough for some random passerby to find her and died shortly later. She’d never had her DNA sampled before, as far as I knew. Hell, she probably had never even been fingerprinted. Even if they could get something from her mangled and charred body it probably wouldn’t have turned up anything.

If she was alive my ass would have been in a bit of a sling.