* * * * *
As a bleak certainty of her own impending mortality filled her, Larissa wished every horrible, painful death upon her kidnapper. She wouldn’t survive to see him in prison but, if there were any justice, both her kidnapper and Sparrow would someday pay for what they’d done to her.
Her hands were cuffed before her, but the leather strap securing her to the chair prevented her from raising her hands high enough to remove the blindfold or gag. If she could somehow work the strap around so that the closure was in front, she might somehow unfasten it.
As she struggled to do this, soft footsteps crossed the room to halt before her. The sense of approaching doom was almost palpable in the air, and it triggered a staggering adrenal rush that made her entire body shake with uncontrollable shivers. She could almost feel the brooding malevolence of the unseen man before her. When he chuckled, the sound seemed to scour her soul. She sat frozen as he removed the gag and the blindfold. Expecting to behold Sparrow, a surge of confusion and semi-relief rushed through her as she blinked up at a stranger.
“Who are you?”
“What do you mean, my dear? I’m your loving husband.” His mouth twitched in appreciation of his own understated humor.
For a moment, she simply stared at him. Then recognition slammed into her and her heart stopped dead in her chest. When it resumed, it banged so hard against her rib cage that her vision blurred. “Sparrow.”
“I’m flattered you remember me. I certainly never forgot you.”
She stared at him, taking in the changes. He’d lost fat and gained muscle. He’d lost the huge beak of a nose and gained the semblance of a chin. His hair was darker now, too, but it was Sparrow, nonetheless. There’d always been something decidedly creepy about him, but now an aura of malice seemed to envelope him. He emanated evil the way a bonfire radiated heat.
“I knew you were behind this. And what are you talking about? You’re not my husband.” As a jittering terror raced up and down her spine, she looked frantically about the distinctly feminine room. “Whose house is this?”
He turned and strode away from her, saying over his shoulder, “This is my house.”
“Bullshit. How could you afford something like this?”
He removed a picture frame from the mantle above the fireplace and headed back toward her. “I’m now a business man, a very good one, if I do say so myself. And I am your husband,” he added, as he rejoined her. “Here’s the proof.”
Larissa stared in disbelief at the portrait. She immediately recognized the image of herself as one taken at a photography studio several years ago. She hadn’t even realized it was missing from her photo album. Sparrow had Photoshopped it together with the images of himself and two children.
“You son-of-a-bitch! That’s why he wouldn’t believe me.” And because she had absolutely nothing to lose, she added, “As if I’d ever be desperate enough to marry a pathetic loser like you.” Drawing back a fist, he clubbed her upside the head hard enough that her sight grayed momentarily. “You’re not going to get away with this. When I disappear, he’s going to report you to the police.”
“You’re forgetting that Mr. Special Forces kidnapped you — a crime punished even more severely than murder. He can’t say a word to anyone without fucking himself.”
Special Forces? Well, that certainly explained a lot. “Then, he’ll come back here and kill you.”
“Why would he do that? I paid him well.” As tears began trickling down her cheeks, a slow grin stretched across his face. “You fucked him, didn’t you?”
Feeling her cheeks flush, she scowled at him. “Go to hell.”
“Did you, or did you not, fuck him? As your husband, I have a right to know.”
“You’re not my husband!”
He barked a laugh. “You did fuck him. I can see it in your face.” He assumed an expression of tragic sobriety. “And still he refused to let you go. How that must have hurt.”
She dredged up what little saliva she could find and spat full into his face. “Fuck you!”
He calmly wiped away the spittle, then drew back a fist and punched her, snapping her head back and splitting open her lower lip. As the coppery taste of blood flooded her mouth, he grabbed a fistful of hair and wrenched her head straight back. Like a pair of gas flames, his eyes blazed with pure hatred and she could feel the rage humming through his body like electricity through a high-power line.
“You stupid cunt. You’re going to pay for everything you did to me.”
Stunned by the blow, she feebly tried to resist as he shoved the gag back into her bleeding mouth. Once fastened into place, he released the leather strap binding her to the chair, grabbed the handcuffs by the linking chain and yanked her to her feet.
Terror, rather than paralyzing her, stropped a sharper edge on her determination to survive. She had no idea where he intended to take her but, wherever it was, she wasn’t about to go meekly. As he dragged her across the room, she struggled and thrashed, hindered by her hobbled feet. She cracked a knee painfully against an end table, knocking it over. The trio of ceramic figurines that rested atop it shattered as they hit the floor.
When he elbowed open the French doors leading outside, she managed to wrest her arms free from his grasp and grabbed onto the doorframe with both hands. When he attempted to dislodge her, she lowered her head and butted him in the chest. He staggered back against the door, breaking out several of the mullions. As shattered glass tinkled to the concrete outside, he barked, “Cunt!” and punched her in the ribs, knocking the breath from her and breaking her grip on the doorframe.
As he dragged her along the concrete walkway rimming the swimming pool, Larissa looked at the sparking water and decided that if she were going to die, she’d die in a manner of her own choosing.
She’d drown them both.
She lunged, shoving Sparrow toward the water. His arms pinwheeled wildly as they both balanced precariously on the rim of the pool. Losing his battle against gravity, he clutched her as he toppled into the water. She landed on top of him, and the water closed over both their heads.
CHAPTER 19
Concealing her impatience, Patrol Officer Melanie Garrison waited while the doctor, a fresh-faced kid in a white coat, the obligatory stethoscope draped around his neck, finished suturing the three-inch gash in her arrestee’s forehead.
At the cubicle across from them, a group of doctors worked feverishly around a man who’d just arrived by ambulance. From their conversation, Melanie gathered the man was the victim of a heart attack. Surrounding them, computerized machines monitoring the patient’s vital statistics beeped out incomprehensible information on small, green screens.
She shifted her attention back to her perp. He’d been driving erratically, so she’d lit him up. He’d pulled over to the curb, and then, without even bothering to put the car in park, the fool had made a run for it. Amid the blaring of horns and squealing of tires, he’d sprinted across four lanes of heavy traffic, miraculously made it unscathed to the far side, and promptly tripped over the curb to pitch face-forward into a sign pole. It seemed like the perps got stupider with every year that passed.
Once they’d arrived at the hospital, he’d gotten combative, thereby adding the charge of resisting arrest to the charges of DUI, reckless driving, no insurance, and driving with a revoked license.
Still agitated, he rattled the two pairs of handcuffs that secured his arms to the side rails of the wheeled gurney. “Doc, you gonna keep me here, ain’tcha?”
The young doctor was intent upon his suturing. “Your X-rays came back normal, so that won’t be necessary.”
“If’n you don’ keep me here, this bitch gonna take me t’ jail.”
“Watch your mouth,” Melanie warned him, “or I’ll add on a few more charges to the ones you’ve already racked up. If you didn’t want to go to jail, you shouldn’t have been drunk behind the wheel of your car.”
Behind her, a feminine voice said, “Excuse me
, officer.”
Melanie turned to find a nurse garbed in brightly flowered medical scrubs standing before her. “Yes, ma’am, what can I do for you?”
The nurse motioned her off to the side and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Three men — who, incidentally, look like they might be gang members — arrived a while ago by ambulance. The big one’s up in orthopedics, having several broken limbs set.”
“Wha’s tha’?” slurred the drunk.
Melanie gave him a warning glance. “Shut up.”
Ignoring him, the nurse continued, “The other two — one of whom was treated for a dislocated shoulder, the other for a mild concussion — are in the waiting room. All three have multiple abrasions and contusions. They claim it was a single man wearing a ski mask who assaulted them and, if so, I hope never to meet him. But what concerns me is they claim the man had a woman tied up and gagged in the back of his van.”
“Tha’s bullshit,” mumbled the drunk.”
Melanie turned to him. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’m going to have the doctor sew it shut.” The drunk opened his mouth, Melanie glared at him, and he clamped it shut. She turned back to the nurse. “That is interesting. Doctor, would you be comfortable with me leaving you two alone for a few minutes?”
The young doctor glanced at the two sets of handcuffs securing the drunk to the gurney, and said, “Sure, go ahead. I’ll give a shout if I need you.”
In the waiting room, the two men regarded Melanie with trepidation when she took a seat in a molded-plastic chair directly across from them. Dressed in oversized tee shirts and homeboy jeans, they did indeed look like gang bangers. Skipping the preliminaries, she pulled out a pen and notepad. “I’m Officer Garrison. How’s your friend doing?”
The one with the long, unkempt afro had one shoulder immobilized in a sling. He shrugged the uninjured shoulder. “He gonna live.”
“Tell me about the man who had the woman tied up in his vehicle.”
The one with his hair drawn up into two puffballs had a long, narrow face that reminded her of Snoop Dogg. He shot his homey a decidedly hostile look. “I tole you to keep yo’ mouth shut.”
Ignoring him, the one with the afro eagerly recounted a story of how, when he and four friends had attempted to rescue a woman held captive in the back of a van, the vehicle’s presumed owner had unexpectedly returned and had single-handedly beaten them senseless. When Melanie arched her brows dubiously, he added, “It’s true, I swear.”
“How could one unarmed man beat up the five of you?”
The Snoop Dogg look-alike scowled. “Yo, the muh-fucker knew some fuckin’ kung-fu shit.”
“Kung-fu?”
“How else the muh-fucker gone give us a beat-down? He been done broke two o’ Malik’s legs, and one o’ his arms.”
“So I heard. What did the man look like?”
“How da fuck we know?” the Snoop Dogg look-alike snarled. “We done tole you he wearin’ a ski mask.”
“He a white man,” said the one with the afro, provoking another scowl from Snoop. “Tall. Pumped. The man be liftin’ some serious iron.”
“Like a body builder?”
“Yeah.”
“And the woman? What did she look like?”
“She white too. Black hair. Real pretty.”
“How tall was she?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. She layin’ down.”
Their story had the ring of truth to it, although she instinctively knew there was more to it than the men were telling. “I don’t suppose either of you got a license plate number? No? Okay, give me a description of the vehicle.”
She keyed her radio and identified herself. “I’d like to request that an APB be put on the following vehicle.”
CHAPTER 20
Although the sun had finally come out from behind the clouds, brightening the sky, it failed to lift Chase’s mood. The further he drove from Keswick’s estate, the bigger his regret grew. It slithered down his spine like a serpent, winding itself around his chest in a grip of iron. Despite everything, he shouldn’t have parted from Larissa on such angry terms. He couldn’t stop picturing her eyes, bleak and wounded as they’d gazed at him so accusingly. Those eyes would haunt him forever.
She’d done only what she’d felt necessary to escape. In the process, though, she’d unwittingly hurt him deeply. He’d allowed that pain to transmute into anger, and had said things he now deeply regretted. He should have apologized again — for everything — before delivering her to her husband, but he’d been too pig-headed to do so.
Worse, insidious doubt slowly began once again to worm its way into his consciousness. At first it was a mere tickle, just a vague twinge of uneasiness he couldn’t readily identify. Like a cancerous tumor, it steadily metastasized, growing from just a few cells into a definite mass.
Something about the entire fucking situation was awry. Why had Keswick wanted her blindfolded? It didn’t make any fucking sense, although at the time he’d been too agitated and in too much of a hurry to distance himself from the entire mess to realize it. Gagged he could understand, because there was no telling what Larissa might have said to embarrass and humiliate her husband.
As he battled the overwhelming sense of unease trying to strangle him, an unexpected new scenario struck him with the impact of a sledgehammer. Keswick might be her husband, but that didn’t necessarily mean Larissa was safe. After all, husbands often killed wives. Maybe she’d fled Keswick in fear for her life.
But if that were the case, why hadn’t she confided in him? Why had she denied being married?
He honestly didn’t believe Keswick would kill her. The man simply didn’t seem capable of murder. But as a child he’d seen his old man hit his mother many a time. And even though Keswick was clearly rolling in dough, if Larissa had disappeared with a hundred thousand dollars, he could very well be angry enough to hurt her.
He couldn’t simply leave with all these doubts and unanswered questions plaguing him. Making a wide U-turn in the next intersection, he headed back to the estate. He’d confront the two of them together and then they’d get to the truth of the matter.
* * * * *
The pool was shallower than Larissa had realized. Her feet immediately found the bottom and she surfaced, sputtering and choking on the chlorinated water that had flowed around the gag to fill her mouth.
Sparrow emerged nearby, his back to her. Raising her arms, she brought them down on either side of his head and yanked backwards, ignoring the burning scrape of the handcuffs as they dug in to her bruised flesh. As she throttled him, his hands scrabbled at the linking chain, his nails gouging her skin as he tried to wrench the cuffs away from his throat.
When she put her knees to his back and pulled harder, he toppled over backwards, shoving her under the water. They kicked and fought and grappled beneath the surface. Finally managing to wrench the chain away from his throat, he ducked out of her strangling embrace.
As he darted away, she headed in the opposite direction, toward the steps leading out of the pool. Just as she reached them, he wrapped one meaty forearm around her throat and squeezed, cutting off her air. With his free arm, he grasped the safety rail and dragged her up the stairs and away from the pool. As soon as he released her, he drew back a fist and delivered an uppercut to her solar plexus.
Her entire torso clenching in spasm, she dropped to hands and knees on the grass. As she desperately fought to suck a breath into uncooperative lungs, he grabbed the short expanse of rope spanning her ankles and began dragging her across the grounds. Temporarily incapacitated, she could do nothing to hinder him.
* * * * *
Chase pulled up at the estate to find the heavy, wrought-iron gate barring his way. He rang the buzzer several times, to no effect.
The foreboding that crouched on his chest like a predator was getting heavier by the second. He got the leather gloves from the glove compartment and pulled them on. After shoving the .45 into the small of his back,
he tucked the ski mask under his belt, then scaled the eight-foot-tall gate and took off at a sprint down the drive toward the house.
* * * * *
Larissa rolled and thrashed as, clutching the hobble that spanned her ankles, Sparrow dragged her across the grounds. In its last despairing extremity, her panicked mind clung to one desperate hope with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life preserver: None of this was really happening. It was simply a horrible dream, a nightmare from which she’d soon awaken.
But as she clawed at the manicured lawn, the pain of acrylic nails snapping off was all too real. This was not a bad dream, it was a bad reality, something from which she couldn’t possibly awaken.
Dragging her through the door of a building that appeared to be a guesthouse, Sparrow released the hobble, then closed and locked the door behind them. As she struggled to a sitting position, he waved an expansive hand about the room. “Welcome to my playroom. You and I are going to have so much fun.” He bent down to remove the gag as she huddled at his feet dripping water onto the linoleum. She accepted that she was going to die but — no matter what he did to her — she would not give him the pleasure of hearing her plead for her life.
When he took a step back, she looked about the room. There was a moment of bewildered incomprehension before horror exploded within her. Imitation black leather over thick, tufted padding soundproofed the walls of a room dominated by a huge wooden cross with ropes dangling from the crosspieces. An assortment of whips and paddles hung on one section of wall. In one corner, chains dangled from the ceiling. Black leather padded the crossbeam of a carpenter’s horse while chains attached leather cuffs to its wooden legs. There were several other pieces of padded, leather-covered equipment, the purposes for which was better left unknown.
On a nearby table, her eyes registered a revolver, several scalpels, a pair of pliers, and an assortment of other items, but it was the small butane blowtorch that captured her attention. In her head, a newsreel of horror began playing, a newsreel that vaporized the last vestiges of courage.
The Heart Has Reasons Page 21