“Sparrow, for god’s sake, please don’t do this. I’m so very sorry I shot you. I’ll find some way to make everything up to you, I promise. Ple-e-ease don’t do this.”
Thin lips compressed into a demonic smile. “The sound of you begging is music to my ears. You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this day. That idiot doctor didn’t have any anesthesia at his house. I was wide-awake when he dug the bullets out. The pain was unimaginable, but it wasn’t nothin’ compared to the pain I’m gonna give you. Before I’m finished, you’ll be begging for death.”
Dripping water across the linoleum, he strode to the table where his instruments of torture sat. Everything within her contracted into a single, cold ball of gut-wrenching terror as he reached toward the blowtorch. When he picked up the revolver instead, she nearly fainted from relief.
He brandished the weapon. “Get up and walk over to the cross.”
Once tied to it, she’d be defenseless. Her eyes flicked involuntarily to the blowtorch and she shivered violently. “No.”
He leveled the revolver at her head. “Stand up or I’ll kill you.”
Dying of a gunshot wound would be quicker and infinitely less painful than anything else he had planned. “Go ahead and shoot me, asshole.”
He glared her with a malignant fury that would have given nightmares to the devil himself. “Get up, cunt!”
“Fuck you!” she shouted back. “You pathetic loser, you don’t have the balls to shoot me!”
Under the surface, his rage hummed like a power line that she would dare of offer any resistance, and he stomped toward her. There was a foot-and-a-half of slack in the hobble. As he neared, she kicked her feet out to either side of his ankles, tucked her arms and rolled across the wet linoleum. His feet shot out from under him and the revolver went skittering away as he slammed into the floor. Untangling the hobble from his ankles, she spun around on her bottom and gave him a two-footed kick to the face.
Scrambling away from her, he heaved himself to his feet. “You fucking cunt.” He raised a tentative hand to his bleeding nose and, seeing the blood on his fingertips, a dark flush suffused his face. “You’re going to pay for that, too.”
When his foot slammed into her stomach, she caved in on herself, unable to breathe. Dropping to one knee beside her, he drew back a fist. She saw the blow coming but, still huddled around the pain, was unable to react. As the fist smashed into her cheek, her head hit the floor with a hollow thunk that sent shockwaves reverberating down her spine. Darkness edged her vision while a sound like distant foghorns sounded in her ears. Panting in shallow gasps, she fought desperately to remain conscious.
Sparrow stood and headed toward the dropped revolver. Larissa managed to wedge an elbow under herself and lurched drunkenly to her feet. Spotting movement behind him, he spun around and darted toward her, the revolver forgotten for the moment. As he reached out to grab her, she thrust her handcuffed hands up at him, giving him a double-handed heel strike to the chin. His head snapped back and he staggered backwards, colliding with the table.
Head thundering in time to her pulse, she spun and shuffled for the door as fast as the hobble would allow. As she wrenched the door open, his hand grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her back. She drew in a deep breath and screamed.
* * * * *
Chase found the front door locked and there was no answer when he rang the doorbell. He circled around the side of the house, peering in windows and checking doors.
As he rounded the corner at the rear of the house, he saw that the concrete surrounding the pool was wet, as if someone had taken a swim. Ahead of him, sunlight glittered on the shattered remains of several small panes of glass. The French doors stood wide open and, inside, an end table was overturned amidst the scattered shards of broken figurines.
Oh, Jesus, what the fuck had happened? And where the hell was Larissa?
Broken glass crunched under his feet as he stepped through the doors. At that instant, from somewhere on the grounds behind him, Larissa screamed. The sound of her pain and terror yanked despair from the depths of his soul such as he’d never known. With a sudden horrific clarity, he realized she’d been telling the truth all along, and — fucking idiot that he was — he’d refused to believe.
Yanking the .45 from the small of his back, he raced in the direction from which her scream had come, praying he wasn’t too late.
* * * * *
Sparrow kicked the door shut and punched her again, catching her full in one eye. She hit the linoleum with numbing impact as an entire constellation of stars went supernova in her head.
As he dragged her across the room toward the cross, she recovered enough to swing her legs around and hook them behind his ankles, tripping him. He landed on top of her, making the air whoosh from her lungs.
With a cry of “Cunt!” he rose up on his knees and drew back to punch her again. She threw herself backwards and his fist swung through empty air.
He heaved himself back to his feet and caught the hair on the crown of her head, close to the scalp. Crying out, she reached handcuffed arms up to grab his wrist with both hands, trying to ease the brutal grip. Knotting his fingers tighter, he hauled her to her feet.
With a loud splintering of wood, the door exploded inward and crashed into the wall. When Sparrow released his grip on her hair, Larissa dropped to her knees and stared, disbelieving. As magnificent as an avenging angel, her kidnapper stood in the doorway in a shooter’s stance, his .45 leveled at Sparrow. Nudging the door closed with one foot, his voice was low with a barely leashed fury. “You cocksucker. I didn’t drive Larissa clear across country so you could beat her.”
“Kill him!” she shouted.
Sparrow took a step back, hands raised in placation. “And I didn’t pay you good money to fuck my wife.”
“I’m not his wife!”
Behind his façade of confidence, a miasma of rage and fear emanated from Sparrow. “This is between me and Larissa. I paid you good money to deliver her, and what happens now ain’t your concern. Get the fuck out.”
Tucking the .45 into the small of his back, her kidnapper started across the room. “Before I leave we’re going to get to the bottom of a few things. But first, you’re going to pay for hurting her.”
Sparrow was a sudden blur of motion at the edge of her sight as he threw himself across the floor. Recalling the dropped revolver, her resulting surge of fresh terror made time suddenly slip into slow motion.
Sparrow was still moving, lunging toward the revolver, but falling more slowly than seemed possible. All sound seemed to have vanished, except for the thump … thump … thump of her heartbeat reverberating in her head as Sparrow slid across the linoleum. When she shouted at her kidnapper, “He has a gun!” her voice sounded muffled, as if she were still at the bottom of the swimming pool under several feet of water. Continuing to move in slow motion, Sparrow’s hand closed around the revolver, and then he was rolling over, swinging the weapon up and around. Larissa’s feet slid on the wet floor in a seeming leisurely motion as she frantically tried to scramble back, out of the line of fire.
As Sparrow’s index finger tightened on the trigger, she screamed, “No-o-o-o-o!”
CHAPTER 21
As the deafening report reverberated through Larissa’s head, the passage of time suddenly returned to normal. The bullet’s impact flung Sparrow backwards across the floor in an awkward sprawl, a gaping hole in his chest. A strangled gurgle came from him and, with one last shuddering breath, he stilled.
Weak with blessed relief, Larissa collapsed bonelessly to the floor. With the room smelling of hot steel, her kidnapper started across the room to her.
She pointed a frantic finger at Sparrow. “Make sure he’s really dead!”
He paused, bending over Sparrow to palpate his neck for a pulse. “He’s dead.” He came over to kneel beside her. “Ah, Jesus, Larissa. Are you okay?”
Trembling and queasy, she took a moment to assess her physical conditi
on, then nodded. “I am now.”
Bending down to frame her face with his fingers, he peered at an eye already starting to swell shut. Voice thick with bitter self-recrimination, he uttered in a near whisper, “Oh, fuck. He really beat the shit out of you.”
“I tried to tell you! This is Sparrow, the man I shot in my apartment.”
Frowning, he turned to gaze down at the body. “But he doesn’t look anything like the description you gave.”
“I know. I almost didn’t recognize him myself. He’s had plastic surgery to alter his face, lost weight, and dyed his hair darker. And it looks like he’s pumped himself up on steroids.”
With the hem of his tee shirt, he wiped blood from her split lip. “So … everything you told me was true?”
“Every freaking word!”
“Ah, Jesus, Larissa. I’m so extremely sorry I didn’t believe you. He told me you were his wife. He even showed me a picture of the two of you, with two kids he claimed were yours.” He added in a ragged whisper, “I can’t believe what a fucking idiot I was.”
“He showed me the picture, too. I have to admit, it was pretty convincing.” She expelled a breath. “Now, take these handcuffs off me.”
He quickly did so, then removed the hobble from her ankles, and pulled her to her feet. After raking clumped strands of wet hair from her face, she drew back and threw a punch that snapped his head to the side. “That’s for giving me to him while I was handcuffed and hobbled, you stupid fucking asshole!” she screamed. “I couldn’t even defend myself!”
“I know,” he said, rubbing his jaw through the ski mask, “and I’m so very sorry.”
“Fuck sorry! And fuck you too!” Unimpressed by his newfound contrition, she drew back and swung a second time. He clearly saw the punch coming, but again made no move to block it. “Goddamn you! You nearly got me killed!”
He tugged the ski mask back into place. “Hit me again if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you fucking asshole!” She shook some of the pain out of her hand before giving him a roundhouse kick to the ribs.
He grimaced and uttered a pained “Uhmpf!” as it connected, then simply stood there, arms hanging at his sides, looking wretchedly aggrieved.
Something inside her suddenly loosened, allowing relief to flood through her with the force of a tsunami, washing away all her anger. Her throat was suddenly tight and achy, and the tears that pooled in her eyes blurred his ski-masked face. When they began to stream down her cheeks, he held out his arms to her. After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped into them, pressing her face to his chest as he wrapped comforting arms around her. “Don’t cry, Larissa. It’s over now.”
It truly was over. Sparrow was dead. She need never again live in fear of him. The overwhelming relief released a torrent of hot tears that soaked into his shirt as she pressed her face to his chest. “Thank you for coming back.”
“Why were you two in the pool?”
“I knocked him in and tried to drown him.”
He uttered a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “That’s what I love about you,” he murmured into her wet hair. “You never, ever, give up.”
What he loved about her?
He let her cry for a few minutes, then gently lifted her chin to gaze down into her eyes. “Larissa, we need to clean this place up and get the hell out of here.”
When she pulled away from him, his damp tee shirt was spotted with smears of her blood. She probed her teeth with her tongue, checking to see if any were loose or missing, then turned, and spat the taste of blood from her mouth onto Sparrow’s face.
“Shit! You just spat your DNA on him.”
She shrugged, then grimaced at the pain the movement caused. “It doesn’t matter. I have to stay here and call the police. By now the police in Charleston will know I’m missing, and when the police here investigate his death, they’ll eventually learn of my history with him. Don’t worry, though. I’ll tell them Sparrow kidnapped me, and brought me here.”
He shook his head. “This guy was clearly not stupid. He’ll have made sure lots of people saw him in the past few days.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Then I’ll give them a fake description of my kidnapper.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you came back for me.”
He nodded, but she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “In that case, what happened once we arrived?”
She was quiet for a moment, trying to think, but her mind was blank in the aftermath of terror. She leaned her head wearily against his chest. “I don’t know. My head’s pounding so hard I can barely think.”
“What if he refused to pay me, and we got into a heated argument? You took advantage of the situation to run out the door and hide. You heard a gunshot, then saw me leave. Not knowing Sparrow was dead, you stayed hidden for a while, which gives me time to get away. Finally, you came back in, found the body, and called the police.”
She briefly considered it. “No. Then the police will be looking for a murdering kidnapper. Besides, how would I explain the evidence of a struggle in the house? I’ll claim that after you left, Sparrow and I were struggling, and I managed to grab his weapon and shot him in self-defense.”
He shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“I’ve had two years of martial arts training, and the police will have no way of knowing that I was still handcuffed and hobbled when Sparrow was shot.”
“Larissa, I cannot allow you do that.”
“Not only did he attack me once before, he’s beaten the hell out of me. It was clearly a case of self-defense. Plus, when the police see this chamber of horrors, I guarantee they won’t charge me with anything.”
He gazed about the room, taking in the soundproofing on the walls, the instruments of torture, and the wooden cross for the first time. Tears welled up to sparkle in his eyes and when he spoke, anguish choked his voice. “Oh, fuck. Please believe me, Larissa. If I’d even suspected, I never would’ve brought you here.”
“You fucking moron,” she mumbled, not putting much emotion behind it. “I told you. Repeatedly.”
“I know, and I’m so very sorry for not believing you.” He unashamedly wiped tears from his eyes, then gently pulled her into his arms again and held her cradled against his chest. “I can’t allow you take the blame for something I did.”
“It’s my choice, and I’m telling them I shot him.”
He leaned back slightly to gaze down at her and, seeing her resolve, released a resigned sigh. “You’d have to be quite an accomplished liar to maintain your story under the extensive questioning they’re sure to put you through. Somehow, I doubt you are.”
Actually, she was terrible at lying, but this wasn’t the time for such an admission. “They’ll have no reason to doubt me.”
“They will if they check you for gunshot residue.”
Well, crap. She leaned her head against his chest, thinking. “Is your gun registered to you?”
“There’s nothing to connect it to me except the fingerprints on it.”
“Then clean them off.”
When he reluctantly released her, she moved over to perch on the edge of the table. Trying to ignore the blowtorch sitting there beside her, she watched as he ejected the magazine and emptied the rounds. After he’d wiped everything clean, he reloaded the magazine. Kneeling beside the body, he pressed the magazine and the weapon to the lifeless fingers of both of Sparrow’s hands.
When he slapped the magazine back into the weapon, she heaved herself off the table and extended her hand. “Give it to me.”
He hesitated, clearly nervous about handing her a loaded weapon. Finally, he heaved a resigned sigh and handed it over. The weapon was similar to, but larger and heavier than the 9mm to which she was accustomed. His eyes widened and he twitched as she racked the slide.
She stared at him, chest heaving. She should shoot him. Not to kill him, of course. Just
to wound him. The asshole deserved it for all he’d put her through. Straightening her arm, she fired a single round, the heavy recoil jarring up her arm. The report was as loud as a thunderclap, and continued to reverberate through her brain for several seconds.
Completely impassive, she gazed down at the second hole in Sparrow’s chest. “Now there’s gunshot residue on my hands.” Uncocking the hammer, she lowered the .45 to her side.
“Now let’s work out the details of your story. During interrogation, always stick to the truth as much as possible, altering only the details that must be kept confidential. That way there’s less chance of slipping up in the minor aspects of your story. So, keeping that in mind, pretend I’m the police and tell me exactly what happened.”
She gazed at him, thinking. “Sparrow pointed the gun at me and ordered me to stand in front of the cross. I refused, and dared him to shoot me. Realizing I wasn’t going to cooperate, he came toward me and I kicked the gun out of his hand. I dove for it, grabbed it, and shot him.”
“Where was he at the time?”
“Standing right there,” she said, pointing.
He shook his head grimly. “They’ll be able to tell by the trajectory he wasn’t standing when either one of the shots were fired.”
She thought for a moment. “Okay, I kicked the gun out of his hand and he dove for it. I kicked him aside, grabbed it, and shot him while he was still on the floor, trying to rise.”
“And the second shot?”
“I shot him again, just to be safe. In the movies, they never check, and the monster’s never truly dead.”
He nodded. “Yeah, they’ll buy that. Let’s act it out. I’ll be Keswick … or, rather, Sparrow.”
“I know what to say.”
“It has to be absolutely clear in your mind when they question you, otherwise you’ll trip up on some minor detail.”
The Heart Has Reasons Page 22