by Jamie Canosa
The gun swung out over the audience as everyone settled low in their seats. Fi ducked her head, pulling her hood low. I crossed my fingers and prayed like hell Frank wouldn’t recognize her.
“You came here to learn the secrets to having a successful business. Let’s hear them.” Frank retrained his weapon on Fi’s father. “Tell them, Mr. Tanzen. Tell them what it really takes to achieve your level of success. Tell them how many lies you have to tell. How many corners you have to cut. How many regulations you have to ignore. How many agencies you have to pay-off. How many people you have to kill. People like my sister.”
Tanzen took a step back, raising his hands in surrender.
“Oh, no. The floor is yours,” Frank insisted. “Tell them about your plant in Little Falls. Tell them about the toxic chemicals you’ve been pumping into the ground water there. Tell them how many people you’ve poisoned. How many of them died so you could earn an extra buck. Tell. Them.”
“What?” Tanzen spoke to Frank, but pitched his voice loud enough for all to hear. “What do you want me to say? I’ll say whatever you want. Just let these people go. This has nothing to do with them.”
Sonovabitch, he was putting on a goddamn show even now. He’d say whatever Frank wanted to protect these people? Where the hell was that self-sacrificial nature when his daughter needed him? Bitterness coated my tongue, but I choked it down. That was between Fi and her father. I was here for another reason.
Concealed by the backdrop, I crept around the podium. The steady hum of the air vents filled the silence. Frank had already proven that the gun was loaded, which surprised me, but I was still fairly certain he didn’t plan to actually shoot anyone. Whatever happened, the entire world would see. A pair of tiny red lights glowed on the cameras, broadcasting his every move. It was only a matter of time before the cavalry arrived. I had to get the gun away from him before some trigger-happy ego-trip with a badge decided to make a name for himself.
“Tell them,” Frank rumbled.
“W-we do have a plant in Little Falls,” Tanzen hedged.
“One that produces semi-conductor computer chips?” Frank urged.
“I . . . I don’t . . .”
“One that contaminates the ground water supply with gallium arsenic?” Frank took one step closer. Still, not close enough.
There was no cover on the other side of that curtain, nowhere to hide. If he saw me coming all bets were off. I knew Frank better than anyone and even I couldn’t predict how he’d react to what he’d no doubt see as a betrayal. I needed him to come just a little closer.
Tanzen’s face paled. “Please. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Frank’s eyes bulged. A sure sign he was about to lose his shit.
“You lying . . .” Sure enough, he stormed toward the makeshift stage. “. . . murdering, son of a—”
I dove, colliding with Frank. There was a momentary flash of shock on his part. An instant where I regretted standing against him instead of beside him.
And then we both went for the gun.
Chapter 20
~Ophelia~
Sawyer!
He came out of nowhere, pouncing from behind the screen, tackling Frank to the floor. And now they both wrestled for control of a deadly weapon.
I shoved my way through the crowd while others fought uselessly to get to the emergency exits. Heads and arms and people trying to take pictures with their damn camera phones blocked my path. An elbow caught me in the ribs as I abandoned the clogged aisle to climb over a row of chairs.
I scaled row after row, losing one of Sawyer’s shoes along the way. Here and there, I caught flashes. Glimpses of Sawyer and Frank. Not enough to tell who had the upper hand, though.
The noise level in the room was deafening. My ears buzzed with people screaming and crying and shouting at one another. I called Sawyer’s name again and again as I clawed my way forward, but he couldn’t have heard me. All concerns of propriety abandoned, it was every man for himself.
“Move!” Someone shoved me from behind, sending me sprawling on the cool tile floor.
Lying flat on my belly, I watched beneath the chair ahead of me without breathing as Sawyer pried the weapon free of Frank’s grasp. Voices exploded all over again as uniformed men and women poured into the room and the gun went skidding across the floor.
“Sawyer!” I scrambled to my feet and practically hurdled the front row.
The police had pulled Frank off of him and were ordering Sawyer to his feet. Everyone was shouting, barking commands. Multiple guns were pointed at Frank. And Sawyer. I was terrified.
“Sawyer?”
“Fi.” His gaze darted over the weapons and he threw up a hand in my direction. “Stay back.”
For once I didn’t do as I was told, choosing instead to launch myself at him. I collided with his chest, forcing him back a step to steady us both, and his arms closed around me.
“Dammit, Sparrow.”
“Are you okay?” Day old scruff scraped against my palm as I cupped his bruised jaw. “Did you—?”
“Ophelia?” Oh, crap. My hands fisted in the front of Sawyer’s shirt and I froze. I hadn’t even considered what I’d say if my father saw me. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
What will everyone think? What will they say?
Would the police think I was involved? Wasn’t I? Was I about to be arrested?
Sawyer’s embrace tightened, anchoring me. “I brought her.”
Bushy brows lowered over my father’s eyes. “You?”
“No.” He couldn’t do this. If Sawyer said anymore . . . I shook my head, but he pointedly ignored me.
“I forced her to come. She had no choice.”
“You were in on this?” My father’s face always took on this redish tint when he got really angry. He was practically glowing now.
“No.” No, no, no. What was he doing? There were police everywhere and my father wasn’t a lenient man.
“You kidnapped my daughter?”
My heart seized. “Sawyer, no!”
“Yes, sir.” Sawyer’s eyes sank to mine and the fire in them . . . it had extinguished. “I did.”
“What are you waiting for?” My father motioned to the officers standing around watching as their colleagues escorted Frank, cursing and spitting, from the room. “Arrest him!”
“No. Daddy, you can’t do this.” The police fell on Sawyer as I pleaded with my father. “He saved your life.”
“And he kidnapped my daughter.”
“Daddy, please, he didn’t—”
“Fi.”
“He’s a good person. He didn’t do anything—”
“Fi.”
“Please, Daddy, don’t—”
“Sparrow.”
The room blurred as I whirled around. Sawyer was standing between two uniformed officers, his hands cuffed behind his back.
“It’s okay.” He forced a smile and it broke my heart to see him like that. “Everything will be okay. You can go home now.”
“No.” I stepped closer and the guards stiffened. “Sawyer . . .”
One of the officers tried to stop me, but I slapped his hand away and threw my arms around Sawyer’s neck. I felt his cheek press against the back of my head. The best he could manage given the circumstances. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not fair.” He’d been my shield, my protector, through all of this. Without him my father and I might not even be alive. And they were going to punish him for it?
“It is.” He spoke quietly, nuzzling the side of my neck. “You just tell them the truth. I mean it. About everything. I deserve whatever I get.”
“No.” Tears clogged my throat. “Sawyer, I lo—”
“Don’t say it.” His lips brushed against my ear and I squeezed my eyes shut. “You deserve so much better than me. It’s time to set yourself free, Sparrow. Go find your happiness.”
“Enough of this nonsense.” A hard hand closed around my upper a
rm and yanked me backward, sending me stumbling to my father’s side.
“Let’s go.” The officer tugged Sawyer from my frantic grasp and marched him toward the door.
“No, wait!”
My father’s grip tightened in warning, causing me to cry out.
“Fi?” Sawyer strained to see me until they led him around a corner and out of sight. “It’s okay, Fi. It’s okay.”
“Get off me!” I tore my arm from my father’s grasp. “How can you do this? He just saved your life. He saved—”
“You’re acting like a spoiled child,” he hissed, his gaze sliding over the sea of onlookers—business men and women, police officials, reporters, journalists, cameras . . . “They were monsters. How would it look if I did anything else?”
By the end of the hour we were going to be front page news if we weren’t already. No doubt live updates were going out on Twitter and Instagram as events unfolded. Nationwide headlines were coming our way. And that was all that mattered. It was all he cared about.
Reed Tanzen wasn’t fazed by a gun pointed in his direction. He hadn’t even hugged his daughter who’d been missing for nearly a week. He didn’t care what happened to me. Or to Sawyer. Or to anyone else.
Frank was right. “You’re the monster. Is it true? What Frank said? About his sister? About all those people? Did you kill them?”
“Pull yourself together this instant. I don’t know what ideas that low-life thug put in your head, but I will not have my daughter—”
My hand flew before I made the conscious decision to do so. The crack surprised me as much as the burning sensation in my palm. My father’s cheek sported an angry red print.
Cold, hard eyes glared daggers at me. “Get her out of here.”
I was shoved into the waiting hands of one of his many lackeys.
“No, please. Daddy, please don’t do this.”
“Now.”
Rough hands manhandled me toward the exit.
“Daddy. Daddy, please . . .”
“Mr. Tanzen? Mr. Tanzen? Care to make a statement?” My pleas were quickly drowned out by the flock of vultures descending with their cameras and recorders.
Chapter 21
~Ophelia~
Home, sweet home.
Polished floors and sterile surfaces. Furniture that looked beautiful, but felt like sitting on cement. Every knickknack selected by a personal shopper and aligned precisely to accentuate the décor. Each framed picture, perfectly staged, right down to the sparkling white smiles. I almost longed for a hard cot and itchy hay.
My room was the only place in the entire house I felt comfortable. I’d barely left it in the six weeks I’d been home. Wanting to ‘spare me the media circus’—after parading me in front of the cameras for a tearful welcome home announcement made by my mother—I’d been placed under house arrest until further notice. The school had been called and informed of my sabbatical. And I’d been told in no uncertain terms what walking out that front door meant for my future. Or lack thereof.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t really care one way or the other. Mom and Daddy had barely been home, ghosting in and out for an hour here or a meal there, but they never stuck around long. And I had nothing better to do.
Going back to school felt like an exhausting prospect. I floated from one day to the next feeling lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Shrink after shrink came to the house to check on me. I sat hour after hour on that hard sofa, staring off into space while they talked at me. I knew what my father was paying them for, but not one of them could change my mind about what I wanted.
Unfortunately, he didn’t want me. I’d written Sawyer three letters since his arrest. They all came back. Unopened.
Frank and Sawyer both pled guilty, so there was no trial, and I’d been barred from the sentencing. I didn’t know if that was my father or Sawyer’s doing, but I received word later. Frank got four years for kidnapping and extortion.
During my interrogation, I left out the part where he beat me. Yes, he hurt me, but he was hurting, too. In ways that I couldn’t imagine. Maybe I was stupid. Maybe I was a coward. Maybe I felt a sense of comradery with him through our shared distaste for my father. Whatever my reasoning, it kept the charge from becoming aggravated kidnapping, reducing his sentence considerably. The attempted murder charge they’d been toying with was dropped by the wayside in exchange for his plea, mainly because my father was willing to do anything to make it all go away quickly and quietly.
Sawyer’s remorse and his actions in bringing an end to the crime lent themselves to his three-year sentence with the possibility of parole in six months. Six months. He was confined to hell for six months. And he wouldn’t even read my letters.
I did find one way to occupy my considerable time, though. The minute I was released from the hospital after an overnight stay and a lot of awkward questions, I started poking around. At the office my father had top of the line security, but at home he had a laptop with Wi-Fi and passwords that took me less than two weeks to crack.
Since then, I’d poured through one document after the next. A lot of boring numbers and technical jargon I couldn’t understand for the life of me. In truth, I could have been staring right at the information I was looking for and never even known it.
Where I found my answers was buried deep in his inbox. The man was a techno-packrat. I don’t think he’d ever erased a single email ever. There were folders, upon folders, upon folders of them. Broken down by projects and individuals. It took days of reading and I was only a fraction of the way through when I came to one from a woman named Sheryl Linter.
She sent several over the span of what looked like eleven months. The first was a report stating the possibility of environmental contamination due to some procedures they were utilizing in production. Another was a technical analysis of the problem. There were several reports on the local impact—people getting sick, people dying. Only the last one received a response.
To: Sheryl Linter
From: Reed Tanzen
We must maintain schedule at all costs. Continue operations as normal.
I stared at those two simple sentences for over an hour. Short and to the point. The point being that they were to ‘continue operations’. Operations that were killing people. ‘At all costs’. Even the cost of human life. Of Frank’s sister’s life. In order to ‘maintain schedule’.
Epilogue
~Ophelia~
*8 Months Later*
“I can’t believe my roomie is a celebrity.”
“I’m not a celebrity.” I folded the shirt I was holding and tucked it into the suitcase sitting open on my dorm bed.
“You are famous, though. The whole freaking country knows who you are, and they either love you or they really, really hate you. I read an article online today that called you a cold-blooded, back-stabbing, money-grubbing—”
“I get it.” I’d heard it all before. I didn’t need the recap.
“I’m just saying, it’s obviously not true. I mean you can’t even afford to pay for next semester now that your parents have cut you off. Maybe turning your dad in wasn’t the best choice?”
There hadn’t been any choice involved. My father was a murderer. What else could I do? I went to the cyber department of the police force, gave them his computer and all the passwords. They printed up hard copies of the incriminating emails right along with the arrest warrants for him and several of his high ranking employees. Apparently Reed Tanzen wasn’t the only one to put profit before people.
“It was the right thing to do,” I mumbled to myself as I flipped the lid shut and leaned on it to zip the case.
I glanced around the bare dorm room and sighed. All of the posters had been removed, the papers and clothes packed away. It was the end of the spring semester. Time to move on. Start over. I had enough saved up to rent a cheap apartment downtown while I job hunted. It probably wouldn’t be the coming fall, but sooner or later I’d save up enough to finish my ed
ucation.
They say money can’t buy time. My father proved them wrong. Seven months later and he was still free on bail, going to work and ruling his empire while his lawyers stalled and negotiated on his behalf. I honestly wasn’t convinced he’d ever see the inside of a jail cell, but he’d washed his hands of me the moment he discovered who had turned him in. My trust drained, tuition disappeared. They wouldn’t even answer my calls. I was on my own, but really that was nothing new. The hollow place in my chest hadn’t been carved out by my parents. It was someone else who was missing.
“Hey, before you go . . .” Lisa sat cross-legged on her stripped mattress, waiting for her boyfriend of the week to give her a ride home. “There’s something I want you to listen to.”
I hefted the last suitcase onto the floor with a solid thud and groaned. “I really need to get going, Lis.”
“Just a second,” she pleaded. “I promise you won’t regret it. This guy is dreeeamy.”
My eyes rolled, but there was no denying her. “Alright, fine. One song.”
She bounced on the bed as she scrolled through titles on her iPod and then handed me the earbuds. I popped one in my ear and waited. The solo guitar intro was a nice change of pace from her usual ear splitting bass.
“He’s played the bar scene for years, but he’s starting to go mainstream now. Can’t really blame him. With a voice like that . . .”
Whatever else she said was lost because that’s when I heard it. The voice. His voice. I’d recognize it anywhere. I grabbed the other earbud and stuck it in my ear, focused solely on the song until the very last note faded away.
“Good, huh?” Lisa smirked up at me, completely unaware of the way my heart was slamming inside my chest.
“What’s his name?” My voice shook, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Not sure.” She frowned. “Not a whole lot is known about the guy. It’s part of the allure, I guess. He goes by Emerald.”
I choked and she gave me a strange look.
“The song is called Sparrow. He’s playing at Northern Lights downtown tonight. I don’t know—Hey, are you alright?”