Sparrow(77)

My fist on tightened on my list. I took out a pen and smoothed the paper on my knee. I crossed out the last question with a strikethrough and adding the missing name.



1 – Billy Crupti

2 – Father McGregor

3 – The * who hired Billy?

3– Brock Kavanagh



Excusing myself, I nodded politely to the two men as I stood up, buttoning my suit jacket and walking out of the church in the middle of the service. People frowned and followed me with their eyes as I strode to the wooden double doors and disappeared between them, heading to my car.

After I fired up the engine, I dialed Brock’s number. He didn’t pick up.

Somehow, that didn’t surprise me.

I tried Red right after. The last thing I wanted was for her to somehow fall into his clutches. She didn’t answer either.

I tried her again, and again, unsettling tension gripping me by the balls. My throat burned, and heat spread in my stomach. She was supposed to be home, or at the very least, available to take a call. She didn’t have a shift that day, was supposed to come back from her morning run and if she wasn’t home, she should have been with Lucy, Daisy or her dad.

Her dad was at the funeral. It left me with two more sensible, reasonable options.

Cursing Brock under my breath, I managed to get her friends’ numbers and call them. Daisy said she hadn’t heard from her in two days and Lucy claimed Sparrow had texted her before her morning run. They planned to hang out later. Sparrow never showed up at their usual spot.

Don’t f*cking panic.

I called Maria, and gathered from her broken English that Sparrow wasn’t home. Feeling the blood freezing in my veins, I quickly used the GPS app I’d installed on my wife’s phone when I snatched her, before we even got married. The location finder showed she was in central Boston.

Phew.

Fucking Red had me thinking irrationally. I was going to yell my lungs out when I got to her for pulling this kind of shit.

Once I got to the location, I called her number again and again, trying to reach her. I called maybe thirty times before I heard the faint sound of a ringtone and found her cell in a dumpster among cardboard, junk food leftovers and cigarette butts.

Desperation and distress coursed through my veins. I kicked the dumpster so hard, I left a dent.

“Fuck, f*ck, f*ck!” I yelled, not caring about people around me watching my very public meltdown.

She hadn’t run away. Wouldn’t run away. I knew my lovebird—she was the fighting kind. The only running she’d ever do was to get her cardio fix.

No, this was not her trying to break free. This was him trying to get even.

It was the moment I realized that, for the first time, Brock was one step ahead of me.

And it was also the moment I knew that I would burn down the city and stop at nothing to find my wife. Not because she was mine, I never believed that for a second, anyway.

Because I was so busy telling Sparrow how much she wanted me, I forgot a small little detail—I wanted her back. More.





SPARROW


EXT. WILD FOREST – DAY




THIS WAS IT. The end. The final scene in my very short script.

Brock unbuckled his safety belt and tossed two pieces of gum in his mouth. “Have you ever wondered how come you had so little sexual experience before you met Troy?”

“Wh-what?” I stuttered. I had no idea what he was talking about. I couldn’t feel my legs, and it was scaring the hell out of me.

He slammed his fist on the horn, and my heart jumped. Jesus.

When my head smacked the car roof, he let out a frantic laugh. “I asked if you ever wondered why guys stayed away from you before you married Troy.”

The question made no sense, but then Brock kidnapping me made no sense either. At least the longer we were talking, the more time I bought. There was then more chance that Troy would find out I never made it home and come looking for me. Although, I knew that there wasn’t much hope he’d find me. We were in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t have my phone on me. Brock, on the other hand, had a loaded gun. The odds were not in my favor.

“Yes,” I answered, finally. “Yes, I have wondered.”

“Well…” Brock leaned into his seat with a smug expression, like we were gossiping. “That’s because Troy threatened all of ’em. Every single guy who ever got slightly close to you or showed interest. He knew you were going to be his before you even hit puberty. Kept you a virgin all this time so he’d be the one to pop your cherry.”

“I didn’t know that.” I swallowed loudly, trying to look upset. In another lifetime, I’d be eager to ask more, but even though the revelation was shocking (if it were even true), I didn’t care about Troy’s manipulative ways right now.

“That was the point.” Brock laughed harder and pulled the empty syringes from my thighs.

At least I was able to feel my feet again.

He pushed his door open and walked around the car to open my door for me. Forever the gentleman. “He was a black shadow over your little head all this time. Guys wouldn’t even breath in your direction, they were so scared of Troy. Get out.”

I stumbled out of the car and fell headfirst. I watched as he pulled a shovel from the trunk, holding his pistol in the other hand. He carried the shovel and yanked me up from the mud by my arm, then spun me so that I had my back to him, just like before. Shoving the gun between my shoulder blades, he nudged me through a trail of long, half-naked trees. A thick carpet of red and orange leaves crunched under my dragging feet. The forest was beautiful, but the ugliest thing imaginable was about to happen to me.