I wasn’t proud of it, of course I wasn’t. Maria was twice my age, and regardless, the word “bitch” wasn’t really my style. I was more into the “fuck” business. But I’d lost it. Officially and genuinely lost my shit.
“You no see my Catalina anymore?” She blinked fast, checking me out from underneath her lashes.
Was this blackmail? Was my housekeeper extorting me so I would dump her daughter?
“I haven’t seen her in months. It’s over. Maria. Look, please…” I tried another tactic, pressing my palms together. Hell, I would have gotten down on my knees if I thought it would help. “Tell me anything. Tell me. I need to know where he is. Please. Just…please.”
She looked left and right, ashamed and anxious. Finally, a fucking breakthrough. She was going to give me something. Something was better than nothing. At this point, I would take anything.
“He came on Saturday to home…” She cleared her throat, coughing a little. “My home. He taking the thing.” She started making digging movements with her hands. “Then leave.”
“The what? The what? The shovel? Did he take a shovel?”
She stared at me helplessly, unblinking. I fished my phone out of my pocket, the battery almost dead, and punched the word shovel into the search engine. I thrust the picture in her face.
“Is this what he took? That’s what he left with?”
She nodded slowly, gulping. “This,” she confirmed.
Fuck.
He took her to the woods. More than likely, to the place where I buried any chance of us ever making it as a couple. He took her to the woods, and I knew exactly where, because it was the last place I wanted her to be. Because it was the place that’d hurt her the most.
I stalked out of the guest room, praying that detective Fuck Face hadn’t left the building yet. He hadn’t. He was still in my living room, his arms crossed over his chest, planted on my sofa like a punished kid. Goddamn. This was a guy in charge of finding potential criminals and murderers? No wonder I was still on the loose.
“Can you spare me five minutes?” he asked, darting up and moving in my direction.
I nodded, passing by him as I headed straight for the door. “I can give you even more, but I need your car, and I need it now.”
SPARROW
“ALL DONE.” BROCK stood up and wiped off the coat of sweat on his forehead.
He’d taken over digging the grave two hours or so ago. Finally, he’d realized I was in no shape to do it myself, especially if he wanted that hole deep enough for my body before Thanksgiving.
He’d also found the damn white sheet, throwing it my way, victory printed all over his disgusting face. It wasn’t so white anymore, but it was there.
I tried to smell the sheet, browned by dirt and mud, desperate to feel her, to connect to something that might have still been there. But I couldn’t. All I felt was disappointment. Disappointment in my mom, in my husband.
“Why are you doing this?” I howled.
Brock was leaning against a tall tree, pulling at his brown hair, on edge. Well, he was about to take a life. My life. He was looking down at me while I was sitting on the ground. My forehead had stopped bleeding, the blood gluing my hair to my skin, and my foot throbbed like it was being slowly cut off with a chainsaw. It wasn’t my best moment to say the least.
“I get that you hate Troy. I get that you loath the Brennans. But why do you feel the urge to hurt me?”
“I’m not sure.” He pinched his eyebrows, actually giving it thought. “Maybe it’s just my fragile ego, you know? I’m better looking, certainly nicer than Troy Brennan. Yet he always gets the chicks, doesn’t he?” He snorted. “Yeah, that’s it. Maybe I’m just bitter about you being so obviously blind to what he is and what I am.”
“You’re both as bad as each other,” I shot. “Both monsters from hell.”
But even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. Because after all the secrets were out, after knowing what Troy did to my mother and what went down, I still couldn’t hate him as much as I hated Brock. Troy wasn’t malicious. Or maybe he was, but not toward me. Brock, on the other hand…he had every chance to stop the blood bath and everything that had happened, at least most of it, but he kept the freak show running.
“Aw…” He put his hand over his heart. “Now that’s just straight out insulting. Any other last words, Mrs. Brennan?”
“Yeah,” I said, letting go of the white sheet and watching it drop back to the ground. “There’s someone behind you.”
Brock pivoted to see who was coming, He gasped when Troy’s panting figure sliced through the tall bushes like a storm.
He pointed his gun to Brock’s head and shouted, “Don’t shoot her!”
Brock dropped his gun, his mouth hanging open and realization washing over his face. It was over for him.
“Don’t do this,” Troy shouted again.
I was confused. What? Brock wasn’t holding the gun anymore.
“You devil,” Brock whispered, the accusation directed at my husband. “I’ll save you a place in hell.”
“Don’t wait up.” Troy’s voice dropped considerably. “I’ll be late.”
Then, with a smile, Troy produced a panicked scream. “I said drop the gun now!”
A shot rang through the air. Brock fell to the ground, his body hitting with a thud that echoed between the towering trees. My head shot up. Still shaking, everything shaking, I gaped at his prone body next to me. Horror etched his face. I saw the surprise in his eyes as the dark red stain of blood bloomed on his mouse-gray jacket, spreading like an oil spill with every second that passed.
Too stunned and weak to try and get up, I lay there near the hole he dug for me.
Next thing, I saw Troy’s shoes as he stopped inches from my face. Relief washed over me. I sobbed, releasing every single tear I’d been holding all day. He was here. Troy was here, and all of a sudden, everything was okay. Despite what I knew, what I didn’t want to know, despite my life with him being over, it was okay. I knew I’d be okay.
I was so tired of being strong. Being taken care of, even by him, was a concession I was glad to make.
“Sorry, Red.” He picked up Brock’s gun with a handkerchief and walked to where Brock had been standing before the bullet hit him. “I promise I won’t even graze your ear.”
Then he shot me.
Troy Brennan, my husband, shot me.
He missed my ear by an inch, but I still felt the heat radiating from the bullet as it flew next to me. The scent of gunpowder burned my nostrils, and my eyes rolled back in their sockets.
I lost it for a moment, barely noticing Troy’s arms closing around me. The next thing I knew he was picking me up. He carried me like an altar boy, and I was his cross. Swinging my arms over his neck, hugging me tight like I could evaporate at any moment.
I clung to my mother’s white sheet and sobbed. I don’t think he noticed the sheet. I’m not even sure that I noticed what I was doing at this point. So much had happened so fast, it was almost like I was an outsider peeking into a reality that wasn’t really mine.
A second person ran through the trees in our direction. A small man with utilitarian clothes and sharp nose. A cop. He hurried toward Brock’s body and felt for a pulse.
I was still woozy and incoherent, but I noticed Brock’s gun was back in his hand.
My husband, ever the fixer.
“You shot him?” he roared at Troy.
Troy’s arms tightened around my body protectively. It started to hurt. So did my forehead and foot. Everything hurt. Everything felt broken. Especially my heart.
“Self defense,” Troy said, and I felt him through my shoulder pointing his chin at Brock. “He shot my wife, missed only by a few inches, and he was going to try again.”
Not true. Brock never did any such thing. Troy was the one who shot him, and Troy was the one who used Brock’s gun. Of course, I didn’t utter a word to the cop. I let Troy carry me to a black SUV I didn’t recognize, my arms flailing like they were no longer part of my body. I released my hold on the sheet, but he bent down, picked it up and flung it over his shoulder. He knew I knew, and somehow, that made me even sadder.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Red.” He kept on repeating it, more to himself than to me.
“I know everything,” I whispered into his chest. “How could you have done that to my mom? How could they have done this to us?”
His muscles tensed around my body. Chest, biceps and even his fingers stiffened.
“Sparrow—”
I fainted the second he placed me on the seat, and for the first time since everything happened, I truly didn’t give a damn if I woke up or not. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Nothing.
I didn’t come to until I was at the hospital, and even then, everything was a blur. The first few minutes, I thought I was still in the woods, still with Brock, or even worse, dead. Then I felt the needle in my wrist and the scent of antiseptic and anesthetics attacked my nose. Blinking slowly, trying to gain some control over my vision, I saw a hazy figure sitting by my bed. I realized it was Pops, his head between his hands. His body shook, and I figured he was crying.
Lucy perched on the window sill, looking out, but mostly looking worried.