The Heart Has Reasons (31 page)

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
every
thing — 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.

 “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.