She looked left and right, ashamed and anxious. Finally, a f*cking 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.