Chapter Eighteen
Reid
Robin’s ex-boyfriend is my perp.
Dave Walters is Davison Grant is Dave Grant.
Davison Grant Walters.
It’s all the same person.
The irony is so rich and acrid, I can taste it.
My fingers can’t fly fast enough to get Jared or Geoff on the phone. It’s as though we’ve all been working in isolation, studying different angles of this dickbag Dave.
Jared and Geoff were not at Whiskey Jacks on the night we butted heads with Dave Grant. On their own, they don’t have the tools to make the connection with the employee files that Mason Industries HR sent over, because those files identified Davison Walters as one of the handful of potential disgruntled senior managers.
Geoff spent hours of his time pouring over the video footage with an unknown face in the shadows under that company baseball cap. Even now as I picture Dave’s face, there’s nothing about his features that would lead me to connect the video feed images to him.
I have all the puzzle pieces, and I’ve been off work to take care of Robin, who was victimized by This. Same. Fucking. Dave.
I want to kick myself for not realizing it sooner.
Neither Jared nor Geoff takes my call on the first try, so I grab my keys and get into my personal car. Time to hustle my ass over to Robin’s parents’ house. They can hate me all they want, but Dave is the true enemy. Sure, it can turn out that he’s staking out one of the Mason Industries properties, but something tells me that he’s not done with Robin yet.
Robin has a fifteen-minute head start on me. I speed out of my condo’s underground parking lot, burning rubber as I merge into traffic like a madman. It’s a twenty-five-minute drive to Robin’s family home, and my theory about Dave’s next target is confirmed when she mentions at the end of the call that she and her sister are trapped.
I’m less than five minutes away now, but we’re dealing with a crazed idiot with a taste for blowing shit up lightning fast with crude incendiary devices. Police, fire and ambulance response times tend to be longer in the outskirts. I swear to God if he harms a hair on Robin’s head, I will kill the motherfucker.
Fear starts to creep in.
I won’t get there in time.
But someone else does.
I peel up to the sidewalk behind my SUV that Robin drove here. Mr. Sparrow, Robin’s father, is standing on his front lawn. A Remington twelve-gauge shotgun is cradled in his arms. He racks a load and points it at Dave, who’s on the man’s driveway.
Dave is trespassing, unarmed and looking up at the fire he started in the garage. He has a vicious, twisted smile on his sour face. I’m the one who should be smiling at the fact that Dave must have a death wish, given that the barrel of the shotgun trained on him is being held by a man who has the right to protect his property and his kin. There’s not an ounce of remorse in my mind as I hope that justice can be swift for a change.
I jump out of my car, snatch the tire iron in my trunk, and cross their paths in a run. It’s hard to get shot when you’re running. Taking the concrete steps up to Danielle’s apartment two at a time, I get to the landing at the top.
“Robin! If you’re still in there, I need you to step away from the door.”
It feels like déjà vu.
The adrenaline is flowing, so swinging the tire iron ends up crashing down so hard on the door that it breaks the padlock off the locking hasp and staple, and splinters the wood. I kick the door open at the same time that the gun goes off down in the yard. Ignoring the men, I rush inside to find Robin with one leg hanging out the window, and Danielle getting ready to follow her.
Robin pulls her leg back inside. “Reid, you’re here. Thank God!” she cries.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I tell them. “But keep your heads down. We’ll wait at the top of the landing until your dad puts down the rifle.”
“Hey Reid,” Danielle waves.
I’ve got nothing.
The three of us crouch down at the top of the landing and wait.
“Dad’s the one shooting?” Robin asks.
I nod. “Yes.”
“He never misses.”
I know it’s cold, but after what Dave has done to Robin, Mr. Sparrow’s track record had better hold up.
“Y’all can come down from there now,” Mr. Sparrow shouts calmly.
“Dad, are you okay?” Robin asks as we get to the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m fine. Mom’s out back. She’s safe.” Leaning the shotgun against the front door, he walks over to his daughters, stands between them, and pull them into his arms, ready to fuss over their wellbeing like a father should. “Did you two get hurt?”
“We’re fine, Dad. Reid is too.”
His eyes crawl over my face, and he gives me a nod. That’s good enough for me.
“Is Dave dead?” Robin asks.
“When I aim my rifle, I make sure I have cause to, and I shoot to kill, Robin. And you know that I never miss.”
A man after my heart.
The blaring sound of approaching fire trucks are like music to my ears. There was only smoke in the apartment upstairs, but downstairs, the contents inside the garage are ablaze. There will definitely be some property damage, but everyone who matters will live another day.
As for Robin and me, time will heal, and make way for more.