CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SPARROW

FROM MY CABat the end of the block, I watched Troy walking up to the Spanish-style house. Once he was out of sight, I instructed my driver to wait and slowly strolled up the sidewalk, noting his idling cab. His driver was busy with his cell phone and didn’t seem to notice me.

I eyed the stucco mailbox at the end of the driveway. Who was Troy visiting? What was so important at this house? Maybe Daisy was right. Maybe he did take his dick on a tour and was now visiting another mistress.

There was a house number on the mailbox but no name. I doubted I’d recognize the name anyway, but what the hell. I’d come this far. Trying to look casual, like I belonged, like this wasn’t illegal, I pulled open the mailbox, hoping to find a letter with a name. I got far more than I bargained for. I read the address on the first envelope, and my breath caught in my throat, and I froze.

It said “Patrick Rowan.”

Patrick Rowan. Paddy. The man who molested me.

Troy Brennan was at my molester’s house. My husband and the only person I’d ever told about my dark, awful secret.

Stupid girl.

I stumbled back from the mailbox, like a nest of snakes was inside. My heart pumped wildly against my ribcage. Maybe he’d come here to kill him. After all, everyone said he’d killed before. Maybe he would punish this vile man the way I never could.

I forced my gaze back to the house, just as a girl in a maid’s uniform hurried down the drive toward me, looking flushed and concerned. For a moment, I was afraid she was going to confront me, but instead she glanced right and left, like she was the one who was afraid. The girl made her way to a bus stop further up the street, hugging herself defensively and looking around every now and again.

When she was out of sight, I got my shit together and jogged to a spot behind a square bush. I watched the courtyard at the front of the house intently.

Twenty minutes after he arrived, Troy left the premises.

He had a stack of documents under his armpit and an easy expression. A few seconds later, a thin, frail man appeared beside him in the entry to the courtyard. He looked sick and old, nothing like the Paddy Rowan I knew and remembered, but then I saw his eyes and choked. It was him.

They shook hands and nodded at each other. I couldn’t see Troy’s face, but I heard him laugh before he walked back to his cab. He climbed right into its backseat, leaving Rowan very much alive.

I’d seen all I needed to see, and I wished I could unsee it.

The asshole was here for business. He didn’t give a damn about what this man did to me.

I threw up between the bushes, feeling the bile bubbling in my throat like poison.

I hated them. Hated them both. But I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t going to give Troy the pleasure of knowing that I knew he was still in business with the man who molested me. Especially not after he disrespected me by having sex with someone else in our bedroom.

There was nothing I could do to get back at him, so I might as well not let him know that I was privy to his atrocious deeds.

No. I would hate my husband quietly, pretend like it never happened—and would never, ever let him touch me or get to me again.

Troy Brennan was dead to me. This time for good.