Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

he did. I never want to see him again and Madison knew that.”

I sat back and thought. Madison was likely terrified of this man, and killed herself because he was getting released and…was she afraid he was coming for her?

“Well, that’s pretty compelling stuff, Mrs. Maise,” I said. “If we would’ve done a little more homework, maybe we wouldn’t have been thrown this curveball just now.” I looked at Abraham in my peripheral, remembering last night when we were both at Captain Lucky’s.

“Now you know,” she said, getting more insecure in her seat. Her agitation also grew with each word.

“Before we leave, do you mind if we call our crisis team to check on you?” I gave her the option because making it seem mandatory would turn her off.

“Sure,” she said. She had clearly lost everything important in her life and was indifferent about everything.

I stepped out, followed by Abraham and we stood at the end of the drive. The crisis team arrived followed by forensics.

“Let’s head back to the office and try to figure some of this stuff out,” I said.

Abraham fished out his keys. “Yeah, this one isn’t quite over yet.”

Dread came over me in an instant as I sat back in the Charger. Madison was hurting for years following the arrest of her father. She coped by painting and writing, but she always knew he would be getting out.

It only made it harder knowing it was always going to end like this.

Chapter Five

The air was crisp the next morning in the Howsler’s Grocery parking lot. The drizzle caused the scarves to come out as people waved at each other, carts filled to the brim with produce and frozen goods.

Brooks caught the eye of a middle-aged woman with a child on her shoulders walking gleefully to her car. Another child in tow was more focused on a screen to notice a car backing up. The woman quickly pushed her child ahead of her and held out her hand apologetically to the driver.

She went back to finding her car, never again to give Brooks a second of her time.

He was used to it. He didn’t have anyone that cared about him for the longest time, but somehow he felt that change.

The woman wasn’t to blame; Brooks was far too predictable in life. He looked the part of a clean-cut, well-educated man with a great job. His personality didn’t offer any reprieve from a lifelong struggle to stray from monotonous dinners late in the evening, both parties commenting how work went that day.

So boring.

He felt the pressure of performing for people melt away when he swore off dating several years earlier. They never get me, anyway, he thought in an attempt to cover up lame excuse after lame excuse.

He was satisfied with how his life had went up until he was part of that dreaded crowd.

How he hated crowds. He wasn’t one to open up about social awkwardness or what came with it, though he acknowledged it as part of his who he truly was.

Calling, He thought. It’s what people wanted out of life. They want a calling. Why should I be so different?

Brooks found himself dozing off when he spotted William Henson slamming the door of his car. Brooks straightened up and focused in on him. He had seen William’s picture on the sex offender registry for Lincoln County. He had memorized nearly every offender in only two days.

William didn’t seem like a typical offender, whatever that was. Brooks saw him as someone who destroyed a woman’s life, though he didn’t know anything more than the fact that William’s victim was twenty-two and the offense took place in New York City a number of years earlier.

William was unable to access specifics of the case, but he knew that face from the rest of them because each year, when William took his picture to update it on the registry, it was different.

He had long hair, then short.

He had a beard, then clean-shaven.

He would even smile in some and not others.

But, one thing was consistent: his eyes. They were uncomfortably close together. The bridge of his nose was nearly non-existent, and Brooks thought maybe it was a diagnosed medical condition.

It didn’t bother Brooks to negatively analyze the faces of monsters. In fact, it amused him.

Brooks was most interested in what made guys like William tick. Brooks Googled William’s record and it displayed the familiar face. He delved in a little more and saw that he had sexually assaulted a NYU nursing student while being treated for road rash from a motorcycle accident.

It made Brooks sick that William was able to just walk freely about.

There wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. William got to walk around the parking lot on his way to the grocery store like everyone else. He spent four years on Riker’s Island before eventually moving to the Lincolnshire area within the past ten years.

But, there he was. Waving at people he recognized. Talking to a random passerby as they exchange pleasantries.

Did they know? Did they know what he did?

Worse yet: do they know what he’s capable of?

Brooks stood outside the car before he even understood what was happening. He looked around, confused at the loss of time. He had been sitting in the parking lot for nearly four hours before William arrived, but he hadn’t known how long he was standing outside his car.

William still stood in the doorway before Brooks regained consciousness. There were no groceries in his cart, so Brooks was still in the clear.

The doors slid to the side as William made his way inside the store like everyone else. Brooks started towards the store with a purpose; he had no plan and had stopped with rhetorical questioning. He knew everyone