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

were found with twenty-five year old Breanna Stewart drugged in your living room. Neither of you followed through with your plans, which I am grateful for.”

Both men were in their underwear and their hands were turning purple.

“I need to hear a good argument why I should leave here tonight without killing either of you,” Brooks said calmly. He felt powerful while holding the gun. It gave him such a relief knowing that the men were going to die either way.

“S— s — sir,” Jack began. “Sir…I’m sorry for what I did to her. I really am. I served almost fifteen years for it. I’m reformed. I really am!”

Brooks pointed the gun at the other man.

“I regret ever meeting her,” Drew said. “She’s fine now. I’m glad she’s going well. I was locked up for over seven years for that and rightfully so.”

“Please, sir,” Jack interrupted. “Please, it was so long ago. We’re not like that any — “

“Wait a minute,” Drew said, cutting Jack off. “Wait a minute, I know who this guy is.” Jack studied Brooks from afar and wasn’t sure what to think. “This guy…this is the killer!”

Brooks smiled as he watched Drew figure it out. It wasn’t often a serial killer was recognized in the midst of their work.

“Yes, Jack!” Drew began to panic. “This is that Sparrow guy! This is the one the news was talking about.”

“Oh no!” Jack wailed. “No please sir.”

“You are a psycho!” Drew grew uncharacteristically confident given his situation. “You are a psycho!”

Brooks looked back and forth between the two terrified men, their panting giving way to their anxiety and pure panic.

“I am who you made me to be,” Brooks responded, clutching his fist tightly around the gun. The bloodied knife fell to the floor. “Just as meticulous as you planned, I am here.”

Brooks stepped closer and both men tensed up.

“Calm yourselves,” he continued. “I am but the warm embrace, diligently easing your minds from the dangers that lurk beyond.”

Jack’s teeth gritted. Drew’s fists clenched.

“I guess I should’ve saved those words for your victims.” Then Brooks pulled the trigger…twice.

Chapter Fifty-Six

“The phone line at the industrial park was registered to a Tommy Roisman,” Harlow blurted out to LT Anderson as we got into an unmarked SUV. “This name keeps coming up over and over again.”

LT Anderson and I traded glances in his rearview mirror.

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked impatiently. The night was long and I was unable to get any rest at the cabin. The post was more undesirable by the day and it was obvious by the lengthy gaps in between patrols.

Last night, I hadn’t seen a single officer posted at the cabin. I was officially low priority.

“There’s something huge,” LT Anderson said. “I haven’t seen it yet myself, but this is going to be bad.”

We turned down a street of a neighborhood well known for drug use, but the houses weren’t in bad shape. It was filled with recovery homes and I used to get calls to the area when I was a patrol officer.

He pulled in front of a halfway house where I once arrested a man for indecent exposure. The place was a downgrade from when it stood years ago.

Police cars and several ambulances and fire trucks were in the vicinity, forcing neighbors onto their lawns wanting to get a closer look. Torrey Benjamin was already headfirst in a car; crime-scene tape was spread around it, along with the entire house.

I put on my fedora and stepped out, spotting a familiar face.

“Mr. Wellpock,” I said, extending my hand. “Nice to see you again, though I’m sure these circumstances could be better.”

“He was here last night, John,” he said.

“The Sparrow?”

“It’s over,” he said. “I can’t run this place anymore. Two of my residents are dead. They were good guys, too. They had it hard in life, but they were working and trying to better themselves.” The elderly man sat down on the curb and tried to clear his throat.

“Take it easy,” I said. “Tell me what you saw.”

Wellpock massaged his throat until it cleared and said, “I came in this morning to do the checks…you know, to make sure they didn’t have girls over or anything like that. I was going to take them to church with me once they were all ready. I missed Conner…he’s in the car.”

His eyes welled up and he buried his head in his hands, and I offered my hand half-heartedly on his shoulder. I wasn’t great with consoling.

“He did what anyone told him to do,” he continued. “Conner was an honorable man trying to get through this rough life of his. I was trying to help him.”

“When did you get here today?” Harlow asked. She was seated next to him and her voice inflections were more empathetic than mine.

“Like, what time?” he asked. “About seven o’clock this morning. I saw Conner’s car, but didn’t know he was still in it. I walked through the front door and knew something was wrong right away. Titus’ door was already open and I looked in and saw him hunched over his bookshelf. The blood…it was all over.”

“It’s OK,” Harlow said in an attempt to comfort him. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we can revisit this later.”

“Trotter,” LT Anderson called from the car. He didn’t respond when I looked up, but shook his head.

Conner was bloodied and laid back in his seat, revealing several stab wounds.

“Any one of these could’ve been fatal, but the marks are wild,” Benjamin said. “The Spar — I mean, Brooks couldn’t see what he was doing; these stab wounds are erratic. No aiming…different depths of wounds, but all fatal. This happened last night, late.”

An officer stepped out of the house holding