The Heart Has Reasons

Text
copyright © 2012 Martine Marchand

All
Rights Reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced

in
any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher,
excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

Cover
image by Fenykepez

Dedicated
to Grace Grimes.

You
may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets
of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer
than I you can never be;

I
had a mother who read to me.

—Strickland
Gillilan

Thanks
mom!  Love you!

PROLOGUE

Larissa Santos jolted wide-awake as a
sudden surge of adrenaline revved her heart into overdrive.  Although no
anomalous sounds disturbed the nocturnal stillness, an almost palpable menace
permeated the room.  Squinting into the darkness, she lay rigid and
unmoving as a nearly overwhelming terror commanded that she bolt from bed and
run,
run
,
RUN!

It
had been more than a year since her last panic attack, but there was no doubt
as to what had triggered this one.  For the past month, someone had been
invading the sanctity of her apartment.  At first she’d tried to convince
herself she was imagining things but, growing bolder, the intruder had begun
rummaging through her belongings with no apparent thought toward covering his
tracks and, most disturbing of all, he seemed to pay particular attention to
the contents of her lingerie drawer.

Although
she had no proof, Larissa knew the complex’s new maintenance man was the
culprit.  Several of her female neighbors had described Brian Sparrow as
“creepy”.  To Larissa, he was completely off the creepy-meter scale. 
Every time she left her apartment, he seemed to be lurking nearby, and his
ominous gaze made her feel sullied, as if his eyes were slugs leaving invisible
trails
of slime across her skin.

Two
weeks ago she’d come home to find her bedspread rumpled and slightly
askew.  The pillow she’d fluffed that morning bore the faint indentation
of a head.  Worst of all, when she’d turned back the spread, the faint but
unmistakable scent of rank, masculine sweat still clung to her sheets. 
Horrified at the thought of what the intruder might have done while lying in
her bed, she’d shoved the sheets into a garbage bag and carried them out to the
dumpster.

The
next morning, she’d spoken to the apartment manager, who’d assured her that
whenever maintenance needed to enter an apartment, they had to sign out the
key.  But what if Sparrow had legitimately signed out her key and then
made a copy of it?  The manager had had no answer for that, except to
insist that Sparrow wasn’t the sort to violate someone’s privacy.

Maybe
not, but
someone
had.  She’d requested permission to have a second
deadbolt installed and the manager had agreed, with the proviso that she
provide the office with a copy of the key.  If the intruder were Sparrow,
the new lock would be pointless.

Having
received no satisfaction from the manager, she’d phoned the police, which had
proved to be an exercise in futility since the intruder had stolen nothing and
there were no signs of forced entry.

Numerous
friends and co-workers had encouraged her to buy a gun.  Although the very
thought of possessing a firearm — much less actually using one — was abhorrent,
she’d been desperate for some peace of mind.  Forcing down her
trepidation, she’d bought a little .22 Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, had
spent numerous hours at a local shooting range learning how to use it, and then
had obtained a South Carolina Concealed Weapons Permit.

Now,
clutching the sheets to her chin, the vague and indistinct forms inhabiting the
darkness sent a crawling dread creeping up her spine. 
Was that the
rustle of clothing?
  Imagined or not, the faint whisper of sound
slithered across her awareness like reptilian scales, kicking her heart rate up
several more notches.

Blinking
and struggling to control her terror, she suddenly comprehended her panic’s
origin.  A week ago she’d installed nightlights throughout the apartment
and, when she’d gone to bed, their faint golden glow had held sway against the
darkness.  Now, however, the apartment was black as pitch.

Someone
had extinguished them.

The
realization spurred her heart into a terrified gallop.  She desperately
tried to convince herself there’d been a power failure, but the alarm clock’s
glowing red numerals proved this fallacy.

When
the acrid, almost skunky scent of male perspiration assailed her nostrils, her
heart stopped dead in her chest.  As she sucked in a sharp breath to scream,
a large, callused hand clamped down over her mouth.  Grabbing the
intruder’s wrist, she fought to pry his hand from her face, then froze as
something metallic and sharp-edged pressed against her throat.  A
masculine voice growled, “You stupid cunt, you make one fuckin’ sound and I’ll
cut you from ear to ear.”

When
her hands dropped limply to the mattress, the intruder remarked, “Maybe you
ain’t so stupid after all.”  His breath was hot and foul against her face
as he leaned down close to whisper, “You and me’s gonna have some fun.”

Since
Larissa had never actually spoken to Brian Sparrow, she did not recognize the
voice speaking to her, but she did —
finally
— remember the little
pistol beneath her pillow.  Sliding both hands under her head, she grasped
the weapon.  In one swift movement, she thumbed off the safety, pulled it
from under the pillow, shoved it against the intruder, and squeezed the
trigger.

As
the resulting explosion of sound shattered the nocturnal stillness, she barely
registered the sharp bite of cold steel at her throat.  The hand clamped
over her mouth released as her attacker staggered back with a cry of surprise
and pain.

Before
the .22’s report had stopped reverberating, she squeezed the trigger a second
time.  In the faint burst of muzzle flash, she got a vague glimpse of a
human form as the intruder cried out again.

Stumbling
around in the dark near the foot of her bed, he banged against her
dresser.  She leveled the .22 in that direction and, when a patch of
darkness eclipsed the luminous numbers of the alarm clock, squeezed off a third
shot.  The sound of glass shattering proclaimed she’d missed her
target.  Footsteps sounded to her right and there was a thud as he banged
into the wall.  Swinging her arm in that direction, she fired again.

Over
the .22’s final, sharp report, she heard footsteps pounding down the short
hallway toward the living room.  Scrambling to free herself from the
tangle of sheets, she lurched to her feet just as the front door banged shut.

Still
clutching the pistol, she staggered naked through the darkness to the wall
switch, closed her eyes, and flipped it on.  As her vision slowly adjusted
to the sudden bright light, she squinted around the room.  Her mirror lay
in shards over the surface of her dresser.  In the wall between the closet
and bedroom door, a small hole cratered the drywall.  Out of four shots
fired, she’d only hit him twice.

But
how had he managed to flee with two bullets in him?

With
the pistol leveled before her, she started down the hallway where a long, thin
smear of blood streaked one wall.  In the living room, she flipped the
light switch.  Blood droplets spattered the carpet before the front door
and blood smeared the doorknob.

Her
own blood coursing with adrenaline, she locked the door with a trembling
hand.  From the gilt-framed mirror beside the door, wide, haunted eyes
stared back at her from a face leached of all color.  Trickles of blood
oozed from the thin red line that slashed across her throat.

Wobbly
knees would no longer support her and she sank bonelessly to the carpet, breath
hitching in her chest.  From outside came the sounds of doors opening and
closing, and the alarmed voices of neighbors awakened by gunfire. 
Crawling to an end table, she punched three numbers into the phone.

“Nine-one-one,”
said a pleasant female voice.  “What is the nature of the emergency?”

As
a neighbor began pounding on her door, Larissa took a deep, steadying
breath.  “I’ve just shot an intruder in my apartment.”

CHAPTER
1

After Larissa finished her last customer
of the day, she began sweeping up the hair clippings around the chair at her
station.  Brendon Bishop, the owner of the salon and Larissa’s best
friend, eyed her nylon drawstring sport bag.  “Karate or yoga?”

She
paused to lean wearily on the broom.  “Karate.  Although I’m so tired
I’m tempted to skip class and head straight home.”

“How’s
the new school?”

She
shrugged and started sweeping again.  “A little crowded, but the
instructor’s a better teacher than Steve.”

“Speaking
of whom…”

“Last
night I made the mistake of answering the phone without first checking the
caller ID.  He spent ten minutes begging me to take him back.  When
that didn’t work, he suggested we go back to being just friends.”

Brendon
rolled his eyes.  “Like he’d really settle for that.”

“When
I refused, he called me a selfish, stuck-up bitch.  I hung up on him and
turned off the phone.”  She swept the pile of clippings into the dustpan
and dumped them into the trashcan.  “I don’t get it.  How can a guy
with a black belt be such a clingy, insecure wimp?”

Leaning
up close to her station’s mirror, Brendon made a minor adjustment to the lock
of hair falling over his forehead.  “Honey, it’s the macho guys who’re
usually the biggest invertebrates.  They get into weight-lifting — or, in
Steve’s case, karate — because they’re overcompensating for being such
pussies.”  Meeting her eyes in the mirror, he raised his eyebrows
meaningfully.  “Or they’re compensating for some other
short
coming.”

At
the adjacent station, Damon said, “The first time I saw that monster truck he
drives, I knew he was gonna be lousy in bed.”

Larissa
had never discussed her and Steve’s sexual relations with either man, which
made their uncanny perception all the more startling.  “I don’t see how a
man’s vehicle correlates to his sexual ability.”

“Puh-leeze. 
When a man drives a truck with tires that big and jacked up so high you need a
ladder to climb into it, he’s clearly suffering from LDS.”

She
frowned at him, puzzled.  “Latter Day Saints?”

“Little
Dick Syndrome.”

Sherry
turned from combing out her customer’s freshly washed hair and planted hands on
ample hips.  “It’s not the size of the magician’s wand, but the tricks he
can do with it.”

“The
problem wasn’t necessarily the size of Steve’s wand; he was simply a lousy
magician.”

“That’s
what we mean about them over-compensating,” said Brendon.  “A man could be
Joe Manganiello, Daniel Craig, and George Clooney all rolled into one, but if
he can’t rock your world in the bedroom, then honey, he ain’t shit.  So,
is the new instructor hot?”

Larissa
waved a dismissive hand.  “Married.  In any case, I’ve decided to
take a break from men.”

Damon
rearranged his boyish features into a comical expression of horror.  “Why
would you do that?”

“Every
man I date turns out to be either a total wimp, insanely jealous or, a
quasi-stalker.  Or, in Steve’s case, all of the above.  And
none
of them has ever rocked my world.”  She finished straightening her station
and grabbed her purse and the bag containing her
karate gi
.  As she
and Brendon headed to the front of the salon, she confided, “I don’t think
anyone’s ever going to rock my world.”

“You
simply haven’t met the right man yet.”