Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 24
“I bet she hated you,” I snicker.
“She did. That’s actually why she named my dog Pony. His full name is Ponyboy.”
Of course, it is.
“So, she finally got her revenge and then convinced me to move back here,” Colson leans on the edge of the table and looks me up and down, “and here you are.”
“I’m not immune to the algorithm.” I arch an eyebrow, alluding to the intrusive nature of social media, “How could you not know I worked here?”
Colson shakes his head, “I haven’t really been on socials since Alaska. I—” he hesitates, almost like he realizes he’s about to say something he shouldn’t, “had a lot going on.” He says the last part slower and with more intention.
I take a swig from my water bottle, “I imagine there’s a lot that’s happened since I last saw you.”
“I could say the same about you,” Colson gives a nod to my hand propped up under my chin, “married woman, and all.”
“Almost,” I glance down at my hand and touch the underside of my ring with my thumb. “I’m currently engaged.”
“Congratulations,” he smiles, tapping his finger on the table, “how’d you meet?”
It’s such a bizarre story. I look down at the table, wondering where to even begin.
“Um,” I can’t suppress my smile, “he called a wrong number. I went to Salt Fork by myself to write and this guy called my room looking for the front desk. The lines got crossed…whatever. And the next morning, he walked past me in the lobby and he recognized my voice from the phone call. It was wild. Then he asked me to go hiking with him, and the next day I met his entire family because they were camping at Salt Fork. And, here we are.”
I like telling the story. It sounds like something out of a romance novel rather than a horror story. I might write about really dark and unhinged things, but it doesn’t mean I want to live them out in real life.
“Wow,” Colson arches his brow, “that’s some story.” He gazes across the grass for a few moments before turning back to me, “Talk about a coincidence. Set a date?”
“No, not yet. I have to—” I hesitate for a moment and glance down at his finger, still tapping away, “I wasn’t going to until I finished writing my book. But I just finished it, so…” I trail off again.
A wide grin spreads across Colson’s face, “Yeah?” He doesn’t sound surprised. It’s more like he already knew it and he’s just been waiting for me to work up the nerve to say it.
“Yeah,” I suddenly realize what a big deal this is, and that maybe I should start owning it, “I guess I have to finally start talking about it like it’s a real thing,” I scrunch up my nose, “but I’m not good at hyping myself. I have no PR skills.”
“Eh,” Colson gives a shrug, dismissing my insecurities, “don’t sell yourself short. You have more skills than you realize.”
“How do you know?” I scoff. “You’ve been gone for three years.”
“True,” he tips his chin up slightly, “but I know what you’ll do to get something you really want.”
I inhale a sharp breath, ready to lob some witty comeback at him. Instead, I just purse my lips and looked across the table, unamused. He just sits there, smirking at me and burning holes in me with those pale blue eyes of his.
So, this is how it’s going to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brett
One Year Ago
I round the bend to the stretch along the creek, pumping my legs and picking up speed. I really hope a coyote doesn’t dart out across the trail like it did last week. This part of the trail isn’t paved and I’d probably end up skidding out and ending up in the trees.
Coyotes also freak me the fuck out. It’s irrational, I know. But they’re intelligent and sneaky and fall somewhere between dogs and wolves and that creeps me out. It doesn’t help that I already didn’t like them before moving in with Bowen, and then I find out the woods behind his house is filled with them. When it’s warm out, I hear them late at night, erupting in a cacophony of yipping and howling that sound like it’s right outside my window. It only goes on for about 30 seconds before it just…stops.
Coyotes as road hazards only distracts me for a minute before my mind returns to the cryptic conversation I had with Dallas Barrera. I decided today was exactly the right time to wander across the building to her office and ask her to renew my Adobe license for another year.
It was too tempting and my nosiness got the better of me.
“You know Colson?” Dallas squealed with excitement, her red lip stain popping against her white teeth as she stared back at me.
“Yeah, but it was a long time ago—back in college.” I reached for a Hershey’s kiss from the candy jar on her desk and then cringed, realizing how much I’ve conditioned myself to eat chocolate whenever Colson comes to mind. “He said he was living in Alaska and Canada?”
“He’s so random,” Dallas rolled her eyes, “I’ve been telling him for so long that he should come back, and that was when I could even find him. He spent a lot of time in places that are completely cut off from civilization. Then, last August, he calls me out of the blue and tells me he’s coming back to Ohio, like, next week. No plans, no nothing, just asked if he could stay with Alex and I until he found a job and a place to live.”
I arched my brow with intrigue. She took this as a sign to continue, her fingers flying across the keyboard, entering in my name, serial numbers, key codes, and whatever else she knew based on muscle memory.
“He got a job in no time, so he just had to find a place to live. And you know how dumb housing is.”
“For real,” I sat back in my chair, unwrapping the Hershey’s kiss, “So, what did he do?” I ask, noting that Colson was here for four months before getting hired at Wolfsson.
Dallas chuckled over the thick black rims of her glasses, “His resume makes him look like a mercenary. Honestly, when I looked at it, I half expected to see Blackwater—sorry—” she screwed up her face and raised the pitch of her voice sarcastically, “Academi listed somewhere in there.”
I pressed my lips together, stifling laughter. Dallas was so dramatic, and I was there for it.
“Colson probably told you he was a park ranger and then did Search and Rescue for a while. Then he was a polar bear bodyguard or something out in the tundra. Don’t ask me because I don’t even know. Then, when he got here, he did the whole bouncer thing for a few months. Like, can you imagine Colson breaking up frat boy fights and arguing with little girls about fake IDs? After that,” Dallas bounced her head from side to side, “he worked at a gun range and moonlighted for some security company. Can you see a pattern here?” she says with pursed lips. “Then Alex found out there was an opening here and the next day—” she snapped her fingers, “voila! Granted, Alex is the one who got me this job right after I graduated, too.”
I keep forgetting that Dallas hasn’t been here that long, either.
“That’s pretty gutsy, though, picking up and moving cross-country without a plan?”
“Well,” Dallas gave a half shrug, “I know why, and I don’t blame him.” She paused and a solemn look came over her face. She swiveled around and set her elbows on her desk, lowering her voice, “He loved living in Alaska, until the accident.”
I cocked my head with intrigue.
Dallas glanced over my shoulder at the door to make sure it was closed before continuing, “To make a long story short, Colson and one of his friends went camping in the mountains and only he came back.”
I felt the familiar chill start creeping up my lower back all the way to my shoulders.
“There was a tree fall in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. Just, out of nowhere, a huge pine comes down on top of them. Paige didn’t make it. And there’s no service out there, so he left everything and carried her halfway back down the mountain. But then this freak storm hits, the temperature drops, and it dumps three feet of snow.” Dallas shook her head forlornly. Her bubbly demeanor disappeared, replaced by a pained look, “The entire thing was a series of freak accidents and Colson barely made it out alive.”
“Wow,” I gaped, hardly knowing how to respond, “how’s he doing now?”
“He still has enormous guilt about it,” Dallas scowled. “People are so awful. As if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough, here come these idiots out of the woodwork questioning whether it was really an accident or not. Like, why was Paige injured but he wasn’t? Someone spouts off about how they had an argument right before they left. Someone else wonders why they were out there before a storm. Colson can survive out in the wilderness for months and be fine, but he’s still human. Everyone makes mistakes. And why would he even do something like that?” she leaned further over the desk, “He carried her body, on his shoulders, through the snow until it got too deep and he had to leave her or else he would’ve died, too. Can you even imagine?”
Dallas took a deep breath. She was speaking to me, but I could tell she was only half there, the rest of her thoughts consumed by the tragedy her brother endured.
“Communities are small up there, and people talk. They basically ran him out of town over this. So, I don’t blame him for running off to Canada. I’m just glad he finally decided to come back home. When he told me about all of it, I was just like, God, not again.”
I blinked, “Again?”
Dallas paused, as if she realized what she just said, “Yeah, back when I was in high school, we lost someone close to us and—” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “something similar happened. A lot of small-town drama and Colson ending up in the middle of it…”
Dallas’s voice trailed off as she caught herself. Suddenly, her lighthearted demeanor returned and she sat back in her chair, swiveling around to make sure she’d completed her original task.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t be talking about him while he’s not here. I still can’t believe you know him. I’m so excited he has a friend here!”
I clenched my jaw, tensing the muscles in my neck.
A friend…
“Believe me, I was just as shocked as you are. And, look,” I leaned forward, tapping her desk, “I really appreciate you telling me all of this. I wouldn’t want to accidentally say something that would make him uncomfortable.”
It was mostly true. I didn’t want to say anything to create an awkward situation—as if it could get any more awkward. But I was also trying to get as much information as possible about what Colson had been doing the last few years. And the more I spoke to Dallas, I wondered if I really wanted to know, after all.
As soon as I got back to my office, I couldn’t pull up the Google search bar fast enough. I scrolled through the list of news results on my phone until I found a short article from Anchorage dated less than two years ago. It contained a photo of a woman with long black hair and dark almond eyes crouched on a boulder against a majestic mountain lake for a backdrop. She was dressed in leggings, hiking boots, and a tank top with a flannel shirt tied around her waist. The caption beneath the photo included her name, Paige Sweringen.
According to the article, she was on a weeklong hiking trip with her boyfriend—boyfriend—when she was struck by a fallen tree. Paige died instantly from blunt-force trauma to the head. She grew up in Anchorage and was a biologist at the University of Alaska. The article was otherwise vague. Colson’s name wasn’t even mentioned, much less any of the details Dallas told me.
I cleared the search field and started over. Tapping the side of my phone, I tried to recall the long-ago incident both Colson and Dallas mentioned.
Why would Colson say his sister was murdered while Dallas used the term, someone close to us? She didn’t say anything about murder. And what drama was Colson involved in afterward?
Whoever it was, neither of them mentioned her name, so I searched “Lutz”, “murder”, “death”, and “Dire Ridge, OH.” The search results were even more disappointing than the one article about Paige’s death. There was absolutely nothing. All of these could turn out just to be freak accidents where bad things happen to good people. Still, it was made worse by Colson and Dallas’s vague explanations.
I was veering off into a strange train of thought and it wasn’t doing me any good. As I was staring at the unremarkable Google search results, an email notification popped up in my toolbar. It was from Colson.
From: Lutz, Colson (US)
To: Sorensen, Brett (US)
Subject: Your book will be better than the movie
A girl I know from college works for a publisher in NYC now. I told her you finished your book and she wants you to send it to her.
I was going to absolutely die if the name he gave me was Dacia Ferguson’s. Or a couple of
other select names I knew were associated with him back then…
But it wasn’t.
Ecstatic that I didn’t recognize the name, I was overcome with excitement to send my book
to Jada Marquette at Revel and Woods Publishing. So ecstatic, in fact, that I briefly considered leaving work right then. But then I hesitated, staring at the email with Colson’s name at the top, my excitement quelling slightly. But before I could do anything else, an IM popped up from Colson.
COLSON: Did you get my email with Jada’s info?
I stared at his message, trying to read between the lines. I know there’s something he’s not saying, some ulterior motive. Why would he do this?
ME: Don’t think this means anything has changed. We had lunch once.
COLSON: Just say thank you. I told her it was good.
ME: You’ve never read it.
COLSON: She doesn’t know that. Am I wrong?
ME: No, you’re not. But I’m not going to owe you anything for giving me an email address.
COLSON: Just dedicate it to me when she publishes it.
I stared at the email for another five minutes, but didn’t delete it. I really should have, but I also really want someone to publish my book. I’ll keep Jada’s contact, and maybe even send her my book, but I definitely won’t tell Colson about it.
By the time I get to my bike ride after work, the endorphins are doing their job and I’ve moved my conversation with Dallas to the backburner. When I crest the hill leading to the parking lot, my legs are burning and fatigued with a satisfying pump. I pop off the curb and coast down the middle of the asphalt to the far side of the lot where my Tahoe is parked under the shade of a large oak. Moments later, I slow to a halt at my back bumper and just stare.
My driver’s side door is open.
It’s not hanging open, but it’s so slight that I don’t realize it until I’m only feet from the door. I know I locked it. I always lock my vehicle.
I spin around, my eyes darting around the parking lot. At 5:00 in the afternoon on a weekday, there are only a couple of other cars in the lot, a silver Jeep Cherokee and a white Honda Civic, and no one in sight except for a couple of women standing at the playground in the distance watching some children play. I turn back to my door sitting ajar, unsure of what to do.
Finally, I slide off my seat and kick the stand down. My legs feel like jelly, but I don’t know if it’s because of this or just because I had a good ride. I circle the SUV, peering through the windows and tugging each door open as I go. It’s empty. I spin around once more as I walk around the front bumper. Still, no one in sight. When I arrive at the driver’s side door, I reach for the handle and slowly pull it open.
At first sight, everything looks as I left it. I step up into the seat and lean over the console, my heart pounding. I grab my fleece jacket that’s draped over my leather tote bag on the floorboards. To my surprise, my laptop, wallet, and every other one of my belongings is still there. If my laptop was missing, I’d be spending a lot more time with Dallas while she initiated a remote self-destruction of the machine.
I drop my phone into one of the cupholders and lift the lid of the console. Nothing is disturbed. I open the glove box and everything is still there, too. But I can feel it. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I recognize the unsettling and icky sensation of knowing someone has been here who wasn’t supposed to be.
It’s almost creepier that they haven’t taken anything.
I shudder at the thought and climb back out of the Tahoe to load up my bike and get the hell out of here. Ironically, it probably takes me longer to leave because I keep looking around the parking lot, trying to spot anyone who might be lurking. Finally, I climb back in and slam the door. Muttering under my breath and irritated by the possibility that one of my favorite bike trails has been infiltrated by creeps, I latch my seatbelt and stomp on the brake before pressing the ignition.
As the engine roars to life, I see my phone light up in the cupholder with a text notification. As soon as I reach down to grab it, my heart skips a beat. I stare down in horror, so preoccupied with making sure nothing was gone that I didn’t notice it before.
In the cupholder next to my phone is a rectangular bottle with a purple cap.
It’s a brand-new bottle of Naked Mango Madness—with protein.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Evie
High School
He raises the gun and aims it at the ground, firing off three rounds at my feet.
I scream and stumble backward, scraping my shoulder on the gnarled bark of a locust tree. The adrenaline spins me around and I take off through the trees as fast as I can. There’s no path anymore, I’m just running wherever there aren’t trees blocking my escape and the moon is showing through the trees enough for me to see.
I need to get back to the park. If I can get back to the park, I can find a way home. But which way is the park? I never paid attention to how we got to this place in the middle of the woods. I didn’t think I had to.
Because he would always be there to show me the way out.
Now I’m cursing myself, wishing I’d been smarter. I always followed him because he knew where he was going. He knows these woods inside and out. He’s stayed out here for days at a time. I would never come out here by myself, only with him. And now I’m trying to run from him, in the dark, and I have no idea where I am or where I’m going.
