Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 31
Rick is sitting back in his chair chuckling and Leona is scowling in disgust like she’d rather not hear the rest of the story.
“He must’ve chased him a mile into the woods,” Jay continues, “but when Bo finally came back, he was dragging Waylon up the hill by his collar and, I swear, he used an entire bottle of shampoo on him and hog-tied him so he could brush his fucking teeth.” Then he turns to Leona dramatically, “Because he knew his mom wouldn’t allow Waylon back in the house if she ever found out.”
Bowen hops off the tailgate and strolls over to the edge of the table. Leona is squeezing the bridge of her nose and shaking her head, which only makes Jay and Rick laugh harder.
“Hey,” Bowen interjects, “it was gross, but I took care of it.”
“What was it?” Hildy looks up at him, “What’d you do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Bowen shrugs, “some dead shit from out in the woods. It was a bitch getting him to let go of it, though. I finally had to just grab it and rip it out of his teeth. Then,” Bowen adds with irritation, “I had to go back out there to bury it where none of them could find it again.”
“Gross,” Hildy shudders, screwing up her face.
“That is so disgusting,” I groan.
“You’re telling me!” Bowen chuckles as he tosses an empty can into the five-gallon bucket sitting on the ground at the end of the table.
In the midst of Jay and Bowen’s back and forth, I notice Hannah surreptitiously leave the table, making her way across the patio and disappearing inside the house.
A little while later, I’m the only one left at the table while everyone else scurries around completing tasks that only seem to matter right before we’re about to leave for the evening. Hildy is inside, tearing her bedroom apart looking for one particular shirt, and Bowen and Jay are down at the shed with Rick making sure the quad that was stuck in the creek still runs properly.
My phone vibrates against the wrought iron table, and when I look at the screen, I let out a laugh.
COLSON (6:03PM): Hot or not…Lee Pace. Dallas says hot, but I don’t see it. She said to ask you.
ME (6:05PM): Hot. But only as an elf king.
COLSON (6:06PM): This is the weirdest thing you’ve ever said.
When Colson texted me the first time, I thought he was a wrong number. And then when I realized it was him, I couldn’t believe he still had my number from college. I thought it would be weird, but so far, his texts have mostly included new music and stories about Dallas and her latest antics.
It makes me think there’s a chance we can move beyond what happened. It’s been three years with no contact. Maybe we can be friends. Maybe we can be…normal…
“He’s only across the yard,” Hildy mutters with a laugh as she sits down next to me.
“What?” I quickly put my phone down, “Oh, yeah,” I’m smiling so much that my cheek muscles are starting to ache.
This realization immediately makes me uncomfortable, as does the fact that Hildy noticed. But, right now, she looks equally as uncomfortable, which is not like her.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head with a huff, “Hannah just left.”
“Like, left left?” Not that I’m disappointed, but I am surprised that Hannah would skip out on this particular event. “Is she not coming out with us?”
Hildy looks down as she picks at her cuticle, “She said something about just not feeling it tonight and then said she was going home.” She lets her arm drop onto the armrest and jerks her head around, “Like, seriously, on Jay’s birthday?”
It’s odd—extremely odd—if for no other reason than it seems like Hannah would rather die than miss out on a night of partying with Bowen.
“That’s—” I can’t think of anything helpful to say, “really weird.”
“Yeah, well she can be fucking weird,” Hildy scowls, her tone turning harsh.
Before, she sounded disappointed, and now she sounds angry.
“Did something happen to her?” I ask, trying to choose my words carefully.
“Like what?”
“Today I saw she has these really gnarly bruises on her back. They weren’t there—” I immediately cut myself off when I realize that Hannah probably didn’t tell Hildy about what happened at the Rickhouse a week ago. “I mean, they look pretty recent.”
Hildy glances up in thought, “No,” she shakes her head, “not that I know of.”
She seems to dismiss my observation as nothing. And when she pauses, it’s apparent she has something else on her mind.
“You should probably know,” Hildy turns to me with an annoyed look, “Hannah’s my best friend, but she has issues. And sometimes they’re really annoying and ruin everything.”
“She hates me,” I deadpan.
Hildy presses her mouth together but a faint smile sneaks through anyway, “Yeah,” she admits, “but it’s not you. She did this with Bo’s last girlfriend.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, “Bowen kind of said as much.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing specific,” I shrug, “I don’t know, I think she and Bowen have a really weird relationship.”
Hildy hesitates at first, like she’s deciding whether to continue, “Bo never used to date. He just kind of…” Hildy scrunches up her nose, “fucked around. I remember him telling me on the night of our high school graduation that he’d never get married. He said that women are only good for three things—mouth, ass, and pussy, and he didn’t need a ring to get any of those.”
“What?” I whisper in shock, “But what about you? You’re a woman,” I point out, “and you seem to have a decent relationship.”
Hildy flashes me a sardonic smile, “Oh, I asked him the same thing. He said since I share his DNA, that automatically makes me superior to other women.”
I stare at her in disbelief.
“Yeah,” she purses her lips, “I think some girl just pissed him off, but,” Hildy motions down the hill to the pole building, “this is not the brother I grew up with.”
“So, what changed?” I ask.
Hildy shrugs, “He finally found someone he got along with.”
I knit my brow in confusion, “What do you mean got along with?”
“Bo can be…a lot,” she casts me a sideways glance, “he’s the most fun person I know and he always has been. I love him to death—he’s my brother, right? But, when we were younger, he was a complete asshole.”
I nod in agreement at her from my chair, that’s an understatement…
“He was selfish and cocky and got in fights all the time. If it weren’t for Granddad, he’d probably be in prison. He just strung girls along until he got bored and I was usually the one who had to deal with it because then they’d come crying to me about it.”
“Like Hannah?” I surmise.
Hildy shoots me a side-eye, “Bo never had any tact. He liked the attention and he didn’t care what happened beyond that. But then,” she arches her brow, “one day he just changed. It was like he woke up and decided he was going to be someone else, that he was going to be different. And he’s been that way ever since.”
I peer at her with curiosity, “Like how?”
Hildy chews the inside of her cheek, “Did he ever tell you about Emily?”
“Kind of,” I cock my head, gazing down the hill, “only that she ghosted him or something.”
I don’t mention finding her photo in a shoebox in his basement.
Hildy rolls her eyes, “God, he’s such a weirdo. He bottles up so much stuff. Don’t tell him I told you any of this, because it probably won’t go over well, but I think you should know.”
“I didn’t hear it from you,” I say, casting her a sly smile.
“OK, because no one really talks about her anymore,” Hildy lowers her voice, “Bo was engaged to Emily, but I was the only one who knew about it.”
My eyes round, “Why?”
“They were only engaged for a few days before she just up and left. He never even got the chance to tell anyone about the engagement.”
“Like, just bounced, never to be heard from again?”
“There’s more to it,” Hildy admits, “but it was very sudden.”
I glance down at the teal sapphire on my finger, “How long ago?”
“A little over two years ago. Emily and I had been friends since freshman year of college and they started dating during senior year. She came home with me one weekend and it was like a light switch went on. Bo can be nice and polite when he wants to be, but he went out of his way to take us places, do stuff for us, and basically be the complete opposite of himself.”
“Wow, so what happened?”
“They were so good together,” Hildy laments, “but I think she had a lot of problems that just caught up with her and she didn’t know how to deal with them.”
“Like what?”
“Her family was a mess. Once she went off to school, she didn’t talk to them much. That should’ve been a good thing, right—getting away from toxic people? But I think that’s why things moved really fast with Bo. I think she wanted to escape and he was more than happy to let her do it because he would do anything for her.” A pained look spreads across Hildy’s face, “After we graduated, Emily decided she wanted to go to medical school. She was really smart, studied her ass off, and even took extra classes in the summer and fall, so I was sure she’d get in…” Hildy’s tone tells me the story’s about to take a turn for the worse, “but she didn’t. After that, Bo said she stopped taking her meds for bipolar disorder and she started spiraling. She drifted away and stopped talking to everyone until, one day, Bo came over for dinner and said she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. But she left him a note basically telling him he was the worst person on the planet.”
I stare at Hildy, speechless.
“She did it right before Christmas, too,” Hildy adds with slightly more venom.
“Wow.” It’s the only response that comes to mind.
“Bo was devastated,” she says with an air of contempt, “so it’s probably better that she stayed gone, because I could never forgive her for that.”
“Well,” I sigh, “I guess I can’t blame him for not wanting to talk about all that.”
Hildy takes a breath, “That’s why I’m glad you found each other. He can be a dumbass sometimes, but he’s changed so much and he’s worked so hard for everything he has. He deserves to be happy.”
I admire Hildy’s love for Bowen. Maybe it’s a twin thing or maybe it’s because they’ve never lived more than a town away from each other their entire lives, but I’m envious of the bond they share.
“It really sucked,” Hildy continues, “her leaving like that almost felt like…” Hildy trails off and, after a few moments, turns to me with curiosity, “Did Bo ever tell you about Evie?”
“Yes,” I nod, “he told me what happened to her and how horrible it was.”
Hildy squints into the sun flooding over the hill, “She was my best friend. We were together all the time. We played softball together, got our licenses together, vacations, dances, all that. She might as well have been my sister.”
I listen to Hildy intently, connecting the image of Evie in my head to the photo on Bowen’s wall and the news clipping in his basement.
“It was only a few weeks ‘til graduation. One night, we all went to the skate park to hang out and she never made it home. No one knew where she went, she was just gone. They found her a week later. She was so far in the woods that it wasn’t even the park anymore. Someone murdered her and dumped her in the creek.” Hildy’s voice goes soft, “It was the worst day of my life.”
“Yeah,” I say gently, “Bowen said no one was ever arrested.”
“No,” Hildy snaps, a flash of momentary anger breaking through, “Granddad ran the investigation and all he said was there wasn’t much to go on—that it was probably some transient or a migrant.”
It takes all I have to suppress an eyeroll. Xenophobia at its finest—a faceless migrant, how convenient. I’ve been a fan of true crime for way too long not to realize what a cliché this is; a tactic often used by inept law enforcement who don’t want to expend the time or effort to find the real perpetrator. But clearly I can’t say this to Hildy, so I let her continue.
“But still, Evie’s family was lashing out at everyone because they were convinced it was someone she knew. They were angry with the police and they were angry at us for who-knows-what reason, especially since it was probably—” she stops herself short and hesitates, “Anyway, that’s all I know because it’s still an open case. I don’t even know how she died,” she mutters.
I knit my brow in confusion, “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Granddad wouldn’t let them release anything,” Hildy shrugs, “in case it went to trial.”
“But Hildy,” I stare at her for a few moments, “she was strangled.”
Hildy looks at me like my face is turning inside out. My stomach drops as soon as I say it and I realize I probably shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that. But how could she not know? Then I wonder if she’s in denial like Bowen said and I just royally messed with her head. I’ve spent enough time around Barrett to know how trauma works. Thank God I didn’t mention any of the other things…
She narrows her eyes, “Where’d you hear that?”
“From Bowen.” Obviously…
“Bowen knows fuck all!” she snaps, giving me a start, “Nobody knows how Evie died. And nobody ever will until they catch whoever did it. He needs to accept it and quit saying dumbass shit to make himself feel like he’s in control.”
And, with that, she jumps up and storms across the patio into the house, slamming the screen door behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Hollow Watcher
One Year Ago
My girl is a distraction of the best kind. When I’m with her, she’s all I can concentrate on. And when I’m not, I’m thinking about the next time I’ll see her. And lucky for me, I’m with her tonight. The voices at the table mute to a dull hum when she stands up and walks to the bar with Hildy. They’ve been inseparable all night.
Brett taps the edge of the bar with her fingertip and swings her foot back and forth beneath her skirt. She likes her long, flowy skirts, especially since spring’s started inching closer to summer. Tonight, it’s a periwinkle blue floral print with a tight, white tank top that shows off every single curve. Every time her leg swings forward, her knee pops out of the slit that runs up the front.
Everyone at the table is distracted. It’s the perfect opportunity to whisk her off to the bathroom. She might resist at first, because she tries to be so proper and I doubt she’s ever been fucked in the bathroom of a bar, but once I hike that pretty skirt up and she feels me against her gorgeous ass, she’ll shut her dirty little mouth and do what she’s told. At least until I tell her to open it again.
Because I know her better than anyone else, maybe even better than she knows herself.
But as much as I love thinking about what she’s like when I get her alone, tonight’s not just about Brett. I shift my gaze slightly to the right and I see him.
He’s here. And he’s watching her, too.
He shifts in his seat when my stare triggers his gaze detection. He takes his eyes off her for one second and, as soon as he sees me, he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
Because he has.
After all this time, he still recognizes me. And he should. I hope I haunt his nightmares—that I still haunt his nightmares. My cheeks twitch with excitement as I smile at him. I’ve been waiting for this moment, waiting patiently and savoring the thought of such a sweet reunion. Before, he might’ve smiled right back, but not tonight. Tonight, he watches my eyes settle on her and there’s something different in his.
Fear.
Because he’s still a fucking coward at heart. He has no idea what’s coming. And once he lets it slip, it’s like bloody fucking chum in the water for me because I know Brett is everything to him, but not in the same way she is to me.
His intentions are unholy, vile, and corrupt, drenched in unadulterated malice and venom.
The bartender finally walks over to them and Brett starts giving him their order. He produces two shot glasses and sets one down in front of each of them. They’re planning on getting wild tonight. We both watch as the bartender grabs a bottle of Jameson and pours them each a shot. He grins at them and sets down a couple more glasses, presumably to make them another drink to follow.
I glance across the room and waggle my eyebrows at him as they clink their shot glasses together. I leer at Brett with a feral grin as they knock back their whiskey, which draws the attention of more than a couple other guys nearby, just like last time. But I’m not worried. Between us two psychos on either side of the room, these girls are well-taken care of tonight. At least I can count on him having just as bad of a temper as me.
I would say the girls have three sets of eyes on them, but Jay’s attention is elsewhere. I’ve been keeping an eye on him and he’s about four beers deep by now. Usually, he’d be itching for a fight, but when I follow his gaze across the bar, I find exactly what’s demanding his attention. Sydney, with her pageant smile and steely eyes, is sitting at a high top near the back wall with one of her friends. It’s not surprising—it’s a small town and this is the local watering hole. And as such, Jay had better fortify himself with more than alcohol to prepare for the inevitability that no less than two guys will approach her by the end of the night.
I have to laugh. As much as he tries, subtlety is not Jay’s strong point. And when he looks at her, I know exactly what’s going through his head, and it’s more than just undressing her with his eyes. He’s slowly dying inside, and she knows it. It’s sad, really, how people can be haunted by their own weaknesses and past transgressions to the point of profound regret.
Some people, that is. Others need reminding.
Not that I wish Sydney could take Hildy’s place. That would’ve been catastrophic, for sure. But everything that happened so long ago has clearly left him a tortured man. And all I can say is, better him than me.
