Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 80
●●●
Six hours seems like a long time until you procrastinate for three of them. I finally call Jo at the Pennsylvania line and tell her I’m halfway to her house…and that my life is in shambles…and not to worry because I’ll only be staying with her and Omar until my stalker comes to fetch me.
Ultimately, I decide not tell her that last part. I haven’t totally lost it—yet.
Jo is surprisingly pragmatic about the whole thing, not the big sister on a rampage that I expect when she answers. Which is fortunate, because at this point, I prefer low-key disdain and loathing rather than outbursts and threats of violence. She’s always been more dramatic than me, but maybe this time she realizes I’ve had enough of that and need her to make lists, watch trash TV, and help me get my life in order so I can extract myself from the one I just fled. I need time to process, to think. And that’s also what a six-hour drive can offer.
I pick up the empty shaker bottle from the Bronco’s cupholder, the mango smoothie long gone, and I’m instantly bombarded with sorrow.
“I should’ve offered to make them for you from the start,” Colson said when he handed it to me, “without all that gritty shit in it.”
“I like that gritty shit,” I reply, unable to contain my smile.
“Whatever,” he says with a roll of his eyes, “if I had, you would’ve figured out what Bowen was up to the second you saw those bottles of nastiness in your refrigerator and car.”
It was clever of Bowen, trying to make it seem like Colson was leaving the smoothies in the house and in my car. But there are some things that can’t be picked up through phone speakers and spyware. Quiet things, like lingering stares and silent conversations that slowly spill out after years of distance.
It seems so long ago. It’s been less than three days and I’m beginning to lose Bowen—how he looks at me, how he feels, how he sounds. It’s all being replaced by what he was like the last time I saw him. I can only remember how his hands felt throwing me around on the bed, when he slammed me against the bathroom wall, and the sound of his voice while he told me all the vile things that would happen to me.
Part of me misses him—the Bowen I met at Salt Fork. That’s what I think about most when I’m driving north, across the border into Ontario. How can someone love so fiercely and exist in the same body as someone so cruel. And I keep thinking about it after I get to Jo’s and, by that time, it’s spilling out across her and Omar’s kitchen table, their living room sofa, their balcony while I try to explain how I ended up on their doorstep with no house, no vehicle, and no job.
Well, technically I still have a job. But I’ll need to figure out what’s happening with that sooner rather than later. I don’t even know how long I’m legally allowed to stay in Canada.
But with each minute, the more Bowen fades into a shadow of a memory. I know he’s still out there and he knows that I know what he’s done. My first night at Jo’s, I keep waking up thinking I’ll see his silhouette in the doorway, that he’s found me all the way up here. He’s already been to her house once…
I blocked Bowen’s number when I was at Barrett’s house after he texted me, so I don’t know how much he’s tried in vain to contact me since then. But the only thing I do know about Bowen, without a shadow of a doubt, is that he can’t keep the mask on forever without betraying who he is. And, according to Barrett, he’s not finished trying.
It’s early and the condo is silent, which is my favorite part of the day. If I’m not in my home, surrounded by my things, the next best thing is sitting in Jo’s bright living room in front of the window that faces the lake.
Just like when we were kids.
I take the opportunity and muster the mental fortitude to call Barrett. She knows I’m here, and that I’m safe, but I’ve yet to speak to her.
“Oh, Bowen came back alright,” she chirps as I sip my steaming cup of coffee, “I turned the GPS off the night I dropped you at Colson’s and he called me no more than an hour later. He asked where you were, put on this little show, so concerned because no one had heard from you…” Barrett continues with a sigh, “I told him maybe he should’ve made friends with Colson, then he’d be able to get ahold of you,” she giggles.
“What?” I shriek into the phone.
Even now, Barrett manages to slip in a few jabs and dig the knife in deeper.
“Fortunately, Clay and Dalton came down early for their friend’s birthday, so they were already at my house by then. So, then Bowen said he’d get the law involved, as if I’ve masterminded some grand kidnapping conspiracy. He must be getting desperate. I told him, please do, go tell gramps that I disappeared your woman. And then he did, of course.”
“He did what?”
I can hear Barrett chuckling into the phone. Meanwhile, my heart is beating out of my chest. How can she be so calm?
“OK,” she says as she catches her breath, “so, it’s not illegal for him to put a GPS on a car that he owns, so I couldn’t say much about that. But get this, last night, I get another knock on my door and it’s two Columbus police officers. And that’s not all—there were five cruisers, lights flashing, sitting out front, blocking my street. They had officers surrounding the house. I’m shocked there wasn’t a helicopter.”
“Oh my god…” I murmur, staring wide-eyed across the floor.
“It was great, they put us all in separate cars, questioned us…freaking El Chapo on Hibernia…” she trails off with another chuckle, “it was bonkers.”
“But why were they all there?”
“I don’t know what else Bowen told them, but he reported your Tahoe as stolen and gave them the last location from the GPS before I turned it off. That’s how they knew where to find it. But as soon as I explained to them why he reported your car as stolen and that I knew you were safe and I could get you on the phone if they wanted, they backed off. They don’t like being jerked around by other agencies and getting dragged into small-town drama. There’s too much murder in this city for that. But they did me a favor and took your Tahoe when they left, so I didn’t even have to figure out what to do with it.”
That part makes me smile. “Well, that’s a relief. I wouldn’t want to take up your garage space longer than necessary, so are you all OK?”
“Oh, yeah,” Barrett chirps, “just another Friday night on Hibernia! At least it gave the neighbors a show. Bowen might be good, but he’s not that good. You still have people in your foxhole…”
Bowen’s not that good, but he once was. Barrett’s right, my only saving grace is that I still have people in my foxhole, despite his best efforts.
Yeah…a trauma therapist and a stalker.
Still, other women haven’t been as lucky. Emily wasn’t as lucky. And Evie did have people—like Colson—but it didn’t matter…
After Barrett promises to call me when she leaves work, I set down my phone—now black instead of Drunk Tank Pink—and stare out the window toward the lake, feeling the silence.
Really feeling the silence.
And as I breathe, the oxygen gives birth to a spark, igniting something in the pit of my stomach. A slow burn begins and the events of the last year—not even one year—play over in my mind. I don’t know how long I sit there, staring out the window in a catatonic state. But when the reel ends, my fingers itch and there’s only one thing on my mind.
I set down my coffee cup and disappear into the spare bedroom, returning with my work bag—or what used to be my work bag. I dig out my worn-out copy of The Outsiders with its cracked spine and feathery dog-eared pages and begin leisurely flipping through it. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe nothing. But when I finally get to the end, I begin reading a little slower.
Johnny and Dally saving all the kids from the fire. Johnny dying, Dally dying…Ponyboy left to pick up the pieces of his misunderstood friends, their voices drowned out by bias, misinformation, and lies. Ponyboy deciding he’s going to tell their side of the story.
Ponyboy…
Pony…
I set down the book and reach into my bag again, this time retrieving my laptop and nestling it into my lap. Then I open a blank document and stare at the blinking cursor for a few minutes.
Tell your story.
When I put my fingers to the keys, the floodgates open and everything comes spilling out. My fingers remain there for days because there’s nothing else to do, and it all has to come out somehow.
If the legends were true, I was on a journey to find monsters in the hills of Guernsey County...
Because, in the end, Colson was right. He and I are the same—we both ran away, woke up in Canada, and couldn’t let it go.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Colson
Present
Brett will tell you she looks rough, that the morning sickness drained the life from her and she struggles for the energy she used to have. And maybe she does feel rough, but it won’t last.
She looks even better, if that’s possible. I don’t know what she’s complaining about. It’s like every curve she had before she got pregnant got more pronounced and any extra weight she gains goes straight to her tits and ass. It takes all I have not to tell her to shut the hell up, but I won’t minimize her feelings, because I’m the one she confides in, and it’s going to stay that way.
She’s changed a lot over the last year, like how she doesn’t avoid her problems anymore. Part of it came from spending two hours a week in a therapist’s office, but I think the other part came from becoming a mom. There’s also the fact that she can’t avoid me anymore, either.
I’ve changed, too. It’s hard not to when I’ve also had to spend two hours a week with a shrink. It wasn’t voluntary, at least in the traditional sense. It was a promise I made to Barrett, of all people—under duress.
“As soon as you get to Colorado, you have to go see him. Promise me, Colson.”
I don’t forget when people come through for me, and Barrett’s one of those people. She could’ve turned her back and chosen not to get involved with Bowen’s shit show, especially after he turned Brett against her, but she didn’t. She put herself in harm’s way and confronted his ire without a second thought. And she has no problem confronting me in the same way.
“If you don’t deal with your past, you’re going to hurt her again. You may not beat her up in your sleep like last time, but it’ll be just as bad.”
Barrett also knows what the hell she’s talking about.
So, for her and Brett, I’ll sit on a couch and tell a stranger about all the fucked-up shit in my life and listen to him pick apart my issues. She went to all the trouble after all, and from all the way across the country.
But Mark Holloway’s not a bad guy. I don’t know what kind of shit he’s heard before, but he doesn’t seem fazed by my depraved mind. That, or he has a really good poker face. When I tell him my thoughts on the human condition and what I’m willing to do to people who brutalize others, especially mine, the look in his eyes tells me that he’s been through some shit, too.
I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget. Humans are no different from wild animals aside from our propensity to derive pleasure from the senseless pain of others. So, it’s not so much that I’ve changed as it is that Holloway provides me with the insight as to why I do what I do. Not that I need any reasons, but with insight comes enlightenment, and with enlightenment comes innovation. And innovation comes in handy when plans need to change.
My original plan went out the window as soon as I saw Brett bust out that window and barrel-roll out onto Bowen’s front lawn. No matter how meticulously planned, it didn’t matter anymore. Variables have a way of doing that. After that, all that mattered was getting Brett as far away from Bowen as possible.
I started building this house before I uttered one word to Brett in Wolfsson’s parking lot. By then, it was nearly half finished and all I needed to do was remind her where she belonged. And, slowly but surely, she was remembering. But, again, variables…
Fortunately, I’m a patient man.
I’ve spent years living in and out of the wilderness and weeks living in the Arctic in below zero temps, staring across vast spans of white snow and ice watching for an apex predator designed and evolved to blend in with said environment. So, waiting in the forest, watching Bowen Garrison slink around my property at night really takes me back to the good old days. It’s like a fucking hit of cocaine, and the euphoria will hit as soon as my bullet explodes through his skull.
Ultimately, he’s just another nuisance predator to dispatch, like a cougar or coyote who gets too close to the chickens. And, just like them, he can’t be allowed to leave this property alive.
But it takes patience; to draw him out, to get him here in front of me, and to wait for the right shot. Just like it took eight years of patience to get a phone call from someone who introduced herself as Agent Tammy Moreau from the FBI.
●●●
I was on my way home after work, driving up the snowy mountain, when she informed me that she’d been reassigned to Evie’s cold case.
Cold case. Bullshit.
Our parents contacted the FBI a couple of years after there hadn’t been any movement by local law enforcement—big surprise. Still, even with them calling regularly for updates and then me calling to bother them, things seemed to be at a stand-still.
I contacted them again after Bowen’s hissy fit last summer, this time even doing some of their job for them and sending them a few gifts, compliments of me, Brett…and Dallas.
And now Tammy Moreau sounds interested, which is a night and day difference from how it’s been up until now.
“I just went through the whole file,” she exhales a long, weary breath, “and, frankly, I’m trying to wrap my mind around all of it. I just reviewed the video statement from Brett Sorensen, the letter from Emily Fox, the texts on Brett’s phone, and the…” there’s an awkward pause, “other video you sent the field office.”
Yeah, I still had Bowen’s in-house sex tape. I only watched it once, on the night Bowen sent it. Otherwise, it’s been sitting in the cloud for close to a decade. It would’ve died with me, but Brett convinced me I had to turn it over to them along with everything else, decency be damned. It’s the only proof that exists where Bowen acknowledges Evie as his girlfriend…or whatever.
“I have to give it to you, though,” Moreau’s voice rises, “the lengths you went to preserve that strand of hair was impressive.”
Oh yeah, Evie’s hacked-off hair that was twisted in Brett’s pants. I grit my teeth; for some reason that part is just as bad as the moment I found Evie inside that galvanized pipe.
I push it out of my head for now and move on, “Have you spoken to Tate Garrison?”
“Yes,” her voice goes flat.
“How far’d that get you?” I scoff, knowing exactly how far it got her.
“About as far as dialing his number.”
Typical.
“So,” she takes a breath, “where does Bowen Garrison come into all of this?”
“What?” I deadpan.
There’s a long pause before she responds, “There’s no Bowen anywhere in your statement.”
“Are you—” I purse my lips and jerk the wheel of my truck in frustration, the tires pulling at the sharp curve, “are you kidding me? My entire statement was about Bowen.”
“Wait, wait,” she pauses, “ah—he’s on this list of kids who spent time with Evie the night she disappeared.” There’s another pause, “Bowen…I’m guessing he’s related to Tate Garrison?” she asks with a hint of sarcasm.
“The one and only,” I grumble.
“OK, so that evening, Jay Rhinehardt, Hannah Bailey, Hildy Garrison, and Bowen Garrison saw Evie from about 6:45 to 9:15. Jay and Hildy left Bowen at the skatepark at about nine. Hannah stated she drove Evie to the Circle K on Pinecrest at about 9:15, let her out, and she drove home never to hear from Evie again. Bowen stated he stayed at the park until about 10 with Callen Fisher until they left and went to Callen’s house to play…” she trails off for a moment, “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Something about how it sucked and kept crashing…anyway, Bowen left Callen’s house at about one in the morning, drove home, and went to bed.”
“That’s it?”
“This is it.”
“And there’s nothing about Bowen in my statement?” I snarl. “Then what the hell is in my statement?” She needs to start making some fucking sense before I rip my steering wheel off its column.
“That you spoke to Evie earlier that evening, she told you she was meeting friends at the skatepark, and then you parted ways.”
Son of a bitch.
“So, basically those assholes didn’t take any statement, is that the gist of this?”
“I’m going to be honest,” Moreau says firmly, “there’s a lot missing from this case file, not just from your statement. Nobody bothered to verify any witness statements beyond Callen Fisher and the physical evidence is a mess, so I have to rebuild this case from the ground up.”
“What about Evie’s underwear?” I ask. “I found them in the woods. Is that in someone’s report?”
She hesitates, her silence deafening.
“They were never tested,” I guess, already knowing the answer.
“They were never found,” she corrects me.
My mouth trembles with irritation as I fume. Don’t cuss her out just yet, she’s new here, she’s late to the shit show known as Tate Garrison and his goon squad.
“Small department, small budget, a lot of disorganization…homicides are rare…” Moreau rattles off the usual vague excuses of someone attempting to remain professional, trying to give the benefit of the doubt even though she already knows what kind of bullshit she’s stepped into.
“You say disorganized, I say a cover-up,” I retort, not having any of it.
“Colson,” her voice softens, but still sounds resolute, “this case is solvable. And it should’ve been solved in a matter of weeks, not years. So, give me your statement again, from the beginning.”
So, that’s what I do. Because I’m a patient man. I should be. I’ve had to do a lot of waiting to get what I want, and eventually, I always do.
Six hours seems like a long time until you procrastinate for three of them. I finally call Jo at the Pennsylvania line and tell her I’m halfway to her house…and that my life is in shambles…and not to worry because I’ll only be staying with her and Omar until my stalker comes to fetch me.
Ultimately, I decide not tell her that last part. I haven’t totally lost it—yet.
Jo is surprisingly pragmatic about the whole thing, not the big sister on a rampage that I expect when she answers. Which is fortunate, because at this point, I prefer low-key disdain and loathing rather than outbursts and threats of violence. She’s always been more dramatic than me, but maybe this time she realizes I’ve had enough of that and need her to make lists, watch trash TV, and help me get my life in order so I can extract myself from the one I just fled. I need time to process, to think. And that’s also what a six-hour drive can offer.
I pick up the empty shaker bottle from the Bronco’s cupholder, the mango smoothie long gone, and I’m instantly bombarded with sorrow.
“I should’ve offered to make them for you from the start,” Colson said when he handed it to me, “without all that gritty shit in it.”
“I like that gritty shit,” I reply, unable to contain my smile.
“Whatever,” he says with a roll of his eyes, “if I had, you would’ve figured out what Bowen was up to the second you saw those bottles of nastiness in your refrigerator and car.”
It was clever of Bowen, trying to make it seem like Colson was leaving the smoothies in the house and in my car. But there are some things that can’t be picked up through phone speakers and spyware. Quiet things, like lingering stares and silent conversations that slowly spill out after years of distance.
It seems so long ago. It’s been less than three days and I’m beginning to lose Bowen—how he looks at me, how he feels, how he sounds. It’s all being replaced by what he was like the last time I saw him. I can only remember how his hands felt throwing me around on the bed, when he slammed me against the bathroom wall, and the sound of his voice while he told me all the vile things that would happen to me.
Part of me misses him—the Bowen I met at Salt Fork. That’s what I think about most when I’m driving north, across the border into Ontario. How can someone love so fiercely and exist in the same body as someone so cruel. And I keep thinking about it after I get to Jo’s and, by that time, it’s spilling out across her and Omar’s kitchen table, their living room sofa, their balcony while I try to explain how I ended up on their doorstep with no house, no vehicle, and no job.
Well, technically I still have a job. But I’ll need to figure out what’s happening with that sooner rather than later. I don’t even know how long I’m legally allowed to stay in Canada.
But with each minute, the more Bowen fades into a shadow of a memory. I know he’s still out there and he knows that I know what he’s done. My first night at Jo’s, I keep waking up thinking I’ll see his silhouette in the doorway, that he’s found me all the way up here. He’s already been to her house once…
I blocked Bowen’s number when I was at Barrett’s house after he texted me, so I don’t know how much he’s tried in vain to contact me since then. But the only thing I do know about Bowen, without a shadow of a doubt, is that he can’t keep the mask on forever without betraying who he is. And, according to Barrett, he’s not finished trying.
It’s early and the condo is silent, which is my favorite part of the day. If I’m not in my home, surrounded by my things, the next best thing is sitting in Jo’s bright living room in front of the window that faces the lake.
Just like when we were kids.
I take the opportunity and muster the mental fortitude to call Barrett. She knows I’m here, and that I’m safe, but I’ve yet to speak to her.
“Oh, Bowen came back alright,” she chirps as I sip my steaming cup of coffee, “I turned the GPS off the night I dropped you at Colson’s and he called me no more than an hour later. He asked where you were, put on this little show, so concerned because no one had heard from you…” Barrett continues with a sigh, “I told him maybe he should’ve made friends with Colson, then he’d be able to get ahold of you,” she giggles.
“What?” I shriek into the phone.
Even now, Barrett manages to slip in a few jabs and dig the knife in deeper.
“Fortunately, Clay and Dalton came down early for their friend’s birthday, so they were already at my house by then. So, then Bowen said he’d get the law involved, as if I’ve masterminded some grand kidnapping conspiracy. He must be getting desperate. I told him, please do, go tell gramps that I disappeared your woman. And then he did, of course.”
“He did what?”
I can hear Barrett chuckling into the phone. Meanwhile, my heart is beating out of my chest. How can she be so calm?
“OK,” she says as she catches her breath, “so, it’s not illegal for him to put a GPS on a car that he owns, so I couldn’t say much about that. But get this, last night, I get another knock on my door and it’s two Columbus police officers. And that’s not all—there were five cruisers, lights flashing, sitting out front, blocking my street. They had officers surrounding the house. I’m shocked there wasn’t a helicopter.”
“Oh my god…” I murmur, staring wide-eyed across the floor.
“It was great, they put us all in separate cars, questioned us…freaking El Chapo on Hibernia…” she trails off with another chuckle, “it was bonkers.”
“But why were they all there?”
“I don’t know what else Bowen told them, but he reported your Tahoe as stolen and gave them the last location from the GPS before I turned it off. That’s how they knew where to find it. But as soon as I explained to them why he reported your car as stolen and that I knew you were safe and I could get you on the phone if they wanted, they backed off. They don’t like being jerked around by other agencies and getting dragged into small-town drama. There’s too much murder in this city for that. But they did me a favor and took your Tahoe when they left, so I didn’t even have to figure out what to do with it.”
That part makes me smile. “Well, that’s a relief. I wouldn’t want to take up your garage space longer than necessary, so are you all OK?”
“Oh, yeah,” Barrett chirps, “just another Friday night on Hibernia! At least it gave the neighbors a show. Bowen might be good, but he’s not that good. You still have people in your foxhole…”
Bowen’s not that good, but he once was. Barrett’s right, my only saving grace is that I still have people in my foxhole, despite his best efforts.
Yeah…a trauma therapist and a stalker.
Still, other women haven’t been as lucky. Emily wasn’t as lucky. And Evie did have people—like Colson—but it didn’t matter…
After Barrett promises to call me when she leaves work, I set down my phone—now black instead of Drunk Tank Pink—and stare out the window toward the lake, feeling the silence.
Really feeling the silence.
And as I breathe, the oxygen gives birth to a spark, igniting something in the pit of my stomach. A slow burn begins and the events of the last year—not even one year—play over in my mind. I don’t know how long I sit there, staring out the window in a catatonic state. But when the reel ends, my fingers itch and there’s only one thing on my mind.
I set down my coffee cup and disappear into the spare bedroom, returning with my work bag—or what used to be my work bag. I dig out my worn-out copy of The Outsiders with its cracked spine and feathery dog-eared pages and begin leisurely flipping through it. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe nothing. But when I finally get to the end, I begin reading a little slower.
Johnny and Dally saving all the kids from the fire. Johnny dying, Dally dying…Ponyboy left to pick up the pieces of his misunderstood friends, their voices drowned out by bias, misinformation, and lies. Ponyboy deciding he’s going to tell their side of the story.
Ponyboy…
Pony…
I set down the book and reach into my bag again, this time retrieving my laptop and nestling it into my lap. Then I open a blank document and stare at the blinking cursor for a few minutes.
Tell your story.
When I put my fingers to the keys, the floodgates open and everything comes spilling out. My fingers remain there for days because there’s nothing else to do, and it all has to come out somehow.
If the legends were true, I was on a journey to find monsters in the hills of Guernsey County...
Because, in the end, Colson was right. He and I are the same—we both ran away, woke up in Canada, and couldn’t let it go.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Colson
Present
Brett will tell you she looks rough, that the morning sickness drained the life from her and she struggles for the energy she used to have. And maybe she does feel rough, but it won’t last.
She looks even better, if that’s possible. I don’t know what she’s complaining about. It’s like every curve she had before she got pregnant got more pronounced and any extra weight she gains goes straight to her tits and ass. It takes all I have not to tell her to shut the hell up, but I won’t minimize her feelings, because I’m the one she confides in, and it’s going to stay that way.
She’s changed a lot over the last year, like how she doesn’t avoid her problems anymore. Part of it came from spending two hours a week in a therapist’s office, but I think the other part came from becoming a mom. There’s also the fact that she can’t avoid me anymore, either.
I’ve changed, too. It’s hard not to when I’ve also had to spend two hours a week with a shrink. It wasn’t voluntary, at least in the traditional sense. It was a promise I made to Barrett, of all people—under duress.
“As soon as you get to Colorado, you have to go see him. Promise me, Colson.”
I don’t forget when people come through for me, and Barrett’s one of those people. She could’ve turned her back and chosen not to get involved with Bowen’s shit show, especially after he turned Brett against her, but she didn’t. She put herself in harm’s way and confronted his ire without a second thought. And she has no problem confronting me in the same way.
“If you don’t deal with your past, you’re going to hurt her again. You may not beat her up in your sleep like last time, but it’ll be just as bad.”
Barrett also knows what the hell she’s talking about.
So, for her and Brett, I’ll sit on a couch and tell a stranger about all the fucked-up shit in my life and listen to him pick apart my issues. She went to all the trouble after all, and from all the way across the country.
But Mark Holloway’s not a bad guy. I don’t know what kind of shit he’s heard before, but he doesn’t seem fazed by my depraved mind. That, or he has a really good poker face. When I tell him my thoughts on the human condition and what I’m willing to do to people who brutalize others, especially mine, the look in his eyes tells me that he’s been through some shit, too.
I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget. Humans are no different from wild animals aside from our propensity to derive pleasure from the senseless pain of others. So, it’s not so much that I’ve changed as it is that Holloway provides me with the insight as to why I do what I do. Not that I need any reasons, but with insight comes enlightenment, and with enlightenment comes innovation. And innovation comes in handy when plans need to change.
My original plan went out the window as soon as I saw Brett bust out that window and barrel-roll out onto Bowen’s front lawn. No matter how meticulously planned, it didn’t matter anymore. Variables have a way of doing that. After that, all that mattered was getting Brett as far away from Bowen as possible.
I started building this house before I uttered one word to Brett in Wolfsson’s parking lot. By then, it was nearly half finished and all I needed to do was remind her where she belonged. And, slowly but surely, she was remembering. But, again, variables…
Fortunately, I’m a patient man.
I’ve spent years living in and out of the wilderness and weeks living in the Arctic in below zero temps, staring across vast spans of white snow and ice watching for an apex predator designed and evolved to blend in with said environment. So, waiting in the forest, watching Bowen Garrison slink around my property at night really takes me back to the good old days. It’s like a fucking hit of cocaine, and the euphoria will hit as soon as my bullet explodes through his skull.
Ultimately, he’s just another nuisance predator to dispatch, like a cougar or coyote who gets too close to the chickens. And, just like them, he can’t be allowed to leave this property alive.
But it takes patience; to draw him out, to get him here in front of me, and to wait for the right shot. Just like it took eight years of patience to get a phone call from someone who introduced herself as Agent Tammy Moreau from the FBI.
●●●
I was on my way home after work, driving up the snowy mountain, when she informed me that she’d been reassigned to Evie’s cold case.
Cold case. Bullshit.
Our parents contacted the FBI a couple of years after there hadn’t been any movement by local law enforcement—big surprise. Still, even with them calling regularly for updates and then me calling to bother them, things seemed to be at a stand-still.
I contacted them again after Bowen’s hissy fit last summer, this time even doing some of their job for them and sending them a few gifts, compliments of me, Brett…and Dallas.
And now Tammy Moreau sounds interested, which is a night and day difference from how it’s been up until now.
“I just went through the whole file,” she exhales a long, weary breath, “and, frankly, I’m trying to wrap my mind around all of it. I just reviewed the video statement from Brett Sorensen, the letter from Emily Fox, the texts on Brett’s phone, and the…” there’s an awkward pause, “other video you sent the field office.”
Yeah, I still had Bowen’s in-house sex tape. I only watched it once, on the night Bowen sent it. Otherwise, it’s been sitting in the cloud for close to a decade. It would’ve died with me, but Brett convinced me I had to turn it over to them along with everything else, decency be damned. It’s the only proof that exists where Bowen acknowledges Evie as his girlfriend…or whatever.
“I have to give it to you, though,” Moreau’s voice rises, “the lengths you went to preserve that strand of hair was impressive.”
Oh yeah, Evie’s hacked-off hair that was twisted in Brett’s pants. I grit my teeth; for some reason that part is just as bad as the moment I found Evie inside that galvanized pipe.
I push it out of my head for now and move on, “Have you spoken to Tate Garrison?”
“Yes,” her voice goes flat.
“How far’d that get you?” I scoff, knowing exactly how far it got her.
“About as far as dialing his number.”
Typical.
“So,” she takes a breath, “where does Bowen Garrison come into all of this?”
“What?” I deadpan.
There’s a long pause before she responds, “There’s no Bowen anywhere in your statement.”
“Are you—” I purse my lips and jerk the wheel of my truck in frustration, the tires pulling at the sharp curve, “are you kidding me? My entire statement was about Bowen.”
“Wait, wait,” she pauses, “ah—he’s on this list of kids who spent time with Evie the night she disappeared.” There’s another pause, “Bowen…I’m guessing he’s related to Tate Garrison?” she asks with a hint of sarcasm.
“The one and only,” I grumble.
“OK, so that evening, Jay Rhinehardt, Hannah Bailey, Hildy Garrison, and Bowen Garrison saw Evie from about 6:45 to 9:15. Jay and Hildy left Bowen at the skatepark at about nine. Hannah stated she drove Evie to the Circle K on Pinecrest at about 9:15, let her out, and she drove home never to hear from Evie again. Bowen stated he stayed at the park until about 10 with Callen Fisher until they left and went to Callen’s house to play…” she trails off for a moment, “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Something about how it sucked and kept crashing…anyway, Bowen left Callen’s house at about one in the morning, drove home, and went to bed.”
“That’s it?”
“This is it.”
“And there’s nothing about Bowen in my statement?” I snarl. “Then what the hell is in my statement?” She needs to start making some fucking sense before I rip my steering wheel off its column.
“That you spoke to Evie earlier that evening, she told you she was meeting friends at the skatepark, and then you parted ways.”
Son of a bitch.
“So, basically those assholes didn’t take any statement, is that the gist of this?”
“I’m going to be honest,” Moreau says firmly, “there’s a lot missing from this case file, not just from your statement. Nobody bothered to verify any witness statements beyond Callen Fisher and the physical evidence is a mess, so I have to rebuild this case from the ground up.”
“What about Evie’s underwear?” I ask. “I found them in the woods. Is that in someone’s report?”
She hesitates, her silence deafening.
“They were never tested,” I guess, already knowing the answer.
“They were never found,” she corrects me.
My mouth trembles with irritation as I fume. Don’t cuss her out just yet, she’s new here, she’s late to the shit show known as Tate Garrison and his goon squad.
“Small department, small budget, a lot of disorganization…homicides are rare…” Moreau rattles off the usual vague excuses of someone attempting to remain professional, trying to give the benefit of the doubt even though she already knows what kind of bullshit she’s stepped into.
“You say disorganized, I say a cover-up,” I retort, not having any of it.
“Colson,” her voice softens, but still sounds resolute, “this case is solvable. And it should’ve been solved in a matter of weeks, not years. So, give me your statement again, from the beginning.”
So, that’s what I do. Because I’m a patient man. I should be. I’ve had to do a lot of waiting to get what I want, and eventually, I always do.
