Page 203 of Heart So Hollow

“Lutz,” he barks from the door.

“Why?” I shriek as he reaches for the door handle.

Bowen stops abruptly and turns around, “Why?” He furrows his brow, “Because he broke into my house and stole my fiancée’s underwear like a sick fuck!”

I wave my arm frantically at the wall, “OK, but what does that have to do with all of this?”

“I don’t know, Brett,” Bowen shrugs, “since when does anything he does make sense?” then he motions to the wall above me, “I don’t even know an Emily.”

I knit my brow in confusion, “Yes, you do.” I glance up at the red paint and then back at Bowen, “Your ex-girlfriend’s name is Emily. Hildy told me about her.”

Why is he looking at me like I’m talking nonsense?

And, for the record, I know Colson came into my house and stole all of my underwear. He even returned the pair he kept all those years ago. What I don’t know is how he knows Bowen had a girlfriend named Emily, why he painted her name across the wall, shredded a photo from high school, and then stabbed knives through the wall.

Bowen’s irritation is palpable, “Do you want to talk about my ex or the fact that your fucking stalker broke into my house and stole all your underwear?”

“And what do you mean, find him?” I press, “Where would you even go?”

Bowen is unfazed, “Would you prefer I wait ‘til tomorrow when I know he’s at work with you?”

My stomach drops, “You can’t go there, I’ll get fired!”

“So?”

“Bowen,” I hiss, “You’ll get killed. If you try to get past the entrance, they’ll shoot you. And I know them, they’re bored and some of them are probably itching for a reason to fire off a few rounds!”

Batshit.

Bowen peers at me from the front door, clenching his teeth.

“Fine,” he concedes, storming back into the living room, “but if I see him anywhere near here, I’m calling Jay,” he turns the corner into the hall, calling over his shoulder, “and he can bring the coroner.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Brett

Present

“There are some things I still haven’t told you,” I glance up at Judy apprehensively, “and I don’t know if I want to go there yet.”

“That’s the beauty of this therapy,” she asserts excitedly, “you don’t even have to speak if you don’t want to. During ART, you think about all the details instead of re-hashing them and re-traumatizing yourself.”

“So, I don’t even have to tell you?”

She shakes her head, “Not unless you want to.”

Minutes later, Judy’s fluttering about, setting up a tripod in front of me with a light bar attached to the top. Even though she’s the most calming influence I’ve ever encountered, I still pick at my cuticles with a sense of foreboding.

“OK,” she sits back down in her red leather chair on the other side of the birch coffee table, “I want you to close your eyes and start moving them back and forth at a steady pace, along the light, while you think about that night. Pretend you’re watching it play out on a movie screen. Just breathe and concentrate on your eye movements while replaying the events in your mind.”

I do as she says and close my eyes, tucking my hands under my thighs so I don’t make myself bleed all over her ivory sofa. I take a deep breath and begin shifting my eyes back and forth behind the pink shadows of my eyelids.

Right…left…right…left…right…left…right…left…right…

It’s dark, but it shouldn’t be. Suddenly, he comes out of nowhere and I feel him grabbing me…dragging me…I’m fighting, arms and legs thrashing, screaming…

Left…right…

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