Page 205 of Heart So Hollow

Maybe a half hour later, he stands up and saunters across the back of the sofa toward me. He makes a point to jump right onto my paper and then onto the floor. He continues across the floor toward the front door, headed for his daily nighttime jaunt. Right on schedule. As soon as he gets to the front door, he turns around and meows for me to let him out. I rise and trudge across the living room to the door, reaching for the deadbolt.

But before I can twist it, I give pause. Routine and structure are invaluable to someone like me. But, still, sometimes they can make you do very idiotic things. The human brain on autopilot is dangerous.

I drag my eyes up and down the wood, studying the door with a sense of foreboding. After a few seconds, my fingers loosen around the lock and my arm falls back to my side. I give the heavy oak door a once-over. Deadbolt locked. Knob locked.

I take a step back and look down at Soda, “Not tonight. You have to wait until morning.”

Routine and structure are invaluable, but so is intuition. We’ve been taught to ignore gut feelings, but they used to save us. They still do when we stop second-guessing ourselves and pay attention to things right in front of our eyes.

And, tonight, I heard something walk up the stairs onto the front porch.

But I did not hear it leave.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Brett

One Year Ago

By morning, the wall is patched, painted, and aside from the 9x12 photo missing from the middle of the photo montage, it looks like nothing happened.

But I know it did. And today I’m going to find out what did happen in this house while we were gone.

I haven’t pressed Bowen about the wall—why Emily’s name was painted across it, why Hildy, Jay, Hannah, and his faces were cut out of a photo with knives stabbed through them, and how that’s related at all to Colson stealing all of my underwear. I also haven’t told Bowen about my pills disappearing, but I don’t know why. It should seem like the least terrifying of everything that happened last night, but for some reason it’s the most unsettling to me.

Maybe because it makes you doubt yourself even more than you already do.

I’ll go to the pharmacy this afternoon at lunch. I’ll get Plan B, say a prayer, and hope for the best. Oh, yeah, and get a refill. I just want to have a normal day, a normal week, a normal life again. I’m not cut out for terror and drama. I try to leave that in my books.

My book…

I can’t think about that, either, so I try to busy myself with packing my work bag. Water bottle, snacks, laptop…

Bowen is otherwise his usual self, checking emails on his phone on the other side of the island and snapping the lid on my travel mug for me. I’m about to tuck my phone into the front pocket of my bag when it vibrates with a text. My heart sinks when I see the anonymous sender and, against my better judgement, I open it to see what cryptic, asinine message Colson has for me this morning.

UNKNOWN (6:49AM): You’ve been a bad bad girl Honeybee

That’s cute.

Maybe I’m just getting used to Colson’s antics. Normalizing…

But before I can even close the text, another comes through. This time, it’s a photo, and when I see it, it takes my breath away and sends a chill through my chest all the way down to my fingertips.

The first thing I recognize is Colson’s blue STI. And when I click on the image to enlarge it, I see him sitting in the driver’s seat and me standing on the other side of the car, propping the door open with my arm as I talk to him.

Colson didn’t take this picture. Someone else did. And Colson didn’t send this text.

Which means someone else knows everything.

???

I don’t know what it’s like to be in battle. But I imagine it’s a lot of tension while you wait for something terrible to happen, which is why I feel a bizarre mixture of fear and relief when Colson finally steps through my office door around noon. He’s carrying a paper bag from the sandwich shop down the road, which he drops on my desk on his way to his usual spot next to my window.

“Turkey and provolone on wheat with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and hot peppers,” he collapses into the chair, “and kettle chips.”

I shoot him a side-eye, “Did you do anything to it?”

“Is that a request?” he smirks as he checks his phone.

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