Page 223 of Heart So Hollow

Finally, I take her arm and motion for her to get out of the Tahoe, “Come on,” I nod to my car, “I’m taking you for a ride.”

She turns and gingerly tugs the smaller one of the bags onto her shoulder before she locks her car and lets me put her in the front seat of mine. By the time we’re back on the road, she seems more comfortable and ready to talk.

“I found a box up in the closet,” she sniffs and rubs her nose, “it had…things in it.”

I know she found a box, but I don’t tell her that, “What kinds of things?”

Brett hesitates and then takes a deep breath, “There was a letter,” she suddenly lets out a gasp, “The letter! I took the letter. Oh my god, I took the letter.”

I arch my brow in surprise, “You have it?”

“It’s in my bag. It’s from Emily to Bowen, and she talks about all the horrible things he did to her. There were pictures with it, pictures of her wearing my engagement ring. He gave me her ring!” Brett furrows her brow in revulsion, “Then there was a shredded shirt that was covered in dirt and, Colson, I swear it smelled like death,” she shakes her head, “and…” Brett hesitates and then her eyes go wide, “Oh, god, the dog and the fucking arm! Jay said Waylon…” she slaps her hand over her mouth with a pained groan and stares out the window.

Dog? Arm? Now she’s really not making any sense.

Brett runs her hand down her face, “Colson,” she cringes and then takes a breath to compose herself, “he has the news article that talks about how you found Evie in the woods. Evie’s your stepsister. She’s the sister you told me about.”

I grit my teeth, staring at the road ahead, “Of course he does,” I drone. Bowen probably read it frequently after it happened. Maybe now he only reads it and reminisces on special occasions. I clear my throat, “anything else?”

“Yes,” Brett’s voice changes, suddenly deeper and more serious, “I—” she inhales slowly through clenched teeth and blows it out, her mouth scrunching into a grimace, “I found her hair.”

When I turn to her, this time she’s the one staring straight ahead, “Whose hair?” I deadpan.

Brett swallows hard, “Evie’s hair. He kept her hair…” she rasps in abject horror, “it was in a bag, still braided. I even touched it. I shouldn’t have left it behind. Hannah probably took it and—” she sighs in defeat, “I should’ve fought harder…”

I vehemently shake my head at her unfounded guilt. Brett uttering those words makes my skin crawl. The idea of her finding Evie’s hacked-off hair and then taking the time to stuff it into her pants as she runs for her life is enough to make me sick. I press my mouth together, keeping my own emotions in check as I gun the engine south along the edge of the park.

“Bowen even told me about it,” she continues, “he told me how Evie died, how she was shot and beaten and raped and strangled and someone cut off her hair and then slashed her up.” Brett shakes her head with disgust, “Then Hildy acted like she didn’t know.”

“It’s because no one else did know,” I say slowly, “the only people who know any of that are Evie’s parents, my mom, me...” I cast her an ominous look, “and the Canaan Police Department.”

Brett goes quiet, fidgeting with the ends of her hair, “Why didn’t you say anything?” She finally turns to me, “Why didn’t you just tell me about Evie?”

“Because if I tried to tell you right off the bat that Bowen murdered Evie, you wouldn’t have believed a word of it.”

“So, instead you stayed quiet and—” she cuts herself off and looks away.

“He took it easy on you,” I say harshly, “even if I told you and you believed me, do you think if you asked him about it that he would’ve let you live out the night?”

Brett jerks her head up, “Then tell me now,” she snaps, “what the hell is going on?”

Slowing down over the next hill, I catch sight of a pull-off just through the trees. I veer off and whip into the dirt clearing and kill the engine.

Now’s as good a time as any.

I was going to do this anyway. I was planning on telling Brett everything, but Bowen jumped the gun with one of his tantrums—like usual.

I turn to Brett, who’s stare is so intense it threatens to swallow me whole, waiting for an explanation. At some point in the last few minutes, the spark returned and she looks more like herself. Even now, during all this chaos, I have to stop and take her in.

Suddenly, I pause, my eyes trained on the waist of her jeans. Slowly, I reach over with my thumb and forefinger. Brett looks down to see me pinch something between my fingers and gently pull it away from her waist. When I hold it up in front of her at just the right angle, her mouth falls open in shock.

It’s a long, straight, red hair—a much deeper red than Brett’s strawberry blonde ringlets. And it was caught in the button of her jeans.

With my other hand, I reach past her to open the glove box and grab the plastic bag that holds the extra attachments and charge cords for my cell phone mount. I dump the contents into the center console and then carefully drop the hair—Evie’s hair—into the bag, pinching the top and running my fingers across the zip lock.

I set the bag down in my lap and unclip my phone from its mount, “Before I tell you anything, you have to do something for me.”

Brett glances at the bag and then up at me, “What?”

---