Page 242 of Heart So Hollow

It’s my resignation, but the problem is that I didn’t write it. It doesn’t even sound like an email I would write, devoid of salutations and exclamations and tiny details that indicate I’m a human rather than a dot matrix printer.

No sooner do I finish scanning the thread than the desk phone falls from my hand onto the counter. I run my hand over my heart, kneading my shirt as a sickening realization floods my stomach. Colson picks up the phone and turns away from me as he starts speaking to Dave. I don’t hear what he says. All I can hear is a rush in my ears, like I’m underwater, and everything seems to slow down.

I don’t know how long Colson is on the phone, but when he hangs up, sound slowly starts to return and I hear him speaking, but not to me. Alex has emerged from the back office. He and Colson are talking in hushed tones to one another, glancing at me periodically, but I don’t know what they’re talking about.

Finally, I snap out of it when Colson slams his phone face down on the copy machine glass and smashes the green button with his thumb. Once the machine spits out a sheet of paper, he rips it from the tray and scrawls a few words across the bottom in Sharpie before holding it up in front of Alex.

It’s a picture of Bowen, pulled from social media, with the make and model of his truck written under it.

Alex takes it from him and then, a second later, jerks his head up, “What is this? What the fuck happened?” he barks, jolting me out of my daze.

“Change of plan,” Colson replies, “he’s off the rails.”

My eyes dart between them as they argue, tossing vague terms back and forth to one another.

“What does that mean?” Alex demands, casting me a brief glance, “Why am I posting his face at our gate?”

I think this is the most animated I’ve ever seen Alex. He’s usually so calm, like he’s just absorbing everything around him. I can barely tell what he thinks about anything.

Colson looks at Alex gravely and lowers his voice, “Because he almost did it again…”

“I fff—” Alex presses his mouth together with a frustrated growl, “this is why I was trying to find you. This is why we needed you back,” he fluctuates between whispers and shouts, “because he was already coming at your other sister before I showed up. We should’ve ended this a long time ago.”

“Is that what Dallas would say?” Colson counters.

Alex lunges at Colson and grabs the top of his vest, backing him into the wall, “You don’t know the half of why Dallas is doing what she’s doing,” he snarls, “and she wouldn’t need to if you or I had been here instead of thousands of miles away. This has always been our problem and our responsibility and I’ll die before I let her spend the rest of her life worrying that Bowen fucking Garrison is lurking in the shadows.”

“Don’t let your emotions overwhelm intelligence,” Colson glares at Alex with his piercing eyes, “don’t forget, we’re not the only ones with a stake in this.”

I stare at them, wide-eyed, neither of them taking notice of me with my jaw hanging down to the floor. I don’t know half of what they’re talking about, but I’m starting to get lightheaded again.

Alex casts me a brief glance and then loosens his hold on Colson.

“Let me figure this out,” Colson nods to me, “and then we figure it out.”

Alex doesn’t take his eyes off Colson, and after a moment he finally nods and turns to head back to the desk. “He won’t get past the gate,” Alex barks over his shoulder, “and if I see him first, he’s dead.”

???

My back and shoulders are so tense, they feel like they’re made of marble, but my legs feel like pure Jell-O. Colson’s stride is so long that I have to jog to keep up with him through the lobby toward the long hallway of offices off to the right. When I glance up at his body armor, fastened back into place, I have the sickening realization that Colson is now my escort through the building rather than my coworker.

My Tahoe remains outside the front gate, parked next to the security building after Colson ordered me to get my work bag and meet him at his car.

“What’d you say to Dave?” I ask as I try to organize my thoughts, “What’s going on?”

“I took care of it,” he states plainly.

“How? I’ve been fired—quit—whatever…” I don’t even know how to explain what’s happening.

“No, you haven’t,” Colson leads me through the vast corridor of offices to the back of the building, “I told him you didn’t send the email and then told him what’s going on.”

My eyes round, “What did you tell him?”

“Only that your safety’s been compromised,” Colson looks over his shoulder at me, “so, you still have your job if you want it.”

He comes to a halt at the last office at the end of the hall and Dallas’s face lights up as soon as she sees us in her doorway. Standing behind Colson, I can’t see his face, but her wide, crimson smile fades the longer she looks at him.

He sits down in one of the black chairs in front of her desk and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “Can you find spyware on a phone?”

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