Page 92 of Heart So Hollow

I blinked, “Again?”

Dallas paused, as if she realized what she just said, “Yeah, back when I was in high school, we lost someone close to us and—” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “something similar happened. A lot of small-town drama and Colson ending up in the middle of it…”

Dallas’s voice trailed off as she caught herself. Suddenly, her lighthearted demeanor returned and she sat back in her chair, swiveling around to make sure she’d completed her original task.

“Anyway, I shouldn’t be talking about him while he’s not here. I still can’t believe you know him. I’m so excited he has a friend here!”

I clenched my jaw, tensing the muscles in my neck.

A friend…

“Believe me, I was just as shocked as you are. And, look,” I leaned forward, tapping her desk, “I really appreciate you telling me all of this. I wouldn’t want to accidentally say something that would make him uncomfortable.”

It was mostly true. I didn’t want to say anything to create an awkward situation—as if it could get any more awkward. But I was also trying to get as much information as possible about what Colson had been doing the last few years. And the more I spoke to Dallas, I wondered if I really wanted to know, after all.

As soon as I got back to my office, I couldn’t pull up the Google search bar fast enough. I scrolled through the list of news results on my phone until I found a short article from Anchorage dated less than two years ago. It contained a photo of a woman with long black hair and dark almond eyes crouched on a boulder against a majestic mountain lake for a backdrop. She was dressed in leggings, hiking boots, and a tank top with a flannel shirt tied around her waist. The caption beneath the photo included her name, Paige Sweringen.

According to the article, she was on a weeklong hiking trip with her boyfriend—boyfriend—when she was struck by a fallen tree. Paige died instantly from blunt-force trauma to the head. She grew up in Anchorage and was a biologist at the University of Alaska. The article was otherwise vague. Colson’s name wasn’t even mentioned, much less any of the details Dallas told me.

I cleared the search field and started over. Tapping the side of my phone, I tried to recall the long-ago incident both Colson and Dallas mentioned.

Why would Colson say his sister was murdered while Dallas used the term, someone close to us? She didn’t say anything about murder. And what drama was Colson involved in afterward?

Whoever it was, neither of them mentioned her name, so I searched “Lutz”, “murder”, “death”, and “Dire Ridge, OH.” The search results were even more disappointing than the one article about Paige’s death. There was absolutely nothing. All of these could turn out just to be freak accidents where bad things happen to good people. Still, it was made worse by Colson and Dallas’s vague explanations.

I was veering off into a strange train of thought and it wasn’t doing me any good. As I was staring at the unremarkable Google search results, an email notification popped up in my toolbar. It was from Colson.

From: Lutz, Colson (US)

To: Sorensen, Brett (US)

Subject: Your book will be better than the movie

A girl I know from college works for a publisher in NYC now. I told her you finished your book and she wants you to send it to her.

I was going to absolutely die if the name he gave me was Dacia Ferguson’s. Or a couple of

other select names I knew were associated with him back then…

But it wasn’t.

Ecstatic that I didn’t recognize the name, I was overcome with excitement to send my book

to Jada Marquette at Revel and Woods Publishing. So ecstatic, in fact, that I briefly considered leaving work right then. But then I hesitated, staring at the email with Colson’s name at the top, my excitement quelling slightly. But before I could do anything else, an IM popped up from Colson.

COLSON: Did you get my email with Jada’s info?

I stared at his message, trying to read between the lines. I know there’s something he’s not saying, some ulterior motive. Why would he do this?

ME: Don’t think this means anything has changed. We had lunch once.

COLSON: Just say thank you. I told her it was good.

ME: You’ve never read it.

COLSON: She doesn’t know that. Am I wrong?

ME: No, you’re not. But I’m not going to owe you anything for giving me an email address.

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