CHAPTER TWO #2
He regards me with a look I can’t read and gently relinquishes my suitcase without a word.
Those eyes of his could make the ponderosas outside wither with one glance.
I cast him a polite smile and take my suitcase to the foot of the stairs.
Once Ev is fed, Colson and Sergei head out the door to go pick up dinner while Brett shows me to the guest room.
“What’s up with Sasquatch?” I can barely contain myself, falling into the same rhythm and snarky exchanges we’ve had since college.
Brett glances over her shoulder. “Who?”
“The lumberjack, the Viking—Sergei?”
“Oh! He’s a beast, right? I hope you got my text when you landed, otherwise that would’ve been kind of awkward,” she giggles.
This is my cue, and I proceed to tell her the saga of my horrible journey across the country, ending with me being dragged a few feet by the blonde leviathan before falling into a pile on the airport floor in defeat.
Brett’s jaw drops. “You did not!”
“It was humiliating.” I hoist my suitcase onto the edge of the bed. “But it’s me, are you really surprised?”
“Not really,” she admits. “But I’d rather be embarrassed in front of Sergei than deal with whatever the hell that is with Caleb. You need to keep an eye on that. You have a security system, right?”
Part of me thinks that Brett’s overly cautious because of what happened with Bowen…and Colson. But she’s not wrong. A triggered person can escalate very quickly if the conditions are right. And, clearly, I don’t know Caleb as well as I thought I did.
“Maybe Colson can fly out and rig up my house like he did yours,” I grin.
She returns a devious glance. “Technically, Sergei got the equipment and Colson rigged it all up.”
“Oh, good. Sergei won’t steal my luggage, but he can find the latest in illegal surveillance technology.”
“Something like that,” she chuckles. “Did I ever tell you how he and Colson know each other?”
“They were both polar bear bodyguards in Canada or something, right?”
“That, and Sergei was friends with Evie.”
My eyes round in surprise. “What?”
Evie? Colson’s stepsister who was murdered in high school? Sergei knew Evie back then?
“Sergei was a foreign exchange student at Evie’s school, and since they didn’t go to the same school as Colson, he didn’t even know about Sergei until after he’d already been working with him in Canada.”
“That’s wild,” I murmur. “So, after all those years, he moved to Canada from Russia and randomly met Colson?”
“Well…not exactly,” she replies. “Sergei already lived in Vancouver when he traveled to Canaan in high school. But apparently, they treated him like he was a Russian exchange student anyway.”
“Okaaay…but why would they do that?”
“Don’t know,” she shrugs.
That is weird, so obviously I’m going to have to investigate this further. But it spurs another thought.
“Speaking of Evie, did they ever find Hildy? Or Jay’s brother—what’s his name?”
“Wells,” she deadpans. “And no.”
“It’s been months, right? Where could they be where someone wouldn’t recognize them?”
“Dead, if they know what’s good for them.”
Her blunt response catches me a bit off-guard. But, then again, it’s not surprising. I know what dark deeds Wells has committed, just like he tried to do to Brett that night at the Rickhouse. Not to mention what a narcissistic sociopath Hildy turned out to be. Just like her twin brother.
I don’t press it, and eventually, we hear the front door open and Colson and Sergei return with bags wafting with heavenly aromas of Lebanese food. By the time we dig in, Ev is sacked, limp in the crook of Colson’s elbow.
“What did you think of Brett’s news?” Colson asks me.
I knit my brow. “Which news?”
Colson’s eyes dart to Brett. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?”
Brett bites her lip and glances at me sheepishly. “Right, so someone from Toucan contacted me and they want to adapt Heart So Hollow into a show.”
My eyes bulge and my jaw drops. “Like, the streaming service? Are you for real?”
“And maybe a couple of spin-offs, too,” she adds quickly.
“Oh my god! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s early.” She shakes her head, trying to downplay it. “There’s not much to tell yet.”
I shoot her a look. Typical Brett.
“Well, Jacob Elordi would make a great Colson,” I comment, passing one of the foam containers across the table. “I would say a young Cillian Murphy, but he’s in solid dad territory now.”
“I’ll allow it,” Colson nods.
“Speaking of which, Barrett asked about Hildy and Wells,” Brett says to Colson as she spoons some mujaddara and shawarma onto her plate.
I shake my head. “We don’t have to talk about it. I was just curious.”
“And concerned?” Brett guesses with a slight twitch of her mouth.
“That, too,” I admit.
Who wouldn’t be? They vanished without a trace and Wells was the only one unaccounted for after the raid on the police department, even though he reported for work that morning.
Hildy disappeared sometime around then, but I’m not sure whether it was before or after they executed the search warrant on her and Jay’s house where Emily Fox’s skeletal remains were discovered.
“I don’t think you need to be worried,” Colson replies.
“Why not?”
He cocks his head. “You don’t know what’s in those woods out there in Hellbranch, do you?”
“I thought they lived in Canaan.”
“The creek can’t protect them,” he says with a glint in his eye.
“From what?”
Colson reaches for the manousheh in the middle of the table. “Shadows that move through the trees too fast to see. Tall ones with big claws, pitch black hair, and long snouts full of razor-sharp teeth.”
“Oh, come on!” I chuckle. “Seriously, Colson.”
“Look it up, Barrett,” he shrugs, unbothered. “The Hellbranch murders. Granted, animals can’t murder people. But that would’ve created an entirely different problem, because animals also don’t run on two feet.”
“OK, fine, what happened? Did Wells and Hildy get eaten by monsters in the woods?”
Brett smiles with amusement, but when I glance at Sergei to my right, he’s just watching me with the same stoic expression he’s had since I first saw him from the airport floor. I don’t know why, but it’s bothering me that I can’t read him that easily. Because I’m good at that.
“It’s like all these other cold cases,” Colson continues, “where bodies start turning up in the woods—all young women, torn to shreds.”
I bristle with apprehension at first. It’s not lost on me that he’s describing circumstances similar to his sister’s murder, but his tranquil tone suggests that Evie has nothing to do with this story.
“Rumors abound, people in Hellbranch speculated that they might be connected to other mysterious deaths years before—enough to suspect, but not enough to confirm. But then, one night…” he pauses for dramatic effect, “Joey and Stevie Hunter—Stevie’s a girl, by the way—heard their dogs barking and looked out the window to see a massive black creature in their yard.
They ran outside to find it cornering their dog.
It turned on them, but soon enough, their grandfather came running with his gun and shot it.
The kids say he hit it with one round from an assault rifle before it took off. ”
“What was it? A bear?” As if there are any bears in the flatlands…
“They said it looked like a giant dog with pointed ears and a huge head, but it was standing on two feet and had a growl that sounded like thunder. Nobody believed them, of course.”
And how could they? But, then again, there aren’t any large predators in the Midwest. Not like in the mountains.
“The story goes that one day, Joey was walking through the woods on his way to Palomino Park when he got ambushed by the same creature he saw on his property. It would’ve killed him, but his twin sister, Stevie, came upon them just in time.
The police would later say he surprised a serial killer while his sister was being attacked, but both of them swore it was Stevie who saved her brother. ”
“So, they survived?”
Colson nods. “Stevie killed it with nothing but an aluminum softball bat.”
“Killed what?”
Colson lowers his voice. “A werewolf.”
I just stare at him, speechless. I have so many questions, but can’t decide whether they merit even asking. The whole thing sounds ridiculous, but at the same time incredibly unsettling.
“When did this happen—allegedly?” I ask through hooded eyes.
“Oh, decades ago. And after that, miraculously the killings stopped. Stevie Hunter went on to be the best softball player in the state, win a championship, and then a bunch of college championships, immortalized with a scholarship named after her and bestowed upon none other than my own sister—” he breaks into a grin, “Evie Maguire.”
My jaw drops. “No way!”
I am stunned.
Colson gives a smug nod and starts attacking the kebab on his plate.
On that note, I follow suit, shooting Brett a look as she chuckles silently across the table.
A few minutes later, as the conversation drifts from werewolves to Colson and Sergei’s work talk, I notice a sensation near the bottom of my leg.
I look down at my lap and see Sergei’s leg resting against mine. Normally, I would be annoyed at the intrusion on my personal space, but for some reason, I don’t demur and move my leg. Because I’m going to find out more about Sergei.
Or maybe I just like a challenge. That’s why I’m assigned the most interesting patients at work, after all. Why should the silent Russian giant next to me be any different?
A moment later, my phone vibrates and I pull it out of my back pocket to silence it if it’s ringing.
It’s not, but as soon as I look down at my screen, my heart goes to my throat.
The text list is filled with the word, UNKNOWN, all the way down.
But I know who it is, and I don’t have the stomach to look at the messages right now.
Why won’t he leave me alone?