CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Barrett
One Year Ago
I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the better of me. But we’re all human and make mistakes, especially when my best friend is accusing me of trying to fuck her fiancé. It’s all too ridiculous, even for me.
I blow up Brett’s phone until she blocks me. Then, I blow up Bowen’s phone until he blocks me, too. At that point, I don’t care if she knows I’ve been calling him non-stop. He can tell whatever lies about me he wants. It doesn’t matter now. I should’ve just called her right after it happened, work and morning routines be damned. Maybe I was still in shock.
That morning, when Bowen said he could come fix my outlet, I’d just finished drying my hair when I realized my shirt was still hanging in the laundry room with the rest of my clothes in the dryer. After flying down the stairs and tearing through my kitchen in nothing but a pair of purple lace panties, I grab an armful of clothes and run back into the kitchen, only to let out a shrill scream when see a tall, dark silhouette standing at the counter next to the refrigerator.
Clutching my clothes, I stumble backward, curling in on myself in terror. I’m about to take off running through the dining room to the back door, naked or not, when I catch a glimpse of Bowen’s broad grin in the dim light. I stare at him, frozen, with my jaw hanging.
“ Shit, ” Bowen chuckles, “sorry, sweetheart.”
I let out a livid groan, wrapping my arms tighter around myself, “What are you doing here?” I snap. “When did you come in?”
“Got you a new outlet,” he replies, lifting a white box and jiggling it between his fingers, “I texted you when I was on my way. Didn’t you get it?” He steps around the corner of the counter and leans against the island .
I blink a few times, still trying to get my bearings, “No. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t looked at my phone.”
Now that I know there’s not some masked intruder in my house and I won’t be murdered before work, I can calm down. But it doesn’t last for long because, even though it’s just Bowen, I’m still standing in the middle of the kitchen in my panties—and only my panties—trying to cover myself with a wad of loose laundry. This is beyond embarrassing.
Jesus, he probably saw my tits and everything.
“Doesn’t matter,” he pulls the new outlet out and tosses the box onto the granite behind him, “it only takes a couple minutes to replace.”.
“Oh, good,” I swallow hard and refocus, “sorry for screaming at you. I’ll go change and be right down.”
I start to scurry past him, but his leg flies up and he plants his boot on the pantry door with a thud, blocking my path. At first, I just stare at his leg, unable to process why it’s there. My eyes dart up to his face, his expression is unchanged. He’s looking at me with the same nonchalance as before, unbothered by the fact that I just screamed bloody murder and, by the way, I’m not wearing any clothes.
“Excuse me, Bowen,” I say with a hint of sarcasm.
He likes fucking with people, including me, but it usually takes the form of trash-talking banter or engaging the child locks on the back doors of his truck so I can’t get out right away.
“Before you go, I wanted to ask you something.”
Seriously? Now?
I look at him impatiently, hoping he’ll hurry it up so I can go put some clothes on, “What is it?”
“Has Brett told you anything about the guy she works with?” he asks.
“Which guy?”
He tosses his hair out of his eye, “The guy that put a gun to her head.”
I glance down at Bowen’s leg, still planted on the pantry door, “I know he works there.” I keep my tone light, because there’s something about Bowen that doesn’t seem right.
“So, she did tell you about Colson,” there’s a hint of smugness in his tone, “she told me about him when we met, but said I’m the only one who knows what happened with him.”
Shit.
Bowen gives a shake of his head, “It doesn’t matter.”
Like hell it doesn’t…
“How much do you know about him?”
“Look,” I hood my eyes dismissively, “I’ll talk to you more about this when I come back downstairs.”
He ignores me and continues, “I assume you know about his stalking, but are you aware he’s a murderer, too?”
After a long blink, I furrow my brow, “What? ”
Bowen nods, “I’ve been trying to get her to see that she can’t just go back to being friends with him like nothing happened. But you know her, she’s stubborn as hell and downplays everything. She thinks she can handle it on her own.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I squint and shake my head, “what do you mean he’s a murderer?”
As soon as Bowen casually drops this bit of knowledge, I suddenly forget that I’m standing in front of him in nothing but underwear and an armful of laundry covering my chest.
“I didn’t tell Brett, but I knew who he was before she ever told me about him.”
“How?”
“He was friends with a girl I knew in high school. But, after a while, he became obsessed with her.” Bowen reaches in his pocket and pulls out a folded-up sheet of paper, “He finally got arrested for it.”
Bowen unfolds the paper and holds it out to me. I shift the clothes in my arms and take it from him. It’s Colson, alright, and he looks the same as he did in college; dark auburn hair, striking blue eyes, and his expression is eerily similar to how he looked at that party where he snubbed Brett for Dacia Ferguson.
Colson fucking Lutz…
Here it is, an official mugshot with Colson’s name and face on it. And beneath it is the charge—menacing by stalking.
“It didn’t go anywhere, though.” Bowen continues.
No, it usually doesn’t. Stalking is notoriously difficult to prove and notoriously downplayed in the courts when it comes to convictions and sentencing. And it would seem, according to his admission of following Brett back to North Bay, that he just honed his skills since then.
“He kept at it until finally this girl disappeared one night and they found her body a week later.”
This sounds vaguely familiar…
“OK,” I hand the mugshot back to Bowen, clutching my clothes against my body again, “so why isn’t he in prison now?”
“Because she was out in the woods in the heat and the rain for a week, rotting in a drain pipe.” His words hit me like a punch in the chest. “No evidence and no witnesses, so he graduated, went off to school, and eventually found Brett.”
I shake my head in disbelief, “Why haven’t you told her any of this?”
“Would you like to go to work every day knowing you have to see a guy that murdered some girl he was stalking?”
“No, I wouldn’t like to. But just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you should ignore it. You need to say something”
“Maybe.” Bowen glances down at the floor, “She’s been really stressed out lately. Her book’s finished and she’s waiting to hear back from agents, so I get it. But she’s been distant, forgetting things, on edge all the time.” Bowen pauses, and then looks up at me as he takes a breath, “Do you think she…” he trails off and I just look at him, unsure of what he’s getting at. “I mean,” he finally lowers his boot back to the floor, “do you think he’s already gotten to her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like,” Bowen crosses his arms and settles against the edge of the island, “do you think he’s already fucked her?” he asks, emphasizing each word.
His question catches me off-guard and I feel goosebumps skitter up my neck and over my scalp. Why would he go straight to that? Bowen holds my gaze, the corners of his eyes squinting ever so slightly as he slowly lets out his breath. He’s saying something without actually saying it. The tension rises, becoming a thick cloud in the kitchen, and I suddenly realize that I don’t want to be having this conversation—or any conversation—with Bowen anymore.
“No,” I brush off his question with a shake of my head and don’t elaborate further.
With an exasperated breath, he pushes off the counter and steps toward me in one stride, “She tells you everything. Do you think she’d tell you that?” I recoil in surprise when I suddenly feel his fingers brush my hip.
Quickly, I move to the side, trying to create some space between us. He’s too close, and he shouldn’t be trying to touch me. And why the hell am I still standing here in my underwear?
“You OK?” Bowen looks at me with surprise, as though I’m the one who’s done something unexpected.
He’s standing between the island and pantry door, still blocking my path. “I need to go upstairs. I need to get dressed,” I clip as I angle my shoulder toward him.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead,” Bowen smiles, but doesn’t move.
A silent conversation initiates and, in an instant, my kitchen turns into an interrogation room. This is now weird, and I need him gone. But he doesn’t budge, looking down at me with an eerie sense of amusement.
But I’m not going to be intimidated by him. “Please move, ” I say firmly, locking him in a dead stare.
Finally, Bowen shifts his weight and steps to the side, not taking his eyes off me. I stare right back at him while I scoot past, as close to the pantry door as I can, and hurry down the hall and up the stairs.
For a brief moment, I don’t know if Bowen will actually leave. But when I hear his truck start in the driveway a few minutes later, relief washes over me and I rush to get dressed and get out the door for work, deciding to deal with this later.
I don’t get the chance, though.
By evening, Brett blows in like a tornado and leaves the shreds of our friendship in her wake. No matter how much I yell at her, she’s convinced I’ve done the unthinkable. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her about Colson, his mugshot, or the story Bowen told about him.
And, as angry as I am, I can’t blame her. There’s a reason she believes it, and after the bizarre interaction with Bowen in my kitchen, I know Bowen did something. I just don’t know what.
I send Brett messages on all her socials, but I know that’s useless. She’s so hit and miss, there’s no telling when she might see them. I debate having Katie or Emma talk to her for me, but I don’t know if that’ll make things worse, so I decide to hold off for now. There’s still a chance that things will cool down, isn’t there?
I’ve been on the phone with Katie for over an hour now. She’s my only connection with Brett at this point.
“Brett just sent me screenshots of the texts between you and Bowen,” she says disapprovingly, “what in the holy hell is going on? Why are your boobs on his phone?”
Jesus Christ. Everyone’s seen my tits and I don’t even know what picture they’re talking about.
I don’t blame Katie for being outraged. I would be, too—if I’d actually done it. Nothing about this makes sense. I don’t want to get with Bowen. I never have. Because the first time I met him was when he showed up at Calhoun’s and Brett was head over heels for him, which means he was off-limits from the get-go. I didn’t send him those texts and I sure as hell wouldn’t have sent him a nude!
“If you accidentally sent it to him, just say so,” Katie’s tone softens, “it happens. I mean, it’s fucking embarrassing , but it’s better than the alternative.”
“I didn’t!” I tell her, yet again. “There’s no way Bowen should have a naked picture of me.” Something is off with those texts. They shouldn’t exist, because I never sent them. “Katie, can you please send those screenshots to me? There’s something really weird going on.”
I wait impatiently until my phone starts vibrating as the pictures start rolling in.
ME (8:42PM): 824 Hibernia Hills
ME (8:42PM): The key is under the yellow flower pot on the porch
ME (9:02PM): (Attachment)
BOWEN (6:42AM): Barrett what are you doing?
ME (8:06AM): I’m going to tell Brett about this .
BOWEN (8:18AM): You should
“ Oh my god! ” I holler at my screen as soon as I see the picture of myself posing in my bathroom.
I recognize the picture immediately, and I remember exactly why I took it. I was going to send it to Anna’s friend, Harrison, who I’ve been texting with for a couple months. Luckily, I had a sudden moment of clarity and chickened out. But I kept it because, frankly, I look damn good.
All the same, it shouldn’t be on Bowen’s phone. And the more I stare at the screenshots, I realize there are quite a few things missing from them. My thumb flies over my screen, opening my text thread with Bowen and comparing it to the screenshots.
ME (8:42PM): 824 Hibernia Hills
ME (8:42PM): The key is under the yellow flower pot on the porch
BOWEN (6:42AM): Barrett what are you doing?
BOWEN (7:26AM): Your outlet’s fixed
ME (7:28AM): Thanks. I appreciate you coming over, but you shouldn’t have been hanging out in my kitchen in the dark and then prevented me from leaving when I had basically no clothes on. And you trying to touch me wasn’t cool, either.
BOWEN (7:31AM): You know I’d never try to make you uncomfortable.
ME (7:52AM): And why were you asking me weird questions about Brett and Colson?
BOWEN (8:01AM): Because I know you’re lying to me
ME (8:05AM): I’m not aware of anything going on. But if you’re worried about Colson, you need to talk to her about it, not me.
ME (8:06AM): I’m going to tell Brett about this.
BOWEN (8:18AM): You shoul d
I’ll lie to Bowen all day, because he’s not my best friend—a fact that was conveniently erased from our conversation. No wonder Brett thinks I’m a lying sack of shit. But how…
Then it hits me while I stare at the time stamp above the picture. I know what he did. I know what he fucking did. He had my phone that one evening. He could see anything he wanted, send anything he wanted, and erase anything he wanted…
And now all I can think about is Brett telling me about Hannah and how she’s afraid of Bowen now. I should’ve pressed, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to seem overprotective, but I should have. Some people might’ve glossed over everything and given him the benefit of the doubt.
“I didn’t see it happen.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t have proof.”
But I have seen it, all too often. I’ve seen what happens when people ignore the signs. People aren’t resilient; they do what they need to survive and later the trauma comes out in my office in the form of anxiety, attachment disorders, and post-traumatic stress.
And now Brett’s in that house, with Bowen, and there’s no way for me to know if she’s OK. I have to get her to talk to me, I have to warn her before it’s too late, and I won’t stop until I do.
●●●
Emotions are high and I have a wedding to attend in Detroit over the weekend, so I decide to let the dust settle more before trying to reach out again. But it seems I don’t have to, because Tuesday afternoon, I get a text from Brett.
brETT (3:48PM): I need you.
I stare at it for the longest time. Such a short phrase, but its placement in the midst of such chaos gives it more meaning than any other three words strung together.
ME (3:59PM): I’ll be home by 5:15
Brett’s on my porch at 5:00. When I glance out the peephole, she looks completely normal. But when I open the door, she suddenly deflates and doesn’t even look like herself. Her face is puffy and she looks exhausted. She’s lugging a tote and a duffel bag that looks like it’s stuffed to the gills.
She’s staring at the bottom of the door, and as soon as I open it, her eyes dart up to me with a look of alarm, like she was startled by a loud noise .
I furrow my brow at her state, “What the hell happened to you?”
She lowers her eyes again and trudges through my front door into the muted lilac foyer, looking like a tweaked-out zombie. The last time she set foot here seems like a lifetime ago. This is so unexpected that I don’t even know where to start. But I don’t have to decide, because when Brett opens her mouth, it all comes spilling out in one, long stream of consciousness—the assault, the texts, the book disappearing.. .
Good God, her entire book …
In some ways, this is more disturbing than hearing about Bowen attacking her. I’m not shocked when I hear things like that, anyone can snap and physically lash out if they’re angry enough. But destroying her book is so diabolical. It takes effort and planning to inflict that kind of psychological damage. It tore away a chunk of her identity, something she worked so hard on for so long.
Brett goes on about the box in the closet, Colson and his sister, the letter from Bowen’s ex, the filthy clothes, the hair , the engagement ring, Hannah showing up, the resignation email, the spyware on her phone...
She babbles on to the very end, until she’s out of breath and collapses against the wall. The only sounds I can hear now are airy sobs clicking in the back of her throat. I throw my arms around her, holding her in a bear hug as we slide down the wall to the floor.
“Why did he have to do this?” Brett wails in an agonizing scream of despair, “ Why did he have to be like this? ”
I press my temple to her cheek in silence, my eyes welling as I rock with her on my floor, “I don’t know, Brett, I don’t know…”
I can still see Bowen standing in my kitchen, transforming from my best friend’s fiancé into a sinister goon in less than a second, and I want to go find him and tear his throat out. But I can’t, so for now my only solace is that he’s grossly underestimated how deep the friendship between women runs. There’s enough to salvage our friendship even in our darkest moment. And one thing’s for sure—I was here before Bowen, and I’ll be here after.
Brett’s white Tahoe sits in the driveway in front of the garage door, and the longer I stare out the window at it, a sickening dread begins to take hold in my chest.
You’ve seen this before. You know what will happen.
It’s easy to trick yourself into believing that disaster isn’t minutes away, that evil isn’t sitting right on your doorstep, because it’s always something that happens to someone else. But aren’t we all someone else? I’ve seen this scenario play out in retrospect too many times.
How often do we wish we could go back and correct a single mistake? Haven’t I learned from those who didn’t see the signs and didn’t have the chance to go back? If I’m wrong, then so be it. But if I’m right, I can’t make that kind of mistake .
“Brett,” I pull myself together and start picking us both up off the floor, “I think you should move your car into my garage.”