CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Colson
Present
I should go down there right now. One shot. Done.
But then I see Wells Rhinehardt right before he slammed me down onto a desk and Tate Garrison’s stupid fucking face and the look he gave me when I was just a high schooler who pulled my sister’s rotting corpse out of a drain pipe in the forest. My sister, who his grandson murdered. He was promising to make my life hell and destroy my family even further. Then again, Bowen was just a high schooler, too, and look at all the damage he managed to inflict in such a short time.
No, I relax my finger on the trigger, but only slightly. If that sliding glass door opened, then all the training that I got up in the Arctic would instantly pay off. But it doesn’t. The lock holds and Bowen remains on the right side of the glass.
I also keep my promises. And firing off a shot just because I’m impatient isn’t worth it. I’ve waited this long, what’s a day or two longer?
A lot. Because I’ve put up with enough of this bullshit, and now I just want to live in my house, fuck my woman, give her everything she wants, raise my children, and live happily ever after while my sister and one of my best friends live in the next valley over.
But that’s alright, I can wait. Because I’m a patient man, after all.
Through my scope, I suddenly see something light appear on the inside of the glass, then I realize it’s Brett’s palm pressed against the window. A few seconds later, Bowen lifts his hand and presses it against the glass in the same spot.
What the hell is she doing ?
Both of them stay like that for only a few seconds, but it seems like an hour. Finally, Bowen lowers his arm and quickly steps away from the window, making his way across the deck and back down to the yard. When I’m confident he’s headed back into the woods, I peer through my scope again at the window, finally able to catch an unobstructed view of Brett.
She’s staring at the window, her hand still pressed against the glass. Every few seconds, her eyes dart away and then return to the window. Then it dawns on me. Even now, she’s not sure she’s really seeing him or seeing his ghost that’s lived in her head for the past year. She still can’t decide whether he’s that brazen.
But he is.
I lower my rifle, still leaning against the trunk of the pine, and shift my gaze to Bowen disappearing into the trees on the south side of the property. I glance down at Pony, still posted up at my heel. His brown dog eyes track Bowen until he’s gone, and then he looks up at me. I give him a scratch on the side of his face and push off the tree.
I was planning on shutting him up in the cow barn further back in the forest, but when it came down to it, I knew I couldn’t do that. Ideally, he’d still be at the house with Brett, but Bowen doesn’t have any qualms about killing someone else’s dog. Especially mine. No, it’s better that he’s out here with me, another pair of eyes and a nose that works better than mine.
The rest of the morning is uneventful. Bowen’s going to give Brett a few hours to doubt herself some more and then I’m sure he’ll make another appearance. It’s what he loves to do. It’s what gets his dick hard. But this time, Brett knows it’s him.
I sink down onto the bed of pine needles, my back against a ponderosa, and pull out my phone to monitor the camera feeds. Bowen’s staying out on the southern edge of the property at the bottom of the slope whereas I’m on the west side where the forest begins climbing the mountain in a series of plateaus.
I’ve watched him from ridgetops no more than 30 yards away at some points. When I’m not within eyeshot, I have cameras throughout the forest, hundreds of them strategically placed by Alex, Sergei, and I.
As I’m watching him slink back off into the brush, I get a call. I’m pleasantly surprised—it’s Agent Tammy Moreau. I’ve spoken to her far more often than any other member of law enforcement, so she’s grown on me. I don’t like law enforcement in general, for obvious reasons. I prefer the more clandestine operations—people who lack bureaucracy and conventional politics in favor of getting shit done. But she seems like someone with integrity and character. She seems invested, whether it’s because she cares or is trying to make a name for herself makes no difference.
“He- llo? ” I sing into the phone.
“Colson!” she chimes, “Is it a good time?”
I plant the butt of my gun on the dirt next to me, “As good a time as any. ”
“Good, because I need to talk to you about some things right away. I’ve already spoken to your parents, but there have been a few developments. First of all, Callen Fisher lied.”
“Who the hell is Callen Fisher?” I ask while I scan the trees around me, making sure to stay abreast of my surroundings.
“Bowen’s friend who gave him his alibi the night Evie disappeared. Turns out he couldn’t have been with Bowen during the time he stated because he himself was busy being arrested.”
“For what?”
“Drunk driving in downtown Columbus.”
Moron. At least he made himself useful.
“His parents posted bail,” Moreau continues, “but not until 2:00 the next morning.”
“What does Bowen say about it?”
“Not much. We tried to bring him in for questioning, but the entire family lawyered up. We did, however, bring Hannah Bailey in for questioning, talked to her for about nine hours on Monday and brought her back in Tuesday for a polygraph. She failed miserably. Afterward, she finally started talking and admitted to telling Hildy about Evie’s abortion—”
“Come again?” I cough.
There’s an awkward pause before Moreau continues, “Yeah, so…I’m guessing you weren’t aware. Apparently, Evie confided in Hannah, who then told Hildy, and Hildy ultimately told Bowen about it. Hannah alleges that Hildy did it to get back at Evie for taking Sydney Van Doren’s side over some altercation that occurred in the weeks leading up to her death.”
Oh, shit…
A barrage of images flash through my mind, seemingly unrelated until this moment. Aiden, Sydney, Jay, Hildy…now Hannah, Bowen, and Evie…all people who crossed paths in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. And how could Evie have known what would happen? How could she have become the biggest casualty in all that?
“Jesus Christ…” it’s all I can say after such a revelation.
But Moreau’s not done, “Did you also realize whose property you were on when you found Evie?”
“No,” I give the trees another scan, “I just knew it wasn’t the park anymore.”
“Turns out it still belongs to the residence of one Captain James Rhinehardt of the Canaan Police Department and his wife, Amber,” she replies with a hint of smugness.
“ What? ” I knit my brow in confusion, “No one ever said anything about that.”
“Depends who you ask,” she continues, “and where they want their property line to reach depending on the circumstances. It’s all about how you tell the story, isn’t it? ”
Officer Jay motherfucking Rhinehardt and his family of goons…
Trespassing, my ass…no wonder the search radius didn’t extend that far. They kept it to public land and Bowen knew Evie would never be found. Except he didn’t anticipate my nightmares and premonitions that I still can’t explain.
“Whether Hannah had an inkling of what would happen between Bowen and Evie that night, I don’t know,” Moreau sighs, “but apparently, she still harbored a lot of guilt about it. Bowen threatened to implicate her as an accomplice if she told anyone Evie met with him.”
What do you know—Hannah has feelings…
“OK,” I’m done talking about Hannah’s too-little-too-late, “so she’ll testify against him?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why not?” I growl through my teeth.
“Because she’s dead.”
I arch my brow and blink a few times. I can’t say I saw that one coming.
“She stopped answering texts and calls, so some friends went to check on her yesterday and discovered she’d died by suicide.”
How convenient...
“Bowen had a real chokehold on her, so to speak,” she continues, “she kept rambling on, going back and forth about Bowen, hating him one minute and then sounding heartbroken the next. He did a real number on her,” Moreau pauses, “I almost felt sorry for her.”
I don’t.
“The bitch is dead,” I snap, “what did she say?”
“Yeah…” Moreau pauses, picking up on my lack of concern for Hannah’s moronic angst, “so, in addition to the guilt about Evie, Hannah felt some sort of responsibility for Emily’s disappearance, too. She admitted to being the last one to see Emily before she disappeared, but her involvement is unclear beyond that. However …” Moreau takes a long breath like she’s gearing up to drop a bomb, “Hannah admitted to helping Bowen rebury Emily’s decomposing body after his dog dug it up.” She speaks slowly, as if she’s reading from a paper and may or may not believe what she’s saying, “Emily disappeared right before Christmas, so if Hannah’s story holds any weight, the ground was probably too cold to dig very deep. In the spring, she said there was some incident with the dog and Bowen asked—sorry, told her—to help him re-dispose of Emily’s body.”
Incident with the dog and…an arm? Brett said something about a dog and an arm when she was hyperventilating in my car after she ran from his house...
I long blink, letting her words sink in. My eyes fall to Pony, laying dutifully at my side, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants without a care in the world .
“So, Emily is dead…” As much as I don’t want to believe it, I knew that was probably the case.
After this long I didn’t think it would end well, but there was always some shred of hope, like it wouldn’t turn out like this.
“In Hannah’s words,” Moreau explains, “Bowen made a habit of telling the story periodically, but implied that the dog got ahold of a dead animal in the woods and not the shallow grave of his ex-girlfriend. He’d tell the story in front of whoever was around, everyone would laugh, it would get brought up again, rinse and repeat. Like a reminder—a low-key threat. He’s a real piece of work.”
Fucking hell…
“Wow, you don’t say…” I peer through my scope, scanning the tree line, “Well, I’m sure Bowen’s pretty broken up about Hannah,” I mutter sarcastically.
I’m sure there are people who will mourn Hannah Bailey’s death, people who loved her dearly, but I am not one of them. To me, she’s just a whiney, jealous bitch who tries to deliver all the women I love to a murderer. Thank God she never got her hands on Dallas…
“I wouldn’t know,” Moreau sounds unsettled, “which brings me to my next point. No one’s been able to put eyes on him since Sunday. He and his current girlfriend disappeared sometime around then and nobody knows where they went.”
No shit , I chuckle to myself, I watched him and his dupe pack up and ship out a few days ago for a romantic getaway in the mountains.
Working for Sergei has its perks, and they’re usually in the form of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and weaponry. But he’s also a really nice guy. Once I told him about needing to get Alex and Dallas across state lines, he had no problem with hiring on another security manager and cybersecurity tech. I owe him a lot. He wouldn’t agree, though. He sees this as pure entertainment—beating up a bully in the sandbox. For him, revenge is a way of life.
“Which brings me to my last point. I have some questions for you ,” Moreau’s voice hitches mischievously, “because I don’t think you’ve been entirely honest with me.”
“Oh?” I’m glad she can’t see me, otherwise she might see the devious smile oozing across my face.
“Yes, so let’s back up. I have a few names I’d like to get your opinion on—” she pauses for dramatic effect, “Sydney Van Doren, Tyler Wilder, and one…Dallas Berrera.”
My grin gets wider as she says each of their names, “What about them?”
“I know Dallas is your sister,” her words brim with suspicion, “but who are the others to you, Colson?”
“Dangerous women to lock horns with, that’s for sure,” I mutter .
“Have you seen the news in the past 48 hours, about what’s happened in Canaan?” I can sense her desperation, knowing she’s on the cusp of a breakthrough, but the pieces just aren’t there yet. “Have you read the article Sydney wrote? Did you know what she’s been up to?”
I know all about it, but I won’t let Moreau know any of that. Instead, I just goad her further.
“You know women, they won’t let anything go…”
I can practically hear her roll her eyes over the speaker. “Fine, what about Dallas, then?” she counters.
“Dallas likes talking, and people like talking to her. They’ll tell her anything,” I say with indifference. “I mean, you’ve seen her on Twitch, they love her…” If Moreau could reach through the phone, she’d probably smack me.
I’d wanted to wring Dallas’s neck when she told me what she’d been doing, and for how long. But how could I stop her? She has just as much of a stake in this as me. In a way, she was the one who brought me back. And, ultimately, she’s the one who brought us all back together and led us to this moment right here.
“And Tyler , well, don’t get me started on Tyler…” Moreau sounds a little more than annoyed.
“What about Tyler?” I ask with amusement.
“Look,” Moreau says sharply, “I don’t know what her story is…but I’m going to find out.”
Now I’m beaming, “Good luck with that,” I snicker.
“Colson, how do you…” she trails off for a few moments, still trying to make it make sense, “how do you know this many people associated with the Garrisons?”
“Come on, Tammy, we’re from a small town,” I brush her off, “you know how it is, everybody knows everybody else…everybody’s always up in each other’s business…secrets don’t stay secrets forever.”
“It just seems really…coincidental…” she’s not buying it, “some might say, convenient?”
“I got a shotgun, a rifle, and a four-wheel drive…” I give her my best Hank Jr.
“Colson…” she says in a warning tone.
“ And a country boy can survive… ” I croon into the speaker.
“ Colson. ” She’s going to fucking strangle me if we ever meet in person.
“Listen, all that matters is whether everything is admissible in a court of law,” I reply, not giving up anything else. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my dog and I are in the middle of tracking a large predator that’s been sleazing around my property.”
Moreau’s had enough of my bullshit, so she decides to leave it alone for now because she also knows she shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds her. Or in this case, delivers her a dump truck worth of evidence with a big bow on top.
“Wait,” she gives an exasperated sigh, “all this to say that there’s now a warrant out for Bowen’s arrest. We’ve already contacted Gunnison, but you should be careful and stay vigilant until we locate him.”
“Of course,” I assure her, “I’ll let Brett know.”
Once all of this is over…
What I won’t tell Moreau is that I’ve had eyes on Bowen for nearly two years. I never stopped. The feeds inside his house eventually died, their batteries drained. The cameras are too small to matter, so they’ll remain in place as long as the house still stands. But I—or my associates—have maintained the exterior cameras. I know when Bowen comes and goes, I know when other people come and go, and I make sure to know who those other people are.
Enter Valerie Marston—the “current girlfriend.”
I recognized her immediately, in my home, talking to my girl like she’s a perfect stranger, as if she wasn’t following Bowen’s orders to come here, find Brett, and lead him right to her. But when she set foot in my house, she didn’t know that I’d been acquainted with her since Bowen brought her home with him a few months ago. Since then, she’s made a pretty pet for him and I’ve watched their relationship blossom from 1,400 miles away.
“Oh,” Moreau pipes up, “and you also might be interested in knowing they took cadaver dogs out to Bowen’s property.”
“And?”
“No hits,” she replies. It stings, but I’m not surprised. “However, the dogs got really excited about the concrete slab in Jay and Hildy Rhinehardt’s barn…”
I laugh to myself, “I would’ve loved to see Hildy’s face when they started drilling into her floor.”
“The hits just keep coming, Colson,” Moreau doesn’t miss a beat, “Hildy Rhinehardt disappeared sometime last night after their property was searched.”
“Hell, I’d get out of Dodge, too, if I were her,” I snort, “I don’t suppose her husband’s out looking for her…”
She ignores my snipe at Jay and how the universe just delivered him the ultimate Fatality move, “I suppose not,” she replies, knowing she won’t gain any sympathy from me, “but we were able to get another warrant and search Jay and Hildy’s house this morning.”
“Find anything interesting?” I ask, lifting my rifle and taking another look through the scope.
“Maybe. Remember that box that Brett said she found in Bowen’s ceiling?”
●● ●
It’s bittersweet when secrets come out into the open and everyone realizes the truth you’ve known for years. Nothing compares to that moment of validation, but the downside is that you have to relive the agony all over again just so everyone else can process it for the first time. I wish I could call Brett and tell her everything Moreau just told me, but I’m not allowed. I’m busy hunting for polar bears.
A few hours later, the feed on the front of the house detects motion. When I look, a familiar white Tahoe comes rolling up the drive and Valerie gets out carrying a bag. I watch her on the front porch, glancing around as she waits for Brett to answer. It’s clear that she’s expected, so I keep an eye on the interior feed as they mill around and eventually sit down in the living room.
No more than a half hour later, Valerie rises from the sofa. But something is…wrong. Brett’s not smiling anymore, her soft features replaced with a scornful look as she snarls something at Valerie. Not a minute later, Valerie is out the front door, making a beeline for the Tahoe. She practically peels out of the driveway, speeding toward the road, with Brett marching down the long driveway after her.
Where the hell are you going?
I pull up each feed along the driveway as she goes, making sure she’s the only one on that driveway. I see her stop at the road, the Tahoe long gone, and linger there for a minute or so.
A crack of thunder rumbles over the mountains as dark clouds begin to roll in. Just what I need. Cursing under my breath, I pull up a couple of the feeds closer to the house. With Brett at the end of the driveway, I need to find Bowen.
And I do find him, emerging from the south edge of the property and heading for the house. My position makes it impossible to see much, so I scan through the feeds for a better view and begin heading south along the slope. I watch Bowen head toward the house when, all of a sudden, the image jostles and a moment later, the screen goes white. I’m blind, and I don’t know which direction he went.
Brett’s outside. Did she lock the house when she left?
Then I see something dart in and out of the frame of the feed that went white. I bring my phone closer and wait for it to appear again.
A black blob fills the screen and then gets smaller. It bobs in and out a few times before I realize it’s a deer—a giant buck with a massive rack, and he’s nosing at the camera on the ground. It’s the same buck I caught on the trail cams who’s been tearing down our fences and destroying the fruit trees. I’d recognize him anywhere.
King of the fucking forest…
I cock my head, glowering at the screen as that son of a bitch nibbles at the camera and pokes at it with his snout. That asshole finally shows up and what does he do? He tears my goddamn camera off the tree. I’m surprised he hasn’t put his hoof through the screen as a final fuck you. And of all the cameras, this camera.
A deep growl builds in the pit of my stomach and then bursts up through my chest, “ Goddamnit! ” I drop my rifle and take off down the slope toward the tree line.
But then I stop, digging my heels into the pine needles and dirt.
Chess, not checkers…don’t let your emotions overwhelm your intelligence…
I stand there for a few moments, motionless while a firestorm raging behind my eyes. Against every fiber of my being, I reluctantly spin around with a growl and scramble back up the slope. When I get to the top of the hill, I take off in a sprint, running deeper into the forest.