“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.
