That one finally brings him to life. “What the fuck do you know about it, Col?” Bowen spits with indignance, “Maybe I was going to marry her, give her my last name so everyone knows she’s mine. And maybe she still is.”
When I think I’ve heard everything…
It’s the most idiotic thing he could’ve said; Bowen Garrison finding some nice girl from high school, marrying her, and settling down in Canaan to have a bunch of babies and go to church every Sunday with his parents.
Don’t make me laugh.
“We’re the same, Col,” he growls, “except I won, because I made her love me.”
“Face it, Bo,” I say with a cruel smile, “you wouldn’t know what to do with it even if she did. You tell me you’d marry her but send me a homemade porno just as a fuck you? What a keeper…”
“Like you?” Bowen turns his whole body and glares at the side of my face, “Her bodyguard stepbrother loves her so much he’ll stare at a picture of her tits while some other bitch sucks him off.” He clenches his teeth, “Do it, Col. Show everyone the video of me fucking your whore sister. Bet Mommy and Daddy’ll be proud. It still doesn’t prove much,” he leans into my ear with a whisper, “only that I’m her one and only.”
I slowly turn to look at him, inches from the side of my face.
“Hope you kept it,” he lilts, “at least you can still recognize her face while you jerk off to it.” Bowen turns back to Evie’s casket as my fingers curl into a fist, “But if you didn’t, it’s fine,” he shrugs, “you still have one sister left for me.”
Just like last time on the soccer field, Bowen doesn’t see it coming. I hit him so hard that I break two fingers, but it doesn’t stop me from throwing him to the ground and splitting his head open on a headstone. By the time anyone notices and comes tearing back down the hill, there’s blood everywhere and we both looked like we clawed our way out of the graves we were fighting on. In the end, it takes four guys to pull me off Bowen and two ambulances to cart us off the ER.
Who has the audacity, the disrespect, the complete and utter irreverence to beat the shit out of someone in a cemetery next to his sister’s open fucking grave?
Me.
Bowen’s blood is smeared over my hand, across my white button-down shirt, and I wish it filled my mouth. I want to taste it, drink it, take my pound of flesh and feast on it like a monster deep inside a dark cave. I want to rip his chest open, snap his ribs, and tear out his empty fucking heart, rotting from the inside out.
Because now I’m hollow. And there’s nothing that can fill me again except the sick satisfaction of vengeance.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Brett
One Year Ago
“These are torture tactics,” Barrett utters as she sets down the letter from Emily Fox and pours us three fingers each from a bottle of Town Branch, “do you want to go to the police?”
“What police?” I scoff, reaching for the glass of bourbon as she slides it across the island, “I don’t live here anymore, Barrett. The police here won’t take a report from me, they’ll tell me to go to Canaan, and you know I can’t do that.”
Barrett’s face falls as realization washes over her, and she slowly nods.
“I can’t imagine what he’s already told Jay, and God knows who else…” I run my hands up my face in anguish, “Bowen doesn’t get embarrassed about anything. I might as well be sitting at the dinner table telling all of them about my kinky sex life. They won’t believe a word I say against him.”
“Shit,” Barrett exhales in defeat, “OK, you have a point.” After a moment, a bitter scowl seeps across her face and she shakes her head, “God, he’s such a fucking fraud.”
“What do you mean?”
“You probably don’t notice because you’re not on them that much, but he and his sister blow up social media with nothing but gushy stuff about you. And then he goes and does this…” Barrett takes a swig of bourbon, “if that’s all people see and his family is the law, I don’t blame you for not wanting to report him. Who’s going to believe you?”
I tip my glass back with a shaky hand, letting the burn work its way down my throat and into my gut. Barrett’s phone sits next to mine, each a mirror image of the other just minutes before, except mine was conveniently missing more than a few of Barrett and Bowen’s texts to one another.
“Have you heard from Bowen since last night?” she asks.
I pause and stare at my phone, devoid of new texts or voicemails, “No.” I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
“God,” Barrett rolls her eyes, “and he tried to make it seem like Colson murdered his stepsister.”
“Colson didn’t,” I shake my head adamantly, “Colson would never have done that. And what Colson said about Bowen…” I trail off, still unable to wrap my mind around Colson’s story compared to Bowen’s recounting of events all those years ago, “I know none of us are who we used to be in high school, but I never would’ve believed that Bowen was like that.”
“Until now,” Barrett mutters, “after you find out his last two relationships include a dead girl and a missing fiancée.”
I take another sip of my bourbon to stave off the chill running up my back, “But I still don’t know why Bowen would tell you about Colson’s arrest and then act like you made a pass at him.”
Barrett shrugs, “Chaos? Colson’s a murderer, I’m a slut, and as long as you believe one of those things, it’s one less person in his way? I think he just wanted to cover all his bases,” she lowers her eyes to the floor in disgust, “and maybe get something out of it if he could. But you still have a job, right?”
“Apparently. I guess Colson gave Dave enough information that he stopped the off-boarding process and told me to take a few days to sort everything out. I mean, how fucking creepy is that—” I scowl into my glass, “sending a fake resignation letter to my boss…”
“It’s more than creepy, Brett,” Barrett looks at me gravely, “it would appear that Bowen never meant for you to leave that house.”
Her words hit me like a smack in the face, but I know she’s right. And just as I open my mouth to tell her so, the doorbell rings. We both freeze, staring at one another. Seconds later, there are three heavy knocks on the door. All I can hear is my pulse against my eardrums and the dull rush behind it as a wave of adrenaline surges through my veins.
Barrett slides off her chair and her eyes dart to the ceiling, “Upstairs,” she whispers, “follow me, and don’t make a sound.”
Creeping out of the kitchen and down the hallway, we have to go straight toward the front door to get to the stairs. Both of us curse under our breath, forgetting that the curtains on the front window are wide open, and the porch is just to the right of it. My stomach drops when I see a black F250 sitting at the curb right out front. As soon as we get to the staircase, we both shoot up the stairs, two at a time.
Barrett leads me into the bedroom on the front of the house, which sits right above the garage. It’s lined with windows, with one catty-corner to the gable above the front porch.
She points to the wall adjacent to the window, “Sit down and don’t say anything,” she whispers.
I sink down onto the carpet, my knees drawn up to my chest as she raises the blinds and unlocks the window, craning her neck to peer down onto the porch.
