by Cora Kenborn
“I got a few hours a couple of nights ago.” I pulled my daughter out of Faith’s arms. “She’s been a little cranky and a lot hungry. The doctor said it’s probably a growth spurt.” Yawning, I tucked her into my chest, and she immediately rooted her tiny face onto my breast. “God, this kid doesn’t ever stop eating. At this rate, my nipples will drag the floor.”
Hating breastfeeding made me feel like a shitty mother. All the pregnancy books made it sound like if I didn’t love it and think it was the greatest thing since indoor plumbing, I walked the earth as the antichrist of the maternal world.
Branded with a Scarlet F for A Big Fat Nipple Bleeding Failure.
I loved Iris. My daughter was the center of my world. I’d die for her. But nearly seventy-two hours of no sleep screwed with my mind.
I used to be cute. Now I looked like I ate cute and shit it out.
I lived like a hermit—a prisoner in my own home.
A domestic terrorist of my own doing.
Maybe I’d get a cat.
“Phoebe?” Faith scrolled through her phone, her face ashen gray.
Holding my baby, I dropped into the recliner. “What now? Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not, but it might clear up what happened at the Galleria.”
She handed me her phone, the page already pulled up. As I scanned the Blogosphere Daily article, my grip on Iris tightened, and she unlatched, letting out a squeak.
“Son of a bitch!”
Mr. and Mrs. Lord of the Lyre
Here Comes the Bride…All Dressed in Organic Fruit Gloves?
It’s been a while since we’ve brought the buzz on our favorite photog-phobic couple, but that’s for good reason. It seems Phulian rebooted themselves to a more western fare. More specifically? California. More specifically than that? Los Angeles? Want more than that? Oh, disciples, Hollywood Hills hath new inhabitants, and Phulian be thy name.
But the news doesn’t stop there. We all know Phulian got hitched. But, according to a source very close to the family, it seems our favorite rock god tried to be stealth and rented an organic strawberry greenhouse to not only propose to his reporter lady love, but he also married her on the spot. That’s right, ladies. Cry into your martinis. Mrs. Julian Bale gets all the goodies from now until the pre-nup goes into effect.
But wait, there’s more! As has been reported, Phulian 2.0 raced to the finish line a little early, barely allowing Dad to witness the big moment. Little Iris Rose Bale was born nine weeks premature. Sources tell us that little brother and bandmate, Ryker Bale, stepped in and took care of Mrs. Rock God. Is there some hanky-panky going on within the Brothers Bale and the new Mrs. Bale? It’s pure speculation from here, but we at BD plan to keep our ears to the ground and our noses in everyone’s business.
You’d better believe we’re watching. Everything.
“Faith, what’d you do?” Julian didn’t want me telling her for this exact reason. I should’ve fucking listened. Blogosphere Daily’s online gossip column had been famous for relentlessly running sensationalized stories on Julian and me in New York.
“I wanted you to have something to remember it by.” She wrung her hands and paced, her long blond hair bobbing in the ponytail pulled high on her head. “It happened so fast, you didn’t have pictures or anything, so I made you a memory book. I went to the greenhouse and took a few pictures, a couple of mementos, and started making it. It’s nothing fancy. I suck at this stuff, but it was supposed to be a present.”
“What happened?” Deep down I already knew. I just wanted her to say it.
“I went into work the other day and noticed it was missing.” Cursing, I threw her phone and waited for the rest. “I blamed my assistant and made her clean out everything in front of me—her desk, purse…even her car. It wasn’t until her intern’s shifty eyes caught my attention that the bitch went ballistic on me. I opened her desk drawer and found the book. By the time I ran to the garage, her car was gone.” Faith looked nauseous. “I checked the phone records and saw she’d made calls to New York. When I redialed them, they connected me to the BD offices.”
“Oh, Faith…”
“I’m so sorry, Pheebs.” Leaping forward, she sandwiched Iris between us. “I wasn’t being careless, I swear.” She walked toward the door. “It was nice to focus on a happy marriage for once.”
I couldn’t berate her. She looked so lost. I wanted to tell her everything would be all right, but that’d be a lie. Armando Mottola’s face was plastered on every tabloid across America. Three days ago, her husband had been found in an orgy with three Brazilian models who were doing lines of coke and shooting heroin. Of course, being a millionaire with connections in Hollywood, Armando had been released without a charge against him. The models weren’t so lucky. The moment their noses lifted from the straws, their careers were over. They’d have a public defender and orange jumpsuits for the next twenty to life.
Guess beauty isn’t everything.
Still, Faith had to live with the public shame of Armando’s constant philandering. Not that she hadn’t been doing some shaming of her own with Zane. I didn’t fully believe in an eye for an eye, but Armando had it coming. The man hadn’t been faithful to his wife a day in his miserable life. Just from what I’d heard, his dick had been in more zip codes than FedEx.
I squeezed her shoulder. “Faith, don’t beat yourself up. It was bound to happen sooner or—” The doorbell rang, interrupting me. Rolling my neck in frustration, I sighed. “Just wait, okay?”
“No,” she said, waving a hand. “I’ve got it. Keep feeding her or you’ll be all lopsided.”
With silence below me, I glanced down at my peaceful and angelic daughter, finally asleep.
I wanted to cry, because I knew I had to sit in the chair for hours. The moment I moved, she’d wake up and want to eat again. The only way I’d get any rest would be sitting in the weird J curved position no spine should ever be subjected to.
For the first time in forever, I missed my sister. I missed home.
“Sure, uh-huh. Thank you.” Faith closed the door with a brown package in her hand.
“What’s that?” Dumb question. As if she knew.
“Don’t know.” She flipped the package around a few times and shrugged. “No return address, but it’s addressed to you.”
“Well, I’m not waking the little princess here, so you’ll have to open it.” She slid a knife under the plain brown packing tape when the door pounded twice and busted open. First, I screamed, then Faith screamed, then Iris wailed like a half-crazed banshee. “What the actual fuck?” I shielded her as the lock splintered open and two security guards barreled in with guns drawn.
“Sorry, Mrs. Bale.” The taller one with a military style crew cut held up his palm as if to calm me. “McKellan here neglected to secure the perimeter from all incoming parcels like he was instructed by Mr. Bale.” His eyes shot to his side and narrowed. McKellan scowled, scrunching his face.
“Oh, Mr. Bale instructed mail fraud, did he?”
His eyes shot back to me. “No, ma’am. Not mail fraud. Mail scanning. Our instructions were clear. All incoming packages to you are to be opened by McKellan or myself, ma’am. It’s for your protection.”
“Mr. Bale is a little overprotective, don’t you think?” I shook my head at my husband’s paranoia. “I think government scanners do a pretty good job of protecting me.”
He stood at attention with his chin raised. “With all due respect, Mrs. Bale, in 2001, government scanners couldn’t protect a senator from getting a letter full of anthrax delivered to his office.” He holstered his gun. “Please allow me to do my job, ma’am.”
Closing my eyes, I took in the sight of my daughter. The innocence in her face seemed to ask why I hesitated in answering him. My stubbornness had to be checked at the now splintered door.
“Fine, Mr…”
“Everson, ma’am. My name is Everson.”
“Fine, Everson. You do what you have t
o.” I moved from the recliner to the kitchen. “Just never call me ma’am again or you’re fired.” His eyes widened and the stoic expression momentarily wavered. A small smile played on my lips. “It’s Phoebe…and I’m kidding.”
“Yes, ma—I mean Phoebe.”
Faith and I watched as they removed the packaging with pained accuracy. Finally, after I was ready to tear into it with a fork, they removed the brown paper wrapping and opened the box. Glancing inside, they exchanged confused stares.
“What is it? What’s inside?” I demanded.
Neither spoke. Everson pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures in rapid succession. As he started to close it back up, I lost it.
“Don’t ignore me! I want to know what’s inside.” Handing Iris to Faith, I rounded the kitchen island and wedged myself between them. As I reached for the box, McKellan grabbed my hand.
“Mrs. Bale, please, you don’t want to do that.”
“It’s Phoebe…and I’m pretty sure I do. Open the goddamn box.”
Everson sighed and nodded to his counterpart. As McKellan opened the box, I leaned my head inside, appraising its contents.
In one instant, all the haze of lack of sleep vanished.
In one instant, I became thankful Iris wasn’t in my arms because my limbs weakened. Everson grabbed me around the waist to keep me from falling.
In an instant, I couldn’t stop my hands from reaching inside and pulling out the familiar teddy bear I’d dragged around from the time I could walk until it was ripped from my hands.
The worn fur.
The one remaining eye.
The face I’d kissed so much as a toddler, only a wire remained as a tongue.
Worlds collided as I held my childhood in my hands and watched it morph into my worst nightmare. The bear’s stomach had been ripped to shreds.
Seven long slices.
But the finishing touch was a yellow scarf wrapped tightly around its neck. Mental torture stifled a scream as I turned my head and vomited.
***
I had no idea what day it was, where I was, or who was around. My eyes felt huge and puffy, and although I knew someone had given me a sedative, sleep had been anything but restful.
How many days have I been out?
Iris.
I raised my head, called her name, and violently shook as flashes of that damn bear rolled through my memory.
“Hey, stop that. If you think you’re getting up, you’re crazy.”
Who the hell?
“Faith?”
His unmistakable chuckle bristled my dulled senses. “I know I can hit some high notes, but let’s not get carried away, princess.”
“Julian?”
“Rest, baby.”
“Why are you here?” Dizziness claimed me, darkening my clouded vision.
“Because you needed me.” Familiar full lips grazed my throat as he tucked the blanket around me. Immediately, the shaking stopped. His touch had always been a salve to my soul.
“Iris…”
“Iris is fine,” he assured me with a hand against my cheek. “I may be new at this dad thing, but little princess and I have this thing covered. You sleep.”
I needed him to know about the bear. I was sure Everson and McKellan filled him in, but I had to let him know the significance of the yellow scarf. “Julian, you need to know what happened.”
“Baby, I know. I saw it. I don’t want you to worry anymore. I’ve got everything handled. You’re safe. I swear to god, you’re safe.”
“But you don’t understand what he means,” I protested, the light circling as my lids lowered. Why the hell couldn’t I stay awake? “You don’t know what…”
I never finished.
***
I stared at the little blue pill in my hand.
It seemed so innocent. Round. Blue. Happy.
Peaceful.
At least that was what Faith said when she gave it to me two days ago. She’d had trouble sleeping after some intense argument with Armando, and Zane had given her a few to help her get some rest.
They’d take the edge off, he’d told her.
After I’d come out of the valium induced sleep coma I’d been in since the mail incident, shit hit the fan. Once coherent, Julian told me the whole story.
I’d become so hysterical, Everson shot up me with a vial of the shit, and I didn’t even know it. It kept me out of it for two days. Since security had high tech gadgets on some kind of Julian frequency I wasn’t privy to, they’d contacted him, and he’d flown all night to be with me. It would’ve been romantic if the situation hadn’t been so macabre.
When I had my faculties back, he told me the other reason for his quick return. He’d gotten his own special delivery—one that had caused the infamous onstage debacle. An identical teddy bear thrown at him during a concert the previous night.
We’d be stupid to think they weren’t related. Obviously, my father hadn’t been in two places at once. He either had insane frequent flyer miles, or someone helped him. Either way, the situation had escalated to a danger level neither of us were prepared to handle.
Desperate to ensure our safety, Julian amped up security, and after much arguing back and forth with Kristina, went back on tour. With two concerts left in this particular leg, the only way to appease the suits at Circa Records was to finish out his commitment. Afterward, he could take off the allotted time to get our shit together.
The boardroom at Julian’s record company didn’t give two shits if my father had held a knife to me and filleted me within an inch of my life. Their bottom line and the almighty dollar spoke, and they listened. Julian had signed in blood. My blood didn’t matter.
He didn’t need to know that my father used to choke my mother with her own scarves. The night she died, he’d choked her for the last time before we drove away.
Before Julian left, Iris’s colic hit. Her constant screams, coupled with his guilt over leaving, left him on edge. I couldn’t tell him about the scarf too. Besides, he’d doubled security. Why stress him more with something he couldn’t change or do anything about?
I rolled the pill in my hand. I was so tired. Iris hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours, which meant neither had I. Her pain was my pain.
And I was in fucking pain.
The gods had smiled on me. After us both crying, exhaustion set in, and her little body had cried itself out. I glanced toward the silent nursery and rolled the pill again.
A full night’s sleep sounded like a foreign concept to me. I hadn’t had one in so long I wouldn’t know how to act when I awoke from one.
Faith promised me they weren’t like the valium injections Everson gave me. She promised they were like any other over the counter sleep meds. I pressed my ear against Iris’s door again.
Quiet.
Popping the pill, I downed it with an entire glass of water. I needed sleep, and I’d be damned if I’d lose a golden opportunity like this. An army of security lay in wait outside my house with enough artillery to take down a small village. Not to mention Zane’s “friends,” who apparently still hovered over the area like underground Corleone watchdogs. If my father wanted me, he’d need CIA operative equipment to get me. With about thirty outstanding warrants, I could rest easy that wasn’t in the cards tonight.
Snuggling into bed, I pulled the covers up to my cheeks and within seconds, the room spun at warp speed. I had the best sleep of my life. I dreamt of nothing—as if nothing existed.
***
The first moment I woke up on my own, I knew.
Something wasn’t right. I felt too rested. The house was too quiet. I threw the blanket off and tumbled off the mattress. I’d left my contacts in overnight, so I rubbed my eyes fiercely, trying to recover from my blurred vision as I grabbed the alarm clock with both hands and shoved it against my face.
10:47 a.m.
One word tore from my throat.
“Iris!”
Oh god.
I�
�d slept over thirteen hours. I ran through the house, my feet barely touching the floor as I rounded the hallway to her room. My footsteps faltered and slowed as I reached her open door.
No. No. No.
My instinct forced me through the beckoning passageway. I forced my legs to carry me to what my brain already knew I’d find.
In the last few steps, my subconscious flipped through the obvious clues he’d left me.
The initial slaying of Elisabeth Cayden.
The yellow scarves.
The broken windows.
The call into the Stone Acer Morning Show.
The conveniently rescheduled plane ticket.
The card from Grandpa in the NICU.
The leaked pictures of Iris to The Bystander.
The smell of Aqua Velva and brogan shoes in the Galleria parking lot.
The worn childhood teddy bears.
My memory refused to believe my father had any goal other than to finish his vendetta.
I thought he hated me and wanted me dead. I thought he’d come for me.
Never in the deepest recesses of my mind did I think he’d inflict a pain so much worse than death. Never did I realize he’d know the perfect way to end me.
The last few steps would be all I’d remember of being in her room. Except looking down into an empty crib. Empty except for a hunting knife, sticking blade down into the tiny mattress.
She’s gone.
I screamed until I blacked out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Julian
“Shut the hell up and go to bed, asshole!”
With thoughts of Phoebe running through my head for the better part of the night, I’d just dozed off on the couch when a full beer can flew past my head and crashed into something hard. I opened one eye as Ty stood at the front of the tour bus with eyes blazing, holding his foaming guitar.
“It’s almost noon, you piece of shit,” he said, grabbing random clothes to soak up beer from the strings. “If you fuckers wouldn’t stay out until dawn, maybe you wouldn’t sleep all day.”