by Cora Kenborn
But just don’t look what’s behind her.
Lord’s Princess fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard her screaming.
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For she was but still dreaming.
Then up she took back on a hook,
Determined for to find her.
They found her indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For she left her head behind her.
It happened one day, as Princess did stray
Into a meadow hard by.
There she espied her hide on its side,
All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye,
And ran over the hills in all weather,
And tried what she could,
As a Princess bitch should,
To tack Little Princess back together.
“What the fuck is this?” The words barely came out in coherent form.
He motioned me further away from the crowd. “I said the same thing. It’s a bastardized version of Little Bo Peep.” He tilted his head toward the table. “Phoebe screamed when she read it. Said she used to sing it as a little kid until Dalton decided to drag her into a closet and tell her it meant little girls who were bad got taken, sold, and their heads cut off.”
“Jesus Christ.” I couldn’t breathe.
“Yeah. Apparently, he left her in there for over eighteen hours before anyone found her. She heard the words and lost it.”
I wanted to go to her, but after last night, I couldn’t. “Hough, this proves it’s Dalton.”
His gaze shifted from Phoebe to me. “Julian, there’s still no concrete evidence. It’s Phoebe’s memories. That’s not proof. The agents can’t take that to court.”
I closed my eyes, the words of the rhyme ringing in my head. “The last line. He called Iris Little Princess.”
“So?”
“That’s my nickname for her. No one knew that. He wouldn’t have known that. He has help, Hough, and not just the bitch in Faith’s office. No one here thinks McKellan is ‘missing,’ and you know it. He’s a dirty guard. Dalton wouldn’t risk coming out of hiding to do all this shit by himself. Find McKellan and whoever the fuck Penelope Hammond really is, and you’ll find Dalton.”
Hough’s only acknowledgement was a quick nod of his head. Confused, I turn to find Phoebe standing behind us, still clutching the yellow scarf, her eyes empty and vacant. Everything inside of me screamed at me to comfort her, but memories from last night held me back. Blowing out a rough breath, I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop myself from touching her.
“I need to tell you something,” she confessed, holding out the scarf as if it were an offering.
I looked at it, keeping my hands deep in my pockets. “I’m listening.”
Huge tears fell from her swollen eyes as she cleared her throat. “That note came with this scarf. It wasn’t the first time.”
I eyed her closely. “What do you mean it wasn’t the first time?”
“Don’t you remember? We found one on the bedroom floor when the window was broken.” She took a breath. “I found one tied to the mailbox before the baby shower. Then there was the one tied around the bear’s neck.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe she’d kept the second one from me.
“I tried to tell you after the bear arrived, but I was so out of it, I didn’t…you left before…then we seemed…”
“What do they mean, Phoebe?” The words caught in my throat. The distance between us grew to a point that scared the hell out of me.
“My mother used to wear them to church. When he got mad, my father would choke her with them.”
I heard something snap. Almost like when Zane and I would skip class during senior year and get high in the woods behind the high school. The walk to the “high rock,” as we called it, was laden with fallen branches and stumps. Everywhere I walked I heard a snap of a twig.
That was the sound I heard in my head as I broke.
Months of anger, fear, and held back emotions erupted as I ripped the scarf out of her hands and threw it to the ground. “Now? You’re sharing this now? Iris has been gone almost four days! What the fuck were you thinking? Are you even thinking?” Phoebe backed away from me until she hit the wall. Despite a voice in my head telling me to stop, I kept on. “Talk to me, goddamn it!”
One step away from her, a hard chest filled my line of vision. “Back off, Bale,” Hough commanded in a low voice. “I know you’re upset, but you’re out of line.”
With my heartbeat slowing, I surveyed my surroundings. Phoebe, plastered against the wall, her eyes full of terror, Hough in front of me, protecting her, and every officer and agent in the room with their hands on their gun…including Everson.
Jesus. Who am I?
Stumbling backward, I mumbled a pathetic apology and headed for the one place I could find solace.
***
Three knocks preceded Jaxon Hough barging into my sanctuary.
I’d been in Iris’s nursery for over an hour before anyone dared to bother me. Sitting in her rocking chair soothed me. It connected me to her. I could feel her presence, which confirmed what I felt in my soul.
My daughter was alive. If she wasn’t, I’d feel it in this room.
He closed the door and leaned against it. Neither one of us spoke as I continued rocking.
“What happened out there, Bale?”
I was too exhausted to fight. “I don’t know.”
“It’s not the time to fall apart. She needs you.”
“You said it yourself. I’m out of control. I’m the last thing she needs.”
“I said you were out of line…not control.” He moved farther into the room and rested his arms on Iris’s white crib. “I was in New York when shit went down with Tanna, remember? I’ve seen you two against obstacles. When you fight together you’re an unstoppable force. Apart like this…at each other’s throats?” He ran his fingers along the crib. “The shit doesn’t work. The bad guys win.”
“Maybe there are just too many bad guys to fight,” I said, staring straight ahead.
“You don’t believe that.”
I finally met his stare. “What good am I to Phoebe if I turn into one of the bad guys we’re fighting, Hough?”
“You save each other, Bale. You’d never hurt her. She knows that.”
I stopped rocking. “I’m not so sure.”
The moment I met Phoebe, she turned my world upside down. The scent of her coconut shampoo did me in. After my friend, Billy, died in a car accident meant for me, I swore I was toxic. Isolating myself ensured I’d never subject my poison on someone else I loved.
One chance meeting in a crowded bar in New York City blew that to hell. From that moment on, I spent months focused on having her…protecting her…reclaiming her. We’d fought my stalker and came out stronger. But somehow, this had beaten us. This was bigger and stronger than what we’d built.
I’d already resigned myself to what I had to do. Fighting a monster I couldn’t see was hard enough. Putting Phoebe through fighting two of us was a choice I wouldn’t force her to make.
So, I made it for both of us.
“Hough,” I sighed, rising from the rocker. “I need you to promise me something.”
He glanced up from the empty crib. “Yeah?”
“Stay here. Take care of Phoebe. Watch over her and be there for her.”
He straightened and stared at me intently. “Do it yourself.”
“I can’t,” I said as my voice broke. “I’m moving to Zane’s.”
I left him speechless in the nursery as I walked out to pack.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Phoebe
“Cappuccino or latte?”
I held tightly to the pink pacifier in my hands and studied the mint green colored Formica table pattern.
“Pheebs?” Faith’s gentle voice jolted me as she pointed to the menu board.
“Yeah
?” I stared through her, my voice flat and lifeless.
“Do you want a cappuccino or a latte?”
Memories bombarded my head as she waved a hand in my face. I could never get enough coffee flavored anything in my second trimester with Iris. I’d sent Julian out at all hours of the night for gallons of coffee flavored ice cream.
Iris.
I didn’t have the energy to shake my head, so I just blinked. “No.”
“No, you don’t want a cappuccino, or no, you don’t want a latte?”
“No, I don’t want to be here.” I swallowed the words through a dry throat. There were no tears left. I’d cried them all. I’d screamed all the screams to be heard. I’d prayed all the prayers.
Faith’s mouth turned down as she slipped across from me into the booth and shoved a mug of creamy coffee under my nose. It’d been almost two weeks since Iris had been taken. I didn’t want to drink coffee. I didn’t want to leave the house. I didn’t want to eat, or laugh, or sleep.
I just wanted my daughter back.
The smell hit me, and I almost threw up. I threw up daily thinking about my baby with that man. Was she in pain? What was he doing to her? God, was she feeling the same strike of his hand I did as a child?
“Pheebs, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just wanted you to get some air.” She entwined our hands like she used to do when we were in college. With his tattooed hand holding his own mug, Zane slid in beside her, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“It’s not you.” I pushed the mug far away from me. “I can’t stop thinking about her. How will I go on?” I turned away. The coffee shop bustled with fresh and lively Hollywood energy. High-fashioned teenagers sat across from high-powered agents and actors without so much as a side glance of interest.
Not one of them cared that my life was over.
Zane slammed his mug down. “Stop it! Stop talking like that. The police are going to find her.”
I wanted to believe him, but my memory made me believe otherwise.
“Zane, my father tried to kill me. Faith found me almost dead, for Christ’s sake.” Instinctively, I grabbed the stomach that once housed the two things he had in his possession: his blade and my child. “The man is inhuman. Do you think he wouldn’t do the same to Iris just because she’s his blood?”
“But she’s a baby,” Faith protested as a tear slipped from her eye. Her bruised face healed, thank god. Zane refused to let her go back to Armando’s, which kept her on edge.
Watching him slide closer and squeeze her thigh, a little piece of me died. Julian and I hadn’t spoken since he’d moved out. Our once powerful and passionate connection had been reduced to sparse, one-word texts. His touch grounded me, and I needed him to pull me back from my mindless state. Without him, I was falling.
“He broke two of my bones before I was seven,” I blurted out, staring off into space. I wished to hell he’d killed me almost four years ago. But that sick son of a bitch had planned a fate worse than death. Stealing my baby would kill me forever. It was a lifetime win for him.
The ultimate checkmate.
Faith grimaced, her eyes riveted to her mug. After saving me from my father’s attack in college, I was sure she’d tried to block out all thoughts of my family. I would’ve.
Zane cursed under his breath as he tried to inconspicuously type on his phone underneath the table. Hope sprung in my chest.
“Is that Julian?” I asked, studying his every move.
Zane stroked his long beard, a worn expression pulling at the corners of his eyes. He turned the phone over in his lap and placed both hands on the table. “He’s acting like a fucking idiot, Phoebe. He doesn’t know how to handle this. He’ll come around.”
“What’s he saying?” As badly as he’d hurt me, I knew he felt just as destroyed and handled it alone.
“You know I can’t tell you that. It’s bro code.”
“Fuck bro code!” I slammed my fists onto the table. “Does my husband give a shit if I’m alive or dead? Because if we don’t find her, I’m not so sure I do.”
Faith cringed. “You don’t mean that.”
I threw the pacifier across the table. “My baby has been missing for two weeks. Do you know the statistics for missing children after the first seventy-two hours?” My chest constricted as my mind raced. “I do, because I’ve got all the fucking time in the world to think about it. After the first seventy-two hours, the police stop looking for a child and start looking for a body.” The entire coffee shop quieted at my outburst. Sinking into the booth, miraculously, my eyes found one last tear to squeeze out.
“He asked if you were okay,” Zane said quietly.
His words calmed the storm brewing inside of me. “He did?”
He slid his phone across the table to me. “He may be a dick, but he’s not heartless.”
Reading the text, I wanted to hug it to my chest and hold it like a lifeline.
Zane: Be home in a while. Out with Faith.
Julian: Take care of her, Z. I don’t mean Faith. Make sure she eats.
Zane: Do it yourself.
I frowned. “He didn’t answer.”
“He’s not ready yet, Phoebe.”
“He hates me.” It was okay. I hated me too.
Zane touched my hand awkwardly as he retrieved his phone. Pulling back, he rested his fingers again on Faith’s thigh. “No, he doesn’t. He hates himself and wants someone to blame. You’re an easy target. He knows when this is over, you’ll forgive each other and work shit out.” Turning to Faith, he ran a hand down her loose blond waves. “I need to go outside and call Kristina. Are you gonna be okay for a few minutes?”
She nodded, and I spoke no further as he slid out of the booth and walked outside.
It didn’t matter. The place crawled with Julian’s phantom security team.
Uncomfortable with our silence, Faith rambled about some relaxation yoga DVD she’d bought for me. With Zane gone, I had an unobstructed view of the booth behind us. My heart clenched as a woman took a final sip of her coffee and cuddled a yellow blanket close to her chest. Although covered, the inhabitant cooed against her.
A baby.
My stomach roiled, and the now familiar vomit crawled up my throat.
Next week, Iris will be six weeks old.
Would’ve been.
Would be.
I turned away, unable to look at a baby, much less endure a mother clutching one in her arms.
Then I heard it.
The long gurgle followed by three successive hiccups and a sneeze.
The breath I’d been holding for two weeks released in a gasp of air, and I whipped my head back around to an empty table, an empty coffee cup, and a two dollar tip on the table.
“Oh my god!” Throwing myself out of the booth, I ran full-speed out of the door, the jingle of the door chime announcing my exit. I faintly heard Faith calling after me as I shielded my face against the blinding California sun.
Where the hell is she?
“Iris?”
“Phoebe?” Zane grabbed my shoulder.
“Where did she go?”
“Where did who go?” He held his phone away from his ear and pushed his other arm off the side of the building. Impatience and desperation clogged my brain.
“The woman! The woman and the baby!”
“Phoebe, no woman or baby came out of that door. I’ve been here the whole time.”
The restraint that hung by the barest of threads finally broke. “Yes, there was! A woman sat behind you with a baby in a yellow blanket. It was Iris. I know it was her because she hiccupped three times and sneezed just like Iris always used to do. Only Iris did that, Zane.” I shoved him in the middle of his chest, sending him sprawling backward into Faith.
“Phoebe!” she called out, her face in shock.
Pushing off Zane one last time, I ran in the opposite direction, screaming Iris’s name.
I’m not crazy.
I knew my own child.
; “I’ll kill you, Penelope Hammond, you bitch!”
I ran until I couldn’t breathe. I ran until strong tattooed arms grabbed me from behind as I collapsed, scraping my knees on the pavement. Gravel imbedded into my palms and I continued screaming until nothing was left.
***
Access Live caught everything outside the coffee shop on camera, because it topped their broadcast later that night and highlighted news reels until the sun came up. I fielded texts from Gage, and half a dozen other people asking what had happened. They veiled their comments with concern, but I knew they really wanted to ask if I’d lost my damn mind.
Maybe I had.
A lengthy text from Chloe informed me the crime documentary, Predator Confidential, had contacted her again, offering to do a special report on Iris’s abduction. They’d hounded us with interview requests since they ran an unauthorized documentary about my stabbing back in college.
They could fuck off too.
I texted them all the same canned response and curled up on the couch. Ever since Julian left, I hadn’t been able to sleep in our bed. It seemed final. Almost as if sleeping in it without him solidified the fact he wasn’t coming home.
Around three a.m. my phone vibrated with another incoming text. I knew who it was before I reached for it.
Julian: Just saw Access Live recap. Maybe it’s time to talk to a professional.
No greeting, no ending.
I turned off my phone and cried myself to sleep.
***
“Jaxon!” With my nose stuck through the side of the curtain, I screamed for him again. Ever since the infamous scarf delivery, all incoming mail had to be screened. It didn’t matter if it was the US Postal Service or a parcel delivery, officers stood outside the door and scanned identification of every delivery person holding anything.
And a package was quickly approaching the driveway.
Jaxon appeared by my side freshly showered. He’d been my rock since Julian left—always respectful, but protective. I had no idea what happened with his marriage, but as far as I was concerned, his wife was an idiot.