Page 128 of Fame And Secrets

I could count on three fingers the number of times I’d cried in my life. But as Phoebe struggled against him, tears rolled in succession down my face.

I begged into the screen. “Fight, baby. God, please fight.”

As her body finally went limp, her eyes glazed and froze in a permanent stare on the ceiling. I frantically scanned her chest for breathing.

She never moved again.

Daniel Dalton licked his lips and faced the camera. He sneered as my life ended before my eyes. “One down, one to go.”

A primal howl broke free from my chest, and I lunged toward the computer screen, screaming in his face. “I’ll see you in hell!”

Faith and Chloe screamed as every male hand grabbed me and wrestled me to the floor. I finally collapsed, succumbing to the reality that I’d witnessed my wife die in front of my eyes.

***

Everything seemed like a hazy blur the next morning. After I’d calmed enough for seven men to get off me, I showered and changed clothes. Somehow, even though I knew it wasn’t possible, it felt like Daniel Dalton saw me through the screen. I wanted every trace of anything he could recognize washed away.

Irrational, but nothing about how I felt was rational.

My wife is dead.

My life was gone. I couldn’t feel her. Phoebe’s light had a strange aura. A brightness that shined through the bleakest of situations. It was how I always knew I’d find my way home, even during my worst fuck-ups. She radiated light whether she wanted to or not.

The room felt dark. I felt nothing but darkness. The light flickered out.

As sadistic as it sounded, in the solace of our bedroom, I queued the video on her face, before that bastard got his hands on her. She looked scared, but underneath it all, my Phoebe fought strong. She held on as long as she could. I ran my finger down the length of her face until the screen blurred with print marks. The sun came up before the final words of the video hit me.

“One down, one to go.”

Iris was still alive.

I flew down the stairs, taking three at a time, and entered another room full of people. The number had doubled since last night. Faces I’d never seen before milled around my house.

“What the hell’s going on here?”

Hough glanced up from his computer. “Bale, good, you’re up.”

“Of course I’m up. My wife is dead. You think I slept?”

“I know, man. I’m sorry.” The whites of his eyes rimmed with red streaks. “Hell, I keep seeing it in my head every time I close my eyes.” He lifted his chin and held my stare. “I cared about her too. We were friends.”

“Listen,” I said, pulling him to a corner. “Something Dalton said made sense to me this morning. At the end, he said, ‘One down, one to go.’ If one down meant Phoebe, then…”

“One to go means Iris is still alive,” he finished, his eyes widening.

“Exactly.” I nodded. “So, what we have to do is come up with a plan to—”

“Julian? Can I talk to you for minute? In private?” I shifted my eyes to my right to see Chloe, her familiar dark hair piled high on her head. I wasn’t in the mood to babysit her. If I let my mind deviate from Iris, the reality of life without Phoebe would consume me, and I’d break.

Iris needed me. I couldn’t break.

“Can it wait?” I asked, anxious to get rid of her.

She shook her head. “No. Please, Julian. I-I need to make arrangements, and as her husband, I need your consent.”

Is she insane?

I was in a race to find my daughter, and she wanted to talk caskets and eulogies for the wife I couldn’t stop to mourn?

---