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 come out in coherent form.
He motions me further away from the crowd. “I said the same thing. It’s a bastardized version of Little Bo Peep.” He tilts 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 can’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 want to go to her, but after last night—after what I did—I can’t. “Hough, this proves it’s Dalton.”
His gaze shifts 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 close 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 knows 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 acknowledgment is a quick nod. Confused, I turn to find Phoebe standing behind us, still clutching the yellow scarf, her eyes empty and vacant. Everything inside of me screams at me to comfort her, but memories from last night hold me back. Blowing out a rough breath, I shove my hands in my pockets to stop myself from touching her.
“I need to tell you something,” she confesses, holding out the scarf as if it’s an offering.
I look at it, keeping my hands deep in my pockets. “I’m listening.”
Huge tears fall from her swollen eyes as she clears her throat. “That note came with this scarf. It wasn’t the first time.”
I eye her carefully. “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 takes 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 can’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 catch in my throat. The distance between us has grown to a point that scares 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 hear 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’d hear a snap of a twig.
That’s the sound I hear in my head as I break.
Months of anger, fear, and held back emotions erupt as I rip the scarf out of her hands and throw it to the ground. “Now? You’re sharing this now? Iris has been missing almost four days! What the fuck were you thinking?” Phoebe backs away from me until she hits the wall. Despite a voice in my head telling me to stop, I keep on. “Talk to me, damn it!”
I’m one step away from her, when a hard chest fills my line of vision. “Back off, Bale,” Hough warns. “I know you’re upset, but you’re out of line.”
With my heartbeat slowing, I survey my surroundings: Phoebe, plastered against the wall, her eyes full of terror, Hough in front of me, protecting