7. The Phoenix
The Phoenix
Chapter 7
“Can we get ice cream after this, mommy? Chocolate chip. No…cotton candy!” Evie's tiny voice broke me out of my thoughts, her depthless ocean eyes were watching me and waiting for a response. I’d been dwelling on the mysterious black SUV all day, wondering if I should tell my brother, but convincing myself that I was being ridiculous. It was probably someone just visiting a neighbor, or even someone using the street for one of the many hiking trails that branched off it. There were a thousand reasons why a vehicle could be parked on my street, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. Paranoid. With how bad my depression and anxiety had been as of late, I couldn’t give the question any more weight over me than it already had.
Forcing a smile onto my face, I nodded. “Anything you want, nugget.”
With the last vial filled, the nurse withdrew the needle and placed a Minnie Mouse bandage over Evie’s wound. “Let me go get Dr. Warner, so you can get that ice cream.”
A bright smile spread across Evie’s face as the nurse left, her missing front tooth only making her cuter.
“Maybe afterwards,” I begin, grabbing her tiny hand and wrapping my fingers around it, “we can go to the bookstore and see Aunt Scarlett and Uncle Ethan.”
As expected, my daughter's smile brightened. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m ready for my baby cousin to be born already.”
Her smile instantly fell, her lower lip puffing out into a pout. Ever since she met Scarlett, Evie had been obsessed with her new aunt, and once she found out about Scarlett’s pregnancy, it was all she could talk about.
“Not much longer, and then you will be the best cousin…I mean auntie in the whole world.” Although I was aware Evie would be the baby’s cousin, she’d been so enamored with Scarlett ever since they’d met, that she insisted on being called the new baby’s ‘auntie,’ so we’d let her run with it.
For a moment, Evie basked in the praise, giddy with excitement for the new baby, but then Dr. Warner walked in, and her smile fell a little. She was much too young to go through what she’d already gone through, but she still handled it with bravery and sass.
“How are we doing today, Miss Evelyn?” The look on the doctor's face gave the tension in my chest permission to release, if only a little.
Setting her file down on the counter—her very thick file—he washed his hands before turning back to face us.
“Guess what,” Evie said, her voice low and wispy, as though she was about to spill a secret.
The doctor leaned in, his eyebrow lifting as he placed the stethoscope against her chest. “What?”
Taking a deep breath as he instructed, her smile went wide again. “I’m gonna be an auntie soon and her name is Adelaide and she’s going to be my best friend.”
The words tumbled out like a dam bursting, nearly too fast for me to keep up. After the last syllable hit the air, she lifted her hand to her mouth, covering it and giggling. She really was the cutest kid.
Once he had finished listening to her lungs, Dr. Warner pressed his fingers along her neck, checking her lymph nodes to make sure they weren’t enlarged. The prodding didn’t seem to bother her, however. After two years of cancer treatments, she’d grown used to it. “Well, that is very exciting indeed, Miss Evelyn. Are you going to let her play with your dolls?”
Evie went quiet for a moment, her face turning pensive, as she thought on the subject. “Maybe when she’s bigger, mister doctor. Did you know that babies put everything into their mouths?” Her lips pursed as though she was disgusted by the thought. “I don’t want her eating my babies. “
Dr. Warner chuckled, his eyes crinkling beneath bushy gray eyebrows. “I think that’s a good decision. Maybe you can buy her a doll just for babies.”
Clapping her hands together, Evie nodded and turned to look at me. “Can we, mommy? Please. Please. Please.”
Joy warmed my insides from her excitement. Nodding, I adjusted the pink cap on her head, covering where thick chestnut locks used to be. Her hair would grow back, though, slowly but surely. “We sure can. I think she would love that.”
Memories of Evie being a baby in Daniel’s arms flooded into my mind, the back of my eyes burning. I only let them linger for a moment before pushing the tears back, not wanting her to see my sadness and think it was because of her.
Picking up her file, the doctor made a few notes on the top page. “Well, Miss Evie, everything looks great today. As of now, your treatments seem to be working.”
Relief flooded through my body, drowning out the grief that had dimmed my light all morning. “That’s great news, Dr. Warner. Thank you.”
We left the doctor’s office not long afterward, with instructions to return in one month.
Getting back to the car, I strapped Evie into the backseat and then hopped into the driver’s side. “All right, nugget. Ice cream is coming right up.”
Pulling up at Tangled in the Pages Two, I was happy to see Ethan’s car parked in the parking lot beside Scarlett’s.
“Ready to go inside, nugget?”
In the rearview mirror, I could see Evelyn wiggling in her seat, her smile wide as she fumbled with her seatbelt. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I want to play with the train set!”
The early summer heat was stifling as I stepped out of the car, even though we were much farther north than where we’d always lived. It wasn’t as hot as Louisiana, but I still couldn’t imagine how hot it would be in August.
The bell over the door jingled when we walked inside, the scent of fresh brewed coffee hitting my nostrils. Scarlett and Ethan stood near the cafe, Scarlett’s hand on her pregnant belly as they spoke in hushed voices. A few customers were scattered around the store, some browsing the shelves and others sitting down as they drank coffee or flipped through a magazine.
Running right past me, Evie wrapped her arms around Ethan’s waist, bringing their conversation to a grinding halt. “Uncle Ethan! Mommy and I got ice cream!”
A bright grin spread across Ethan’s face as he leaned over and scooped her up, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “And you didn’t bring us any?”
Evie giggled and squirmed out of his arms. “You’re silly, Uncle Ethan! It would have melted!”
Not waiting for a response, she darted toward the kids’ section of the store, undoubtedly heading for the toy train.
“How was the appointment?” Scarlett asked, sliding a cup of coffee across the counter to one of our elderly regulars.
With a smile toward Harold when he walked past me, I pulled my apron off the hook and tied it around my waist before joining her behind the café counter. “It went well. He said she is still in remission, and that the meds seem to still be working.”
A bright smile spread across my brother's face as he leaned over the counter to hug me. It was still strange to see him in such a domesticated role, owning and working in a bookstore, but I admittedly loved it. “We should go out tonight and celebrate.”
For the next few hours, I dove into work, taking over café duty while Scarlett worked at the register. With the number of toys in the kids’ section of the store, I never needed a babysitter. Evie could play for hours while I worked.
Once we left the store, the four of us piled into Scarlett's SUV and headed to our favorite local pizza place, by request of Evie, ordering dessert first as she insisted. With everything she’d been through, we all found telling her ‘no’ to be impossible, a fact she had come to take advantage of. I didn’t blame her. Children shouldn’t have to spend their lives in hospital beds with tubes connected to their little bodies, pumping them full of poison. She learned at an early age that life wasn’t fair.
“I spoke to Phantom earlier today,” Ethan said, taking a sip of his draft beer. The name caught my attention, although I knew him by another name: Tristan.
“Oh?” was my only response, but I was admittedly curious as to when Tristan would return to our small piece of the world.
Swallowing a mouthful of pizza, I waited for Ethan to continue, but he glanced around us instead, undoubtedly making sure we weren’t in earshot of anyone who could potentially hear our conversation. Thankfully, the restaurant was nearly empty. I glanced beside Ethan at Scarlett, her expression telling me that she already knew the details of the phone call, and that the information made her uncomfortable.
Ethan’s eyes scanned the room again before they landed back on me. “The feds are preparing their case against the remaining members of Victor Delacroix’s gang, and with Scarlett’s father in protective custody, I can’t guarantee that his family members won’t end up in the same boat.”
A cold chill crept down my spine at the thought of what that could mean for us—for Evie. The last thing I wanted was to thrust her into another situation she had no control over. The last thing I wanted was to make her leave her home when we’d only just built a new one. “Are you thinking we will have to go into protective custody as well?”
Although Ethan shrugged and took another sip of his beer, I could tell by the tension in his jaw that he wasn’t completely unfazed by the prospect.
Scarlett shifted in her chair, her hand sliding protectively over her stomach. Soon, Evie wouldn’t be the only child in our family that needed protecting, and we all knew that.
“What’s protective custody, Mommy?”
Evie’s question made me cringe, and I saw the same reaction on Ethan and Scarlett’s faces.
Reaching over, I rubbed Evie’s head. Her hair had a long way to go before it grew back to how it had been before her cancer, but feeling those fine strands between my fingers still made me smile. They reminded me that she was getting better.
“Well, my little Nosy-Rosie, you just reminded Mommy of how much your little ears hear, and just how clever you are.”
Seeming to have already forgotten about her question, she grinned, her slice of cheese pizza hanging out of her mouth and dribbling grease down her chin.
It was clear Ethan had more he needed to say, however, and Scarlett seemed to realize it too, so she stood from the table and walked around to Evie’s side. “Let’s go look at the fish aquarium, munchkin. I hear they have some new babies in there.”
Eyes lighting up, Evie jumped up from her chair, taking Scarlett’s hand and allowing her aunt to lead her away.
The moment they were out of ear shot, Ethan blew out a breath. “It’s possible. The one thing we have going for us is that, at least as of now, and from what our sources believe, the feds don’t know about Scarlett’s abduction months ago. This should prevent her from having to testify. However, what was left of her ex-husband was found at the scene, which could cause her to be dragged in anyway, even if they don’t believe she knows anything. Also, we don’t know if the remaining members of Victor’s gang know about us, or whether or not they will seek retribution.”
After dinner, Evie and I rode with Scarlett and Ethan back to the bookstore and hopped into my car, heading to our home as they went to theirs. The general tone of the night, at least for me, had somehow shifted. I loved my little cottage, as did Evie. We loved everything about it. But something nagged at me, even as I climbed into bed that night—even as I tried to ignore it, there was a fear inside me that wouldn’t abate, something telling me that we weren’t safe. I realized it may have just been paranoia, but the mysterious black SUV that I’d seen parked outside my house a few times over the past several days didn’t help. With everything my little family had gone through, I certainly wasn’t someone who walked around with rose-colored glasses, but the voice in the back of my head told me there was more to it than that. It told me there was something I needed to be afraid of, even when all I wanted to believe was that Evie and I were finally safe.
Needing to do something, I climbed out of bed and turned on my bedroom light, removing the shadows that could have been hiding monsters. When I looked out the kitchen window, the SUV wasn’t there, but it didn’t ease my paranoia. So instead of going back to sleep, I made my way around my small home, checking the locks on the doors and windows before double checking the alarm system. Everything appeared to be secure, but when I returned to my bedroom, unease still crept along my spine like the legs of a spider, sneaking up on me and ready to bite.
Glancing toward my bedroom door, I bit the corner of my thumbnail, trying to convince myself that I was just being silly, but my mind knew better. Unable to shake the feeling, I blew out a breath and rose from my bed again. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to settle with how I felt, so I left my bedroom and went into Evie’s room down the hall, scooping her up.
With my little girl in my arms, I went back into my bedroom and laid her down on my bed, grateful she did not wake up. After checking the hallway again and leaving the lights on, I closed my bedroom door and locked us inside. I knew I was probably going overboard, but I didn’t care. The update Ethan revealed at dinner seemed to have burrowed itself into my subconscious, making me sense things that probably weren’t there. I needed to know we were safe, so if I had to sleep with mace under my pillow and a child who slept like an octopus in my bed, then so be it.
Fast asleep on my bed, Evie’s tiny frame was lost amid a sea of plush blankets and satin sheets. I brushed a kiss on her forehead, her skin cool and fragile beneath my lips.
“Goodnight, sweet girl,” I murmured, but my heart was pounding wildly against my ribcage, a staccato rhythm fueled by fear.
Retreating to my bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face, trying to quell the rising tide of panic. In the mirror, the reflection looking back at me had eyes that flickered with shadows not cast by the room. My mind raced, cataloging the sounds of the house—the hum of the air conditioner, the distant drone of crickets, and the soft breaths of my daughter asleep just a wall away.
“Caroline, you can’t fall apart right now,” I whispered to myself, gripping the edge of the sink.
As the minutes ticked by, the weight of responsibility settled heavily on my shoulders. Ethan and Scarlett deserved their slice of happiness, unmarred by the darkness that seemed to follow our family like a relentless storm. I couldn’t bring myself to shatter their newlywed bliss with my own fears, not until I knew those fears were grounded in reality. The last thing I wanted to do was call them in the middle of the night with nonsense, but the longer I stood there, the more uneasy I became.
Pushing my desk chair against the door and wedging its back under the doorknob, I let out a breath and reached for my phone. I stared at the dark screen for a few minutes before I dialed my brother’s number, and then Scarlett’s, but neither of them answered, only thinning the air more. They always answered the phone. Always.
For a few slow heartbeats, I held the phone in my hand, waiting for the screen to light up with Ethan’s number, but when it didn’t happen, acid rose in my throat, threatening to spill the pizza in my stomach onto my crisp white sheets. I wasn’t sure why my instincts led my fingers to pull up the contact info for someone I’d only spoken to a few times, but they did. When Tristan had slid his number into my phone on the drive back to his hotel, he said it was only a precaution, and I hadn’t dialed it since, but he was someone I knew could help me—or at least I hoped he could.
Swallowing back my hesitation, I clicked on his contact information and typed a message. “Hey, it’s Caroline. I think I need your help.”