“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded in a fatherly tone.
“Calm down. I’m just going to stay with Mom for a few days. And watch out. These are designer pieces.” Tilly stooped and retrieved the gun shoe.
“You absolutely are not going to stay with Kris for a few days. It’s too dangerous.” He set Helen’s bag down by the foot of the stairs.
“Quit babying me,” Tilly screeched. “I’m not a little girl. I’m nearly grown. And I can’t stay cooped up like this. How would you feel if I locked you in a tower and told you you could never practice with your stupid band ever again? I got called back for a second audition shoot with Vanity Fair, and if I miss it my life is over. I’m as good as dead.”
“Tilly, you’re being melodramatic—”
“What is the source of this awful squabbling?” A feminine voice, sanded to fit the mold of a blasé trill drained of personality, drifted down the staircase. Kris descended on stilts of tanned legs. Black bootie shorts wrapped her straight hips, and a matching tank top clung to a midriff as flat as a cutting board. She carried a silver clutch no larger than a pack of cigarettes in an alarmingly white-knuckled grip.
“Are you attempting to manipulate her into moving out again, Kris? Because your dodgy tricks won’t work. And right now it isn’t safe. I mean it.”
“Tilly, sweetheart, go put those in the car. I’ll send some people over in the morning for the rest of your things.” The supermodel came into full view, an impeccable chignon knot the color of champagne atop her head and facial features frozen into permanent, plasticized pseudo-youth.
Brian held on to Tilly, who pouted and stomped a bare foot. He said, “Kris, listen. There’s something going on right now, something awful, and I need you to take it seriously. There’s been a threat on her life.”
Kris sashayed over in a long-limbed, runway glide, stopping a couple of feet from Brian and Tilly. “Brian, honey, you’re so predictable, You’ve gone and offended someone significant in the Order of the Priory of Knife and Phoenix, haven’t you?”
Helen set her present on an end table, fished her journal and a pen from her purse, and wrote down that fucking ludicrous name. “Someone? Anyone in particular you know there who would make death threats if offended?”
Kris made a huffy noise and slid Helen the hairy eyeball. “Are you going to introduce me to your new friend, Brian?”
“Not until you tell me what you’re doing in my home and what your designs are on my daughter. And the Priory of Knife and Phoenix? Talk, Kris.”
“Of course you don’t know of them. You can take the boy out of the English midlands farm, but you can’t take the hick out of the boy. It’s an elite organization. They make threats all of the time, but it’s all bluster. They don’t want people leaving the organization and yammering to the media, spoiling their reputation. Come on, Matilda. Let’s go.”
Tilly wiggled. “Let go of me. I’m late.”
“Like hell.” Brian held on tight.
Helen stashed her journal. “So it’s a cult, yeah?”
Kris’s frown morphed to a bemused look. “I’m sorry, you are?”
“My name’s Helen. And it would really help if you tell me everything you know about this Order of the Priory of Knife and Phoenix.”
The supermodel’s pale blue eyes gleamed with interest. “I can take you to a meeting. Are you relocating to Los Angeles permanently?”
“I don’t want to be recruited. I want you to tell me whatever you can about this group. Their practices, anything illegal or ritualistic you may have observed. Have you seen anything that’s scared you? Activities with religious overtones, like a black mass?”
Kris blinked. “I don’t know anything about that.” She glanced in both directions, her speech and movements eerie and robotic.
The creeps crawled under Helens’ clothes. Kris was gone. She’d disappeared, leaving Helen with the distinct sense that she no longer spoke to a person. The cult had activated one of the drones that Joe brought up in the hotel hallway.
“You know their name, and that they had Brian in their sights. Meaning you know something. And we’re quite possibly all in danger here, so if you have facts please share.”
“I don’t know anything about that.” Kris stared vacantly.
She turned on a sneakered heel and swayed to the door, exiting and closing it behind her.
An engine rumbled and petered out as Drone Kris drove off.
Tilly dropped her pile and blasted a shrill scream. “I hate you. You suck. You ruined my life.” Wailing, she raced up the stairs.
Brian touched his nose and lips. “At least she’s safe. This’ll blow over.”
“You realize the implications.” Helen chewed the end of her pen.
“I think I sense the vicinity. Kris is one of them. She’s close to it all, near the center even. At least we have a name.”
“True. And you better put Tilly on lockdown from here on out and watch yourself, too. Because I can’t say for certain they won’t kidnap her as bait to lure you.”
Seventeen
The damn thing wouldn’t tune. Brian twisted Lady S’s tuning pegs and strummed. Tinny whines grated against him. Nope. Off-key, sour.
He tuned and played a chord, adjusted a dial and played a chord. Nope, nope, nope. One of Brian’s heroes, a guitar great, had gifted Brian Lady S while the two had toured the man’s English estate years ago. And in the present moment she tuned about about as properly as a pawn shop cast off.
Brian slung the strap over his torso and propped Lady S against his overstuffed chair. He walked to the mini fridge, got out a beer, and twisted off the cap. A long pull of his frothy, wheaty Bavarian brew cooled him down, blotting the chatter in his head with sensory pleasure.
Despite everything else happening in his life, he
