Page 106 of The Sun & Her Burn

“No, no.” She shook her head, the ponytail I’d given her this morning loosened so much that the scrunchie dangled from a tiny lock of hair. “No, you don’t understand. They keep coming for me.”

A reporter behind me called out, “Linnea, is your mother having a psychotic break?”

The grind of my teeth and the flare of pain in my jaw helped ground me.

I didn’t understand how they had found usnow. It had been weeks since the press realized who I was, but our phone number was unlisted, I had been careful not to let any paparazzi follow me home, and the deed to Miranda’s house was listed under a shell corporation Wyndam had set up for her. If they’d found us, it was because someone had tipped them off.

I ignored the anger burning in my belly and focused on Miranda, moving a little closer even though she scuttled away from me. It was, at the very least, taking her nearer to the house and its relative privacy and safety.

“Why don’t we go inside the house and talk about it?” I suggested mildly.

It was the wrong move. She shuttled sideways to the edge of the lawn, darting a look at the house and shuddering. Her hands were white-knuckle as she hugged herself around the middle.

“They’re in the house,” she cried out, softer this time. Tears bubbled in the trough of her lower lids, and my heart ached for her. “They’re everywhere.”

“I’ll protect you,” I promised, as I always did. “I’m right here and I won’t leave you, I promise.”

She stared me down with those vivid blue eyes she’d once been famous for. It would kill her to see the image she cut now, unkempt hair, clad in a soft velour track suit because certainfabrics could set her off and slippers I bought her for Christmas with bunny ears. Once, she’d walked red carpets in vintage Dior and custom Marchesa. Once, she wouldn’t have left the house for even a moment without doing full glam hair and makeup.

I always wondered if that was what she was bemoaning during these episodes, that the disease had robbed her of everything she’d worked so hard to collect: money, fame, and beauty.

Even though she was left with family who would, and had, done everything for her, that wasn’t enough for Miranda Hildebrand.

Suddenly, I felt like weeping myself.

But I could do that later, after I got Miranda into the house in a familiar environment and locked the house down.

My mother stared at me now, as if she were the child, with wet eyes, a trembling mouth, and a suspicion that I might not be who I said I was stamped in her expression.

“Mom,” I said in a low croon as I took a few steps closer and held out my hands palms up. “It’s me, Linnea. Do you remember?”

She shook her head tightly and hugged herself so hard, her hands disappeared around her back.

“I’m your daughter,” I told her patiently, still moving and smiling slightly as I touched my hair. “You always told me I got my good hair from you instead of Dad. You named me Linnea after your mother, do you remember? She was Swedish.”

Something flickered in her eyes, and she dropped to the ground as if her strings had been cut, curling up tighter. “No,” she said. “I don’t have any children.”

I crouched before her and gently ran two fingers along the back of her hand, cupping her knee. “You used to sing me a song when I was too little to remember, but we sang it together sometimes when we lived in London.”

This was the ace up my sleeve. Dr. Jamshidi, Miranda’s physician, had sent me studies that the part of the brain that most types of dementia attacked was entirely separate from the area that stored musical memories. Sometimes I sang this song we’d shared together, and others I tried from the soundtracks of her favourite movies likeMamma MiaandKinky Boots.

I started singing “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone in my passable alto. My entire focus remained on my mother as I sat on my bum across from her and gently took one of her hands in both of mine.

There was blood on the back of it, and I wasn’t sure if she was hurt somewhere I couldn’t see or if it was from Mrs. Ramirez.

I was only a few lines in when Miranda’s face lost some of its abject terror and softened into something closer to confused wonder. By the time I sang the first line of the chorus, she was humming brokenly along with me.

“‘I’m feeling good,’” a rich tenor joined with mine, startling me so badly I nearly jumped to my feet.

Only the scent of spice and warmth my subconscious instantly recognized as belonging to Sebastian kept me still. Instantly, the panic that had twisted my lungs into a knot loosened enough for me to take a shaky breath.

Adam had called in the cavalry.

Seb’s heavy hands found my shoulders as he crouched behind me, shielding me from the cameras at my back as we finished out the song together.

The crowd was quiet in the wake of the last notes.

So was Miranda.