Heart Of A Star

Chapter Three - Rylan

"What's that?" JT's sunglasses appeared over my shoulder, well before the pilot had turned off the seatbelt light. I had long let go of the notion that I'd ever have a peaceful flight with my brother occupying the same plane. He was a seven-year-old trapped in a thirty-five-year-old's body. He'd once been detained by the airport security after slapping a flight attendant's ass, throwing a full glass of vodka in another's face and verbally assaulting a second-class passenger - all in the same intercontinental flight. That was back in the days before he gave up most illegal drugs. Now, he was only a mild disturbance when trapped on an enclosed transportation device.

I looked back down at the letter in my lap. It was one that I had wished would never come. But you can't stop the inevitable. It was a river that we had dammed up, hoping it would hold forever, but knowing that the day would come when it'd be released. Now I was forced to deal with bones I'd buried a lifetime ago.

"Notification of Estate Sale." The lawyer had a certified overnight letter sent, knowing that I wasn't in the country, and along with it came a voicemail that it was coming. Leonard Kaplan had been killed by a fellow inmate several months ago in his prison cell. His home was being sold at an Estate Sale, and while prepping and cleaning the home, they'd come across some personal effects of his late wife. The lawyer informed me that he'd have those items packed up and sent to his office, then he'd ship them to me when I returned to London.

JT slid into the seat next to me, snatching the letter to give it a quick once over. A few seconds later, the paper was flying back in my general direction. "Rubbish," he mumbled. "That cunt should've gotten the chair long ago for what he did."

I looked out the window, clear blue sky and clouds below us. The sun was shining above the plane, and it made me grateful for the time we spent up here, away from the chaos that was our lives far below. Here, there were no photographers in our face, no tabloids, no lawyers with Estate Sale notices.

"Find anyone to replace that wanker in Lull yet?" If anyone knew how to change a subject, it was JT.

I merely shook my head, slipping the envelope back into my jacket pocket. "Sammi's had a few leads, but the bastards keep rejecting all of them. We're running short on time. Anyone new that we bring aboard is going to need practice with the band before we sign them to open for us, and the European tour isn't long after we get back from the States."

One look in JT's eyes told me he had succeeded in getting my mind off of the letter. That bastard. But it was only a mild distraction. She was already on my mind. And so was that night, playing as it did, over and over again for the past twelve years.

I could never remember what the hell it was that we were doing the night JT's phone rang, and the moment he hung it up, he was dragging me by the sleeve toward the door. JT didn't know frantic, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up the way he was rambling on about us having to find her before he did.

It was barely moments later when we were on our way to the train station, only to find her being loaded onto a stretcher, shards of glass glittering like hundreds of tiny diamonds on the floor around our feet. The entire wall of windows at the station had been busted out from his gunshots, and her blood was spattered in intricate webs on the floor tiles, turning the diamonds into rubies. Later, they'd all be photographed and collected as evidence, but for now, they were pieces of a little girl, who lay broken and shattered on an ambulance gurney.

She was my responsibility, I reminded myself, climbing into the back of the ambulance with JT. I should have protected her from this. It was a hell of a time for fatherly instincts to kick in.

When we arrived at the hospital, they immediately rushed her back to surgery to remove the bullet that was lodged in her abdomen and bleeding extensively at that point. And while she was under the knife, detectives had come in to talk to me, in their crisp white shirts and black pants and annoying badges. One of the women from the police department tried to tell me as sympathetically as she could that they recommended a rape exam be done immediately after her surgery, before she woke up.

Good God, I argued, she's a child. Do they really think that...?

Yes, she told me, curtly. The rest of their team was already at Kaplan's house, looking for evidence. And oh, by the way, did I know that his wife had been found murdered? It was a virtual blood bath at that house, and it would take some time to sort out exactly what had happened and in which order. The body, they'd told me, had been found on the bed, with multiple stab wounds. Maybe the girl knew something about it? I didn't want them questioning her on it - that was for damn sure. She had been lucky, they had assured me.

Then when they told me the extent of her injuries, I wasn't so sure. She had two broken ribs, a deep gash from a kitchen knife in her side, and the gunshot wound that ironically, was only inches above where he had driven his knife into her. The surgeon speculated that he could repair both wounds with minimal scarring.

Whatever, I thought, just bring her back to me in one piece.

She had lost a lot of blood, and that was the biggest concern right now. The knife wound was at least three hours old, and the bullet that ripped through her added to the blood loss. There were multiple scratches and cuts over her upper body. Her face and arms suffered a few of the deeper cuts, where the shattered window wasn't slowed by her clothing. There were also deep purple bruises that were beginning to form where he had beaten her. And some of those were days old, they told me.

I couldn't sit still thinking about it.

JT had been there, thank God, when the doctor and the detective came to talk to me about the surgery and the results of the rape exam. It was actually the first time ever that JT had to hold me back. Not that it was the detective's fault, but I was about to kill the messenger.

"We weren't able to gain enough recent evidence, Mr. Porter," she explained, "but there are definite signs of...."

I was on my feet and lunging at her before JT had grabbed me around the waist. I never saw anyone move so quickly as that detective for the door. I'm sure she was used to it; they had to get this reaction a lot when they delivered this type of news. I was sure if JT wasn't busy holding me back, he'd have been going after the detective himself.

When they brought her back in from recovery, she was awake, but still heavily sedated, and shaking from the anesthesia. The nurse offered her warm blankets, which she kept kicking off. She was struggling to sit up with all of the wires and IV's that were attached to her. She reminded me of JT on a bad day.

The detectives insisted on questioning her right away, despite my protests. She completely denied that he had ever touched her inappropriately, and claimed he had never hit her before tonight. She remembered walking in, hearing something in one of the rooms, but couldn't say what. It was all a mess of confusion in her head.

The lead detective asked her again if he had ever touched her. "It's okay to tell us, you won't be in any trouble."

"No", she insisted, "Never."

She drifted in and out of sleep during the whole ordeal, and finally I told the detectives to get lost. I'd get in touch if she had any more information to offer.

I clenched my teeth, wanting so badly to tell her I was sorry. Sorry this happened to her, sorry that I put her in the position for something like this to have happened in the first place. She shouldn't have lost her childhood, lost her mother. She shouldn't be fighting for her life.

And when the machines around her starting beeping loudly, and nurses and doctors in their clean white coats came rushing in, pushing JT and me out, I knew I could never forgive myself.

It was a weight I'd carry around for the rest of my life.