The Alpha King Call Boy: Chap 47-128

“How was your day?”

It should have been an innocent enough question. But ever since Fiona made it clear to me how “creepy” it had been for me to ask about her work while I was keeping secret from her that I was her boss, I’d been trepidatious about returning to the habit of asking that question.

“It was fine.” She offered me a tight smile. “Pretty average Monday. Lots of meetings.”

She kicked off her shoes and started putting her

things away. New to the routine tonight was a stop over at her desk, where her briefcase was apparently now going to reside.

“How about you?” she asked.

“My day was good. Busy.” The thought of recapping any part of the Iris medical testing ordeal seemed needless. “You ready for dinner, or want to relax a little before we go eat?”

“Relaxing first sounds nice.”

I waited for her to come to me. It was a few minutes before she completed her routine, including changing out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable in the privacy of her dressing room, before she was finally ready for that task. Relaxing.

“Foot massage?” I offered. She accepted with a polite

smile. No cues to signal I could start at her feet and from there take it further. No; she was not in the mood.

Fiona was very good at hiding her thoughts and feelings. But the longer I knew her, the better I was getting at identifying when she was holding something inside. What she was holding in, that was another matter entirely. But I could, at least, discern her real smiles from the false ones by now.

The fakes were what I was getting tonight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, once I’d gotten started on the massage.

“Nothing wrong, really,” she answered quietly. “I just have a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“You want to talk about it? Is it work stuff?”

Fiona looked up at the ceiling, thinking.

“Just one thing about work, I guess.” Her chin lowered slowly and she met my eyes. “Conrad said he wants to talk to me about something tomorrow. He was very busy, so that was all he said. I don’t know why but I just got a bad feeling, like it was bad news.” Her eyes went to the side, then flickered back to me nervously.

“You don’t know what that’s about, do you?”

“No,” I told her honestly. “I have very little involvement in Conrad’s day-to-day at the company. Truly.”

She nodded. She looked relieved, and like she believed me. “I figured. And anyway, it’s probably nothing. But I turned in a bunch of reports last week that I’m still waiting to hear back from him about. I just hope everything is alright.”

“I’m sure it is. I wouldn’t worry about Conrad. He’s a big fan of yours.”

Fiona laughed. This, for some reason, she was not inclined to believe.

I wondered if something had happened between her and my uncle. Seemed unlikely. Conrad really had come to rely upon and hold great faith in Fiona.

My first thought was to give him a call as soon as Fiona was at work in the morning, to inquire about what was going on. But that, I considered, was exactly the sort of behavior that she would find creepy if she found out about it later.

And I was quite sure Fiona had nothing to worry about. My motive for involving myself in the situation would be, I had to admit, nothing more than curiosity.

Iris marveled, wide-eyed, at the dining room as we walked inside.

“Oh, this is just beautiful,” she said, shaking her head.

“And you and Fiona have dinner dates here every single night? Ah. What a life. So romantic.”

Kayden gave me an eyebrow raise. He was well aware of the events of the past few days and the brewing tension between Iris and Fiona.

“I suppose,” I answered, shrugging.

Kayden made polite small talk with Iris; this had been my purpose in inviting him to join us for breakfast. His company supported a lighter mood. And I wanted Iris in a good mood before we sat down for the medical test results and a conversation about our plans for my investigation.

My Beta was a more patient person than I, and I was learning that my patience with Iris was something I could not trust to remain intact through many more of our one-on-one chats. Not if she was going to continue with the pouting routine any time I brought up a topic she found uncomfortable.

The plan worked, and gave me hope for the weeks ahead. Breakfast went fine. Iris was cheerful and positive, reporting that she rested well overnight.

The doctor met the three of us in her room after we ate. She had the CT scan images with her and a whole pile of paperwork.

Bloodwork was all normal; Iris was a “picture of health” in many different respects, the doctor reported happily. I think she was especially impressed with this, given the final reveal of the visit: the brain scan.

There was still a bullet in Iris’s head. She had not told me that part of the story. That it hadn’t been removed and was still in there.

“Now, it appears as though the damage from this injury was primarily to the bone, in which, of course, you can see the bullet is still lodged.”

The doctor used her finger to drawn an imaginary circle around a small area of the transparent black and white image, which she was holding up against the wall for us to view.

“It looks to me as though it entered here,” she said,

“ricocheted off this bone, and then implanted itself here, near the base of the skull. I can see why they decided not to remove it. The risk of brain injury would have been too great. And here we can see how the bone has healed around the bullet.”

I was enthralled with the shocking image and details about Iris’s injury. But I was also impatient to hear about the damage to her brain. I didn’t want to seem overeager, didn’t want to reveal my selfishness in wanting to get Iris whatever treatment she needed ASAP in order to start recovering her memories so that I could move forward with my investigation.

I kept quiet and waited.

Finally, after more report results and explanations, the doctor reached my topic of interest.

“As far as trauma to your brain,” she said, squaring her body to Iris and speaking, I noticed, rather carefully. “Do you recall what your former doctor, the one who first treated you, said about that?”

Iris frowned, shaking her head no.

“Well, from what I can tell, the bullet had no contact with the brain; your bones did their job and kept the object from entering into any soft tissue areas. The symptoms you’ve described may have resulted from a kind of concussion resulting from the impact. It’s possible that in addition to being shot, you may have hit your head in a fall or other impact.”

“A concussion?” I asked. The doctor nodded. “So you think the gunshot didn’t actually cause her memory problems at all – a second injury, an impact of some sort must have also occurred?”

“Well, I am only guessing, to be quite clear.” The doctor began to put all her papers away, finished with the reports. “It’s difficult to say exactly what happened without knowing the details about… what happened. I can only tell you with certainty the state of my patient in her current condition, and I’m happy to report that she is doing very well.”

“What about my headaches?” Iris asked loudly, abruptly breaking her silence. “If I’m doing so well, why do I still have headaches?”

“Well, many things can trigger headaches. I’d like to continue monitoring your symptoms as they occur.

With time to observe your symptoms for myself, I will be better able to figure out the likely cause of your pain. I want you to call me when you’re not feeling well from now on, okay?”

Iris turned her eyes to me. What for, I could not say.

But I nodded at her seriously to prompt her to agree with the doctor’s request.

“Sure,” she finally said. Her voice was flat.

“As far as the memory loss, my suggestion is to simply try talking through it. Some patients have

success with visualization. You close your eyes and speak with someone about the few things you do recall, walking through it in your mind’s eye. You may be surprised at how quickly you’ll be able to begin recalling more and more details.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Thank you so much, Doctor.

You’ve been a tremendous help.”

She was out the door a minute later. I asked Iris what she thought about the doctor’s suggestion for how we could try working on recovering her memories, and start talking about the events surrounding my mother’s death. She had no objections.

“Well,” I asked cautiously, “are you up to start right now?”

“Sure.” She smiled, looking confident and optimistic.

“Let’s give it a try.”