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Chapter 1
Every one of her clients had canceled.
Iris Moon Dillon, known affectionately to the world as Moon, stared blankly at her computer screen while her brain scrambled to process what was happening. Never the best before her first cup of coffee in the morning, Iris struggled to focus as her fingers flew over the keyboard. Her phone buzzed again, causing her to look closer at the screen. Typically, Iris hated her phone and did her best to ignore it at all costs. She already had enough demands on her time with her tightly packed schedule. As one of the top psychic mediums in the United States, she'd learned long ago that if she didn't protect her time, others would take advantage of her. But now, as her spirit guides screamed in her ear that something was very wrong, she took notice of the alerts streaming across her phone’s screen.
"What the hell is going on?” Iris pushed her reading glasses up into her hair and rubbed her eyes, forcing herself to focus for a moment. The way her gift worked, her spirit guides would speak directly in her mind, and they often tried to get her attention. She'd learned how to mute them when needed or bring them to the forefront when she was ready to listen to what they had to say. Now, before she even picked up her phone, she gave herself a moment to tune into the guides who had been a focal point in her life.
"We warned you he was bad.” This came from Lara, one of her main spirit guides, who had been with her since she was little.
"We warned you. But you didn't want to listen,” Ophelia, her second strongest guide, added.
Nobody liked hearing "I told you so,” so, Iris decided to mute them and picked up her phone. She stared in shock at the text messages that flew by, each coming in faster than the last. At first, all she saw was a jumble of words and then they all surfaced together like one of those word cloud maps. Fraud. Fake. Scam artist. The words blurred as sweat beaded on her forehead and panic twisted low in her gut. The next message that came in was from her friend John with an order to click a link to a blog post. Her finger hovered over the phone for a second, knowing that when she clicked the link, her entire world would change. A part of her wanted to turn her phone off and go back to bed, pulling the pillow over her head to pretend the outside world didn't exist.
But as a thirty-year-old woman who largely made her way on her own in this world, Iris knew that no matter how much people wanted to run from reality or hide from their pasts, the universe had a way of beating people over the head until they learned whatever lessons they needed to learn. She suspected whatever she was about to read would be one massive life lesson for her. Which, frankly, was kind of annoying. She’d finally found herself on even ground with what she thought was a somewhat stable relationship, a successful business, and a happy, well sometimes happy, home.
"Liar,” Ophelia whispered in her ear, reading her thoughts.
"I'm ignoring you right now,” Iris said out loud. And before she could stop herself, she clicked the link to be taken to an online gossip blog, which, of course, featured an unflattering photo of Iris. This particular photo had been taken several years ago when she'd been at a Renaissance Faire. She hadn't wanted to have a booth, but her boyfriend, Warren, had insisted this would be a good way for her to reach new clientele. She'd felt silly all dressed up in a costume that made her look like a serving wench on a pirate ship, but she’d gone along with what Warren had wanted. A recurring theme in their relationship.
Now, seeing herself in that ridiculous costume with the headline proclaiming that she was nothing but a fraud made her double over and clutch her stomach. Bile rose in her throat, and it took every ounce of willpower not to race for the bathroom and dry heave into the toilet.
Ignoring her buzzing phone, Iris clicked to the internet on her laptop and started searching the gossip websites. Her heart sank as she saw that the news had picked up the story. It was no longer just one or two random influencers or gossip blogs claiming that she was a fraud. Mainstream sites like Woman Today Magazine and Listen Now! were running the story as well. In the past few years, her celebrity status had grown after she'd given a very successful reading to one of the top emerging musicians in the industry, Sirena. When Sirena had splashed the contents of the reading across her Instagram, Iris's business had exploded. Now, Iris had almost a year-long waiting list for clients to book a session. Which is why, when the cancelations poured in that morning, Iris knew her life was about to be irrevocably changed forever.
She picked up her phone and placed a call to Warren, her boyfriend and business partner. When the call went to voicemail, her spirit guides screamed in her ear. Ignoring them, she texted Warren, hoping he could offer some clarity on what had happened. They would have to issue a denial and perhaps get an attorney involved in order to fight these egregious claims. Tears threatened, as Iris's reputation in the business was everything to her. She'd been climbing her way up for her whole life, trying to eke out some semblance of an existence that would leave her in a safe space. Her gaze caught Warren's name in the article on the screen in front of her, and she narrowed her eyes as she leaned in.
"Warren Smith, Iris Moon's boyfriend and business partner, has finally come clean about how the psychic has spent the past few years defrauding vulnerable clients,” Iris read out loud, horror filling her. "‘I couldn't bring myself to support her anymore. Not when I knew that good people were getting hurt.’”
Iris's mouth dropped open, and she slammed her laptop shut, shoving back from her desk. Sweat ran down the back of her neck and beneath the faded sweatshirt she wore. Heart hammering in her chest, she began to pace her shop, unsure of how to proceed or what to do. Unbidden, a memory from high school arose, and Iris dropped to the floor and clutched her arms around her stomach as tears finally spilled over onto her cheeks.
She'd been fifteen years old, the awkward kid with the single New Age hippie mom, who dressed in thrift store clothes. That day, she’d been holed up with the theater kids in the auditorium, their frenetic energy and outlandishness helping with Iris's own shyness and awkward social skills. At that time, she'd finally realized what the voices in her head were trying to tell her, and once she'd understood she wasn't crazy and that the voices were just her spirit guides, she'd been ecstatic to share this newfound information with her group of friends. She’d been so excited to tell everyone, and Charlie, the lead in the play, had asked her to read him. When she'd mentioned his parents were about to get a divorce and that he would need to protect himself from their fighting, he jumped up and called her a freak. The rest of the students had followed his lead, laughing her off the stage, and she'd never hung out with them again. It was the first in a long line of experiences when she'd learn that many people did not like her peering into their vulnerable spaces.
Now, as her world crashed down around her, Iris was reduced from the confident woman she thought she'd become to a sniffling mess on the floor, no stronger than the insecure fifteen-year-old who had gone home that day and cried to her mother.
Iris jolted as a knock sounded on the front door of her shop. Gingerly, she pulled herself off the floor and tiptoed to the front door, nudging the tapestry curtain away from the window. Seeing her friend John's face on the other side brought tears to her eyes again, and she opened the door only to have him shove her back so fast that she gasped.
"Hurry!” John exclaimed. Rushing inside, he slammed the door and made sure the curtain was pulled tight over the window. Turning, he grabbed her by her shoulders and studied her carefully. "Sorry, doll, there were paparazzi outside your shop. If I had thought ahead, I would've dressed more nicely,” John said. He looked down at his sweatpants and sneakers with a disgusted look on his face. Iris had to admit that this was positively sloppy for John, who was normally a fastidious dresser, which meant things had to be really bad.
"John, have you seen the news? I don't understand what's happened.” Iris dashed the tears from her eyes. "How can Warren claim that I'm a fraud? He's the one who's been lying to people. I've been covering his tracks for a long time.”
"Don't I know it? I've tried to tell you to stop cleaning up after his messes.” John grabbed her arm and dragged her over to her sitting area. He was one of the few friends who had stayed by her side since high school, and she valued his opinion more than most.
"Don't you see what's happened?” John asked. "Warren's thrown you under the bus. He probably realized that you were close to getting rid of him and knew that his free ride was about to end. And you know what? You can make a lot of money selling stories to these gossip magazines."
"You don't think he actually sold a story, do you?" Iris looked at John, her mouth gaping open in shock. "Even he couldn't be that money hungry, could he?"
"Oh my dear, dear friend, how I love you. You always want to believe the best in people, don't you? I don't know how you've managed to ignore how awful Warren has been for all these years, but he was only using you. In fact, please tell me that you took my advice about your bank accounts." John reached over and grabbed her arms, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. "Did you make a separate account like I asked you to do?"
John was a financial planner, and he'd been hounding her for years not to be foolish with her money now that she was finally making boatloads of it. After watching her mother struggle growing up, Iris had listened, and she'd carefully put her money into various managed portfolios and separate bank accounts from her business. While Warren did have access to her business accounts, he did not have access to her private accounts, and she'd faithfully moved money each month. Still, the business account had a good sum of money in it, and she hated to lose any of it. Fear gripped her, and she shot up from the couch and raced over to her laptop to sign in to her online bank. John, right at her side, leaned over her shoulder as she signed in.
"Please tell me you didn't have a lot of money in the business account," John said as they stared at the now empty bank balance on her business statement.
"I kept around twenty thousand in the business bank account. I always moved the money like you said. I had it on an automatic transfer that Warren didn't have approval to touch. But that means he still got the twenty thousand if I'm to assume he took it." Iris's heart fell as she clicked through the recent transactions and saw that, indeed, just that morning, the money had been transferred to Warren's private account.
"Honey, you have to check your personal accounts just to ensure he didn't find your passwords anywhere." John's voice was deadly serious, and Iris knew he would go to battle for her if they found that Warren had stolen the rest of her money. They both held their breath as Iris signed into her personal accounts, and she sighed in relief when she saw everything looked to be in order. Signing out once more, Iris closed her computer and pushed it across the table. Turning, she looked up at John, grief ravaging her. "John, what do I do?"
"Well, first of all, honey, we are going to hire a publicist who deals with these kinds of things. PR agencies all over the world are used to handling far worse. And with that glance at your account, I can see you're well able to afford it. By the way? Can I tell you how proud I am of you for taking my advice and looking after your finances? At the very least, this should give you some breathing room while we figure out your next steps."
"A publicist? What in the world am I going to do with a publicist?" Iris asked, panic lacing her voice. "Don't you understand that I'm ruined? I have spent my whole life building myself up by my word and reputation alone. And in one fell swoop, that asshole has destroyed me. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. People always seek to discredit psychics. And that's even when they have a good track record!" Iris threw up her hands. "Don't you see? It doesn't matter how much I try to fight this or what I try to do; this will always follow me now. The biggest magazines in the world are covering it. I’ll have to change my name and start over somewhere or find an entirely new occupation. I don't even know what that would be or what that would look like." Iris began to breathe heavily as her panic took over.
