Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(2)
Somehow, when she let me go, I shut down my near hysteria. Shelly took her seat in the matching armchair and I sat on the couch, smoothing my red-and-white-plaid skirt out. My agent, Miranda the Cruel, insisted I wear a skirt at every interview. Something to do with playing up my femininity and toning down my image as a killer with two notches on my belt. I ceded to her expertise. Earlier in the day she had just gotten a publisher to agree to pay me over a million dollars for my autobiography. For that kind of money I’d have done interviews as Ronald McDonald if she told me to.
“Thank you for being on the show,” Shelly said, as she always did.
I gave the customary response: “Thank you for having me.”
“So, let me just start with asking how you’re doing,” she said as if we were old friends. “It’s only been six weeks since Jeremy Shepherd held you captive in your own home and you were forced to…defend yourself. I can’t imagine something that horrific occurring, let alone having to live through it.”
“Well, I almost didn’t,” I pointed out. This got a laugh. Who didn’t love gallows humor? “But, I’m okay. I’m fine. It was hell to live through, without question, but I’ve gotten so much support not only from my friends and family but from what feels like the whole of America. I can’t thank everyone enough who sent emails or messages with their support. They warm my heart.”
Keeping busy almost twenty-four/seven with interviews, meetings, and flying across America helped too. For almost six weeks there hadn’t been a day I’d had more than a moment to myself.
“As I mentioned before,” Shelly continued, “I met Jeremy Shepherd. He sat on that very couch, and let me tell you, just from my impression of him during our interviews, from our dinners together…I would have let him babysit my grandbabies,” she said, voice going up an octave. “He seemed so…nice. Together. It’s still almost impossible for me to think of him as a rapist and serial murderer.”
“He had everyone fooled,” I assured her. “Some serial killers can appear nice, charming even. That’s how they get close to their victims. Shepherd was especially skilled at this. A handsome, rich, famous sociopath? It was almost too easy for him to blend in. Not just blend in, but excel at life. But like all serial killers, he wore several masks. The pleasant, intelligent psychiatrist was one, the philanthropist another, but his real face? He hid that from everyone but those five women.”
“And you.”
“Yes, and me.”
Shelly sat back in her chair, and I knew they were coming. The hardballs. I was ready. “In other interviews, you were quite candid about your own personal demons: depression, alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, which all stemmed from a prior attack in which your husband was murdered right before your eyes. I have to ask because some of Dr. Shepherd’s supporters often bring it up: do you still struggle with those?”
“You never stop struggling with them, Shelly,” I admitted, “but strangely, what happened with Shepherd forced me to finally take control. I haven’t touched a pill harder than aspirin or had a single alcoholic beverage since I began working with the FBI again. Shepherd attacking me—taking on the case, actually—was a wake-up call. You never know how much you want to live until you’re about to die, I guess.”
“So something positive came from all your experiences?”
“Actually a lot of good came from it, and not just for me. The families of the victims called me right after the news broke, and thanked me for bringing their daughters justice. They had finally gained some sense of closure. Everything I went through was worth just that.”
“And I’m sure the money pouring in isn’t a terrible thing either. I heard before coming out you just signed a seven-figure deal for a book and an Oscar-winning actress wants to produce a movie about your experience.”
My cheeks turned red from the blushing. “I’m not going to lie; those aspects do not suck.” The audience chuckled again.
Shelly turned to the camera with the red light on. “When we come back, Dr. Ballard will take us through her harrowing encounter with the Woodsman, Jeremy Shepherd. Stay tuned.”
Cue applause. I reveled in every second of it.
—
Sitting by my hotel window overlooking Central Park in my complimentary Egyptian cotton robe, dipping my filet mignon in the best béarnaise sauce on the East Coast, I was happy. Yes, me, Iris Ballard, the eternal pessimist. Didn’t think it was possible myself. Two months before, I was finding new ways to slowly kill myself, popping pills like Mentos and drinking half a bottle of vodka a day. Yet, there I was, sitting in a five-star hotel having just signed a million-dollar book deal, eating a fifty-dollar steak and being well and truly at peace. It was as if I were a different person. Gone was crazy Iris Ballard, the woman locked away in her house shunning the rest of the world. She died in my basement, killed by a madman with a grudge, which was funny because that was actually how she was born two years before. Crazy Iris emerged the moment her husband had his brains splattered mere feet away from her. The old Iris Ballard died right along with her husband, and somebody new, a veritable monster, took over her life. But that woman died as well, so who sat in that hotel room with a smile on her face? A national hero who movie stars gushed over at lunches, who Shelly Freaking Monroe hugged. A vast improvement, no?