The Second Heart (25 page)

Nate leaned back in his chair and mulled her
story over in his head. If Meredith really believed it, she must be
scared out of her mind. Nate considered the fate that she was now
facing: she would have to hide from family and friends, surrender
her life as she knew it, and go into hiding, perhaps forever. “You
must feel completely overwhelmed,” he blurted.

Meredith looked at Nate in surprise, as if
she had suppressed the fact that he was even there. “Well, yes,”
she stammered, coloring.

Miguel looked completely blindsided. “How can
you possibly know for sure that all this is true, Meredith?” he
asked gently, hoping to find a reason to disbelieve her.

“I saw her use magic. And how else could you
explain the weird things that have been happening? The fires? The
earthquakes? Everything!” Meredith pulled her hand from Miguel’s
grasp and pulled her hair out of its ponytail. Her fingers raked
through the red mass and then began to weave it into a braid over
her left shoulder.

Nate wondered if Meredith was redoing her
hairstyle to give herself something to do with her hands. She
seemed filled with nervous and frustrated energy, without an idea
of where to channel it. “I am going to say something, and I don’t
want you to just dismiss it because you think I’m saying it out of
self-interest, because I’m not. Just, listen with an open mind,
okay?”

Meredith’s fingers paused mid-way down the
braid. “Okay,” she said cautiously, before continuing to weave.

“If magicians go into hiding, then this
Aleric guy could just pick you off one-by-one. Police wouldn’t be
able to connect the deaths together in any meaningful way, and
other magicians wouldn’t even know that they were a target until it
was too late.”

Meredith finished the braid and tied it off
with a rubber band. She looked at Nate expectantly, waiting for him
to continue.

“Meanwhile, tons of resources and worry will
be wasted on a worldwide level in an attempt to understand the
weather events and stuff, when those same resources could be used
to help emerging magicians.” Nate paused for a moment, knowing that
what he said next could quash Meredith’s tenuous open-mindedness.
“But if you were to go public--”

“Ahh, there it is,” Meredith interrupted with
a sarcastic smile. She leaned back into the sofa and folded her
arms over her chest.

“No,” Nate said, a little too sharply. “This
isn’t just me trying to get my big story, okay? I actually think
that going public is the right thing to do. I don’t even have to be
the person to help you do it.”

Miguel laid a hand on Meredith’s shoulder.
“He has some really good points. I don’t think we should rule it
out.”

“You weren’t with me, Miguel. You didn’t hear
how brutal this guy was, or how scared the nurse sounded. I am not
going public.” Her voice was angry, and Miguel seemed taken
aback.

“I’m just as affected by this as you are,” he
said defensively. After a beat, Miguel’s expression softened, and
he added, “Just don’t say no yet. Let’s think about it for a while
and then we can decide together.”

“We wouldn’t stand a chance,” she said
decisively. Nate could see that her anger was rooted in the deep
fear that she was harboring. That nurse must have been some
storyteller.

Nate’s phone started buzzing from inside his
pocket. The call was from a number he didn’t recognize. He stood
and walked into the kitchen to answer it. “Hello?”

The man’s voice was familiar. “Hello? Is this
Nate Dowering?”

“Yes,” Nate said slowly, lilting upward on
the second half of the word. He was trying to place the familiar
voice at the other end of the line.

The man’s voice was low and strained, and he
seemed to be fighting to keep his emotions in check as he spoke.
Nate had to press the phone hard against his ear to be able to hear
the quiet words, “Please, we need your help.”

Rob was
getting angrier by the moment. He and Amelia had raced down to the
police station only to be told to wait for an officer to come speak
with them. They had been sitting in a lobby full of pink plastic
chairs for almost an hour. Next to him, Amelia was working on a
little book of Sudoku puzzles that she had fished out of her
purse.

“Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter?” A police officer
had come out to the waiting area and was standing in front of them.
He wore a rumpled police uniform that looked like he might have
slept in it. His medium brown hair was thinning a little in the
front, which he had tried to hide with a strategically tousled
hairstyle. Rob guessed that the officer was in his late twenties or
early thirties.

Amelia shoved the Sudoku book back into her
purse, and then she and Rob stood up.

“I’m sorry you’ve been kept waiting for so
long, but I’m sure you can imagine how busy we’ve been over the
last few days. The only thing worse than bad weather is the slew of
crazy people that get triggered by it.” The officer held out a hand
to Rob. “I’m Officer Monroe.”

Rob shook Monroe’s hand. “We’re here about
our daughter and her friend. They are missing.”

“I understand. Let’s head into a conference
room so I can ask you some questions, and we can fill out the
report.” Monroe led them through a side door that Rob hadn’t
noticed before and down a short hallway past some restrooms and
small kitchen. The smell of burned coffee wafted out from the
kitchen and followed them down the hall and into the small
conference room at the end.

The conference room was just large enough for
a small table and four chairs. There were no windows, though one
wall had a whiteboard that went the entire length of the room.

“What, no one-way mirror?” Rob joked.

Monroe gave him a perfunctory smile in
return. “No, we save that room for our more notable guests. Have a
seat.” He gestured toward two of the chairs and sat down
himself.

Once they were all settled, Monroe asked when
they had last seen Meredith and Vi.

“Yesterday. Meredith was in the hospital
waiting for surgery this morning, and her friend Vi was staying
with her. No one has seen either of them since last night, and
Meredith missed her surgery,” Amelia said, her eyes filling with
tears.

Rob rested his hand on her back to comfort
her. “This is very unlike our daughter. She’s a vet student, very
dedicated to her studies. She doesn’t just disappear and not call
us.”

“I understand. It’s good that you came in,
and as soon as I get all the details we can start to look for them.
There are a few things you need to be aware of, however. Firstly,
since your daughter and her friend are legal adults, if they choose
for us not to disclose their whereabouts, we will not do so.
Secondly, filing a missing person report is not a magic bullet. The
more you can do on your end to find her, the better. Thirdly, if
they turn up, it is important that you notify us immediately to
call off the search. Do you have any questions so far?” He waited a
beat before continuing. “Okay, good. Now I am going to ask you a
bunch of questions, and I need you to be as detailed as possible
with your responses. The more information we have, the more likely
it is that we will be able to find your daughter and her
friend.”

It was nearly an hour and a half later when
Monroe had finally exhausted his list of questions. He led them
back out to the waiting room, saying, “We get thousands of these
reports a year, and most cases resolve within a few days. But
again, lots of times they resolve because of the efforts of friends
and family to find their loved one. Get creative. Throw her picture
up online, or leave flyers with places she frequents. Contact local
news. Anything you do can help.” Monroe stopped them next to the
bank of plastic chairs where they had been waiting earlier. “If you
can wait here for just a moment, I’m going to go grab the detective
who is going to be working your case so she can come talk to
you.”

“Okay,” Amelia mumbled, sinking down into one
of the chairs.

Rob sat next to her and pulled her hand into
his lap, stroking the back of her hand lightly. It felt like a
heavy stone had settled into his stomach, sapping him of strength.
The process of describing the girls in minute detail--scars,
birthmarks, clothing descriptions, and hairstyle--had made Meredith
and Vi’s disappearance seem all too real. They might never see
their baby girl again.

Rob, taking in his wife’s slumped shoulders
and wan face, did his best to rally his emotions. “We’ll find
them,” he said quietly. His own words sounded hollow and
meaningless. He repeated them with more conviction. “We’ll find
them.”

Amelia’s own voice sounded torn with emotion.
“There has to be more we can do. You heard him; we have to do
everything we can to help.”

Rob gazed down at Amelia’s hand in his lap
and considered the police officer’s suggestion to call the local
news, remembering the reporters who had been keenly interested in
his daughter’s medical condition only the night before. He thought
about the predatory gleam in Nate Dowering’s eyes when the reporter
asked Rob why he was visiting the hospital. His gut reaction was to
recoil from the idea of contacting the slimy journalist.

Raising his eye’s to his wife’s bloodshot
ones, he said, “I called you from that journalist’s phone.” His
voice was ragged and full of indecision, and it sounded harsh to
his own ears. “We could call him. He might help us.”

Amelia understood Rob’s reluctance to involve
any of the reporters from the hospital. They all had seemed as if
they would do whatever they could to get a juicy story. However,
she didn’t care. If there were a chance, any chance, that involving
Nate Dowering would bring them back together with Meredith, she
would take it. She pulled her phone from a side pocket on her purse
and handed it to Rob. “Call him right now,” she said
definitively.

Rob was relieved that Amelia was so sure of
calling the reporter, since he felt so ambivalent himself. He
scrolled through the call history and found the unfamiliar phone
number, hitting send.

The phone rang twice before a voice came on
the line. “Hello?”

“Hello? Is this Nate Dowering?” Rob asked
nervously, hoping they were doing the right thing.

“Yes?”

Even if it wasn’t the right choice, Rob was
desperate to find his daughter. “Please, we need your help.”

Nate’s smooth voice was full of concern. “Of
course. Who is this?”

“I don’t know if you remember me. I met you
at the hospital yesterday. I was there visiting my daughter?”

“Yes, I remember you,” Nate said, hesitating.
His voice had a strange quality to it, like he was trying not to be
overheard.

“My daughter has gone missing from the
hospital, and the police said we should use every possible means of
finding her. I thought that maybe since you’re a news guy, you
could get her picture on TV?” Rob said it all in one breath, the
words rushed and jumbled together. He took a deep breath and
continued, “Her name is Meredith Carpenter, and she was last seen
yesterday at about eight P.M.”

The other end of the phone was silent, long
enough that Rob said, “Hello?”

“I’m still here, sorry. I was just thinking
for a second about the best way to handle… this. I’d like you to
send me an email with a picture and all the pertinent information,
and I’ll do what I can.”

Rob snapped his fingers impatiently at
Amelia, miming for a piece of paper and a pen. She retrieved the
requested objects from within the bowels of her purse and handed
them to him. He scribbled down the email address that Nate
provided, saying, “Thank you so much. We’ll send it over right
away.”

“No problem,” Nate said casually, in a way
that irritated Rob. Nate didn’t seem too concerned about their
missing daughter.

Rob swallowed his anger and said, “I know my
daughter is nothing to you, but she’s everything to us. We’re
desperate. Please, whatever you can do, do it.”

Nate paused again, choosing his words
carefully. “I’m sure everything will be all right. I’ll help you,
okay?”

“Okay.” Rob ended the call and handed the
phone back to Amelia, who tucked it back into her handbag. “He said
he’d help us,” Rob said morosely, feeling like it was a wasted
call. Nate Dowering was going to blow them off; he'd moved on to
other, more interesting, stories.

They sat quietly for a few moments until
their attention was drawn to the front doors of the building, where
two police officers were escorting in a young man with his foot in
a cast and a woman with a familiar face.

“Vi!” Amelia exclaimed, leaping up out of her
seat.

“Mrs. C!” Vi’s eyes glistened with relieved
tears to see the Carpenters. She looked rumpled and tired, as
though she had barely slept. Her deep brown eyes were unusually
devoid of makeup, though Rob personally thought she looked prettier
that way. “I am so glad you’re here,” she said. “Did Meredith call
you?”

Rob rose and followed his wife toward the
front of the room. The police officers who accompanied her stopped
to allow them to speak.

“No, we were here filling out a missing
persons report for you!” Amelia hugged Vi awkwardly, as Vi’s hands
were still in cuffs. “Thank God you’re all right. Where is
Meredith?”

Vi shook her head with a small frown. “I
don’t know where she went.”

“We need to go,” the police officer who held
on to Vi’s arm said authoritatively.

Rob looked at the officer in the eye. “We
just filed a missing persons report for this young woman, along
with our daughter. Our daughter is still missing. Are you really
going to refuse to let us ask her a few questions?”

The officer paused before assenting.

As soon as she had permission, Amelia asked,
“Weren’t you with her? Why did you leave the hospital? What were
you thinking?”