The Second Heart (26 page)

Vi briefly glanced over at the police officer
before answering. “I was with Meredith until this morning. We spent
the night at a friend’s house. There is way too much to explain
right now, but I promise we had a good reason for leaving.”

“What friend?” Rob demanded.

Vi hesitated, trying to decide how much to
reveal.

“Vi,” Rob said, in his best stern-parent
voice.

“Her name is Eleanor. Chances are Meredith
will go back to her house at some point. She’s the one who told us…
things that made us want to leave the hospital.”

Rob’s jaw clenched when he heard the nurse’s
name. Eleanor had come to their house and lied to their faces about
Meredith.

Before Rob could ask any more questions the
police officer standing next to Vi spoke again. “You should be
providing this information to the detective who is working the
missing person case. I’m sorry, but we need to go now.”

“What are her charges?” Rob asked the
officer.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vi replied. “Right
now you need to go find Meredith.”

“I’m going to call one of my buddies to come
down here and help you, okay? He’s a lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone
until he gets here, got it?”

“Got it. Thanks, Mr. C. I really appreciate
it.”

Amelia scribbled her cell phone number on a
scrap of paper from her purse and pressed it into Vi’s hand. “Call
us for anything, Vi. We love you.”

“I’ll call you once I know what’s going on, I
promise.”

Vi and the young man with her were led away,
leaving Rob and Amelia alone in the waiting room again. Rob felt
anxious to get in contact with Eleanor and demand a straight answer
from her.

“Should we wait for the detective?” Amelia
asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

“Forget it. I want to find out what the hell
that nurse wants with our daughter.” Rob spat the words out angrily
while stalking toward the doors.

Amelia followed close behind while digging
into her pocket for her car keys. “We’ve got Eleanor’s number, but
we can’t just call demanding answers, you know. She lied to us
once, so she probably will again.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Let’s tell a little lie of our own,” Amelia
said with a grim smile.

They went to their car and slid inside, but
Amelia didn’t start the engine. Instead, she dialed Eleanor’s phone
number and turned the volume up so they could both listen.

After a few rings, Eleanor’s steely voice
came on the line. “This is Eleanor,” she said.

“Eleanor,” Amelia said breathily, trying to
sound excited. “We’ve found the girls, but they’re both asking to
talk to you. They said they spent the night at your house last
night but can’t remember the way back.”

“Oh good,” Eleanor said austerely. Rob
wondered if that was as effusive as she ever got. Eleanor quickly
rattled off her address and asked when to expect them.

“We’re heading there right now,” Amelia said
warmly. “We’ll see you soon.”

As soon as she hung up the phone, Amelia
dropped the act. “Okay, at least we have her address. What do you
want to do when we get there?”

“I’m going to get answers, even if I have to
wring them out of her with my bare hands,” Rob said darkly. If that
nurse thought she could get between him and his daughter, she had
another thing coming.

The moment
Nate hung up the phone, he felt guilt blossoming in the pit of his
stomach. Was he right to hide Meredith from her parents? He glanced
over at her, where she sat on the couch biting her bottom lip and
listening while Miguel spoke to her in a low voice.

Nate knew in his gut that Meredith needed to
go public with what she knew. Too many lives were at stake if what
she had told him was true. Nate worried that if she reconnected
with her parents, they would squirrel her away somewhere, allowing
her to succumb to her own fears. No, keeping her isolated was good,
at least until Nate could convince her that he was right. Once she
agreed, then he’d call her parents back. Nate’s mental gymnastics
did little to relieve him, however, as he kept hearing Rob’s worry
torn voice in his head, saying, “We need your help.”

Nate shoved his phone in his pocket as if it
were the very guilt he was trying to keep at bay. Returning to the
living room, he murmured an apology for taking the phone call and
sat back down in the chair.

“I know it’s hard, Mere,” Miguel was saying.
“But you gotta find those same feelings that convinced you to come
to the hospital and save me.”

“That’s completely different. I was able to
come save you without exposing myself as a magician,” Meredith
protested.

To Nate, Miguel asked, “Is there any way to
go public anonymously?”

Nate considered it. “I don’t know how
effective it would be. A claim as outlandish as this one… we’d need
proof or we’d be relegated to the cheapest of tabloids, if even
that.”

“I can’t give you proof,” Meredith said. “I
told you, I don’t know how.”

“But you know someone who does,” Miguel
pressed.

“I’m not telling him who she is,” Meredith
said with a pointed look in Nate’s direction.

Nate had thought that she had chosen to trust
him, but apparently it wasn’t enough that she would reveal the
nurse’s name. Nate respected her reticence, protecting her source,
so to speak. He would have felt the same way. “Hey, I’m not going
to tell anyone,” Nate said again, shaking his head and laying a
hand over his heart for emphasis. He had to offer her as much
reassurance as he could, since the nurse was the key to being able
to bring everything that Meredith knew to light. “I promise, I
won’t report on a single thing until you tell me it’s okay.”

“No,” Meredith said firmly.

They seemed to be at an impasse, silently
eying each other warily.

Miguel tried again. “Meredith, what are we
going to do? Flee to Mexico and get jobs serving margaritas on the
beach? Are we really going to give up everything we’ve worked
for?”

“I don’t want to do that,” Meredith said
forlornly.

“We need a plan, Mere, and we need help.
You’re gonna have to put a little faith in someone.”

“I already have!” Meredith protested. “I told
you the whole story.”

“It’s useless if we can’t prove it,
Mere!”

Nate wisely remained silent, seeing that
Miguel was slowly putting cracks in Meredith’s resolve. He watched
her thoughts play across her face as she debated with herself. She
seemed so torn as to whether she would concede that Nate really had
no idea what she would decide until she spoke again.

“Swear,” Meredith said quietly.

“Swear what?” Miguel asked gently.

“Not you, him.” Meredith pointed to Nate
before her eyes followed, meeting Nate’s gaze resolutely and
without flinching. “Swear you will not divulge anything you learn
unless I agree. Swear on whatever it is you care about. You look me
in the eyes and you swear to me that you will not betray this
trust.”

Nate swallowed hard, unnerved by her direct
manner. There was a strength to her that drew him in, making him
want to understand everything about her that had made her that way.
“I swear, Meredith.”

She paused as her eyes scoured his face once
again, searching for any glint of betrayal. At long last, she said,
“Okay. We need to go see the nurse from the hospital. Her name is
Eleanor.”

* * *

Meredith, Miguel, and Nate pulled up to
Eleanor’s small house, and Meredith noticed how different it looked
during the day. The stucco walls were a warm shade of pink, and a
neat row of bushes along the front softened the lines of the house.
The front door was painted an inviting moss green color, and
Eleanor had hung a bronze doorknocker that was shaped like a
dragonfly.

Nate pulled into the driveway and shut down
the engine, and they all climbed out. As Meredith shut the front
passenger door behind her, she heard a car approaching. She looked
up and recognized her mother’s white Honda CR-V, with both of her
parents inside. A huge grin broke out on her face, and she ran down
the driveway to meet them as her mother pulled the car up to the
curb.

Meredith met her father as he stepped down
from the passenger side of the CR-V, but Rob’s eyes never left
Nate’s face. His own face was pale, with two bright red spots on
his cheeks, with the corners of his mouth pulled down into an angry
grimace. “You son of a bitch,” Rob growled.

“What?” Meredith asked, confused. She looked
over at Nate, who was holding his hands up defensively, eyes
wide.

“Let me explain--” Nate began.

“Explain?!” Rob roared. “You are a lying,
conniving,
sonofabitch!
” He skirted past Meredith and lunged
toward Nate, blinded by his own rage. He grasped Nate’s throat and
shoved him against his Ford Explorer, pressing down and cutting off
Nate’s air supply.

Nate grabbed Rob’s arms, struggling to free
his throat. Unsuccessful, his face was turning a bright shade of
red.

Meredith ran toward the fighting men and
pulled on Rob’s arm while Amelia came around her car to join in the
fray.

Both Meredith and Amelia screamed at Rob to
stop, but he was immune to their pleas, his eyes trained solely on
the object of his anger. “You-- were-- with-- her-- and-- you--
lied-- to-- me!” Rob grunted the words out one at a time, appearing
to take a sick pleasure in Nate’s bulging eyes and silent
expression.

“Stop it, Rob!” Amelia screamed, yanking on
his other arm.

Miguel wedged himself between Rob and Nate,
trying to push the two men apart while Nate swung around wildly
with his arms. There was a dull smacking sound as Nate’s right fist
came into contact with Rob’s left ear, causing Rob to let go of
Nate’s throat and instead clutch at his head. The suddenness of his
release startled Miguel, who was still pushing with all his might
to separate them. Rob stumbled backward and tripped over the brick
border that separated the driveway from the front lawn, sprawling
backward and landing flat on his back.

Nate gasped for air before launching himself
across the driveway and on top of Rob, fists swinging and cuss
words flying.

Horrified that Nate would hurt her father,
Meredith threw herself onto Nate, punching and scratching and
pulling his hair mercilessly. She snaked her arms around Nate’s
midsection, yanking as hard as she could. “
Get off of my
dad!
”

As she yelled the words, she felt a wave of
power surge through her, like a full-body sneeze, and Nate flew
through the air and hit the side of the house with a dull thump. He
lay crumpled at the base of the wall, wincing and panting.

“Holy shit, Mere,” Miguel exclaimed from
behind her.

Stunned, Meredith looked down at her hands,
which, for a moment, retained a faint glow. She watched in
amazement until the glow had completely faded and her hands looked
normal again.

Rob lay on the ground with his eyes closed
while he took stock of his injuries. One of his eyelids was already
beginning to swell where Nate had hit him.

Meredith felt her mother laid a hand on her
arm, and she looked into Amelia’s question-filled eyes. Her
mother’s eyes were blue, like her own, but age and years full of
laughter had put lines around Amelia’s.

“Honey,” Amelia began, pausing as she
searched for the right words. Finally, abandoning delicacy, she
demanded, “What the hell was that?”

Meredith ignored her mother’s question for a
moment, instead turning to Miguel and saying, “Can you please make
sure Nate is all right?” Then she returned her attention to her
mother’s confused and impatient face. “There is a lot I have to
tell you guys,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders.

From next to the house, Nate wheezed, “You
did it again! See? I wasn’t making the tree thing up!” Miguel
helped him to his feet while Nate clutched his ribcage
painfully.

Rob sat up. “Did what again?”

“Are you all idiots?” The authoritative voice
boomed out across the yard, silencing them all and drawing their
eyes toward it. Eleanor stood in the doorway with her fists
clenched and eyes flashing angrily. “Come inside this instant
before you make even more of a scene.” She spat the words out
disgustedly.

Chastised, they all shuffled into the house
quietly, refusing to make eye contact with each other.

Inside, Eleanor’s modest living room seemed
even smaller with so many people crammed into it. Meredith sat on
the sofa with her parents while Miguel and Nate stood. Eleanor sat
alone on the loveseat, scowling at them like a disappointed
headmistress.

Meredith looked anxiously at her parents,
knowing she owed them a huge explanation for her behavior. Rob was
sucking on his lower lip where it had split and was bleeding, while
Amelia had draped her arm around Meredith’s shoulders and was
stroking the back of her hair.

Amelia looked at Meredith only, ignoring
everyone else in the room. “We were so worried about you, Mere. We
love you more than anything, you know? You can’t do that to us. We
were absolutely crazy with worry.” She looked pointedly at Rob as
she said the word
crazy
.

Rob rolled his eyes. “That asshole deserved
far more than what I did to him,” he said, referring to Nate.

Meredith met Nate’s eyes coolly. “What are
they talking about?”

Nate shifted uncomfortably, turning his gaze
to a blank spot on the wall behind Meredith. He bit his cheek
nervously, formulating a response.

“I’ll tell you what he did,” Rob answered
with a glare in Nate’s direction. “I called him, not even an hour
ago, and told him we were looking for you, and he lied and said he
didn’t know where you were.”

“That’s the phone call you got?” Miguel asked
incredulously.