The Second Heart (27 page)

“Let me explain,” Nate said quickly.

“You’d better,” Amelia advised.

“Meredith knows why all these weird weather
things have been happening. She knows something that could save
tons of lives, and she wants to just sit on the information. I told
her that she should go public with it, but she doesn’t want to
because she’s
scared
.” He said the last word in a mocking
tone. “I wanted to have a little more time with her to try to
convince her to do the right thing. I was going to call you back
and tell you the truth once I’d gotten her to agree.”

“Well, she’s right not to agree,” Eleanor cut
in. Then to Rob and Amelia she asked, “How much has she told
you?”

“Nothing.” Amelia said, exasperation creeping
into her voice. Meredith could tell that Amelia was frustrated for
being in the dark while everyone else seemed to know what was going
on.

“Why on earth shouldn’t she go public?” Nate
demanded, taking a step toward Eleanor. “What about all those other
people who will go in to have their Second Hearts removed because
of their ignorance? Ignorance that you, Meredith, and Miguel could
very easily rid them of?”

Eleanor stood up, coming toe to toe with
Nate. Even though the top of her head barely reached Nate’s
shoulder, her physical presence seemed to dominate his, making him
seem like the smaller person. “You couldn’t possibly understand
what Meredith and Miguel are facing. Who do you think you are to
judge their choices? You are nothing but a child trying to play the
man, and you do it poorly.”

Rob came up off the couch and put an arm
between them. “Let’s just back up a few steps, folks. Nate, I think
you had better leave. We’ll take it from here.”

Nate frowned and his eyes sought out
Meredith’s, as if he hoped she would intercede on his behalf.
“Meredith, wait,” he pleaded.

Meredith rose to her feet as well. “No, Nate.
I was right not to trust you. You hoped to keep me isolated and
afraid so you could get me to do what
you
wanted, what was
good for
your
career. You didn’t have a single thought for
my well being, because if you had, you wouldn’t have dreamed of
lying to my family about where I was.”

“This is bigger than
your
well being,
Meredith!” Nate protested. “You have to start thinking beyond
yourself!”

“You should go,” Meredith said firmly.

Nate looked at Miguel, who had formerly been
his ally. Miguel looked at his feet, refusing to meet Nate’s gaze.
“Miguel, we could do it without them,” Nate suggested desperately.
“I know you think I’m right.”

Miguel looked up at Nate sadly. “You know,
you had my support when I thought you were acting honorably. But to
deliberately hide a daughter from her mother and father just to get
your own way… man, even if I agreed with you, I would never
side
with you.”

Nate’s shoulders slumped. “Look, I know I
screwed up. So I went about it the wrong way, but I’m still trying
to do the right thing. I’ll leave, but please promise me you’ll
think about it. Think about all those parents whose daughters and
sons won’t just be missing, they’ll be dead. Do you really want
that on you?” He walked to the front door and opened it, turning
back one last time. “You have my number. Call me, please. Do the
right thing.”

The door shut behind him and they all stared
at it as if they expected him to come back.

Rob broke the tension, saying, “The little
shit really is persuasive, isn’t he?”

Through their laughter, Amelia said, “Mere,
you’re really going to have to tell us what is going on!”

* * *

Amelia had found it difficult to pay
attention to Meredith’s outlandish story because she felt
absolutely giddy with relief that her daughter was found and
unharmed. As Meredith and Eleanor traded off talking, Amelia’s eyes
stayed focused on her little girl, her hand absently stroking her
back.

“So after we learned everything from
Eleanor,” Meredith was saying, “we had to go to the other hospital
to save that other patient from having the surgery.”

Eleanor frowned disapprovingly, but said
nothing.

“Once we were there, I was able to use my
spidey sense to find the right room, and it just happened to be
that the other patient was Miguel.”

Eleanor sat up straight. “Spidey sense?”

“Yeah. You know, our magical sense or
whatever.”

“You were able to sense that Miguel was a
magician?” Eleanor asked carefully.

“Yeah. Like with you, too. It’s like I can
feel a vibration coming off of you or something.” Meredith read the
caution in Eleanor’s face and asked, “Isn’t that normal?”

“Well, not really, no,” Eleanor said
guardedly.

“Miguel was able to sense me, too,” Meredith
added. “That’s how I was able to convince him to leave the
hospital.”

Miguel cleared his throat. “I don’t feel
anything right now. Maybe I could only feel you before because you
were trying to make me feel you.”

“I don’t need you feeling my daughter, thank
you,” Rob cut in with a wry smile.

Eleanor smiled obligingly at his attempt at
humor before returning to the topic at hand. “Meredith, being able
to sense whether someone is a magician is a very unique skill.
Actually, I’ve never even heard of a magician being able to do it.
It would make you especially valuable. You mustn’t ever let anyone
know that you have this ability, otherwise…” She didn’t need to
finish her warning, as the threat to Meredith was obvious to all
those in the room.

Amelia pinched her nose and closed her eyes,
which was a habit she had whenever she thought about something too
hard. “Forgive me… I mean, I know what I saw Meredith do in the
front yard, but I am really having trouble wrapping my head around
all this.” She opened her eyes and looked at Eleanor. “Can you show
me again what it is you can do?”

“Well, there are a number of things I can
do,” Eleanor said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that Meredith
will ever be able to do the same things. It all depends on whether
she applies herself.” Eleanor waved a hand nonchalantly, and a cool
breeze swirled through the room, tousling all of their hair and
tugging gently at their clothing. Just as abruptly as it had begun,
the breeze stopped.

“Damn,” Miguel said appreciatively, voicing
what they were all thinking.

“Why didn’t you glow afterward like Meredith
did?” Amelia asked, curious.

“Meredith doesn’t yet know how to focus her
energy to a specific task, so when she uses it, it is sloppy and
inefficient. The glow is akin to water slopping over the sides of a
glass. With study and practice, the glow would go away.” Eleanor
rested her gaze on Meredith and Miguel’s faces in turn. “I would
like to teach both of you how to use your abilities, if you will
allow me to.”

“I just want to stay alive,” Meredith
muttered, looking at her hands.

Amelia looked at her daughter and realized
for the first time how much strain Meredith was under. It grieved
her to see Meredith filled with so much fear and uncertainty. Her
face looked pale, and deep bags rested underneath her eyes. Amelia
wanted to scoop her up and tell her that everything would be okay,
but she wasn’t sure that it would be.

Eleanor nodded to herself. "Yesterday I told
you that we should separate in case one of us is found, but after
losing you this morning, I have decided that perhaps staying in
close contact, until you have learned more, would be better.”

“Okay,” Meredith said slowly.

“Going home is still not an option. Is there
somewhere else you might stay?”

“We can’t stay here?” Miguel asked.

Eleanor smiled. “Look around, kids. Aside
from my bedroom, this is all there is to the place. As much as I’d
love to have you, I don’t think it’s a long-term solution.”

Rob leaned forward in his seat. “Long-term?
Are you saying that Meredith should never come home?”

“People--the wrong people--will be looking
for her there. So, no--I think she should be as discreet with her
movements as she can. I also think that you and Amelia should go
home and pretend to continue to look for Meredith. If anyone knows
that you know where she is, then Meredith is compromised.”

Rob took his cell phone out of his pocket and
tossed it into Meredith’s lap. “Take that, kiddo. I don’t want you
running off again without me being able to contact you.”

Meredith cradled the phone in her hands as if
it were a lifeline. “Got it, Dad.”

“Well, what do you say we order a pizza
before Rob and I head home?” Amelia plastered a bright smile onto
her face, determined to make the best of their situation. Her
daughter was alive and safe, after all. All their other worries
could wait until after pizza.

After Vi and
Josh gave all of their identifying information to the police and
had been stripped of most of their personal possessions, the police
put them in two adjacent holding cells, one for men and one for
women. Each cell held a long bench along the back wall, where Josh
and Vi sat a few feet from each other, with the cold metal cell
bars between them. Josh put his broken ankle up onto the seat
beside him, and Vi thought that all the exertion was probably
painful for him, even though he hadn’t complained. Josh leaned his
head against the wall and let out a long sigh, closing his
eyes.

After a moment, Vi turned her attention to
their surroundings. They were alone in the holding cells, but a
police officer sat at a desk in front of the cells, ostensibly
doing paperwork. Vi was pretty sure the officer was listening to
every word they were saying. As if to confirm Vi’s theory, the
officer looked up and met her gaze. Vi glanced back at Josh. His
eyes were still closed, and his glasses had slidden down his nose a
little bit.

Waiting in the cell gave Vi the chance to
think over what she had seen and overheard at the hospital. She
couldn’t shake her conviction that Dr. Wells was the danger. It
would explain why she was present at both hospitals, and why she
had gotten so irrationally angry when Miguel left. Even the nurses
thought it was weird. That overreaction combined with Dr. Wells’s
cold demeanor and harsh attitude all seemed to point to her being a
genuinely evil person. Vi hoped that she would be able to leave
soon; she needed to find Meredith and tell her what she had
learned.

“So when are you going to tell me why we’re
here?” Josh’s voice startled Vi out of her reverie.

“I thought you were asleep!” she
exclaimed.

“Well, I’m not.” His eyes were still closed,
but he leaned closer to Vi, repeating, “So, why are we here?”

“You want to talk about this now?”

“What else are we going to do?” He opened his
eyes and looked at her expectantly.

"Mere and I wouldn't even tell you when we
were alone. What makes you think I'll tell you now that we have an
audience?" Vi didn't meet his eyes while she spoke, instead keeping
her gaze fixed on the floor a few feet in front of her.

"Well, that was before I'd gotten arrested
for it. Now I think it's only fair that you clue me in." Josh
raised his eyebrows at her to emphasize his point.

“I never promised to be fair.” Vi looked over
at him and smiled. She knew that she owed Josh some sort of
explanation, but this certainly wasn’t the place to do it. “I’ll
fill you in when you take me on that date,” she conceded, hoping to
distract him with another line of conversation.

Josh said, “I’m going to hold you to
that.”

“The date or the explanation?”

“Both.”

They were both quiet for a minute. Then Vi
warned, “The date had better not suck.”

“What would constitute a sucky date?” Josh
asked, making conversation.

Vi thought for a moment. “Well, I would
expect you to put some effort into impressing me--think outside the
box. Dinner and a movie, for example, would be a sucky date.”

“Are you kidding? That’s a classic!”

Vi gaped at him. “Do I really strike you as a
dinner-and-a-movie sort of girl?”

Josh shrugged. “I didn’t realize you were so
high maintenance. Maybe I don’t want to go on a date with you after
all.”

“Then I guess getting that explanation isn’t
so important to you.” Vi gave him a devious smile and feigned
nonchalance as she once again put her eyes forward. The phone on
the officer’s desk rang and she answered it, speaking in a low
voice. A moment later, the officer hung up the handset, stood, and
walked down the hall. Vi wondered where she was going.

“So how about go-kart racing?” Josh asked,
still thinking about their date.

Vi nodded appreciatively. “That’s
better.”

“I don’t know though, that’s kind of pricey.
I haven’t decided if you’re worth it yet,” Josh teased.

Vi shrugged. “You could always just drive me
up to the lookout point on top of South Mountain. Great view, and
it’s free,” she suggested.

“You want to go
parking
on our first
date?” Josh asked incredulously.

“Frugality and romance. What’s not to
like?”

They fell silent again, and Vi’s thoughts
returned to her suspicions about Dr. Wells. Being a surgeon was
actually perfect, because Dr. Wells could absorb the magician’s
power as she removed their Second Heart. Then their subsequent
death could be chalked up to complications with the procedure.
Those poor families would never even know that their loved ones
were murdered in cold blood. Overcome with disgust, Vi scoffed.

Josh looked at her and was about to ask, but
the police officer returned and stood in front of the holding cells
with Josh’s crutches in hand.

In an authoritative voice the police officer
said, “Violet McClure and Joshua Harden, you’re out of here.”

“We are?” Vi asked, surprised. She wondered
if Rob’s lawyer friend had come through.