Meeting at Midnight (13 page)

Alarmed, I said, “You go inside and lie down. I'll round up the boys and bring them over here.”

“Don't be silly. Their moms will be here in twenty minutes or so. That's soon enough to coddle myself. Though maybe…” She shook her head again, frowning, and hugged her arms as if she was cold. “I had a touch of flu a few days ago. Guess I'm not as back to par as I'd thought. Boys!” she called, turning and starting for the jungle gym. “Time to go in. Carson, quit pretending you don't hear me. Zach—”

She stopped speaking. Stopped moving. And crumpled to the ground.

The fence was only four and a half feet high. I vaulted it and hit the ground running.

“Mrs. B….” She'd landed all crumpled, half on her side, with her face down. I turned her over gently, my heart pounding. The whites of her eyes showed. Her skin looked gray. I bent, putting my cheek near her mouth.

She wasn't breathing.

“Dad? Dad, what's wrong with Mrs. Bradshaw?”

Zach had vaulted off the jungle gym nearly as fast as I'd crossed over the fence. He stood nearby, the twins behind him, all of them looking scared.

“She's sick,” I said, grabbing Zach. “Real sick.” I rushed to the fence and dropped my son down on the other side. “Zach, go get Seely. She'll know what to do. She's upstairs. Go!”

He blinked once and took off.

I raced back to the unconscious woman, dropping to my knees beside her. Every year I refreshed my CPR training—but oh, God, I'd never had to use it. I took a deep breath and made myself sound calm. “Carson.”

“Y-yes, sir?”

“Go in the house and call 911. Just push those three numbers—nine, one, one. Tell them we need an ambulance. You can do that, right?”

He nodded and pelted for the back door, his brother behind him.

A is for airway, B for breathing… I needed to make sure the airway was clear. I tilted Mrs. B.'s head back and pulled her jaw down. Her tongue wasn't blocking her airway. And I couldn't feel any breath on my hand.

I took a deep breath, pinched her nostrils shut, sealed her
mouth with mine and pushed air into her lungs. Did it again, paused—no change. She still wasn't breathing on her own.

Okay, C was for chest compressions. Fifteen of them, a little faster than one per second. I put one hand on top of the other right smack between her breasts, and pushed.

The chest should compress between an inch and a half and two inches. I tried to call up the kinesthetic memory of how it had felt to push on the dummy this way, praying I was using enough force, but not too much. I was terrified of breaking something. The instructor had told us that happens sometimes, that a strong man can crack a rib performing CPR. But she'd also said that a cracked rib is better than a stopped heart.

Mrs. B. was so small and so still. So horribly still.

…thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Time for breaths again.

I'd finished two cycles and was on chest compressions again when Mrs. B.'s back door slammed open. James ran out. “They said they're coming. They're coming, Mr. McClain. Carson's still talking to them 'cause they told him to stay on the phone.”

“Good.” Fourteen. Fifteen.

“Is she gonna be okay? They'll make her okay, won't they?”

“I hope so.” Time for breaths. I pinched her nose and bent.

“Go in the house, James,” Seely called from the other side of the fence as I resumed chest compressions. “Your brother needs you to help him stay calm.” I heard her climb over, but didn't look up. A moment later I saw her stocking-clad feet on the other side of Mrs. B. She dropped to her knees.

But she didn't get in position to take over the breath part. Instead she put her hands on either side of Mrs. B's neck right below the ears.

I finished the compressions and looked at Seely.

“It's bad, Ben,” she said quietly. “Very bad.” She bit her lip. “Will you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then back away and don't let anyone touch her until I'm finished. Not for any reason.”

Back away? Stop CPR? I hesitated. Surrendering control didn't come easily for me, and stopping CPR flew in the face of all reason.

But this was Seely. I nodded and pushed to my feet. My knee twinged sharply.

Seely put both hands on Mrs. B.'s chest, her expression calm and somehow distant. Focussed. It was the sort of expression you might see on an artist's face, or a nun at her prayers. “Oh,” she said without looking up. “One more thing. If I pass out, don't let them take me to the hospital.”

I took one quick, involuntary step toward her but made myself stop. Slowly, so gradually there was no way to draw a line and say when it happened, she began to glow.

T
he curtains were open at my bedroom window, but the glass gave back nothing except darkness and ghosts, vague reflections from a dimly lit room. Behind me, only one lamp was on—the pretty china one that had belonged to my mother.

It sat next to the bed where Seely slept. Doofus was asleep, too, belly-up on the rug by the bed. The pup had kept me company at first, but it was late.

Seely had been asleep or unconscious for almost seven hours.

Aside from Doofus, she and I were alone. Zach was back home with Gwen, Duncan was on patrol and Mrs. Bradshaw—

“Ben?”

I spun around, a grin breaking out. “You're back.” I limped to the bed and sat next to her. “Thank God. I'm a patient man, but waiting for you to wake up…” I shook my head. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” She blinked up at me from the pile of pillows I'd arranged for her. “You were limping just now.”

“I probably wasn't supposed to jump fences yet.” She looked tired, all her abundant energy drained out, leaving her pale and too still. I smoothed her hair back.

“You probably weren't supposed to carry me up the stairs, either.”

“Duncan did that. He came to pick up Zach this time, not Gwen.” I'd had a heck of a time convincing him—and the paramedics—that Seely often fainted and didn't need to go to the hospital, too. Finally I'd asked him just to trust me, and never mind whether it made sense. After one of his long, silent moments, he'd agreed.

“Mrs. Bradshaw?”

“Doing well, last I heard. Her son and daughter-in-law are already at the hospital, and her other kids are on their way. Dr. Harry Meckle is baffled all over again. You okay?”

“Getting there.” She glanced around. “How late is it?”

“About eleven-thirty.”

Her eyebrows came to life, lifting slightly. “I would have expected you to panic long before this.”

“I did. I called your mother.”

“My…” She was speechless.

“That reminds me.” I twisted around, reaching for a can of soda in the cooler I'd parked beside the bed hours ago. “She said to pour calories down you when you woke up.”

“What do you mean, you called my mother?”

“Three times. She's in Directory Assistance,” I pointed out, popping the top on the cola and filling a glass. “Nice lady. Different, but nice. I think she likes me. Here.”

She took the glass but didn't seem to know what to do with it. “Daisy reassured you? You didn't worry?”

“Oh, I worried.” The weight of all those hours returned, pressing down on me. “Daisy was straight with me about the danger. She told me to keep checking your breathing, make sure it didn't slow too much. If it had…” I swallowed. “If it had, I was to get you to the E.R. as fast as possible.”

Seely touched my hand. “I really am okay, Ben. There's…kind of an edge. After a couple of bad experiences, I learned how to keep track of that edge so I don't fall over it.”

I nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and gestured at her glass.

Her lips quirked. Obediently she sipped.

“I've got a sandwich and some of that cake you made yesterday, when you're ready to eat. Candy, too, if you want to take your calories straight.”

“You really did talk to my mother.”

“If I hadn't, you'd be in the hospital now. I didn't know enough to make the right decision on my own.” I paused. “She told me a few other things, too. For example, she said you don't pass out and stay out this way unless the healing was especially hard. Unless the person was close to dying. Mrs. B. would have died if you hadn't been there, wouldn't she?”

“I don't know. There was severe damage, but they can sometimes restart a heart by shocking it. I…my best guess was that she wouldn't have made it.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “You passed out after healing me. I was dying when you found me, wasn't I? I
would
have died if you hadn't done whatever you do.”

She hesitated, then nodded.

I felt deep satisfaction. I hadn't imagined it. My memories of that time might be blurry and disjointed, but I hadn't imagined any of it. “So what is it you do?”

“Is this an ambush, Ben? Catch me while I'm weak and pry answers out of me?”

“Yeah, you could call it that. But I think I deserve a few explanations, don't you?”

There was a tired, defeated look in her eyes I didn't like, but I didn't see any way to get rid of it except the one I'd chosen. Finally she said, “Yes, I suppose you do. But I'd like to eat first.”

I retrieved the tray I'd prepared earlier. She scooted up in bed until she was sitting, and I put some more pillows behind her, then set the tray on the bed and tried to come up with some easy things to talk about while she ate.

I talked about Mrs. Bradshaw. I figured Seely had to be interested in the woman whose life she'd saved, and I wanted her to see how many people's lives were affected because that one, nosy old woman was still around. So I told her about Mrs. B.'s grown children, and some of the other kids she'd taken care of at one time or another. Including my sister and brothers.

She had some color back in her face by the time she finished the cake, but there was still a haunted look to her eyes. Maybe whatever she did when she healed always left her that way. I didn't know, but I meant to find out.

I handed her a few of the hard candies, removed the tray and refilled her glass. “Your mom said the, ah…your family gift takes different forms, but with you it's healing. Only your gift is a lot stronger than hers or your granny's.”

“My mother seems to have done a lot of talking.”

“We hit it off.” By the third call, I'd mostly gotten used to her habit of knowing things before I said them.

A wisp of a smile touched her lips. “Did she tell you what her form of the gift is?”

“No, but I think it has something to do with her being one hell of a good guesser.”

That made her grin. It was there and gone quickly, but it was a grin. “Something like that. I guess you want me to tell you how it works. The truth is, I don't know myself. I've read some of the same books you've been reading because I'd like to understand, too. What did you think about that one?” She gestured at the book on top of the pile.

“It seemed pretty fact based,” I said cautiously. “Less pseudoscience than some of them.” The book was an account of a handful of well-documented cases and several anecdotal ones where the laying on of hands had apparently facilitated healing. It mentioned a study about prayer improving the chances of cardiac surgery patients, and suggested a connection.

“I thought so, too. Was anyone mentioned in that book able to do what I can?”

“It didn't sound like it.”

“No. I've never found anyone else who can.”

That sounded lonely. Isolating. “You've been doing this all your life?”

“It started when I was five. Little things at first—a scratch or bruise, a stomach bug. As I got older, I got stronger, until…” She shook her head, dismissing whatever she'd been about to say.

“You must have figured a few things out.”

“You aren't going to let any of your questions go, are you?” She brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “Okay, here's the short course. Healing 101. From what I can tell, I help the body do what it already knows how to do. I'm hell on wheels when it comes to healing wounds. Heart disease is harder, probably because I haven't had as much practice with it. But it's still a matter of helping the body heal.”

She told me that she'd tried once to find out more about how her gift worked. While working as a paramedic, she'd healed a man who turned out to be a medical researcher with a Ph.D. He'd persuaded her to submit to tests.

And her gift had gone into hiding. “I couldn't heal a hang-nail,” she said wryly. “At first he thought I wasn't cooperating or was unconsciously blocking it. Maybe I was. We—the women in my family—have always had to hide what we were, so I've got a lot of conditioning about that. Or maybe, like Granny says, it's a God thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thinks we aren't supposed to speak of our gift because God wants it that way.” Seely shrugged. “I don't know. It was awful, though, when I didn't know if the gift would come back. Eventually Dr. Emerson convinced himself he'd imagined the whole thing, and I was a charlatan. It was spooky, watching him rewrite the past until he had a reality he could live with.”

It had also been one more reason not to trust anyone with her secret. “You said you burned out as a paramedic. Too many hurt people to heal?”

She ducked her head, letting her hair hide her face. “Something like that.”

I thought about what she'd said…and what she hadn't said. “There are limits on what you can do. You can't heal everything. That would be rough, thinking you should be able to save people and failing.”

“Oh,” she said, “you did it again…sometimes the body itself is confused. Autoimmune diseases, for example, seem to be beyond me. I can ease the symptoms of arthritis, but I can't cure it.” She lifted her head and looked at me straightly. “I'm not much good with cancer, either.”

My breath sighed out. So much for that faint, unvoiced hope. “It doesn't matter. Gwen's cancer is gone,” I told her firmly. A thought struck. “Isn't it? Can you—”

“As far as I can tell, she's fine. I'm not a diagnostician,” she warned me. “It isn't like on
Star Trek,
either. That empath who healed people by taking on their pain? It doesn't work that way.”

“Thank God for that. So you don't, uh, feel what the people around you are feeling?”

“No. That would be horrible. I have to focus, to…reach out. And I have to be touching the person.”

I nodded. She'd told me a lot I'd wanted to know, but she hadn't broached the important stuff. Maybe she didn't think I'd consider it important. “Something else Daisy told me about.”

Seely looked down, picking at the wrapping on one of the butterscotch candies. “What?”

“She said that twit you used to live with—”

She broke into laughter. “‘Twit.' God forgive me for being shallow, but I like that.”

“
Bastard
seems like too important a word for him. Daisy said he talked a lot about how wonderful your gift was, seemed to accept it just fine. Until he actually saw you heal someone, and then he freaked. Things were never the same between you after that.”

“That about sums it up, yes.”

I said gently, “You're waiting for me to freak, aren't you?”

A spasm of emotion crossed her face. “Are you claiming you aren't already freaked? For God's sake, Ben, I know how you feel about psychic stuff!” She thumped me in the chest. “You choke on the word witch. Tell me you don't think my so-called gift is weird!”

“Hey.” I caught her hand in mine. “Of course it is. But there are people called idiot savants. Some of them can't learn how to cross the street safely, but they can multiply four-digit numbers in their heads instantly. That's weird, too.”

Her mouth twitched. “You calling me an idiot?”

“I'm calling you a woman with an ability that, yeah, is pretty damned strange. But it's a lot more useful than multiplying four-digit numbers in your head.” I paused. “Of course, I'm hoping you'll tell me it doesn't have anything to do with chakras and auras.”

“Well, I've never seen an aura—”

“Thank God.”

“But chakras do seem to be a pretty accurate description of the way energy moves through the body. I don't see that energy, but I feel it.”

I sighed. “I'll adjust.”

Her smile flickered. She went back to messing with the candy wrapper—not removing it, just twisting and untwisting the cellophane. “You're handling all this better than I thought you would. But you haven't thought about the ramifications.”

I snorted. “I've chased my brain in circles for over a week, trying to think out the ramifications. I read about chakras, for God's sake. If I haven't got it all figured out, well, you haven't given me much to work on until now.”

“So think some more,” she urged me softly without looking up. “If I can start a heart beating again, I could stop one, too. Doesn't that worry you? You've been sleeping next to a woman who could stop your heart in your sleep.”

“If that's what the twit was worried about, I may have to upgrade him to bastard after all.”

She gave the wrapper another twist. “He had reason.”

“Now you're being stupid. Any woman could murder the
man sleeping next to her, if she's so inclined. Poison, a gun, a knife between the ribs—just because you could do it in a weird way doesn't mean you would.”

All of a sudden she looked up, trapping me with those haunted eyes. “There's one big difference between me and all your hypothetical murderesses. I've done it. When I was eight years old, I stopped my grandfather's heart.”

Shock hit, stealing my breath. Rage followed close on its heels.

“What did he do to you?” I demanded, seizing her shoulders. “What did that—that—” I couldn't think of a word bad enough. “What did he do to force you to defend yourself that way?”

“He—I—why did you ask that?” She was staring, her eyes as big as mine must have been when she healed Mrs. B. “How did you know?”

“Aw, sweetheart. How can you even ask?” Rage drained out, leaving an ache behind. I reached for her, turning her so she settled against my chest instead of the pillows, and sighed. “I don't know if this helps you any, but I feel better.”

I could see enough of the curve of her cheek to know that she smiled. “You're a good man, Ben.”

“Damn straight, I am.” Her answering chuckle sounded damp, but real. I stroked her hair. “He must have done something terrible, something that frightened you badly.”