The Second Heart (17 page)

Meredith frowned. “I don’t want to wear it
unless I know what all it does.” She set the necklace down on the
coffee table to emphasize her point, resting her hands in her lap.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Vi smother a smirk behind her
hand.

Eleanor’s eyebrows drew together in
frustration. She hadn’t expected Meredith to give her any
resistance. She picked up the necklace and held it out for Meredith
again. “I really cannot tell you what spells have been worked into
this
thaelis
, but I can promise you that none were meant to
do the wearer any harm. Further, you are in more danger from others
than you are from me or this necklace.”

Meredith met Eleanor’s eyes cautiously,
wishing she could read Eleanor’s mind and learn what the older
woman was hiding. However, the earnest look in her eyes convinced
Meredith that Eleanor was trying to help her, even if she wasn’t
telling them everything she knew. Finally Meredith reached out and
took the necklace, slipping it over her head and tucking the stone
under her shirt. As the red stone came into contact with her skin,
she felt its warmth seep into her and spread throughout her
body.

“Good,” Eleanor said, satisfied. “Now we need
to decide where you are to go.”

“We can’t just stay here?” Vi asked. Meredith
was wondering the same thing.

Eleanor looked sad as she answered. “I don’t
think it would be wise. If Aleric--or his protégé--found one of us,
then he would effectively find both of us. We can’t risk staying
together.”

Meredith blanched. She felt like Eleanor was
her only lifeline into understanding her new status as a magician.
“But what am I supposed to do? You told me I can’t ignore my
powers, but you won’t stick around to teach me about them?”

“Of course I will. This is the twenty-first
century. Have you heard of a telephone?” Eleanor scoffed. “You’ll
get one of those throwaway phones and I’ll do the same. We’ll be
able to talk to each other, and I will help you figure things out.
For now though, you need to go where strangers won’t know to look
for you.”

“Tonight?” Meredith pushed.

Eleanor sighed heavily, wearied by the late
hour and the many questions from the women. “No, not tonight. You
two can sleep on the couches out here while you think about where
you will hide out. Now I am going to bed, and you two should, too.
It’s been a long day.”

A wheezing
sound in her ear woke Amelia from a deep slumber. As her mind
struggled toward consciousness, her brain tried to make sense of
the steady, shrill rhythm. Had she set an alarm? Her eyes opened
and slowly adjusted to the weak light provided by the glow of the
bedside alarm clock. A large, heavy white lump on her chest came
into focus. Amelia bolted upright, sending the cat, Sabrina,
tumbling off of the bed and onto the floor.

“Jesus!” Amelia exclaimed. “How the hell did
that cat get in here?”

Roused out of his own sleep by his wife’s
outburst, Rob sat up confusedly. “What? What cat?”

“That cat!” Amelia pointed at Sabrina, who
was stalking out of the room irritably.

Still in a daze, Rob said, “Oh, that cat.” He
sat there, rubbing his eyes and staring as the cat’s tail
disappeared around the doorframe. “We have a cat?” He looked at
Amelia innocently, and she burst into laughter as she took in his
appearance. His wiry bronze hair stood on end and his face had a
deep red line going across it from where it had been pressed
against a wrinkle in the sheets.

“We’re watching those damned cats from the
vet’s office, remember? Vi must have left the bedroom door open.”
Amelia stood up and stretched, glancing at the clock on the bedside
table. It was just after six, so they had a little while before
they needed to get back to the hospital for Meredith’s operation.
“Just enough time for a cup of coffee,” Amelia said to herself with
a smile. Her morning coffee ritual was one that she treasured.

Amelia shrugged her fluffy leopard print robe
up over her pajamas and walked down the hall toward the kitchen.
The sun had an hour or so before it would rise, and the air in the
house was chilly. In the kitchen, Amelia started the coffee maker
and got two mugs down from the cupboard. Hers had a picture of a
cactus flower on it, while Rob’s had a print of an old family photo
on it. It had been a gift from Meredith when she was in middle
school, and the picture featured the four of them grinning broadly
at the camera.

While the coffee brewed, Amelia headed
outside to bring in the newspaper. She wondered what news the day
would bring in the wake of all the rain and earthquakes. She opened
the front door and stepped out onto the porch, pausing as she took
in the scene outside. Her beautiful garden was littered with debris
and drifts of dust, flowers were missing half of their petals, and
a broken tree branch from a neighbor's yard had pummeled one of the
cacti. Under the streetlamp across the street, she could see that
the neighbor’s large mesquite tree was uprooted and had come to its
final resting place on top of the old van that had been parked in
the driveway. “Rob, come look at this,” she called back into the
house.

A few moments later, Rob shuffled down the
hall. He stood next to Amelia and looked dumbly at the van for a
moment before a look of irritation overcame his features. “You mean
I went and closed the window on that damned van for nothing?”

Amelia chuckled. “It would appear so. At
least now Frank and Lydia will finally have to get rid of that
eyesore.” She smiled and stepped down the driveway, picking up the
paper and returning to the house.

Rob followed her back in, closing the door
firmly behind him. “We must have had one hell of a storm last
night.” They had both fallen into bed when they’d gotten home from
the hospital utterly exhausted. Meeting Amelia in the kitchen he
asked, “Did you hear it?”

Amelia shook her head as she poured them each
a cup of coffee. She jumped, startled when she felt something brush
against her leg, nearly tripping over in the process. At her feet,
the black cat rubbed her cheek against Amelia’s ankle. The cat
mewed a greeting, walking between Amelia’s legs and curling her
sleek, furry body around the opposite ankle. “I never knew cats
were such murderers,” she said irritably. “The white one tried to
suffocate me to death this morning, and now this one’s determined
to trip me. Thank God we don’t have stairs in this house.”

Rob gave her a small smile in acknowledgment.
He looked down at the cat with distaste. “How long are they going
to be here?” He accepted the mug of coffee that Amelia handed to
him, and they both went out to the living room to sit on the
couch.

After they’d been sitting there a moment,
blissfully sipping their warm beverage, the black cat jumped up
onto the couch between them, purring loudly. She shoved her head
under Rob’s free hand, demanding to be petted. “Oh for God’s sake,”
he said, giving in. He stroked the cat along the length of her
body. Thrilled with the attention, the cat climbed onto his lap and
settled in.

Rob leaned his upper body away from the cat,
looking at Amelia in dismay. She laughed at his discomfort. “Aw
look, you made a friend,” she crooned.

Amelia leaned forward and picked up the paper
that she had tossed onto the coffee table a few minutes earlier,
unfolding it. The top headline was about the earthquakes the day
before, but there was nothing about last night’s dust storm. “It
must have gone to press before the storm hit,” Amelia mused.

Changing the subject, Rob asked, “When do you
want to head down to the hospital? I’d like to see Meredith for a
little while before she heads into surgery.”

Amelia glanced at the clock on the mantel.
Draining her coffee cup, she said, “We can go now.” She stood up
and folded the newspaper in her hand, intending to take it along
and read it in the waiting room.

The cat squawked indignantly as Rob stood,
unceremoniously dumping her onto the floor in the process. Rob let
out an amused chuckle as the cat looked up at him
reproachfully.

“Careful,” Amelia quipped. “She looks like
the type that’ll get revenge.”

Rob met her eye and they both smiled, and
then impulsively, he reached out and pulled her into a big hug.

Amelia returned the embrace, enjoying the
comfort of her husband’s strong arms around her waist. Releasing
him, she said, “We should call James and let him know that we are
headed down there.” They had called their son on the way home the
night before to tell him about Meredith’s illness. James had
promised to leave his daughter Ivy with her other grandparents so
he could join them at the hospital today.

They quickly dressed and got into the car,
heading to the hospital. Rob drove while Amelia called James on her
cell phone. As they made their way through the battered streets,
they were stunned by the power of the dust storm that had hit the
night before. After hanging up with James, Amelia commented, “I
can’t believe we slept through this.”

“We were beat. A train could have come
through our bedroom and we would have been none the wiser,” Rob
joked.

“Speaking of…” Amelia frowned down at her
cell phone screen. “I’ve got a missed call from the hospital.”

“When was that?”

“Last night.”

“Mere probably just called to say good
night.”

Amelia tossed her phone into the cup holder
between them. “You’re probably right.”

Soon they pulled into a space in the hospital
parking lot and were making their way inside. Rob was relieved to
see that the reporters were gone, presumably having moved on to
greener pastures. The security seemed to have been relaxed as well,
as no one stopped them on their way up to Meredith’s room.

Down the hall from Meredith’s room, they
could see that her door was slightly ajar. Amelia wondered if they
had arrived too late, but a quick glance at her wristwatch showed
that it was just after seven. Her surgery wasn’t supposed to be
until eight. Arriving at Meredith’s room, they looked inside. The
room was empty and the bed was neatly made up in preparation for
another patient.

Confused, they turned around and walked back
to the nurse’s station. “Excuse me,” Rob said to the nurse behind
the counter.

She looked up from her computer screen. “Can
I help you?”

“Yes.” Rob leaned on the counter. “My
daughter was in that room over there, but now there’s no one in
there. She’s having surgery at eight, and we’d like to see her
before she goes in. Can you tell me where she’s been moved to?”

The nurse’s expression was unreadable. “No
one has been in there since I’ve been here. What’s your daughter’s
name?” After Rob told her, she typed a few things into her
computer. A look of confusion crossed over her face. “Can you spell
the last name for me, please?”

Rob did as she asked, casting a worried
glance over toward Amelia.

After a few moments, the nurse said, “I’m
sorry, but I don’t have any record of a patient by that name.”

“That can’t be right,” Amelia protested. “Are
you sure it’s spelled correctly?”

The nurse looked sympathetic. “I double
checked. She’s not in here.”

Rob’s face flushed with frustration. “My
daughter was here last night when we left, and now you’re telling
me you have no record of her? Where is my daughter then?”

The nurse rolled her chair back, away from
Rob’s piercing look. Defensively, she said, “I’m sorry, sir, I
really don’t know. As I said, I just got here. Let me check if any
of the nurses who were here last night are still here.” She stood
up and scurried away, clearly relieved to be escaping from Rob’s
anger.

Amelia’s cell phone began to ring from inside
her purse. She dug around inside and found the cell phone after
several rings, answering it just before it went to voice mail.
“Hello?”

James’s easygoing voice came through the
earpiece. “Hey, Mom. I’m downstairs. Where do I go?”

Rob could hear the question from where he
stood, and he called into the phone, “We don’t know. The hospital
lost her.” He sent an accusatory glance down the hallway where the
nurse had disappeared.

Amelia took a step away from Rob and said
more calmly, “She’s been moved, so we’re just trying to find out
where she is. Once we know, we’ll call you back and tell you where
to go, okay?”

They said their goodbyes and hung up just as
the nurse was returning with a young man wearing jeans and a tee
shirt. Amelia recognized him as the nurse who had been taking care
of Meredith the night before. “Oh, hello,” she greeted him warmly,
glad to see a familiar face. “You were my daughter’s nurse last
night.”

The nurse smiled appreciatively. “Yeah, the
cute redhead. My name’s Matt, by the way.” He stuck his hand out
toward Amelia, and she shook it absently.

“Can you please tell us where you’ve taken
our daughter?” Rob asked with exaggerated patience.

Amelia sent him a disapproving glance. “We’re
just really worried about her,” she said, attempting to explain
away Rob’s rude tone.

Matt shifted his weight uncomfortably,
glancing around. An orderly was pushing another patient down the
hall in a wheelchair. He waited until they were a little farther
away before responding. “Your daughter disappeared last night. I
caught her going downstairs at about eight. She said she and her
friend had gotten in a fight and she wanted to go down and work it
out. That’s the last time I saw her.”

“Why weren’t we called?” Rob demanded. Amelia
winced. She knew that Rob was only irate because he was worried for
Meredith, but she wished he could be a little more diplomatic.

Matt seemed unruffled, likely used to dealing
with disgruntled patients. “We were going to, but when we tried to
look up Meredith’s emergency contact information, she wasn’t in the
system.”