In a Heartbeat (11 page)

He knew why he had accepted Owens’ plan, but why did Elizabeth?

There was only one way to find out.

He walked over to the locked door, prepared for a probable argument when he asked Liz to come out and talk to him. But her voice on the other side of the door stopped his arm in the process of knocking.

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“Sean? It’s me… Yes, well, I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ve already booked a flight… Can you meet me at LaGuardia? Ten o’clock… Of course in the morning. I want out of here as soon as possible… No, he didn’t hurt me.

Phillip wouldn’t… Sean. I told you. He didn’t hurt me… It’s my father…

Yes… Of course I do… I know you do, too. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

He waited a discreet moment after he heard the snap of the phone closing before he knocked.

“Liz, we have to talk.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Come on Liz, It’s the one thing we could always do well. Even when we were little kids, we could always talk.”

After a brief hesitation, the lock clicked and Elizabeth opened the door a crack. “I don’t want you to stay with me tonight.”

He shook his head. “That’s okay. There’s plenty of bedrooms in this house. I’m sure I can find one to fit me.” Even through the tiny crack in the door, he could see her smile.

“I’m leaving tomorrow first thing.”

“That’s why we need to talk tonight, before you go.” He could almost hear her vacillating. “Have you eaten anything? Are you hungry?” Maybe he could coax her out with a meal.

“Do you still make those yummy rolls?” she asked, a bit of yearning in her voice. “No. Don’t tell me. I can’t eat anything that even looks like it contains calories.”

He laughed. This sounded more like his old Elizabeth. “Come on out.

I promise I won’t tempt you with anything edible.”

“Give me a minute,” she said. “I want to put something on.”

A few minutes later, she breezed into the great room wrapped in a shimmering red silk robe. Her jet-black hair hung limp down her back. A cigarette dangled between two freshly painted lips. Flopping onto the nearest corner of the couch, she searched briefly for an ashtray, then decided the stone hearth of the fireplace would suit her purpose. She flicked off some ashes. “You wanted to talk?”

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In a Heartbeat

Hank selected the chair across from her and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Who’s Sean?” Her eyes widened and he added quickly, “I heard you mention his name when I came to knock on your door.”

She shrugged. “He’s a friend. A photographer.” She fidgeted a bit with the belt of her robe. “We’ve worked a bit together, know the same people, that sort of thing.”

“And he’s in New York,” Hank added. She looked toward the ceiling and shook her head with a dramatic sigh before dragging on her cigarette.

“You asked before why I asked you to come here,” he said.

“You already explained that. You wanted to ask me to marry you.”

“No. Your father wants me to marry you. Why is that, Liz?”

She shook her head and pulled the robe across her knees. “I don’t know. He’s always thought of you like a son. He’d probably marry you himself if he could.” She laughed at her joke. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

“I’m serious, Liz. At the time we made the deal, I didn’t see anything wrong with us getting married. We’ve been friends for so long. My parents don’t even have that in common. My mother has mentioned on more than one occasion that you’d be a wonderful daughter-in-law.”

“Your mother wouldn’t even know she had a daughter-in-law.”

Hank winced. Elizabeth’s observation was true enough, but he tried not to think of his mother’s alcohol problems. He clasped his hands together. “I’ve begun to notice things about you that I hadn’t before, and I think –”

“You don’t want to marry me.”

“I didn’t say that.” Did he imagine it, or did her lower lip tremble? Her fingers shook, but they often did. He didn’t want to hurt her. “I don’t think now is the right time for either of us to make that kind of commitment.”

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She nodded then dabbed the corners of her eyes. Damn. Nothing cut deeper than a woman’s tears. He moved to the couch and put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Liz.”

She cuddled into his shoulder and sniffed. “Sean said this would happen. He told me not to come when you called.”

“I’m glad you came.” Who was this Sean person? Hank squeezed her shoulder. “We needed to have this talk, to keep everything open and honest between us. We’ve always been honest with each other, haven’t we?”

Well, maybe not. She hadn’t been honest about her drugs. He owed Angela an apology on that score. But Elizabeth nodded in agreement.

“Daddy really said he wants me to marry you?” He nodded. She fingered the buttons on his shirt. “And he wants me to live here?” He nodded again. “Why?”

“He said something about this being a better place to raise children.”

“Children? I can’t model if I’m pregnant. I don’t even think I can have children.” She buried her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?”

Turning her head, she glanced up at him. “What should I do?”

His shoulders ached from the added responsibility for Elizabeth’s future. What had at first appeared to be a cut and dried proposition now appeared to be a monumental undertaking. Why hadn’t Owens been upfront about Elizabeth’s drug problems and career objections? What to do now?

“Philip?”

He cringed. He hated that name. “I’m not sure what your father is up to, but I need a little time. I have an idea. Are you game?”

She stiffened.

“Don’t worry. You can still go back to New York tomorrow.”

“In that case, count me in on one condition.” Her lips turned up in a coy smile. “I want an engagement ring.”

* * *

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In a Heartbeat

Raymond checked the address on a tiny piece of paper, Gekmon Hall.

Yes, this looked to be the place. He smiled. These large universities might attract the stalwart scholars and virtuous philosophers, but they inevitably attracted people from the opposite end of the spectrum as well.

The egghead with no social skills best kept far from view, or better yet, a scholar with ethics that came with a price tag. These were the people he sought when he’d first entered the hacker’s chat room. It had taken far more patience than he thought he could stand, and lots more time than he’d anticipated, but in the end he had found his man, Larry Smith.

He pulled the handles on the heavy doors to the old academic building and stepped inside. Not much changes from one University building to another, he noted. Bulletin boards still overflowed with meaningless papers. Shabby students lounged in equally shabby orange vinyl seats near humming pop machines. Voices and steps echoed in identical intensity down the near empty hallways. Raymond quickly located the building stairwell and started his descent to the basement.

Overhead florescent tubes lit the maze-like warren of hallways.

Raymond followed the directions on the scrap of paper through a door marked NO ADMITTANCE, straight past the fenced-in area secured with a padlock, to a quiet, dimly lit, yet obviously protected corner of obscurity.

“Larry, is that you?” Raymond called to the T-shirt-clad back hunched before a flickering monitor.

“Who wants to know?”

“Andy,” he replied, using a pseudonym. “We met on the Internet, remember?”

The chair squeaked and turned, revealing a gangly, baby-faced boy sporting a sparse goatee. PHREAKING WITH THE UNIVERSE blazed across his chest on a T-shirt that appeared to have only a passing acquaintance with a washing machine. “Yeah, the hospital guy. Did you bring my money?”

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“That depends.” Raymond moved closer. “Did you get my

information?”

“Nothing to it.” A large grin spread across the hacker’s face. “I sniffed around a bit, hit a few walls, but I found a weak link in the pathology department. They had some archaic security structure. Easy to penetrate. Once in, I hooked up some databases and lifted all kinds of crap.” He held up about five pages of paper covered with words and numbers.

“Let me see,” Raymond reached for the report.

“Not so fast.” The pages disappeared behind Larry’s back. “I could get in deep shit over this. How do I know you won’t blow my cover?”

“Don’t you watch television?” Raymond sighed. “A journalist never has to reveal his sources. I’m going to use this to prove how hospitals haven’t enough security over confidential information.”

“No one will get hurt with this?” he asked. “I mean, I hack into databases just to see if I can, not to hurt anyone.”

“Do I look like a criminal?” Raymond asked, practicing his most innocent “trust-me” look. “I’m a journalist, Larry, and I always protect my sources.”

“Okay then.” He pulled the papers from behind his back. “Did you bring the money?”

Raymond smiled; it always came down to money. “You bet. Five hundred dollars, right?” He pulled his wallet from his hip pocket, then counted out the bills.

Larry handed over the report in exchange for the crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Sweet,” he said. “I’ve got my eye on a high-speed motherboard. This should put me over the top.”

Raymond didn’t respond. He turned and retraced his steps out of the underground maze.

“Pleasure doing business with you, man,” he heard Larry call to his back. Raymond headed quickly down the hall, back up the stairs, and out the building door.

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In a Heartbeat

He studied the pages as he walked down the campus walkway to a nearby fast-food restaurant. Just as he had done with the other two hackers and their assigned hospitals, he had asked Larry for a list of all transplants performed at the university hospital over the course of a month, sorted by organ and date, that identified each recipient by name, address, age and social security number. Heart transplants were still rare enough that only one or two names on each list met the date criteria surrounding Miranda’s death. He had already researched the candidates on the other lists and both were dead. One died on the operating table.

The other died of complications after contracting a respiratory infection.

This was the last hospital of the three that appeared on the screen of the organ transplant billing facility.

One last name to research. One last name between him and freedom.

Concerns about being identified as Miranda’s killer had twisted his dreams into grotesque nightmares. The uncertainty was eating him alive, and now…now he held the key. What was it Larry had called it? A weak link? Well, now he could eradicate the weak link and return to his perfect life without shadows of uncertainty.

He shuffled through the pages looking for the date he knew as well as his own birthday, May fifteenth. There it was, the final name on his list.

He crumbled up the other pages of the report and tossed them into a trash can overflowing with greasy burger wrappers and ice-filled cups.

Carefully, he folded the paper into a neat two-inch square. This one felt right, it pulsed with the quickening of his own heartbeat. He hadn’t been this excited since he first conceived of Miranda’s death. Smiling, he silently began to plot his strategy. It was time to meet Angela Blake.

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“I’d like my keys back, please.” Angela was surprised Hank was already in his office when she arrived. She had asked Stephen to drop her off extra early on the excuse of having so much work to finish up. In reality, she hoped to catch Hank before the others arrived. But she hadn’t expected him to be waiting for her.

“Angel. Come in. Sit down.”

“My name is not Angel and I don’t need to sit down. May I have my keys back now?”

“Why? I doubt you can drive with that thing on your leg.”

“This thing on my leg is none of your business. My keys, please.” She could have told him she drove Lilly last night just fine. But she didn’t feel she owed him an explanation.

“How’s Oreo?” he asked.

“How’s Elizabeth?” she countered, instantly disliking the pettiness in her voice. He winced, then removed her keys from his drawer and laid them on the desk. She reconsidered the sharp edge to her words, attributing her nastiness to lack of sleep. The plastic cast was extremely uncomfortable. Even faithful Oreo had abandoned the bed after her constant fidgeting. She softened her tone. “I think Oreo’s as anxious to move back home as I am.”

“You could have avoided all that family involvement, you know.”

His gentle reminder was akin to holding a lollipop just out of reach of a grasping child. She straightened her posture. “No, I don’t think that would have been possible. Now, if you can tell me where you parked the car.”

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“It’s in back by the shipping dock.”

“Thank you.” She reached across his desk, covering the metal keys with her hand. She was about to pick them up when he placed his hand over hers. Her whole body jerked at his touch. She bit her lip, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
Calm down
, she willed silently.
He’s just touching my
hand.
She glanced down, noting that the little identification heart attached to her key chain lay exposed outside the cover of his hand.

“That heart.” He poked at it with his free hand. “This is the reason for all those pills, isn’t it? There’s something wrong with your heart?”

“Not anymore.” She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Not exactly. I…I had a transplant three years ago.”

“A heart transplant? You have someone else’s heart?”

She recognized the pattern. First shock, then curiosity and finally pity. Something shifted within her. She wasn’t sure if it was relief or despair that he knew the truth.

“My heart wasn’t going to last much longer. When a healthy one became available, I took it.” She swatted his hand away and pulled her keys close. “Now if we’re through with the freak show.” She turned to make a quick exit.