The Second Heart Read online

The Second Heart

  K. K. Eaton

  Copyright 2014 K. K. Eaton.

  Please remember to leave a review for my book at your favorite retailer.

  To contact K. K. Eaton:

  [email protected]

  facebook.com/kkeatonbooks

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Note from K. K. Eaton

  About K. K. Eaton

  Connect with K. K. Eaton

  Chapter 1

  Meredith Carpenter’s eyes snapped open as if she had been electrocuted. Rolling over in bed, she looked at the clock. 5:22 AM. Not usually an early riser, she was surprised to find that she was fully awake.

  She lay in bed for several minutes to see if she would fall back asleep before giving up and heading to the bathroom. As she was washing her hands, Meredith started as she caught her own reflection in the mirror.

  “Holy crap, I look like I’ve been hit by a truck,” she muttered, peering at herself more closely. Her strawberry blonde hair was disheveled and she had dark smudges under her clear blue eyes. Though she’d had seven hours of sleep, it appeared as if she hadn’t rested in days. Chalking it up to an impending chest cold, Meredith sighed and left the bathroom.

  As she padded toward the kitchen, she spotted her roommate, Violet, asleep on the couch. Vi still wore the clothes from the night before: a lacy black bustier and torn jeans. Tall black leather Doc Martin boots lay on the floor next to the couch, along with Vi’s cell phone and purse.

  Meredith chuckled. She and Vi couldn’t have been more different from each other, but they still maintained the close friendship that they had begun with each other in the seventh grade. Meredith had always been outgoing and athletic, whereas Vi preferred to present herself as a moody artist. Of course, Meredith knew that Vi had a goofy side and was a sucker for puns, but she was one of the few people who did.

  Meredith wondered what Vi had been up to the night before, assuming it likely had something to do with an underground metal band and their grungy drummer. Her own evening had been relatively uneventful. Meredith was in her first semester of veterinary school, and her social life consisted mostly of studying and tending to the sick animals at the veterinary clinic where she worked part time. Occasionally, she would go out on a date with one of her classmates, Miguel. The fact that he was in vet school with her was very likely the only reason why they were still dating. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have much time for him.

  Meredith had just finished pouring milk on her cereal when a groan emanated from the couch. Vi slowly sat up and stared blankly at the empty television screen, not noticing that she had company. Her face was imprinted with the diamond pattern from the sofa cushion, and her glossy black hair was still in last evening’s updo, which now hung limply to one side. To complete the look, red lipstick stained her lips and part of her chin.

  Meredith took in the sight of her roommate and laughed out loud, causing Vi to jump up in alarm. Meredith laughed even louder.

  “Geez, Meredith! You scared the shit out of me!” Vi took in Meredith’s mirthful countenance with disgust. “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. You know, you don’t exactly look like a shining princess this morning, either.”

  Meredith quipped, “Ooh, a sparkling personality to go with her looks, folks!” More seriously she asked, “Late night last night?”

  “You could say that.” Vi’s face turned serious as she paused for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to elaborate. She shook her head and said, “I’m going to go shower. I feel like I’m growing mold.”

  As Vi shuffled out of the room, Meredith continued eating her cereal thoughtfully. Vi was usually pretty forthcoming about her adventurous sex life, so it was odd that she hadn’t shared any details about the night before. She shrugged it off. Knowing Vi, she wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself for long.

  Meredith stood and rinsed out her cereal bowl, putting it in the dishwasher. She looked at the clock and realized she had several hours before she needed to be in class. Unaccustomed to so much extra time, Meredith cast about in her mind for something to do.

  Listlessly, she wandered back to her bedroom and looked around. She remembered how carefully she had decorated her personal space. It was done up in shades of soft teal, white, yellow, and gray, with bold geometric patterns interspersed with softer florals. The unmade bed took up one of the walls and was flanked by small antique dressers; on the opposite wall, Meredith had set up an office area with an antique brass lamp and a few potted plants. She gave the plants a chagrined smile, as they were looking pretty sad and neglected next to several piles of paper and textbooks that crowded around the laptop computer and the lamp. She tried to remember the last time she had watered them.

  Figuring there was no time like the present, she went to the bathroom and filled the water glass that was at the edge of the sink. She glanced at herself again in the mirror, noticing that she still looked haggard. Glass in hand, she returned to the bedroom and poured water onto the plants. One of the leaves crumbled under the onslaught of liquid. Meredith giggled. “Geez, it has been a while. Sorry, plant!”

  The potting soil drank up the water greedily as Meredith sat down at the desk in front of her laptop to check her email. The most recent one was an emergency alert notice from the university. Meredith opened it.

  EMERGENCY ALERT

  Due to a fire on the Tempe campus this morning, all classes are cancelled until further notice.

  All commuter students are advised to avoid coming to campus until we receive the all clear from the fire department. We will send out another alert when it is safe to return.

  Students who live on campus should have received a separate email from their resident advisers with specific instructions. If you did not receive an email, please contact Emergency Services.

  Surprised and curious, Meredith quickly opened a news website to see if there was any coverage of the campus fire. She wondered how bad a fire would have to be to shut down the entire campus. With over seventy thousand students, closing campus down would be no small matter.

  The first headline on the news site read, “Fire Departments overwhelmed as fires erupt in cities across the nation.” She clicked on the link to bring up the full article, and scanned it quickly. A large fire has consumed several buildings at Arizona State University early this morning … at present the fire is sixty percent contained … this was only one of several large conflagrations around the city … other major U.S. cities suffering from out of control fires … terrorism is suspected but cannot be confirmed until after all the fires are put out and investigated.

  “Damn!” Meredith exclaimed. Her remaining emails forgotten, she stood up to go share the news with Vi. Just as she did, the smoke alarm went off. Striding out of the room, Meredith’s eyes darted around the apartment looking for the source of the smoke.

  Vi came out of her room wearing jeans and a t-shirt, toweling off her hair. “I don’t think it’s our apartment,” she said.

  “Our neighbors!” They rushed outside without bothering to put on s
hoes. Their second story apartment shared a small porch with the one next door. From there they could see smoke seeping out from under the door.

  “Call 911!” Meredith snapped at Vi. She began to pound on the neighbor’s door, and the hot wood seared the back of her fist. She wrapped her hand in her sleeve and pounded harder. Tears sprang into her eyes as the smoke and pain got to her. After a few moments she realized that her neighbor’s apartment was a mirror image of her own, which meant that the master bedroom likely shared a wall with her own.

  Meredith turned on her heel and ran back inside and down the hall to her bedroom. She leapt onto the bed on her knees and started pounding the wall with all her might. “Wake up!” she yelled. “Fire! Wake up!”

  After she hammered the wall with her fist a few more times, the neighbor thumped back. A voice called through the wall, “I’m trapped!”

  “Go to the window,” she yelled back, scrambling off the bed. She ran back down the hall and through the front door, which was still wide open. With her cell phone glued to her ear, Vi followed.

  Thundering down the stairs, Meredith pounded on both of the downstairs neighbors’ doors before running around the side of the building and to the back, Vi close behind. They could see their neighbor standing in the window. He was in his late twenties, with close-cropped medium brown hair and a goatee. He wore square, black-rimmed glasses and small silver stud earrings in both ears.

  Meredith called up, “You have to jump!”

  “I’ll break both my legs,” he protested.

  “Better two broken legs than burning to death,” Meredith reasoned.

  The neighbor looked unconvinced.

  Vi stepped next to Meredith and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Josh.”

  “Nice to meet you, Josh,” Vi said. “You’re gonna be really well taken care of when you jump, okay? My friend Meredith here is a doctor.”

  Meredith looked sharply at Vi as she continued, “But you gotta jump, man.”

  To Meredith, Josh said, “You look too young to be a doctor.”

  Before Meredith could respond, Vi said, “She just graduated. But she’s the top of her class. You’re in really good hands. Just do it on three, okay?”

  Josh swallowed hard and swung a leg through the window. “Count fast before I lose my nerve.”

  Vi obliged him. As he landed on the ground, they heard a sickening crunch. Immediately, both Vi and Meredith ran over to where Josh lay sprawled on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Meredith looked him over to see if any bones were obviously broken. She thought maybe one of his ankles looked weird.

  Josh blinked up at them as they knelt over him. “Got the wind knocked out of me. And my left ankle hurts like a bitch.”

  Meredith glanced at Vi. “Are you still on the phone with 911?”

  Vi looked at the phone as if she had forgotten that it was plastered to her ear. “Oh yeah, I am.” Then to the dispatcher on the other end she said, “Our neighbor just jumped out his window and is lying on the ground. He thinks maybe his ankle is broken.”

  As Vi continued to talk with the 911 operator, Meredith turned back to Josh. “You need to just stay here and not move, okay? I need to make sure everyone else is out of the building.”

  Josh scrutinized her. “You look way too young to be a doctor.”

  Meredith looked away sheepishly. “Well I’m still in school… That, and we’d probably be in much better shape if you had fur.”

  Josh laughed. “You’re a veterinarian?”

  “Someday, hopefully. There isn’t anyone else in your apartment, is there?”

  “Nope. Go wake everyone else up. But leave your friend here. She’s cute.” He smiled and glanced over at Vi, who looked almost bored.

  Sensing she was a topic of conversation, Vi looked at both of them and made a face. “She says it’ll be at least an hour before any fire trucks can get here.”

  Meredith left them there and went back around to the front of the building. She could see flames in the windows of Josh’s apartment. Their downstairs neighbors stood outside, looking up at the fire. One set of neighbors was an older couple, clutching a small, fluffy dog. The others were a mom and her two teenaged children, who stood there bleary-eyed in their pajamas.

  “Is everyone out of both apartments?” Meredith asked.

  They nodded sleepily.

  “Good. We’ve been on the phone with 911 and they said that the firefighters are swamped right now and can’t get here for a while. We need to find some hoses and try to get everything wet to keep this fire from spreading. But we need to be safe first, so don’t go back inside for any reason.”

  After a bit more verbal prodding from Meredith, her neighbors swung into action. The older gentleman found some hoses in the landscaper’s shed while the teenagers went to the other buildings in the complex to alert the neighbors to the situation. The woman with the dog went to the apartment management office. Soon, their building looked like a beehive of activity as neighbors hosed down the walls and worked to contain the fire.

  Against Meredith’s warnings, a couple of hot shot bodybuilders who lived in another building kicked down the door of Josh’s apartment and got a blast of flames to the face. After the initial surge however, the fire eased back and they were able to point hoses through the door and onto the flames.

  By the time the firefighters arrived on the scene, the fire was out, but it was several hours before they were allowed to go back into their apartment. Meredith and Vi helped Josh hobble around the building to relax on the grass under a tree while they waited.

  Because he didn’t have health insurance, Josh refused to be seen by the paramedics that had arrived with the firemen. “I’ll drive myself to the E.R. later,” he explained. “Ambulances are only worth it when you’re bleeding to death. I’m fine.”

  As they sat on the grass, Meredith noticed that Vi looked antsy. She obviously wanted to talk about something, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so in front of Josh. Meredith wondered if it had something to do with Vi’s rough night the previous evening. Vi’s reticence in front of their neighbor didn’t deter her from flirting with him, however. They were obviously very interested in each other. The drummer was yesterday’s news, Meredith supposed.

  At last, one of the firefighters walked over to the trio and said to Josh, “We’ve pinpointed the origin of the fire in your home, sir. It appears to have started with a lava lamp next to the TV.”

  Vi raised her eyebrows and snickered. “A lava lamp?”

  Josh blushed.

  Meredith laughed and said with mock sincerity, “Go easy on him, Vi. Lava lamps have graced many a bachelor pad since the seventies. They are the height of male decor.” She felt almost giddy after the stress of the morning.

  The firefighter shifted his weight impatiently and continued, “The fire was localized to the area just inside the front door, and the damage is pretty superficial. It’s gonna smell pretty bad, but it’s safe to go back in.”

  Meredith stood up. “I’ll go get my keys so we can take Josh to the hospital.”

  “I can take myself,” Josh insisted.

  Vi rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.” Rising to her feet, she added, “I can take him. I know you have tons of stuff to do today.” She gave Meredith a pointed look and glanced meaningfully down at Josh, who was still resting with his back against the tree.

  Meredith shrugged. “Suit yourself. Hope your leg feels better, Josh.”

  Even though they had only been out of their apartment for a few hours, Meredith felt like she was re-entering it after being away for months. The acrid smell of damp smoke filled her nostrils as she quickly began opening every window she could. Aside from the smell, however, the apartment appeared undamaged.

  Vi followed Meredith down the hall to her bedroom as Meredith went to open the windows. “Mere, I have to talk to you about something that happened last night. This is too weird not to tell you.”

  M
eredith stopped what she was doing and faced Vi expectantly.

  Vi chose her words carefully as she continued, “Last night I met up with these Wicca chicks that I know, and we decided to mess around.”

  Meredith suppressed an eye roll. As much as she adored Vi, this was one side of her that Meredith felt Vi could do without. “Oh, did you contact Elvis for a serenade?” she teased.

  Vi reached out and grasped both of Meredith’s arms gently, her eyes penetrating. “Something happened. I mean, I’ll admit it, most of the time we just light a bunch of candles and drink a bunch of wine and nothing really happens… but last night, something happened.”

  Something in Vi’s voice made the hair on Meredith’s neck rise. She stared hard into Vi’s deep brown eyes. “Okay, so what happened?”

  Vi released Meredith’s arms and continued, “Everything was going normally, when all of a sudden, all of the candles flared up at the same time. Some of the curtains caught on fire, and we had to get the hell out of there. We called 911, but we had no idea how to explain how the fire started. Without the flare up, none of the candles would have been close enough to the curtains to set them on fire.”

  “Are you sure?” A born skeptic, Meredith felt that Vi might have been exaggerating. Meredith scrutinized Vi’s face trying to judge her sincerity.

  Vi rolled her eyes. “I know that look, non-believer. I’m telling you, it happened. Dana’s apartment is trashed.”

  Meredith was silent for a moment, thinking about Vi’s confession. She knew that these gatherings tended to involve a lot of alcohol, but Vi usually held her liquor well. Plus, Vi had never made any other similar assertion about the Wicca stuff, so why would she start now?

  “That is really weird,” Meredith conceded. Then she continued, “There was a fire at the university this morning, too. The paper said there have been fires across the U.S., and the feds suspect terrorism.”

  “Whoa, really?”

  “But it’s hard to believe that Josh would be a target of terrorism.” Meredith said.

  “Yeah, and that doesn’t explain what I saw with the candles. I’m not making it up, Mere, I swear. It was like the fire took on a mind of its own.” Vi glanced back down the hallway. “I gotta go take Josh to the hospital. Let’s talk more later, okay?”

  Meredith nodded and impulsively reached out and gave Vi a tight hug.

  Vi chuckled and hugged back. “I love you, too, kid.” Then she stepped away and disappeared down the hall.