Page 20 of Icy Heart, Empty Chest
I swiped the badge, holding my breath. Luckily, the door opened. Unluckily, there wasn’t much inside. A desk, his desk placard, some of his degrees on the wall, a few chairs in front of the unimpressive desk. It looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. There was a file cabinet, brand new apparently. When you opened the desk drawers you could see some notebooks, a few pens in them, a ream of paper for the printer in the back but nothing heart sized or big enough to contain a heart-sized container.
“Dead end.” I looked back at him. He was clearly struggling with something, a V etched into his forehead. I peeked over at his face, screwed up like he had an intense headache.
He looked me and gestured out, “Downstairs?”
“Downstairs.”
We moved out into the hallway and to the nearest elevator. Stepping in, I pressed the button and stood back.
“What did you mean when you said my friends tortured you?”
I stiffened. Not on a job. “Not now. I’m not doing this now. We need to be focused.”
He glared for a minute, crossing his arms across his chest but when the doors opened, he didn’t get out.
“After this is done, for better or worse you tell me everything that happened in the past few years. I hated not talking to you for so long. You can only push the conversation away for so long,” he barked.
I was surprised by the forcefulness of his voice, jumping a little at the intensity.
“OK,” I replied meekly. “Just not right now. I promise.” I could tell it was bothering him but I just couldn’t lose focus. Bigger fish to fry.
Did I really want to go through all that pain again? Not really. Took me years to get it down in the first place. I looked over at him and he still wasn’t moving from the elevator, which was trying to close its doors on him. I put my arm out to stop them.
“Come on, Damien. We’re OK, right?” I coaxed. It was more or less the truth. We were OK for right now. Just a couple of acquaintances committing crimes, in a children’s hospital. “We’ll talk. I promise.” I looked into those coal eyes, unblinking. “We’re OK.”
He nodded and stepped out of the elevator. “I get these really heavy flashes of emotions at times. After not having a lot for a while, it can get over whelming.”
“We’re doing OK right now. We have the plan. We’re going to get the heart back.” I was trying to be as soothing as possible. My usual method of sarcasm and barreling through obstacles probably wouldn’t work right now.
I pointed down the corridor to the left and we started walking.
“When did it start getting bad?”
“A month or two ago, when Dad passed.”
I froze. I had seen it in the newspapers but hadn’t really made the connection. I stopped right before the laboratory and grabbed his arm.
“Dae, I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “I knew you guys didn’t have the greatest relationship but I know how much it hurts.” Did he mind that I was using his old nickname? Hope not. Old habits and all that.
He shook his head.
“Up till the end he told me I disappointed him. One day he went to the hospital ’cause he’d had stomach pain for a week and they found cancer. Not operable, spreading fast. A couple weeks later he was gone. Mom moved in a few days ago with her sister. I have the house now, another car. Didn’t need those.”
“Tell me after this OK? We can go back to my place?” We were getting derailed fast and I didn’t want to be here for long. I swear I wasn’t ignoring the conversation…OK maybe a little but mostly ’cause we have a job to do.
He nodded as I swiped into the laboratory. His face was dripping with quiet misery, one born from the machinations of a critical parent.
The lab was neat chaos. Bunsen burners at different stations, experiments under the hood, the hum of the refrigerators and warmers with different layers of Petri dishes. A row of microscopes were lined up neatly for use, slides in boxes next to them. The stools were tucked in and there was no debris on the floor. It had been cleaned recently.
“Try the cabinets, that far wall. I’ll look in the drawers,” I requested.
He complied, looking at the shelves inside. Mostly lab equipment, more test tubes, dishes, tubing, trays, plating.
I moved onto the second lab bench, looking.
“O Nymph Thief Extraordinaire?”
I turned.
