Conjured

Eve wanted to ask what was at stake, but before she could, Malcolm knelt in front of her. “It will be okay,” he said. “No one blames you. You shouldn’t be afraid.” She hadn’t been until he said those words. Now, her heart thumped faster and her throat felt tight. Across the office, the door was thrown open. Rising, Malcolm blocked Eve, but she saw around his elbow. A bald man in a gray suit with suspenders filled the doorway. His tie was loose, and his scalp had a sheen of sweat that reflected the fluorescent lights. This was Lou. He was a foot shorter than Malcolm and a foot wider, but he seemed to loom over the office. Eve shrank back.

Lou spoke, his voice mild. “Agent Harrington, are you trying to give me an aneurysm?”

Malcolm straightened. “No, sir.” His voice was as sharp and crisp as a salute.

“Because my wife—you know, the doctor with the fancy degree—demands that I cut out all stress from my life,” Lou said. Listening to his voice, Eve began to shake. She knew his voice. Oh, yes, she knew it deep, the way she knew the pulse in her veins and the breath in her lungs. “Already cut out red meat, red wine, sausage, and bacon. And you know how I feel about bacon. There’s no other food with a scent more perfectly designed to trigger the appetite than bacon. You could pump the smell of bacon into a room full of vegetarians after a veggie-burger-eating contest, and every one of them would crave cooked pig before the end of an hour. So explain to me exactly why you are rendering my no-bacon sacrifice moot by giving me an aneurysm.”

“I took a calculated risk,” Malcolm said. “It was mine to take.”

Lou’s voice was still as soft as a cat’s purr. “If we lose her, we lose the case.”

Eve had heard his voice in the background while medical equipment beeped in rhythm with her heartbeat. She’d heard it when she’d woken with tubes shoved down her throat and her skin feeling as if it had been burned from her bones. Even though she wasn’t in the hospital anymore, Eve felt her heart thump fast and wild like a chased deer, and she retreated from him and his soft voice. She bumped into a table, and papers spilled onto the floor.

In one smooth movement, Malcolm scooped the papers back onto the table and guided Eve to the closest leather chair. “Breathe,” he said. “Deep breaths. In and out.”

She looked into his warm brown eyes and obeyed. Breathing, she sank into the chair. She wished he were next to her all the time, reminding her to breathe, making her feel safe. She kept her eyes fixed on his, trying not to see Lou looming behind him.

Malcolm kept his eyes on her as he said to Lou, “I’d like to discuss this elsewhere.”

“You think she understands?” Lou asked. He’d ordered the surgeries, she remembered. He’d said when it was enough or not enough. She heard him in her memory, clear in the haze. He’d never spoken directly to Eve, only to the doctors and nurses. Remembering, Eve gulped in air. She’d spent days, weeks, in that hospital room.

“Yes, I do,” Malcolm said. He fetched a computer tablet off his desk and handed it to Eve. “I’ll be back soon,” he told her. She heard the reassuring promise in his voice. “You can look through the photos again.”

She ran her fingers over the dark, cold screen of the tablet as she watched Malcolm follow Lou out of the office. Picturing the operating room, she wanted to call him back—don’t go with him!—but she didn’t move or speak. She saw Malcolm’s silhouette through the beveled glass window. And then he was gone.

“What’s Lou going to do to him?” Eve asked.

“Flay him, fillet him,” Aunt Nicki said. “Since when do you care?”

“I care.” Saying it out loud felt like a jolt of electricity through her body. She shouldn’t care. But she did. She wanted to shoot out of the chair, chase after Malcolm, and make sure he was safe.

Aunt Nicki snorted. “Look at the faces if you care so damn much.”

Eve looked down at the screen, a dark mirror. Her own green eyes stared hollowly back at her. The left side of her face was obscured by the glare of the fluorescent lights. She thought she looked like a ghost staring out at herself.

He’d said to look through the photos again, but she didn’t know what he meant. She had no memory of this tablet or any faces. She felt as if a fist were curled inside her stomach. She could remember a piece of cake but not this, the operating room but not level five, this office but not her home before it.

Aunt Nicki shoved her chair back and stood. Without a word, she stalked around Malcolm’s desk. Leaning over Eve, Aunt Nicki tapped a button on the tablet, and it flashed on. A photo of a teenage girl appeared. She had sour lips and hostile eyes underneath a rainbow of eye shadow. Aunt Nicki slid her finger across the screen and a new face appeared, a teenage boy with a single braid in his hair. He had dark skin and black eyes, and he wore an embroidered gold shirt. His expression was serene.

“Should I recognize them?” Eve asked.