“Truly? I’d like to hear it,” she said, starting to rise.
“Stay put,” he said. “This will only take a second.” He sat down beside her on the bench, and as she scooted over, he put his index fingers on the keyboard and banged out the tune. That close to her, she smelled of Irish Spring soap, and when he’d finished and looked at her to see if she was amused, he realized that he’d made a terrible mistake. A blush as fierce as fire was in her cheek, and her eyes were downcast. His shoulder was brushing hers, his foot was touching her boot, and she looked shocked by the sudden, physical contact. Shocked, but so loath to offend him that she hadn’t jumped up and moved away, but simply sat and waited for it to be over.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said, getting up. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I forgot…” Forgot what? That over 150 years ago, what I just did was probably considered pretty forward? “It’s just that, today, it’s not a big deal to—”
“No, I’m not offended,” she said, her voice strained. “That was…a very interesting piece.” She smoothed her skirt. “Thank you for playing it for me.”
“There you are!” came from the door, and Michael saw Charlotte, her coat flapping open over sweatpants and rubber boots, breathing a huge sigh of relief. “I did a bed check, and when you were gone, I imagined all kinds of disasters.”
“I’m quite well,” Eleanor said.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Charlotte replied, “but you’re definitely on the upswing. I can see that now.”
“You are aware, I hope, that I can’t be confined forever.”
Charlotte looked like she didn’t want to get into all that. “You didn’t steal her, did you?” she asked Michael.
Michael raised his palms in a gesture of innocence, and Eleanor came to his defense—“No, he did not”—and then to her own. “I’ve been deprived of many things, including my liberty, for quite a long time, but there is one thing I still retain.”
Michael and Charlotte waited for her to finish.
“I do still have a will of my own.”
And Michael had just caught a welcome glimpse of it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
December 21, 3:15 p.m.
“VAMPIRES.”
The word hung in the air of Murphy’s crowded office like a piece of rotten fruit, and no one wanted to be the first to taste it. Darryl had tossed it out, but Michael and Charlotte and Lawson just sat there, stunned, waiting for someone else to take the bait. It finally fell to the chief to break the impasse.
“Vampires,” he repeated. “That’s what you’re saying we have on our hands?”
“Only in a manner of speaking,” Darryl said. “I took some samples from Ackerley, analyzed them, and they show the same remarkable properties I saw in the samples from Danzig.” Turning to Charlotte, he said, “And, by the way, they were the same properties as I saw in that sample you asked me to analyze. The one marked E.A.”
“Eleanor Ames,” Charlotte said, and when Murphy threw her a look like that’s supposed to be a secret, she retorted, “As long as we keep operating in the dark, we’re not going to get anywhere. Can’t we all just get on the same page?”
And Michael had to agree. “Eleanor Ames is the name of the woman from the ice,” he explained to Darryl.
“Sleeping Beauty?”
“We found her at Stromviken.”
“How’d she get there?”
“By dogsled.”
“Yeah, but who took her there? And why?”
“She went on her own. With Sinclair, the man who was frozen with her.”
“You’re missing my point. Who drove the sled?”
“They’re alive,” Michael said. “They went there on their own. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Darryl laughed, and even slapped his knee lightly. “Right, yeah, okay. I thought we were having a serious meeting here.”
“We are,” Michael said, and when Darryl looked around, from Lawson to Charlotte to Murphy, and saw that no one else was laughing, the smile left his own face.
“Holy moly,” he said, solemnly.
“Holy moly’s about right,” Murphy seconded.
“And she’s been quarantined in the sick bay ever since,” Michael added. He saw no reason to mention her little excursion to the rec hall.
Darryl looked around at them all one more time, just to make sure they weren’t pulling his leg, but the sober expressions they still wore told him they were not. His next reaction was indignation. “And you didn’t tell me? You all knew, and nobody thought I should be told, too? Especially since I was the guy who had to do all the donkey work back in the lab?”