Olivia saw red the instant the words had left Dexter’s mouth. She felt Sophia pulling her back down to the couch; she hadn’t even realized she’d stood. A myriad of words she wanted to call Dexter crossed her mind, but none of them were appropriate so, with some difficulty, she clamped her lips shut, her face coloring.
“We appreciate your visit, sir, but Olivia and I have an engagement we must attend,” said Sophia calmly, standing and extending her hand out toward the hall.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Dexter said as he rose and set the now empty cup of tea down on the table. He straightened his coat and then looked at Olivia expectantly.
“Forgive me if I do not show you out,” she said through gritted teeth. “I need to powder my nose and attend to my hair.” She stood and left the room quickly without a backward glance.
Dexter looked from the doorway back to Sophia. “I suppose she wasn’t keen on the idea of finding different reading material,” he said.
Sophia shook her head. “No, Mr. Hughley, I do not think that is it. This will be bold of me, sir, but as Olivia’s older sister it is my place to say. I think it is time you moved on to a more suitable lady. And by suitable, I mean suitable for you. Olivia is not a woman who could make you happy. She’s headstrong, adventurous, bold, and outspoken, and those are her positive traits. She only gets more difficult from there. You want a traditional wife, Mr. Hughley, one that places a much higher value on proprietary and the running of a household than does Olivia. You would be a fool to think you could change my sister into that person. You cannot make someone into who you want them to be. They either are that person, or they are not.”
Dexter’s mouth dropped open and then closed and then dropped open again. “Are you sure this is how she feels? She is not interested in me as a suitor? I’m … I’m bona fide.”
Sophia shook her head. “You are a perfectly nice man, Mr. Hughley. But Olivia is not interested in anyone at the present, and I know my sister. Even if she were looking to marry, you are not someone she could see as more than a friend.”
After a few seconds of silence, Dexter nodded. “Very well. I will not push my intentions on her if that is not what she wishes. But if she changes her mind…”
“You will be the second to know.” She grinned. “I will be the first.”
He gave her a small, somewhat defeated smile. “Fair enough.” He showed himself to the door. As soon as the door clicked shut, Olivia came whirling back into the room like a roaring tornado ready to dole out destruction to any person or thing unfortunate enough to be in her path. Her jaw was clenched tightly and her heart was pumping hard in her chest.
“For such a nice, boring person,” Olivia began, “Dexter can be an insufferable ass.”
“Olivia,” Sophia chided. “You know that isn’t true. He’s just intimidated by you.”
“Well, then, he should look for a wife elsewhere.”
“And so he shall.”
“I don’t understand why I have to continue to endure his advances when I— Wait.” She stopped her pacing and faced her sister. “What did you say?”
“I said he shall be looking for a wife elsewhere,” Sophia answered.
“Why?”
“Because I told him there was no reason for him to continue to pursue you when you two clearly aren’t compatible and you have no romantic feelings toward him whatsoever.”
Olivia’s eyes widened and her lips formed an O. “Well that was kind of you, sister mine.”
“I do have my moments.” Sophia chuckled and took a seat on the right side of the sofa facing the door.
“Oh, hush.” Olivia waved her off. “You have more than mere moments of kindness and brilliance. You can be rather annoying in your ability to be astute. However…” she said, drawing out the words.
Sophia’s eyes narrowed on her. “However, what?” she asked wearily.
“You are less-than astute when it comes to Dr. Jackson Elliot.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not this again. You know why I must deny him.”
“No, I most certainly do not know why,” Olivia told her as she sat down directly across from her oldest sibling. She leaned forward with her elbows resting on her knees and looked Sophia directly in the eyes. “Why do you, perhaps the most deserving among us, think you should not be allowed to be happy and loved?”
“I don’t think that, Livy,” Sophia said, using the nickname she’d given Olivia when they were young girls. “But Jackson does not deserve to have his heart broken. It would not be fair to him. It won’t hurt me, I’ll be gone. He will suffer the loss. That is a cruel fate for a person who has a long, prosperous life ahead of him.”
“And who are you to decide another person’s fate?” Oliva challenged. “You are not God, sister mine. You do not decide what another person wants to feel, or who they want to feel it for. You don’t get to take those choices from Jackson. That is what is not fair. You do not have the right to tell him he cannot love you because you don’t want to break his heart. I daresay, Soph, you are a fool if you think you can keep him from having a broken heart anyway. Denying him—and you—what you both so desperately want will not save his feelings. That man will weep for you.” Olivia paused as the emotions welled up inside of her. She loathed talking about her sister’s death. Talking about it made it seem so real, so final. “Jackson will weep for you whether you let him love you up close or force him to do it from afar.”
* * *
Sophia’s stomach clenched, and her heart felt as though it was going to break into a thousand tiny pieces. She loved Jackson Elliot. She had loved him for a very long time, and she knew he loved her devotedly. He had pursued her relentlessly, no matter how many times she turned him down. He continued to come to her. What would it be like to allow herself to be loved by a man who was that loyal and committed? What would it be like to love him in return, not from afar as Olivia said, but to love one another up close, day in and day out? To begin your day seeing your love’s face and end it with the same precious view.
She wanted that. Sophia wanted it desperately, but she didn’t know how to reach for it. She wasn’t sure if she could open her own heart to the possibility of having a relationship with Jackson, only to lose it when her time on earth came to an end.
“Don’t you see that there are other women who would give up their fortunes to have a man love you as Jackson does?” Olivia continued. “You are spurning something precious and rare simply because you are scared. Don’t let your illness rob you of what life you have left. You live as if you are already dead, Sophia. You are still alive, dammit. You still have something to give. I need you to remember that and grasp it with both hands.” Olivia paused as her hands shook in her lap and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I need you to live while you’re here because one day you will be gone and I will be left alone. You will leave me behind to live on my own. I want memories that I can fall back on when I am a mess. I want to remember seeing you radiant with joy because you gave into love and allowed yourself happiness. I need that from you, Sophia.”
Sophia hadn’t realized she’d gotten up and walked over to her younger sister. She was kneeling in front of her, her head bowed and resting on Olivia’s knees. Her own tears were pouring from her eyes, tears she’d held in for so long. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry over her fate. She’d refused to mourn because she knew if she did, the specter of death that had only hung over her life would become all to corporal. She was going to die, and it was going to happen in the very near future. Every day she felt a little weaker, and every day she allowed life to slip through her fingers instead of holding on to what time she did have.
“I’ve forgotten how to live,” she admitted to Olivia. It was an admission she’d not given to anyone else. “But I want to remember how.”
“Then let Jackson show you,” Olivia whispered in her ear as she leaned down and wrapped her arms around her sister. “Let us all love you up close, Soph. Don’t keep pushing us away.”
/> Sophia leaned back and looked up at her sister. “You are amazing, little sister,” she said with a smile, even as the tears still fell. “And when you find the man destined for you, he will be gaining the most incredible blessing, having you as his partner.”
“I know,” Olivia said sweetly. “But thank you for telling me.”
Sophia threw her head back and laughed. Only Olivia would say such a thing and absolutely mean it. God, it felt good to laugh. She felt as though she could breathe for the first time since she’d been told she was dying. What an ironic thing to feel.
She patted her sister’s knee and then stood up, straightening her dress. “I needed that. I needed a good, swift kick in the rear, and you are the only one who could have done it and meant it out of sincere love. So, thank you, Olivia.”
“I am happy to kick you anytime you feel it is necessary,” she teased. “So, does this mean I’m going to be planning a wedding soon?”
Sophia held up a hand. “Hold on, dear. He may not even want me after the row we had.”
“Ha. If I know anything about that man, it’s that he would forgive you anything. And not to be crude, sis, but time is a luxury you don’t have,” Olivia responded.
“He hasn’t even asked me.”
“Only because you’ve been a dim-witted sheep. As soon as he knows that you will accept his advances, he will be on one knee before you can say, wherefore art thou, Romeo.”
Sophia was not about to admit it to her sister, but she would marry Jackson Eliot if he asked her that very day. Regardless of the fact that they had not been in a courting relationship, she’d known him and loved him for so long that she would see no reason to draw it out, not when she knew he was the only man she would ever love.
“Thank you again, Livy,” she said, truly meaning it. If Olivia hadn’t confronted her, she might never have allowed herself the chance for love and happiness, no matter how short a time that might be.
Assistant Inspector John Foster huffed. He drummed his fingers on the leather of the wing-backed chair, tapping his feet on the marble tiles. The young mechanic’s guild receptionist, who had taken his name and told him that the mechanic, Zacharias, could under no circumstances be disturbed, looked up from her magazine at him and cleared her throat. It had taken some coercion to persuade the woman to relay Foster’s message to the back warehouse, and she had only relented after John had promised that he was an old friend of Zacharias and that the visit was in no way police related. The message, incidentally, was a handwritten note to Zacharias informing him that Foster was in possession of a piece of equipment the likes of which Zacharias’ pea brain couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend. The note went on to say that Zacharias had the wits of a Dalmatian, smelled worse than a blobfish with diarrhea, and was, quite possibly, uglier than a goblin shark, which might have actually been true. The letter concluded by informing the mechanic that his mother, God rest her soul, was a hamster of ill repute. Having befriended Zacharias in the war, and kept up that friendship in the intervening twenty years since, John knew two things for certain about the eccentric mechanic: first, that being disturbed while working put Zacharias in the foulest of tempers, and second, that the man could not resist a good insult. Skilled as he was at harnessing the power of energy crystals, Zacharias was even better at creatively insulting those he thought beneath his own intellect, which was basically everyone on the planet. John was completely confident that his note, despite the receptionist’s best efforts, would grant him the meeting with Zacharias he sought.
The secretary in question was sitting in the middle of a large round metal desk. The reception area was cavernous, its domed metal roof hovering at least sixty feet over Foster’s head. Assistant Inspector Foster had only visited the guild once before, but the massive structure had left an impression for a number of reasons, including its colossal size. As John began his trek across the polished concrete floors to where the reception sat, a distance Foster judged at about a hundred paces, he noticed the legs of the desk were made of giant metal hex head bolts standing vertically. John’s boots echoed in the enormous space as he weaved through sculptures of iron, steel, and copper, the exact nature of which he could not identify. Only when he reached the desk did he see that it was shaped like a giant gear, the young blonde secretary perched in the middle like the hub of a wheel. It also did not go unnoticed by John that the woman was extremely attractive, but the sour look she wore on her face made it appear that she was perpetually sucking on a lemon. She reminded him of one of his instructors at the Catholic reform school he had attended as a child. What a waste. He almost shuddered remembering the terrible nun.
The receptionist pulled a pair of welder’s goggles from the top of her head and began slowly wiping them with a terry cloth, all the while staring at the assistant inspector. Each finger glittered with a silver or copper ring. With her task complete, she replaced the goggles and pulled a fountain pen from the front of the leather apron she was wearing. Though she didn’t say a word, Foster felt he had been dismissed as the secretary looked back at her magazine and began making various notes on the pages.
Foster spent a few minutes surveying the oddities surrounding him. The walls were adorned with pictures of various renowned mechanics posing with their most famous creations: Orville and Wilbur Wright, standing in front of their legendary dirigible, Thomas Edison, climbing into a submarine, and Alexander Graham Bell, astride his strange walking machine, which had been used so effectively to quell the rebellion in the Americas some sixty years previously. John removed his notepad from the inside jacket pocket and flipped through the pages. He grabbed his pencil and started trying to scribble a picture of the thing that had been placed into the two murder victims. With little success, he tried his best to recreate the whirring gears and puffing valves of the false heart. Halfway through the drawing he froze, his eyes growing large. Foster jumped from his seat and practically sprinted back to the front of the foyer. The sentinel sitting at the desk raised an eyebrow at him, but he ignored her. There it was!
It was copper, not the shiny silver metal of the other two hearts. But gleaming back at him on a raised pedestal, sitting in a row of abstract sculptures, was a large replica of the mechanical heart that had been implanted into the murder victims. John squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember exactly what the metal hearts had looked like. They weren’t identical to the one in front of him, but the similarities were unmistakable. The assistant inspector searched the sculpture and pedestal for any kind of inscription that would hint at the origins of the statue but found none. Foster made a move back toward the secretary, thinking momentarily that he would ask her about the heart. One look at her face, for now she was staring suspiciously at John, put that thought out of his head. Cursing under his breath, Foster turned back to the heart sculpture and began furiously trying to recreate the object in his notebook, a task hampered considerably by his large hands and overall lack of any sort of artistic talent. His scribbling was interrupted after only a few seconds, however, when a set of double doors behind the secretary burst open with violent force.
“Blobfish! Dalmatian!” A deep voice boomed across the foyer, echoing off the walls. “How dare you, Assistant Inspector, John Foster, you bootless, boil-brained buffoon?” Foster leapt a foot off the ground, even though he already knew this assault was coming. With surprising speed, considering the short legs that were carrying him, what looked like a walking, talking grease spot came barreling across the giant foyer. The man behind that grease spot was wearing his own leather work apron, similar to that of the receptionist. The mechanic, however, was not wearing it nearly as well as the young woman.
“Zach, so good to see you too. Thank you for agreeing to see an old friend,” replied Assistant Inspector Foster when Zacharias was a few feet away, his pace not yet slowing.
“Don’t old friend me, you brain-addled pignut. You still owe me ten quid. I cleared that pony, and you know it.” Zacharias stopped a few inches from Fo
ster, glaring up at the assistant inspector. With no less than two feet of difference between their heights, the diminutive mechanic had to crane his neck to meet John’s eyes. Zacharias had a large purple splotched head that rested on top of round shoulders. There was no sign of any neck between the two. He had beady eyes and two wild tufts of white hair that exploded from his head in all different directions. It quivered when he talked and currently appeared to be in perpetual motion.
“Perhaps you’ve inhaled too many grease fumes, Zach, but you aren’t remembering correctly. The bet was that you could jump over a Standard English pony from a standing start. You did not. You fell over.”
“You didn’t say anything about the landing. I jumped, beginning from a point of origin on one side of the pony, and came to rest on the other side of the pony. That is jumping over a pony.”
Foster rubbed his chin, seeming to consider his friend’s argument. “What if I said I came here to pay you that ten quid after all?”
“I’d call you a liar,” responded Zacharias.
“You cut me, old friend.” Foster placed a hand around Zacharias’ shoulder and turned him away from the secretary, taking a step back toward the statute of the heart. With his free hand, John put his notebook back in his pocket and removed a ten pound note. “I’ve got it right here,” said John. “I just need to know what that is.” The man didn’t respond, and Foster felt Zach’s body tense under his arm.
“Why?” Zacharias finally said in a low whisper.
“Because I’ve found one just like it. I need to know where it came from.”
Zacharias sucked in a breath. “Where is it?”
“There are two, actually. They are currently embedded in two young women lying in the medical examination room at Coventry Street station,” Foster responded.
Zacharias pulled away from John and looked his friend in the eye. “I can’t help you. You must be mistaken. This is merely a work of art.”