Titre : Run
Synopsis : Five years went by and the Four Horsemen live now normal lives. But when Daniel is arrested by the FBI, his old friends understand they are also hunted. It's time for them to get together again.
Disclaimer : Now You See Me doesn't belong to me. I write for fun and not for money.
Chapter 2
Mentalism is fantastic … thought Merritt McKinney while putting back his sunglasses on his face. He glanced at the two beautiful apparitions who were walking away and waving at him. That was so easy to use his ability on them, to reveal their little secrets and impress them. And it worked all the time ! Plus, the pretty young women who dared talking to him on Florida beaches were frequently strangers. And God knows Merritt loved strangers. Especially East Europeans because of their accent. Molto bene, he thought, let's have a drink. Thus he left the beach waving at the ladies who had enjoyed his talent and looked at their boyfriends' suspicious expression. The sun was burning his neck and calves, the sand slid between his toes. That was one hell of a wonderful day ! He crossed the road to go to the bar he were used to frequent since he arrived. Karl, the owner, had become a good friend of his. When Merritt pushed the bar's dor, he was behind his counter, busy serving his clients two or three beers. Karl waved him to come closer with a big smile.
« Dude, you're just in time ! I was about to forget.
- Forget what ?
- A chick came. She asked for you.
- For me ? »
Karl assented. He turned around to take the cocktail shaker on the shelf before finding a cocktail glass in the cupboard under his counter. The drink he was about to make was most likely for the yound blonde who was waving at him from a table she was sitting at with someone who must have been her partner. While making it, he said :
« Yes, a redhead with a baby. Someone called Hailey or Hadley, I forgot … I gave her your address. »
Henley ? No, it can't be … said Merritt to himself. It had been five years now since the last time he had seen his old companions and he couldn't imagine one of them might be looking for him. He thanked Karl, renounced to have a drink here and stepped out of the bar to go home. On his way, he thought about what his friend has just said : a redhead with a baby. First he thought it couldn't be Henley, she didn't have children but he recalled very fast that much has happened since their last meeting. She had had all the time necessary to become a mother. He went through the entire town, unable to stop pondering it. This visit was confusing him as he didn't expect it to happen anymore, not after five years. Yet maybe he was wrong : what if the redhead wasn't the one he had been thinking about ? What if Henley was living somewhere else without thinking not even one second about the great adventure the four of them had lived together ? What if she had a lot of things in mind except visiting him ? By the way, unless she had made some research, she wouldn't have found him.
He glanced at a man who was reading the newspaper, leant against a wall. On the first page he could read about the investigation on the great robbery which had happened ten days earlier. Merritt learnt about it by watchin television one evening, it was quite a mysterious theft since the money had disappeared as if by magic, which had reminded him the crazy year he spent with the three magicians. Yet the comparison stopped there : nobody had claimed to be the culprit and the money weren't redistributed to anyone. Four days earlier, the police had officially announced they had caught a suspect but didn't reveal his identity. Moreover, everyone was surprised to learn that the journalists had failed in discovering any information about this man. Needless to say such a mystery aroused interest. Even Merritt himself was curious to know who was the man who had been detained for a few days already by the federal police. When he arrived in front of his house, he had almost forgotten why he was there. But he suddenly remembered : she was there, sitting on the stairs which led to the front door.
« Merritt ! » she called in hushed tones.
The little girl she was carrying was asleep. He came closer. It was indeed Henley. Her hair was slightly shorter, she had no make-up on and she seemed very tired but there was no doubt about it : Henley was really standing in front of him. Merritt was too much surprised to say a word. His eyes stared at the sleeping child, a little brown-haired girl with a pale skin who was sucking her thumb while cuddling up to the one who seemed to be her mother according to their great likeness.
« What a surprise ! Henley, what are you doing here ?
- It … it's a long story. Can we come in ? »
He did not insist and agreed.
While walking into the house full of darkness, Henley stated Merritt had not lost his habits : he was still pretty messy. She examined the walls and the ground as he was feeling around to find the switch. There was a kind of picture near the door, but she couldn't make it out properly because of the darkness. Then there were a crack and a static before the light was finally on. The corridor wasn't very long but it led to spiral staircase which surely guided to the floor under the attic. On the right and on the left, they could see four doors along with five or six wall lamps. The wallpaper was quite garish but Merritt mustn't have renovated this small shack which must have been owned by an old couple presumably deceased whose portrait was still decorating the wall, a portrait Henley had been staring at for a minute already. He opened the first door on the right which led to the living room and let his young friend laying down her daughter on the couch. Straight away she kneeled before putting down the child who lay in a fetal position, then she covered her up with a grey tartan rug she had found folded up in a corner. Henley kissed her forehead softly and stroked tenderly her little chocolate brown strands before turning back to Merritt. Then they started to talk again and kept being careful to speak in a low voice so that the girl would stay asleep.
« So … she's your daughter.
- She is. Her name is Emmeline, she's two.
- And her father is …
- Danny. »
Merritt held himself back from laughing.
« I knew it would end up that way. »
She smiled and crossed her arms on her chest.
« And where is he right now ?
- The FBI has arrested him.
- What ? What the hell for ?
- I don't know. Thanks to agent Rhodes, the charges against the Four Horsemen have already been erased a long time ago, yet … four days ago, they showed up at our appartment. I wasn't there but Danny called me. He told me to run away. When I arrived there, there were FBI agents everywhere and they were taking away a handcuffed Danny.
- Four days ago, you said ? »
It couldn't be a coincidence. A robbery reminding of the Four Horsemen time, the Feds working on it, a mysterious unknown suspect and Danny arrested on the same day ? It really didn't smell good. Henley read his anxiety in his eyes, she knew nothing about this robbery thing and was unable to help asking what was going on. Merritt started to tell her the entire story in detail. The more she heard about it, the tighter her throat was getting. She was living a nightmare. A short time ago, her life was perfectly normal, she was living with a man who loved her and her beloved daughter but now, he wasn't there anymore and she found herself forced to flee with a two-year-old child who kept asking where her father could be. However the story Merritt was telling her was going beyond everything she had thought about. She glanced with anxiety at Emmie who was peacefully sleeping very close by her. For the first time since she had seen Danny being dragged away, Henley felt the strongest fear wandered through all the cells of her skin just like current up and down her spine. Her hands began shaking, her muscles got contracted, she had difficulty breathing and very soon she believed she was about to cry. Yet she didn't. Instead, the young lady sat on the couch next to her sleeping daughter. She looked at the child's chest going up and down with the low rythm of her calm breathing, she looked at her moving eyelids and she thought it was nice to be a kid in such difficult circumstances.
Merritt left the living room and went through the corridor. He opened the very last door, the one next to the stairs. The entire room was tiled from the floor to the ceiling, without any window to light the room up. The only possible source of light was a common bulb hanged from the ceiling. He looked at the sink where the dishes were piled up, he avoided looking at the electric hotplate where three pans and about ten wooden spoons lied around – he didn't himself he had so much of them – then he glanced at the laptop he had forgotten on the small painted wooden round table. He turned it on and heard someone walking behind him. It was Henley who had come to ask if she could take something to eat since she had been unable to do it during the entire day. He showed her a cpuboard with a broken handle right above the sing in which she could find some comfort with some chocolate cookies. After she had bitten one, Henley sat on a chair in front of her friend busy researching on internet. He never told her what he was searching yet he didn't stop.
After a few minutes, Henley heard a noise from the living room. It may have been Emmie's voice after she had awoken and realized she was in an unknown place. After coming into the room whose shutters were closed, she raced to the baby girl trying to leave the couch and asked her if she had slept well. The girl said yes while rubbing harshly her eyes. They kissed each other then Merritt came back with a paper he had written some informations on before Henley had the time to think about bringing Emmie to the kitchen. When he saw that little girl whose eyes had become red from tiredness, standing there dressed with a purple tunic and black pantyhose, he smiled.
« Who's that ? the girl mumbled while pointing him.
- It's Merritt, one of daddy and mummy's friends, darling. »
He shortly waved at her and she forgot almost immediately she had asked a question. Henley opened her bad to take out a small a cuddly toy she had probably bought in an interstate rest area on the road. She gave it to her girl with a big smile full of tenderness. The toddler took it carefully then she was put on the couch again right away. Her mother asked to stay immobile as Merritt was finally explaining what he had been looking for earlier.
« When we split up five years ago, we thought we wouldn't meet again. However, one or two years ago, I've met Jack not very far from here. He was spending a week-end here with his girlfriend. Well … it doesn't matter. What I want to say is that he told me he was living in Delaware.
- So ?
- So I have found him on internet. »
He gave her the little post-it on which Jack's name and address were written.
« This is unbelievable. If the file about the Four Horsemen hadn't disappeared in such strange circumstances, all of us would be in jail right now.
- In any case, we wouldn't be able to live under our true identities. »
Henley took a look at the address she was holding like it was the last life preserver which could keep her safe.
« Federal agents won't wait to arrest us all. We must warn him and leave. Very quickly. »