" A Chance Meeting part 4 "
It was beautiful in Vermont, Carter thought as he drove towards Burlington. It was fall, and he suspected that he was catching the area at it's best. All of the trees seemed to be exploding with color and the air had a crisp feel to it. It somehow made him feel better about what he was doing.
There was something terribly wrong. He knew that. Peter had lied to him. That hadn't dawned on him until after he'd left Peter's office, but he knew it was true. Peter knew something about Lucy, something he wasn't telling. It convinced Carter that he was right. Something mysterious happened that night, something that had been kept from him. He was betting on the fact that Robert Romano was still enough of an asshole to tell him what had happened. It would piss Peter off, and that was something that Romano had always delighted in.
He pulled into the driveway of the spacious ranch style house. While it was a simple looking house at first glance, he could see that there was a lot of money invested in it and in the land surrounding it. That didn't surprise Carter. Romano was a highly sought after surgeon, right to the end of his career, and he had only retired two years earlier. The man had the money to live well. It was just a pity that he wasn't going to live to have much of a retirement.
Then again, he thought as he walked up to the door, Romano did retire at 71, well past the required age of retirement. There were doctors who stayed in the job until the day they died. Romano was one of them. As he understood it, the man had retired mostly due to his illness. He knocked on the door. A pretty young woman answered it. Of course, he thought with a smile, there just had to be a pretty, almost model worthy, woman living in the house. It was Romano's house after all.
" Hello, " she said brightly, " You must be Dr. Carter. Robert was right, you do look like a thinner Harrison Ford. Come in. Robert's waiting for you in the garden." She gestured into the house.
" He was expecting me?" That seemed odd to him. He certainly hadn't made a point of calling ahead of time.
" He said that he thought you'd be by sometime this week. I'll show you to him. He's been looking forward to seeing you." He followed the woman through the house and out to the stone porch. The porch was enclosed, and the view of the neighboring mountains was spectacular.
Romano was sitting in a wicker chair. He rose when Carter stepped onto the porch and held out his man. Carter's clinical eye could see that, indeed, Robert Romano was not long for the world. It wasn't obvious, but it was there. While Romano looked like a spry enough man, there was a delicate air to the way he stood. His handshake was firm yet Carter sensed that a push would topple him. And there was a strange knowing look in the man's eye. Carter realized that he was looking at a man who was intimately aware of his physical failings. And yet, he gave Carter his tight satyr-like smile, a smile that bespoke of his delight. Every time Carter had seen that smirk before, it was right before Romano dropped a verbal bomb.
" Dr. Carter, Chief of the Cook County ER. Who would have thought that I'd live to see the day? Have a seat. Regina, " he gestured to the young woman, " why don't you bring us both a glass of scotch? You like scotch don't you Carter? "
" Well, it's a little early..." His voice trailed off as Regina trotted off. It was only ten in the morning.
" It's never too early for scotch." They both took seats in wicker chairs. Regina promptly brought two drinks and then left the patio. Robert lifted his glass. " How about a toast? To life, and the mysteries it contains." He sipped the drink. Carter did likewise. It was excellent scotch, expensive and smooth. Carter wasn't surprised. Romano had always been nasty but at the same time, he had always had good taste.
" So, Dr. Carter, " he said after a moment's silence, " what brings you to my home on this fine fall day?" He seemed rather amused by the situation.
Carter decided to be blunt. " I wanted to talk to you about Lucy Knight."
Romano grinned and took another drink. " Lucy.... Not what I thought you'd want, considering that you're coming to me but sure. What concerns you about Lucy Knight?"
" I saw her kill a man three nights ago with a sword. She looked about twenty-five. I talked to her. She admitted that she was Lucy. I'm not mistaken." He didn't care anymore. He knew it had happened.
" Well..." Romano sipped his drink again. " You're not mistaken." He laughed at Carter's expression. " What? You expected more of a fight? I believe you. She's in some prison town in New York, from what I've heard." He chuckled. " I always liked that kid."
" How do you know that? How is that possible?" Carter asked sharply. He felt his anger rise. Something had been kept from him and it was huge. Romano eyed him, as if debating to continue.
" You know, " Romano said after a long pause," this is probably the last autumn I'll live to see. When times get short, a man often finds himself wanting to pass along his secrets. I don't have a son, Carter, at least not one I know about. I always liked you though. So, you can stand in and hear everything you think you need to know." Again Romano smirked. Carter didn't feel a lot of real affection coming from the man. Robert Romano enjoyed bedeviling people. On the other hand, he could see that the man's death was imminent and there was a certain honest note to what the man had just said.
"I want to know what happened that Valentine's night," he said finally.
Romano leaned back in his chair. " Carter, there are two kinds of people in this world. There's people like you and I, who have children and lives that end around the age seventy. Then, there are the people like Lucy Knight. She's an immortal, a person that doesn't die except under very special circumstances. They're very rare. They don't know what they are until they die for the first time. Lucy Knight's death was one of the few times that we were able to document an immortal's first death."
" We?" It was bizarre and impossible and yet he realized that it was the only thing that fit what happened.
" There is a society dedicated to watching these immortals." Romano said softly. " The Watchers. My father was a Watcher. When he died, I was inducted into the group. In case you're wondering, this is a worldwide phenomenon. There are immortals and watchers on every continent. It used to be that an assigned watcher followed their immortal across the world but now we trade. It's hard to get passports and visas to some countries."
" Lucy is an immortal...but what about the sword? She killed a man. She said that they have rules and if she talked to me, or if I went to the papers, that they would come after me." He wondered if she had told the truth at the time or if she had just been trying to get rid of him. " She cut a man's head off. There was... a sort of electrical storm right after..."
" Of course they have rules, " Romano huffed angrily. " Do you really think a secret society could function for hundreds, possibly thousands of years without rules? Yes they have rules. They wouldn't necessarily kill her for telling you anything, but if you went to the papers, they would definitely hunt you down. That's if the watchers didn't get you first." Romano's voice dropped a bit. " Going to the papers won't get you anywhere. I am more than happy to answer your questions, if only because Peter Benton asked me not to."
Carter put that remark aside for later contemplation. " So what are the rules? What was that electrical storm?"
" They believe that one of them is destined to rule the earth as a god. The only way to kill an immortal is to cut off its head. So they carry swords and sometimes they fight. They believe that when one kills another, they gather that immortal's power. In the last thirty or so years, some of them have decided that they can better serve humanity by not killing each other in an attempt to attain god like power. It's a nice idea but there are too many vicious animals in their population. " Romano paused. " They only fight two at a time. If a third immortal wanders into a fight they have to wait until the first fight is done. They won't fight on holy ground and they take that very seriously. They use holy ground for meetings."
" What happened that night? In the hospital?" He knew that he wasn't getting the whole story, but he sensed it was amusing Romano to dangle information to him.
" Lucy died. She died on the table." Romano's words grew more pensive and Carter could see that he was becoming lost in the memory. " I closed her up. I didn't know what she was, and I was upset." He drank deeply. " I liked her. Even finding out that she was one of them, it hurt. She was a kid, she had her whole life ahead of her. You can't come back from the dead in this world, not without questions. She had to leave everything. We lost track of her until ten years ago."
" But what happened?" Carter pressed.
" Kerry Weaver came in. I was surprised. Elizabeth said she had a real breakdown but she was pretty calm then. I wanted to be alone for a few minutes so I let her take the body down to the morgue. I decided to go down after a few minutes...I just wanted to say goodbye...And there she was." He laughed. " That was the last thing I expected." He looked at Carter intently. " Your buddy Peter caught us in the parking garage, so I had to tell him. I'll give that bastard credit. It killed him not to tell you, but he kept his word."
" You made him promise not to tell me..."
" Of course. If he told you, then there would have been a mess." Romano grew more forceful in his words. " Lucy had to be dead. Too many people saw her die. We had no way to explain how she was alive and fine hours after her death. If Benton said anything there would have been retaliation."
After a moment, Carter let his anger fall back below the bright red range. He suspected that Romano was skirting around the fact that he had probably threatened Peter's life and his family. Considering the nature of the conspiracy, that was probably within Romano's capabilities. " So you got her out of the hospital. Why?"
Romano grinned. " You are not the quickest study are you? I'm not Lucy's watcher. Tell you what, why don't you come back when you can fill in all the missing bits. " He finished up his drank. " A good father lets his son figure a few things out for himself, after all."
It was beautiful in Vermont, Carter thought as he drove towards Burlington. It was fall, and he suspected that he was catching the area at it's best. All of the trees seemed to be exploding with color and the air had a crisp feel to it. It somehow made him feel better about what he was doing.
There was something terribly wrong. He knew that. Peter had lied to him. That hadn't dawned on him until after he'd left Peter's office, but he knew it was true. Peter knew something about Lucy, something he wasn't telling. It convinced Carter that he was right. Something mysterious happened that night, something that had been kept from him. He was betting on the fact that Robert Romano was still enough of an asshole to tell him what had happened. It would piss Peter off, and that was something that Romano had always delighted in.
He pulled into the driveway of the spacious ranch style house. While it was a simple looking house at first glance, he could see that there was a lot of money invested in it and in the land surrounding it. That didn't surprise Carter. Romano was a highly sought after surgeon, right to the end of his career, and he had only retired two years earlier. The man had the money to live well. It was just a pity that he wasn't going to live to have much of a retirement.
Then again, he thought as he walked up to the door, Romano did retire at 71, well past the required age of retirement. There were doctors who stayed in the job until the day they died. Romano was one of them. As he understood it, the man had retired mostly due to his illness. He knocked on the door. A pretty young woman answered it. Of course, he thought with a smile, there just had to be a pretty, almost model worthy, woman living in the house. It was Romano's house after all.
" Hello, " she said brightly, " You must be Dr. Carter. Robert was right, you do look like a thinner Harrison Ford. Come in. Robert's waiting for you in the garden." She gestured into the house.
" He was expecting me?" That seemed odd to him. He certainly hadn't made a point of calling ahead of time.
" He said that he thought you'd be by sometime this week. I'll show you to him. He's been looking forward to seeing you." He followed the woman through the house and out to the stone porch. The porch was enclosed, and the view of the neighboring mountains was spectacular.
Romano was sitting in a wicker chair. He rose when Carter stepped onto the porch and held out his man. Carter's clinical eye could see that, indeed, Robert Romano was not long for the world. It wasn't obvious, but it was there. While Romano looked like a spry enough man, there was a delicate air to the way he stood. His handshake was firm yet Carter sensed that a push would topple him. And there was a strange knowing look in the man's eye. Carter realized that he was looking at a man who was intimately aware of his physical failings. And yet, he gave Carter his tight satyr-like smile, a smile that bespoke of his delight. Every time Carter had seen that smirk before, it was right before Romano dropped a verbal bomb.
" Dr. Carter, Chief of the Cook County ER. Who would have thought that I'd live to see the day? Have a seat. Regina, " he gestured to the young woman, " why don't you bring us both a glass of scotch? You like scotch don't you Carter? "
" Well, it's a little early..." His voice trailed off as Regina trotted off. It was only ten in the morning.
" It's never too early for scotch." They both took seats in wicker chairs. Regina promptly brought two drinks and then left the patio. Robert lifted his glass. " How about a toast? To life, and the mysteries it contains." He sipped the drink. Carter did likewise. It was excellent scotch, expensive and smooth. Carter wasn't surprised. Romano had always been nasty but at the same time, he had always had good taste.
" So, Dr. Carter, " he said after a moment's silence, " what brings you to my home on this fine fall day?" He seemed rather amused by the situation.
Carter decided to be blunt. " I wanted to talk to you about Lucy Knight."
Romano grinned and took another drink. " Lucy.... Not what I thought you'd want, considering that you're coming to me but sure. What concerns you about Lucy Knight?"
" I saw her kill a man three nights ago with a sword. She looked about twenty-five. I talked to her. She admitted that she was Lucy. I'm not mistaken." He didn't care anymore. He knew it had happened.
" Well..." Romano sipped his drink again. " You're not mistaken." He laughed at Carter's expression. " What? You expected more of a fight? I believe you. She's in some prison town in New York, from what I've heard." He chuckled. " I always liked that kid."
" How do you know that? How is that possible?" Carter asked sharply. He felt his anger rise. Something had been kept from him and it was huge. Romano eyed him, as if debating to continue.
" You know, " Romano said after a long pause," this is probably the last autumn I'll live to see. When times get short, a man often finds himself wanting to pass along his secrets. I don't have a son, Carter, at least not one I know about. I always liked you though. So, you can stand in and hear everything you think you need to know." Again Romano smirked. Carter didn't feel a lot of real affection coming from the man. Robert Romano enjoyed bedeviling people. On the other hand, he could see that the man's death was imminent and there was a certain honest note to what the man had just said.
"I want to know what happened that Valentine's night," he said finally.
Romano leaned back in his chair. " Carter, there are two kinds of people in this world. There's people like you and I, who have children and lives that end around the age seventy. Then, there are the people like Lucy Knight. She's an immortal, a person that doesn't die except under very special circumstances. They're very rare. They don't know what they are until they die for the first time. Lucy Knight's death was one of the few times that we were able to document an immortal's first death."
" We?" It was bizarre and impossible and yet he realized that it was the only thing that fit what happened.
" There is a society dedicated to watching these immortals." Romano said softly. " The Watchers. My father was a Watcher. When he died, I was inducted into the group. In case you're wondering, this is a worldwide phenomenon. There are immortals and watchers on every continent. It used to be that an assigned watcher followed their immortal across the world but now we trade. It's hard to get passports and visas to some countries."
" Lucy is an immortal...but what about the sword? She killed a man. She said that they have rules and if she talked to me, or if I went to the papers, that they would come after me." He wondered if she had told the truth at the time or if she had just been trying to get rid of him. " She cut a man's head off. There was... a sort of electrical storm right after..."
" Of course they have rules, " Romano huffed angrily. " Do you really think a secret society could function for hundreds, possibly thousands of years without rules? Yes they have rules. They wouldn't necessarily kill her for telling you anything, but if you went to the papers, they would definitely hunt you down. That's if the watchers didn't get you first." Romano's voice dropped a bit. " Going to the papers won't get you anywhere. I am more than happy to answer your questions, if only because Peter Benton asked me not to."
Carter put that remark aside for later contemplation. " So what are the rules? What was that electrical storm?"
" They believe that one of them is destined to rule the earth as a god. The only way to kill an immortal is to cut off its head. So they carry swords and sometimes they fight. They believe that when one kills another, they gather that immortal's power. In the last thirty or so years, some of them have decided that they can better serve humanity by not killing each other in an attempt to attain god like power. It's a nice idea but there are too many vicious animals in their population. " Romano paused. " They only fight two at a time. If a third immortal wanders into a fight they have to wait until the first fight is done. They won't fight on holy ground and they take that very seriously. They use holy ground for meetings."
" What happened that night? In the hospital?" He knew that he wasn't getting the whole story, but he sensed it was amusing Romano to dangle information to him.
" Lucy died. She died on the table." Romano's words grew more pensive and Carter could see that he was becoming lost in the memory. " I closed her up. I didn't know what she was, and I was upset." He drank deeply. " I liked her. Even finding out that she was one of them, it hurt. She was a kid, she had her whole life ahead of her. You can't come back from the dead in this world, not without questions. She had to leave everything. We lost track of her until ten years ago."
" But what happened?" Carter pressed.
" Kerry Weaver came in. I was surprised. Elizabeth said she had a real breakdown but she was pretty calm then. I wanted to be alone for a few minutes so I let her take the body down to the morgue. I decided to go down after a few minutes...I just wanted to say goodbye...And there she was." He laughed. " That was the last thing I expected." He looked at Carter intently. " Your buddy Peter caught us in the parking garage, so I had to tell him. I'll give that bastard credit. It killed him not to tell you, but he kept his word."
" You made him promise not to tell me..."
" Of course. If he told you, then there would have been a mess." Romano grew more forceful in his words. " Lucy had to be dead. Too many people saw her die. We had no way to explain how she was alive and fine hours after her death. If Benton said anything there would have been retaliation."
After a moment, Carter let his anger fall back below the bright red range. He suspected that Romano was skirting around the fact that he had probably threatened Peter's life and his family. Considering the nature of the conspiracy, that was probably within Romano's capabilities. " So you got her out of the hospital. Why?"
Romano grinned. " You are not the quickest study are you? I'm not Lucy's watcher. Tell you what, why don't you come back when you can fill in all the missing bits. " He finished up his drank. " A good father lets his son figure a few things out for himself, after all."