Beautifully Dead - Chapter 24

An Immortal Affections serialized novel

En route

May 3, 2025

The truck smelled like leather and something herbal—expensive soap, maybe. Amelia settled into the passenger seat, grateful for the tinted windows that turned the aggressive spring sunlight into something tolerable. Her fingertips tingled against the door handle. Everything felt too intense lately.

They drove through Fredericksburg’s historic district in silence. Past Civil War monuments and battlefield markers that had suddenly acquired uncomfortable relevance. Through the tinted glass, the morning looked muted and peaceful.

Once they hit the highway, Elijah’s posture changed. His hands tightened on the wheel. Relaxed. Tightened again.

“There’s something I should tell you,” he said finally. “Before we get there.”

Amelia turned to study his profile. “Okay.”

“The research—why this matters so much to me.” He flexed his fingers against the wheel. “It’s personal.”

“Beyond the family connection?”

“Related to it, but more...” His jaw clenched. “Immediate.”

The countryside rolled past. Dogwood blossoms against dark pine. Fields of wildflowers. Beautiful in a way that made her chest ache, partly from enhanced vision making every detail hyperreal, partly from the growing certainty she might not see many more springs.

She waited.

“I lost someone once,” he said. The words came out careful, practiced but still painful. “To something very much like what you’re experiencing now.”

The rawness in his voice was unmistakable. Too genuine to be fabricated.

“Recently?” she asked gently.

“Years ago. But the circumstances were similar—symptoms that started as fatigue and light sensitivity, progressed to more severe manifestations.” His voice dropped. “I was young then. Inexperienced. I didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late.”

Whatever else he might be hiding, this grief was real.

“What happened to her?”

“She died.” The words fell like stones. “The condition progressed faster than anyone anticipated. By the time I understood what we were dealing with, she was beyond any treatment.”

Amelia felt something shift in her chest. “I’m sorry. That must have been devastating.”

“I became obsessed.” His voice gained strength, moving from raw loss to familiar territory. “Understanding what had happened to her. Whether there were historical precedents, cases where people survived. Which eventually led me back to my family history. To the accusations against James Merriweather.”

The landscape was getting more rural now. Farmland replacing suburbs. Amelia found herself noticing details in bark patterns and leaf formations that would have been invisible to her days ago.

“What was her name?” she asked.

“Catriona.” The name emerged like a prayer. Soft and weighted with years of grief. “Scottish heritage, like mine. Beautiful and brilliant, with a mind that could grasp complex concepts faster than anyone I’d ever encountered.” His smile was bitter. “She would have loved this kind of medical mystery. Would have thrown herself into it with complete passion.”

“She was a researcher too?”

“She could have been anything she wanted to be.” The regret was thick in his voice. “Medical research, theoretical physics, comparative literature—she had that kind of rare intellect. But we never got the chance to find out.”

They drove in silence for several miles. Amelia reassessed him—the grief felt too raw to be fabricated. But she noticed he hadn’t said exactly when this happened. “Years ago” could mean five years or fifty, for all she knew.

“Is that why you’re so determined to help me?” she asked. “Because you see parallels between our situations?”

“Partly.” He glanced at her. “But it’s more than that now. Your mind—the way you approach these puzzles, connect patterns across centuries—it’s remarkable. You remind me of her.”

The admission hung between them, charged.

“That’s dangerous territory,” Amelia said carefully. “Mixing personal feelings with medical research.”

“I know. But I can’t seem to help it.” His smile was self-deprecating. “Probably not what you want to hear from someone you’re supposed to trust.”

“Actually, it’s reassuring.” She surprised herself. “It means you have personal investment in keeping me alive, not just documenting what happens to me.”

“There’s no scenario where you don’t survive this,” Elijah said with sudden intensity. “Whatever Eleanor’s case can teach us, whatever resources I can access—you’re not going to end up like Catriona.”

The fierce protectiveness surprised her. “You sound very certain for someone who admits he couldn’t save her.”

“Because I’m not that inexperienced young man anymore. Because we have modern medical knowledge. Because Eleanor proved survival is possible.” His hands shifted on the wheel. “And because I’m not losing someone else if I can prevent it.”

His determination should have been comforting.

“What if Eleanor’s survival was pure luck?” she asked. “Genetic predisposition, environmental factors that don’t exist anymore?”

“Then we find another way.”

They drove for a few minutes. Trees thickening on both sides of the road.

“I lost someone too,” Amelia said quietly.

Elijah glanced over, surprised.

“Not…not like that.” She demurred, “My ex-husband.” She looked out the window, not at him. “He’s not dead. He said I was married to my work, not to him. That I cared more about dead people’s diseases than our actual life together.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was right.” A bitter laugh. “When he started threatening to leave, I thought if I just worked harder, proved my worth, made some breakthrough—if I could show him all that work would pay off.” She stopped. “Turns out you can’t save a marriage by doubling down on what’s killing it.”

The confession surprised her. She hadn’t talked about this with anyone.

“So I focused on my career,” she continued. “There was this colleague—Dr. Whitmore. Senior researcher, well-respected. He asked me to collaborate on a paper about historical disease transmission patterns in military conflicts. I was thrilled. Finally, someone taking my work seriously.”

Her hands clenched in her lap.

“I did most of the research. Months of work, hundreds of hours in archives, developed the core methodology. We were supposed to co-author.” Her voice went hard. “He published it under his name alone. Took full credit. By the time I found out, it was already in press.”

“Oh, Amelia—”

“I had no proof. No paper trail showing my contributions. Just emails that could be interpreted either way.” The anger flared fresh. “And he was established faculty. I was just an assistant professor. Who were they going to believe?”

She could feel Elijah watching her.

“So now I have nobody to go home to, my department thinks I’m trying to claim credit for someone else’s work, and nobody wants to collaborate with me.” She finally looked at him. “I’m professionally radioactive. And I… I actually find it hard to trust people now. To work with anyone.”

The vulnerability of the admission hung between them.

“We’re working together,” Elijah said quietly. “Right now. You and me.”

She studied his face. The grief he’d shared about Catriona felt real. The way he’d admitted his motives weren’t entirely pure—that was honest, at least. And she’d already sent the contracts to her lawyer, already agreed to the partnership at the café. But this felt different. Deeper.

“You can trust me, Amelia.”

The tension stretched between them. The truck cab suddenly felt very small, intimate.

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Okay. Then there’s something you should know. About what I actually found in those documents.”

Elijah pulled off onto a smaller road, then into a small turnoff. He killed the engine.

“Tell me,” he said.

She pulled out her phone, scrolling to photos she’d taken of the documents.

“Your ancestor was experimenting on Eleanor,” Amelia said flatly. “From the beginning. The whole thing was orchestrated.”

“That’s not—”

“Let me finish.” Her voice had an edge now. “Thomas Everett’s father died in January 1862. Eleanor, already betrothed to Thomas, had been caring for him for three years. She was grieving, vulnerable, questioning her purpose. And James Merriweather swooped in like some benevolent mentor.”

She showed him the photo of Eleanor’s journal entry.

“He positioned himself as a father figure. Told her he saw her potential, that she had a scientific mind. Offered her a position as his ‘research assistant’ in the new fever ward.” Amelia’s anger was building. “The fever ward—that’s what they called the isolation units for the most severe cases. The patients nobody else could safely treat. She trusted him completely. Thought he was recognizing her brilliance.”

“Maybe he was—”

“He was using her.” The words came out sharp. “In January, he did this iron test. It detects infection—the darker the reaction, the more severe the exposure. Eleanor’s blood went dark. Black-blue, like a patient who’d been directly attacked.”

Elijah’s hands tightened on the wheel.

“But he switched the samples.” Amelia’s voice shook with fury. “Showed her a pale test from someone else. Told her she was healthy, cleared for duty. Then deliberately sent her into the fever ward to work with the most severe cases.”

“He was testing a theory—”

“He was experimenting on an unknowing subject!” Amelia turned in her seat to face him fully. “She had no idea she was infected. No idea he was documenting her like a lab specimen while pretending to mentor her. She wrote in her journal about how grateful she was for his recognition, how honored she felt—” Her voice cracked. “And the whole time, he was watching to see what would happen to her.”

Elijah’s jaw was tight. “The priming exposure from caring for Thomas’s father—that’s what saved her. He was trying to understand if controlled progression could—”

“Without her consent!” Amelia’s hands were shaking. “He knew caring for Mr. Everett had exposed her gradually over years. He theorized it would create immunity instead of killing her. So he tested it. On her. Without telling her what he was doing.”

“He was trying to save lives—”

“By lying to a young woman who trusted him completely.” Amelia felt the parallels too keenly. Another man exploiting a woman’s work, another betrayal dressed up as collaboration. “She documented her own symptoms thinking she was doing scientific research. She had no idea she WAS the research.”

Silence filled the truck.

“You’re right,” Elijah said finally. Quietly.

Amelia blinked. She’d been prepared for more argument.

“The ethics are...” He ran a hand through his hair. “Questionable at best. By modern standards, it’s unforgivable. Even by the standards of his time, the deception...” He looked at her. “But she survived, Amelia. Whatever he did, however wrong it was—she lived.”

“That doesn’t excuse it.”

“No. It doesn’t.” His voice was tired. “I’ve spent years trying to understand him. To figure out if he was a monster or a visionary or both. The accusations after the war—human experimentation, unethical practices—I wanted to clear his name. But maybe...” He stopped. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve to have his name cleared.”

The honesty surprised her.

“Eleanor was a victim,” Amelia said more gently. “Not a collaborator. She trusted the wrong person and got used for his research.”

“I know.” Elijah looked out the windshield. “And now you’re wondering how much I’m not telling you.”

“Are you? Holding information from me?” She hated how her voice sounded. Small. Paranoid. Pathetic.”The Foundation, the laboratory, Dr. Caulfield—it’s all very convenient. Like it was ready and waiting.”

“It was.” He turned to face her. “I’ve been trying to access that house for years. The family documents we have at the Foundation are incomplete—James’s research notes have gaps, missing sections. When you inherited the property and came down here, I knew it would be my chance to find more. To find answers.” He paused. “So yes, when we found Eleanor’s specimens, I had resources ready. But that doesn’t mean I’m using you.”

“Just that you’re not telling me everything.”

“No.” His honesty surprised her. “I’m not.”

Amelia wanted to be angry. But she also knew her instincts were damaged. After Whitmore, she saw betrayal everywhere. Maybe Elijah was hiding things. Maybe he had his own agenda. But he wasn’t lying about her being sick. And he wasn’t pretending the laboratory didn’t exist.

“At least you’re not lying to me,” she said.

“I’m trying not to.” His voice was rough. “Even when it would be easier.”

They sat in the quiet truck, trees surrounding them on all sides.

“The knowledge he gained,” Amelia said slowly. “From experimenting on Eleanor. It’s unethical. But it might be the only thing that saves my life.”

“Yes.”

“So what do we do with that?”

“I don’t know.” Elijah’s hands rested on the wheel, still and heavy. “Use it? Acknowledge where it came from? Try to make something good come from something terrible?”

Amelia thought about Eleanor—brilliant, naive, trusting. Manipulated by a man she saw as a mentor. Documented like a lab specimen while thinking she was his protégé.

“She survived though,” Amelia said. “Whatever he did to her, she lived. She sold property in her own name in 1867. She had agency afterward.”

“She did.”

“And the preserved hair samples—those were intentional. She kept them for a reason.” Amelia looked at the research bag at her feet. “Maybe so someone else could benefit from what she went through.”

“Maybe.”

Elijah started the engine again, pulling back onto the road. Through the trees ahead, Amelia could see glass and steel. Modern architecture completely out of place in the forest.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“The Foundation research facility. Yes.”

“Started by James?”

“Funded by him initially. My family’s expanded it over the generations.” The building grew larger as they approached. “It’s where we can actually analyze the specimens properly. Where Dr. Caulfield’s team is standing by.”

Amelia took a deep breath. “I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“No lies. Ever. No letting me think I’m the researcher when I’m actually the research subject.” Her voice was steel. “And if we publish anything from this—when we publish—my name goes on it. Equal credit. Not buried in the acknowledgments, not a footnote. Partnership.”

The word hung between them. Partnership. What she’d thought she had with Whitmore.

“I need to know I can trust someone again,” she said more quietly. “I need this not to be another mistake.”

“I promise.” He met her eyes. “Whatever we find, you’ll know everything. The good, the bad, and the terrifying. And anything that comes from this research—we publish together, or we don’t publish at all.”

“Even if you think I can’t handle it?”

“Even then.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He pulled into the parking lot. The building loomed ahead—clean lines, tinted windows, serious money and serious science.

“For what it’s worth,” Elijah said quietly as he killed the engine, “I think she would have forgiven him eventually. Eleanor. Once she understood why he did it.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No. But sometimes people forgive what isn’t forgivable because they understand the desperation behind it.”

Amelia thought about that. About Catriona dying. About James watching countless patients die from this condition. About Elijah spending years obsessed with understanding why.

Desperation made people do terrible things.

Amelia grabbed her research bag and opened the door. Cool air rushed in, carrying the smell of pine.

“Let’s go see if your ancestor’s unethical research can save my life,” she said.

Elijah came around the truck. They stood together in the parking lot, looking up at the facility.

“Together,” he said.

“Together.”

They walked toward the entrance. Two people who’d confessed their isolation, their grief, their desperation. Who’d decided to trust each other despite every red flag. The contracts might be with her lawyer, but this—this was the real agreement.

The doors slid open as they approached.

-

to be continued…

Photo by Paula Hayes on Unsplash

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© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.