“You drink tea, handsome?”
“Sure. Thank you.”
“Where’d you meet Eva? That swanky Ivy League school?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m surprised she brought you here.” She turned around and set a mug in front of Adam and one in front of me. “Eva’s big on one-night stands staying one-night stands.”
Adam’s head whipped in my direction. I felt my face burn as she turned around and poured her tea.
“We haven’t had a one-night stand.”
“Yet.” Karen raised an eyebrow and sat across from us, setting her mug down. “Eva is a very difficult person. She’s moody, she’s outright mean sometimes, but she’s going to make someone very happy someday.”
“Oh my God.” I brought my tea to my lips and drank. What was she doing?
“She’s a good person,” Adam said.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, setting the mug down.
“She is,” Karen agreed, “but like I said, she has an attitude problem, which was why I thought it was weird when a couple of weeks ago she showed up here acting like the doting daughter.”
I sat up straighter. “This was the night you went to the hospital?”
“Yes. Which, I guess I owe you an apology. I thought you’d abandoned me and didn’t go visit until it dawned on me that it wasn’t you at all.”
“How’d you figure it out?” That was Adam.
“At the hospital, I had a policeman come visit. He told me you’d been in a car accident. When I asked if you were okay, he said you were fine, minor injuries, but that you were in another hospital recovering.” Karen pursed her lips. “I called every hospital. You weren’t registered in any.”
“What did she say when she came?”
“She started out by being nice to me, for starters. She called me mom, not Karen.” Karen raised an eyebrow. “I should’ve known then.”
“What did she say though?”
“It was mostly small talk, but when I told you . . . her . . . that she needed to leave and take her meds, she started panicking. That was when she told me she was your sister.”
“What did you say?” I inched forward, feeling my heart in my throat.
“I told her to get out of my house. I’d had enough of you. Enough of the lies and exaggerations. Enough of the back and forth.” She shook her head. “It was too much. She came on the eve of Esteban’s death. I’d just gotten back from an emotional Mass.”
“Oh, God. I forgot.” I shut my eyes briefly.
“You didn’t come last year so I figured you wouldn’t show this year either.”
“I was in Florida last year and went to Mass there with Aunt Carmen.”
“Well, shortly after I got home, you got here.” Karen paused. “She got here.”
“Why’d you get a gun?” I asked, remembering that detail. “Why do you even have a gun?”
“I had a break-in a few weeks ago. Something you’d know if you answered your phone.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Were you home? Did they take anything?”
“I wasn’t. They rummaged through my office, but I don’t think anything is missing.”
“You don’t think anything is missing?”
“Our passports are still there. Our social security cards. Esteban’s watch collection is untouched.”
“So you got a gun.”
“So I got a gun.”
“And were you going to shoot me with it?”
“Well, at that point I figured it wasn’t you after all and she wouldn’t leave.”
“So you were going to kill her?”
“No. I was going to scare her off, which I did,” Karen said. At the sight of the shock on my face, she continued, “She came in here pretending to be you. Why would she pretend to be you for a full ten minutes before telling me the truth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where were you on Friday anyway?”
“At a party.”
“A party.” Karen scoffed. “Of course you were.”
“A school function,” I said. “Not a fun, college party. Either way, I don’t have any recollection of it, or Saturday. I woke up on Sunday at The Institute, in a bed, and got picked up by the cops. That was where I learned of Stella’s existence.” I paused for Karen. “My sister. The one who came here.”
“So it’s true.”
“Either that or I was cloned, but I don’t think anyone has the resources to do that yet.” I looked at Adam, who shrugged.
“You woke up at The Institute. How perfect. What did your perfect little doctor say about that?”
“Nothing.” I bit my lip and chanced another glance at Adam, who was looking at me.
“Eva thinks Deborah is the most perfect person on the planet and Deborah eats it all up.” Karen scowled. “For years she’s tried to pit her against me and for years she’s won.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. You were just too caught up in her web to see it clearly. Do you think you could really get into Ellis without her backing?” Karen scoffed. “Please.”
“I’ve had a 4.0 GPA since the ninth grade, Karen. Yes, she wrote a letter of recommendation, but I made it there on my own.”
“At what cost?”
I shook my head and bit my lip harder, refusing to answer, refusing to look at Adam or Karen. Instead, I stared into my tea.
“At what cost, Eva? You don’t want to say it in front of your boyfriend? Does it embarrass you? It should.”
“At no cost,” I whispered.
“No cost? You left your job at the parish school. A damn good job that you were damn good at. You isolated yourself from your friends. You don’t answer the phone when I call. This girl, your sister, was talking about some cult you joined.”
“She told you about that?” I met her eyes then. “What did she say?”
“Something about you needing to get out of there and her not being able to help you. I was waving a gun around at who I thought was my own daughter. I wasn’t really paying attention to details at that point.”
“Oh, God.” I put a hand on my stomach and looked at Adam. “Is there any way she copied the key? Copied the card? Is there any way she sent it to me so I could go in her place?”
“Didn’t you say her father made you go in her place?”
“To look for her because she was missing.”
“Eva, that makes no sense,” Adam said. “A man at a police station tells you to go to The Manor, in front of the police officer, to look for his missing daughter?”
“What are our taxpayer dollars going to?” Karen’s fist slammed on the table, rattling the cups. “This is what I don’t understand.”
“The nun said there was a sacrifice to be made.” I swallowed. “What if Stella is sacrificing me?”
“What sacrifice?” Adam frowned. “For The Swords?”
“I saw a nun today and she said, ‘It’s the thirtieth year and sacrifices come in threes,’” I said. “What does that mean?”