“But she didn’t make it there either. Only I did. Not only that, Stella said Neil Maslow was the one who stopped her from going inside The Manor that night. He made her go to The Institute, while Dr. Thompson made me go in her place.”
“I’m not saying this makes any sense. I’m just saying we need to consider that you have another sister involved in all of this.”
“The girl,” she whispered, her eyes flicking back to mine. “The visitor.”
“What visitor?”
“Someone keeps visiting Stella at The Institute. She said she thought it was me, but then decided it wasn’t. I guess she looks like us but not identical? Is that possible? Is it possible for triplets to not be identical? Or for two to be identical and the third not to be?”
“It’s possible for multiple fetuses to have different fathers, so yes, I’m sure it’s possible for one of you not to have shared the same sac as the other two.”
“Oh my God.” Eva brought her hand to cover her gasp as she stared at me. “I think it’s a nun. I think our sister is that nun Will and I saw.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Eva
I’d hung up the phone with Karen a few minutes ago and couldn’t stop pacing. She’d been drunk when I called, which meant I had to repeat myself more than a few times.
“What are you doing?” I walked back to the couch and plopped down beside Adam, who was furiously typing into his phone.
“I contacted our family lawyer so he could look into the orphanage and I sent these to my mother, but she’s still on her flight, so she won’t be able to answer until she lands.” Adam sighed heavily, looking at the papers again. “They must have separated you when you were just days old.”
“But Karen didn’t adopt me until I was five months old,” I said. “So where was I during those five months?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it normal to separate multiples like that?”
“When I first started at The Institute, I was in Neil’s internship program. I’d wanted to go into psychology like my mother, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see patients or do research work.” He set his phone and papers down and looked at me. “This was my first semester here, before I was recruited by The Swords and decided to go into neuroscience instead. That was when I learned about the Twin Study.”
“The one where they got people who looked almost identical but weren’t actually twins,” I said.
“Yes, that’s one of them, but prior to that there had been a longitudinal study about multiples. Originally it was about actual twins, triplets, etcetera. Part of the deal for twins to qualify for their scholarship is that they answer a series of questions from The Institute. It’s really no big deal. Nolan and I were done in a day. That was where we first met Nora and Will,” Adam explained. “I keep thinking back to that day. Dr. Maslow was riveted by the fact that Nora and Will were twins, one black, one white, and such different experiences growing up.”
“Did they do that longitudinal study on them?”
“No. They didn’t go back.”
“How does the longitudinal study work? Weekly basis? Monthly?”
“It takes place over a long period of time. They’re conducting some, unrelated to multiples, that they’ve been doing for over sixty years.”
“How is that even possible? Wouldn’t most of the subjects die?”
“Yes, and then the research falls on the next generation. They have one on socio-economic backgrounds in which they take a single parent and follow them through the course of the child’s life, then when the child is old enough, they follow them, and so on.”
“So basically they’re studying them in order to see if and when they break the chain people fall into when they’re born into a certain situation,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“But why us?” My voice grew louder as my thoughts poured in quickly. “Why not tell us about each other? That wouldn’t have been against the code of the orphanage. And to add insult to injury, we were all at The Institute at one point or another and they chose to keep us apart.”
My words seemed to silence Adam. For a while, we just looked at each other, possibilities running through each of our minds. Impossible possibilities. Finally, Adam swallowed and reached for my hand as if I was a patient he was going to deliver a deadly prognostic to.
“If they were using you for a study your guardian had to sign off on it.”
“You mean Karen?”
“Who else?”
I shook my head. Karen had been just as outraged as I had. More so, maybe. I couldn’t imagine she’d sign me over to them, not after all the awful things she had to say about Debbie and Neil. Unless she did sign me over to them and lived with the guilt all these years? It would explain a lot—the drinking, the blame she placed on me, the way she acted as if siding with the Maslows was a stab in the back.
“We need those papers,” Adam said. “The contracts with The Institute and the ones from the orphanage.”
“Dr. Thompson would have had to sign off as well. He doesn’t seem like the type who would,” I said.
“You’re right.” I sighed, stretching my arms over my head.
“You tired?”
“Of thinking about this, yes. I just want to go to a bar or a movie or somewhere and hang out in a regular place doing regular-people things.”
“Let’s go then. No one is stopping us.” He stood, offering me his hand. “Besides, I haven’t taken you on a proper date.”
I smiled and took his hand.
The restaurant he took me to was in Billionaire’s Row. It was one that was really popular and always had a line out the door and tonight was no exception.
“We’re never going to get in,” I said as he circled the block for a parking space.
“Good thing my friends own it.” He dialed a number. “Hey, any chance you can get my girlfriend and me a table tonight? Yes. No. We’re parking.” He hung up and grinned at me. “Done.”
“Your girlfriend?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Is that a problem?”
“I guess not.” I smiled, linking my fingers with his. “Who’s your friend anyway? The one who owns this place?”
“Logan and Amelia Fitzgerald.” He eyed me. “You know them?”
“Is that the girl who went missing last year?”
“Yep. Will and I found her in one of the plots.”
My mouth dropped. “Did she fall into one of the holes?”
“She’d been buried alive.”
“But . . . like as part of initiation?”
“She’s an Eight.” Adam shook his head slightly. “She’d been left for dead there.”
“What the actual . . . and you found her? How?”
“By chance.”
“How long had she been there?”
“Days.”
“Damn. I don’t remember reading that in the paper.”
“That part was never reported.”