“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?”
“Well, we’ve always said all bad things come in threes,” Karen said. “All good things too. It’s the trinity.”
“You used to know a nun,” I said. “The one who helped you adopt me. What was her name?”
“Sister Marie.” Karen smiled. “Very nice nun.”
“Marie?” My heart pounded in my ears. “Do you have a picture of her?”
“A picture?” She stood, frowning. “I don’t think so. She worked at the front office in your elementary school, remember? She may be in the background of an old album.”
As Karen walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, where the photo albums were, Adam leaned over.
“Was the nun’s name Marie?”
“I’m not sure, but that woman, the one who serves the food and cleans The Manor. She said she’s been working there over forty years. Her name is Marie.”
Adam sat back, stunned. Karen walked back into the room with three albums in her arms. She set them on the table between us. I grabbed the first one, she grabbed the second, and Adam looked between the two of us.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“Nuns,” Karen and I said at the same time, both in the same short-fused tone.
The three of us leafed through the albums and stopped every so often to show pictures of nuns, but saw nothing.
“Here she is!” Karen held her book up as she stood and laid it on top of ours, pointing at the picture. Adam and I both stood and hovered over the album. It was Karen carrying a baby, her husband Esteban, and a nun. Karen and Esteban were all smiles. The nun had a small smile of her own. She was young, younger, but it was definitely, without a doubt Marie. Adam and I looked up at each other at the same time, our foreheads nearly touching, our eyes wide, horrified.
“That’s her,” Adam said. “That’s Marie.”
Karen brought a hand up to her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears.
I took a step back.
Adam looked as shell-shocked as I felt. When he looked back up, he looked at Karen.
“She spoke to you?” Karen asked finally. I nodded. “Did she ask your name?”
“Do you think she’d remember me? I was so small then.”