Chapter Twenty-Seven
Evan returned just as I was saying goodbye. I watched him as he removed the sporty black jacket he’d worn for his walk. Autumn had come to Tahoe unexpectedly during these past few days. It’d snuck up on me while I’d been so self-absorbed in the mess of my life.
I hung up the phone as he came toward me. He immediately noticed my wet cheeks. He lowered to the chair facing me and took my cell phone out of my hand. He placed the phone on the table and took both of my hands in his.
“They told you that you were adopted. Didn’t they?”
I nodded. “My mom did. Yeah.” I gave a shaky laugh. “I can’t believe it, and yet I can, you know?” I shook my head. More tears fell down my face. My laugh sounded brittle. “This whole thing is so fucked up. Do you still believe that it was impossible for Elizabeth to have children?”
“I can only tell you what the doctor told me, Anna.”
“Doctors can be paid off. Besides, just because Elizabeth couldn’t have kids at twenty-five doesn’t mean she couldn’t have at sixteen, right?”
He squeezed my hands. “Anna… there’s something we need to talk about. I’ve been trying to put it off, because you haven’t been well.”
“I’m fine, Evan.”
I could tell he doubted that, but had decided the topic needed to be broached anyway.
“After I found you in Madaster’s suite, I called Wes, thinking he might be able to do something to help you before the ambulance got there.”
“Yeah, you told me that.”
“It was only a minute or two before Wes got to the South Twin, and maybe ten minutes at the most before the ambulance arrived. But during that time, Madaster was… ” His strong throat convulsed as he swallowed. “Ranting about a lot of crazy stuff.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “He was with me, too. I had no idea he was that mad. That fall he had messed up more than his spinal cord.”
His gaze sharpened on me. “What do you mean? What did he say?”
“He said that I had a stub thumb,” I said, holding up my bruised thumb. “It’s supposed to be some kind of genetic anomaly. Brachy-dacty? Something, I can’t remember exactly. It just means that one thumb is a little shorter than another.”
For a few seconds, Evan didn’t speak. He didn’t seem to breathe. Then he gently ran his fingertip over my thumb’s purple nail.
“Did Noah bruise you?” he asked, and I realized that while he was lost in his own private thoughts, he was also furious in a still, ominous fashion.
“Yes. He grabbed it and squeezed it. He said that Elizabeth had the same thing, but that she had two shortened thumbs. Did you notice? Elizabeth’s thumbs? When you were married to her?”
“I noticed. I never noticed yours, though,” he said, still caressing my thumb softly. He seemed far away, caught up in his private thoughts. “Elizabeth’s were more pronounced.”
“He said it was a sign of a Madaster. That it was an indication of pure, superior genes… that it ran in the royal families of Europe, and it signified the ability to lead and… I don’t know. All kinds of nonsense.” Evan remained grim. “Evan? It is nonsense, right?”
“Of course. I told you that Noah is obsessed with the supposed nobleness and superiority of the Madaster line. His father was obsessed before him, and his father before him. He believes some pretty delusional things.”
I watched him brea
thlessly as he stroked my thumb. “And the fact that he believes Elizabeth was my mother?” I asked weakly. “Is that delusional, too?”
He exhaled heavily, released my hands, and leaned back in his chair. He regarded me in silence for a moment. “One of the things Madaster told me—and Wes, too, once he arrived—was that he’d taken a genetic sample from you. I think that was the reason he drugged you. In order to get some of your cells, so that he could have them tested.”
“To see if Elizabeth was really my mother?”
He nodded.
“How did they do it?” I asked, feeling ill at the news. Violated.
“They swabbed the inside of your mouth.”
I blinked, that particular memory not coming back to me until that moment. “I remember,” I whispered. “I was blacking out, and he called for his nurse. And she pinched my lip, and I felt something in here,” I said, pointing inside my mouth to my cheek.