Chương 2
“Lena,” Evelyn said.
The girl looked back at her.
Evelyn heard how unstable her own voice sounded and hated it.
“My name is Evelyn Cross.”
Nothing happened.
No recognition.
The wind pushed another heavy burst of snow against the windows.
Lena tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear.
“Okay.”
Evelyn almost said I'm your mother.
Instead she looked at the station badge.
“How long have you used the name Ward?”
The girl's posture changed.
Not dramatically.
Her shoulders went back perhaps half an inch.
“All my life.”
“No.”
Marcus said Evelyn's name quietly.
She ignored him.
Lena stared at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
Evelyn turned the tablet around again.
Noah reached for it.
“Evelyn, wait.”
She stopped.
He was right.
The screen contained medical identifiers, genetic information, location data, records that belonged to a sixteen-year-old who had just walked into a room full of strangers.
Evelyn's desperation did not give her the right to throw all of it at the girl.
Her hands were shaking now.
She placed the tablet flat on the table.
“I think somebody lied to both of us.”
Lena's expression remained still.
“What kind of lie?”
“I don't know yet.”
It was the first honest thing Evelyn had managed to say.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Not hurried.
A woman appeared in the doorway wearing a dark blue medical jacket over station thermals. Dr. Miriam Sloane was sixty-one, silver-haired, compact, and usually so composed that staff members joked she could deliver news of an engine fire in the same tone she used to discuss oatmeal.
She saw Lena first.
Then Marcus.
Then the capsule.
Everything about her face remained controlled except her eyes.
They stopped on the silver tag.
E.C.-01.
Sloane stepped into the laboratory.
“Lena, go back downstairs.”
Lena did not move.
“What is this?”
“We have a data-integrity problem.”
Evelyn laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
Sloane looked at her.
“Dr. Cross.”
“You knew.”
“I know that you're holding restricted material outside its storage protocol.”
Evelyn took a step around the table.
Marcus moved between them.
Not protectively.
Cautiously.
“Miriam.”
Sloane's gaze shifted to him.
For the first time, she looked genuinely surprised.
“Marcus.”
He stared at her.
“That sample was destroyed.”
Sloane said nothing.
Marcus's voice hardened.
“I signed the destruction order.”
Lena looked between them.
“What sample?”
Noah pushed away from the table.
“We should stop.”
Nobody listened.
“This isn't the place,” Sloane said.
Evelyn's control finally broke.
“You've had twelve years to pick a place.”
Lena flinched.
Not at the volume.
At twelve years.
Her eyes came back to Evelyn.
“How old was your daughter?”
Sloane turned toward her.
“Lena.”
“How old?”
Evelyn could barely get the words out.
“Four.”
Lena's face remained blank for another second.
Then she touched the badge at her chest.
Sixteen.
Twelve years.
The arithmetic was simple enough that nobody needed to say it.
Sloane reached for Lena's arm.
Lena stepped away before she could touch her.
That movement changed the room.
Evelyn saw it in Marcus.
In Noah.
In Sloane most of all.
“Why does she think I'm her daughter?”
Lena asked.
Sloane took a slow breath.
“Because Dr. Cross found incomplete genetic information and drew a conclusion before the data was properly reviewed.”
Noah spoke.
“The data isn't incomplete.”
Sloane looked at him.
It was not an angry look.
It was worse.
It was the look a supervisor gave an employee who had become a problem.
“Noah.”
“I ran the comparison three times.”
“You had no authorization.”
“He did it because I asked him to,” Evelyn said.
“No,” Noah said.
Evelyn turned.
He was pale but steady.
“I made the comparison before she asked.”
Sloane stared at him.
Noah rubbed his thumb against the side of the tablet.
It was a nervous habit Evelyn had noticed during the three weeks they had worked together.
“I found an active biometric profile tied to an archived pediatric study number,” he said. “I thought it was a migration error.”
Sloane's eyes narrowed.
“So you violated the medical partition.”
“I ran a hash comparison.”
“You accessed restricted data.”
“I compared identifiers.”
“That distinction will matter very little when legal reviews your access log.”
Noah's jaw tightened.
Marcus looked at Sloane.
“Miriam, stop.”
She turned to him.
He pointed at the capsule.
“Tell me why that's here.”
Sloane did not answer.
“Tell me why EC-01 has an active station profile.”
Still nothing.
Marcus's voice dropped.
“Tell me why Evelyn Cross's dead daughter is standing in this room.”
Lena looked at him sharply.
Evelyn closed her eyes for one second.
Too late.
There it was.
The sentence she had been trying not to force on the girl.
Lena backed toward the doorway.
Sloane moved first.
“Lena.”
“Don't.”
The girl's voice was quiet.
Sloane stopped.
Lena looked at Evelyn.
“If this is some kind of lawsuit thing—”
“It isn't.”
“You don't know me.”
“No.”
“You said your daughter died.”
“Yes.”
“And you're saying I'm her.”
Evelyn looked at the teenager in front of her and felt the full cruelty of biological certainty.
DNA could identify a relationship.
It could not give them twelve years back.
“I think you were born Elise Cross,” she said.
The girl stared at her.
The name seemed to offend her.
“My name is Lena.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Evelyn nodded.
“You're right.”
That seemed to unsettle Lena more than an argument would have.
Sloane reached toward her again, stopping short of contact.
“Come downstairs with me.”
Lena looked at Sloane for a long time.
Evelyn saw history between them.
Not merely control.
Familiarity.
A woman who had probably sat beside this girl through fevers. A girl who knew which expression meant she was in trouble and which meant dinner was getting cold.
The thought made jealousy rise so fast that Evelyn felt ashamed of it.
Sloane had stolen twelve years.
Sloane might also be the person Lena loved most in the world.
May you like
Both things could be true.
Lena walked into the hallway.
