Chương 7
“Did you tell him?”
“About tonight?”
“About me dying.”
“We were married. He was there.”
Lena stared at the blanket.
“What did he look like?”
Evelyn finally reached for her phone.
She stopped with her hand inside her coat pocket.
“Do you want to see?”
Lena took a long time to answer.
“Yes.”
Evelyn opened a photograph.
Not one chosen for emotional effect.
A stupid one.
Daniel at a barbecue wearing an apron that said KISS THE COOK, holding a spatula in one hand and a beer in the other.
Elise sat on his shoulders, both hands buried in his hair.
Lena stared at it.
Evelyn zoomed nothing.
Explained nothing.
After a while Lena held out her hand.
Evelyn gave her the phone.
Lena enlarged Daniel's face.
Then the child's.
She looked at herself.
Not exactly herself.
A four-year-old with round cheeks and missing front teeth.
“That's supposed to be me?”
“Yes.”
Lena swiped.
Another photograph appeared.
Elise asleep on a couch with one sock off.
Another.
Daniel kneeling beside a plastic bicycle.
Another.
Evelyn and Elise at a pumpkin patch.
Lena stopped there.
“You had longer hair.”
“Yes.”
“You look terrible.”
Evelyn almost laughed.
“I was sick.”
“What kind of sick?”
“Flu.”
“No, in the picture.”
“That is the flu.”
“You look like you haven't slept in a week.”
“I also had a four-year-old.”
For the first time, Lena smiled.
Barely.
It vanished quickly, but Evelyn saw it.
Sloane saw it too.
The jealousy returned.
Evelyn hated herself for that.
Lena handed back the phone.
“Why did you stop looking?”
Evelyn froze.
Sloane looked up.
“What?”
Lena said.
“If you thought something was wrong, why didn't you find me?”
There was no accusation in the girl's voice.
That made it worse.
Evelyn could have lied.
She could have said she never stopped.
It would have sounded beautiful.
It would also have been false.
“I did look.”
“How long?”
“For years.”
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Evelyn looked at the paperback on the bed.
“Actively? Three, maybe four.”
Lena's face closed.
“I sued Meridian. I hired an investigator for a while. We challenged the death documentation. I called people I probably shouldn't have called. I went through hospital records until I knew the names of employees I'd never met.”
“And then?”
“I ran out of money.”
Lena said nothing.
“And Daniel couldn't keep doing it.”
“Why?”
“Because he was falling apart.”
“And you weren't?”
“I was. I was just better at doing paperwork while I did it.”
A small, terrible sound came from Sloane.
Almost a laugh.
Almost a sob.
Evelyn ignored her.
“Eventually there was nothing left to chase. Every record said you died. Every expert said the same thing. Daniel needed me to stop opening the wound every day.”
“So you stopped.”
“Yes.”
Lena stared at her.
Evelyn's eyes burned.
“I stopped looking for a living child.”
The girl looked down.
“I didn't stop missing you.”
Sloane stood.
“That is enough for tonight.”
Lena's head snapped up.
“No.”
“You're exhausted.”
“I'm not five.”
“I didn't say you were.”
“You keep talking like I'm a patient.”
“You are my patient.”
“Am I?”
Sloane went still.
Lena touched the station badge hanging from her neck.
“Or am I your research project?”
“Miriam,” Evelyn said.
Sloane ignored her.
“You know what your monitoring requires.”
“I know what you told me it requires.”
“You have a genuine medical history.”
“Under which name?”
“Lena.”
“That's not what she asked.”
Sloane's face tightened.
Lena stood.
For the first time, Evelyn noticed the girl was almost as tall as she was.
“If my name was Elise, why did you call me Lena?”
Sloane inhaled.
“Because we needed a new identity.”
“Why Lena?”
“Your middle name was Helena.”
Evelyn's stomach turned.
It was true.
Elise Helena Cross.
Sloane had taken a piece of her real name and disguised it.
Lena saw Evelyn's reaction.
“So that's true too.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
Lena turned back to Sloane.
“You told me you picked my name because your grandmother liked it.”
“She did.”
“Was that true?”
“Yes.”
“Was she named Helena?”
Sloane did not answer.
Lena pulled the badge over her head and threw it onto the bed.
“Get out.”
“Lena.”
“Both of you.”
Evelyn stood immediately.
Sloane did not.
“Get out.”
Sloane's face had gone white.
“Miriam,” Evelyn said quietly.
“Don't tell me how to handle her.”
“I am telling you to leave because she asked.”
Sloane stood.
They walked into the corridor.
The door closed behind them.
Sloane leaned against the wall.
For a moment, she looked sixty-one.
Not formidable.
Not brilliant.
Old.
“You think that went well?”
Evelyn asked.
Sloane turned on her.
“You have known her for fifteen minutes.”
“I knew her for four years.”
“She doesn't remember those years.”
The sentence landed cleanly.
Sloane regretted it immediately.
Evelyn saw that.
“That's what you counted on.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Sloane lowered her voice.
“I counted on keeping her alive.”
“For how long?”
“As long as necessary.”
“No. How long were you going to keep lying?”
Sloane looked toward the closed door.
“I don't know.”
“That might be the first thing you've said tonight that I believe.”
They returned upstairs separately.
Noah was waiting in the laboratory with three cups of coffee.
He handed one to Evelyn.
She took it without asking where it came from.
It was terrible.
She drank half anyway.
Marcus stood by the window speaking through the emergency satellite handset.
His tone was quiet.
“Yes. I understand privilege. No, I am not asking you how to protect me.”
He listened.
“Because a sixteen-year-old girl who was declared dead in one of our trials is alive inside this station.”
A pause.
“No, I am not joking.”
Another pause.
“No, do not call communications.”
Evelyn put the coffee down.
May you like
Marcus turned away from her.
“I want independent counsel notified. I want the board chair notified. I want outside preservation on every archive connected to EC-01, Lena Ward, Miriam Sloane, pediatric response, and Project Juniper.”
