Chapter 13 - The Blue Room
St. Agnes had been closed long enough that even dust felt historic.
Federal investigators came with us.
So did Eleanor.
Rebecca refused to remain behind.
Adrian stayed near his grandmother.
Celeste stayed beside me.
Funny.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I would have avoided standing near her.
Now we entered a sealed hospital wing together.
The blue room was exactly that.
Blue walls faded nearly gray.
Four metal bedframes.
Old observation glass.
Cabinets.
Nothing immediately dramatic.
Then Lucia's key opened one drawer.
Inside were pediatric records.
VALE STUDY.
Not criminal art.
Medical.
Henry had funded a private fertility and genetics project.
Years before anyone knew.
Eleanor began shaking.
“I never agreed to this.”
Records showed her pregnancies had been medically manipulated.
Vivian's file contained one embryo.
Rosalind and Rebecca's pregnancy—
two embryos.
But four genetic samples were listed.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca turned pages.
Embryo splitting.
Experimental twinning research.
Unethical.
Secret.
Two embryos had been divided.
Creating genetically identical sisters carried in separate pregnancies and by separate women.
Eleanor stared.
“Separate women?”
One was Eleanor.
The other was listed only as Patient L.
Rose and Rebecca were Eleanor's biological children.
Two other identical girls were carried by another woman.
One appeared to have died.
The other survived.
Name changed.
Where?
The file had been removed.
Then Celeste found a patient photograph.
A young woman.
Lucille Vale.
Eleanor's mother.
Impossible.
She would have been in her fifties.
Yet records suggested Lucille secretly carried one experimental pregnancy using embryos derived from Eleanor and Henry.
The project was obsessed with heredity.
Not unlike everything else in that family.
Henry had permitted it because his doctors believed genetically identical daughters raised in different environments could be studied.
One pair rich.
One pair hidden.
Human beings as experiments.
Eleanor looked ill.
“Did my mother know?”
Rebecca whispered:
“I think she discovered it.”
That could explain the music.
The code.
The evidence.
Lucille wasn't only hiding art records.
She was protecting children.
Then we found the fourth girl's designation.
SUBJECT D.
No name.
Transferred to Maine.
Maine.
My mother's life.
Rose had eventually discovered Subject D.
Maybe that was why she chose Maine.
We searched further.
A photograph.
Rose at twenty-three.
Holding baby me.
Beside her stood another woman.
Same face as Rose.
Older only by expression.
Subject D.
Who was she?
On the back:
Rose and Daisy. Emily is safe.
Daisy.
I had heard that name once.
My mother told me Daisy was an imaginary friend from childhood.
Not imaginary.
Her genetically identical sister.
If Daisy was alive—
where?
Then Celeste found another file.
Recent.
Not thirty years old.
Two years.
Someone had accessed the blue room after Rose died.
Signature:
D. BENNETT.
Daisy Bennett?
We followed the attached address.
Cape Cod.
Small cottage.
An elderly woman opened the door before we knocked.
She looked like my mother.
Not exactly.
Close enough that I couldn't breathe.
“Emily.”
I started crying.
“Daisy?”
She nodded.
Then Lucia whispered:
“Grandma?”
My heart cracked.
Daisy looked at her.
“No, sweetheart.”
But Lucia stepped closer.
“You sound like her.”
Daisy's face crumpled.
Identical genes.
Similar voice.
Different life.
She invited us inside.
Then she told me Rose’s final secret.
Daisy had not remained hidden after Rose died.
She had been watching me.
Protecting us.
“And Celeste?”
Daisy looked away.
“Yes.”
Both daughters.
Both granddaughters.
Then I asked:
“Why didn’t you come?”
“Because Rose made me promise.”
I was tired of promises that erased choices.
“What was she afraid of?”
Daisy reached beneath her chair and removed a sealed folder.
“Not Henry.”
“Then who?”
She looked toward Eleanor.
“The woman who started everything.”
“Lucille?”
Daisy shook her head.
“No.”
Then she handed me a photograph.
Lucille stood beside another woman.
Same age.
Same face.
Twins.
On the back:
Lucille and Lydia.
Eleanor whispered:
“My mother didn't have a sister.”
Daisy looked at her sadly.
“Yes, she did.”
May you like
Then she added:
“And Lydia is still alive.”
