“SORRY, MA’AM,” SAID ANOTHER voice over the phone.
By now Eve was used to it.
“Thanks anyway.” Eve hung up and turned toward the Wainwrights. “The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce hasn’t heard of them, either.”
Nor had the hospital there. Or the Better Business Bureau. Or a half dozen other places Eve had called.
Mr. Wainwright was pacing. “Why would someone pull a stunt like this?”
Stolen babies.
Black market.
Kidnappings.
Fly-by-night agencies.
Eve had heard stories. But she’d always put them out of her mind.
Until now.
“I’m sorry.” Eve’s words sounded so feeble.
“Let’s not panic.” Mrs. Wainwright began riffling through her papers again. “Who was that doctor we were in contact with?”
“I don’t remember,” her husband said. “It was a short name. He said he would keep in touch. And he did, for a while. But then he just stopped showing up.”
“Look at this.” Mrs. Wainwright was slapping papers onto the desk. “I can read our signatures—but not his.”
Eve looked at the scribbled, illegible name next to the Wainwrights’. Dr. Something.
“His name isn’t printed anywhere,” Mr. Wainwright said. “How could we have been so careless? So stupid?”
Mrs. Wainwright touched his arm. “We wanted a baby so badly. We just signed where he told us to.”
The two looked so awkward and guilty. Eve stood up. “Maybe I’d better go home. I’m just causing trouble.”
“Please don’t,” Mr. Wainwright said gently. “You came this far. The least we can do is feed and shelter you.”
“You must be feeling grubby from the trip,” Mrs. Wainwright added. “There’s a shower and fresh towels in the upstairs bathroom.”
It wasn’t a bad idea.
Eve took her backpack upstairs. To get to the bathroom, she had to walk through a bedroom decorated with a thousand posters—sports teams, rock groups, movies—everything just a few years off.
Alexis’s room, exactly the way she’d left it. Dusted. Kept up.
The three windows, chin-high.
The abstract-pattern wallpaper in shades of purple and black and blue.
The stained-glass hanging light fixture.
I know this place.
Nahhh. Impossible.
Eve quickly left the room and entered a darkened hallway. Her hand reached out and clicked on a light switch on the wall to her left.
She stopped.
How did I know the switch was there?
She closed her eyes and pushed open the bathroom door. It’s an L-shape, with the shower hidden to the left.
Opening her eyes, she spotted a long tiled room. At the end, to the left, the edge of the shower curtain stuck out from around a corner.
This. Is. Creepy.
She took a deep breath, tried to block out her thoughts, and prepared for her shower.
But the strange feelings didn’t stop. Especially as she listened to the Wainwrights’ comments over dinner: “Alexis had an appetite like yours.”…“She hated broccoli, too.”…“She always sat in that seat.”
“It’s weird,” Eve finally said. “I feel like I know some of this stuff about Alexis. As if we’re connected.”
“Identical twins who are separated at birth often feel that same way,” Mr. Wainwright remarked.
“But they’re a year apart,” Mrs. Wainwright reminded him. “Fortunately. You wouldn’t want to be identical to Alexis. Then you’d probably have…what she had.”
“What happened to her?” Eve asked. “At the end, I mean?”
Both Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright’s faces tightened.
Ugh.
Subtle as a locomotive.
“The upset stomach,” Mrs. Wainwright said. “Constant. Followed by headaches, weakness…”
“Soon we could only feed her farina, liquids—just like my grandmother, before she went,” Mr. Wainwright said with a rueful smile. “But she was ninety.”
“Were there any warning signs?” Eve asked.
Mrs. Wainwright put a hand on Eve’s. “You’re worried, aren’t you? Don’t be. The doctors assured us it was a fluke.”
“Alexis had a birthmark. Totally normal. Benign,” Mr. Wainwright said. “But it began aching. And soon it started to spread, like a rash. From there on, her body just started to give in.”
“It all happened so fast,” Mrs. Wainwright added.
Eve’s appetite was gone. She suddenly felt icy cold.
Slowly she turned and rolled down her turtleneck collar.
The silence told her everything.
She is my sister.
And I’m dead.
Eve tossed in the strange bed.
Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright had tried to reassure her. They’d told her the birthmark was probably irrelevant. That it probably didn’t cause the disease.
Probably.
Then why does it hurt?
Eve rubbed the birthmark.
Because you’ve been touching it so much, that’s why. GO TO SLEEP.
Impossible.
Eve sat up. Across the floor, the street lamp cast slatted yellow light through the vertical blinds. Like a prison cell.
Dead end.
What now? What about tomorrow?
Back to ski camp. To life. The same as it was, only different forever.
A lifetime of fear. Of being scared by every twinge. Every tiny pain.
Was this why her mom and dad had given her up for adoption?
Damaged goods.
How did they know? And why the phantom agency?
It was so unfair.
Eve stood up and paced.
Her backpack peeked at her, striped by the incoming light.
She reached for it and pulled out the papers Kate had helped her pack.
Eve had seen most of them before. Computer printouts. Handwritten notes. Web pages. Lists.
Her eyes caught Alexis’s name at the top of one list. The heading read DEAD SO FAR.
Charming, Kate.
She quickly skimmed the other names.
Her eyes froze on one.
Bryann Davis, of Racine Junction.
Bryann.
Sad, delicate Bryann.
One of the names. One of the personalities. I used to become. Like Alexis.
“Oh my god,” Eve murmured.
Bryann’s date of death was three years ago. One year after Alexis. She was fourteen.
Eve frantically looked for the other names. For Danielle and—
Caroline Pomeranz.
The cool one. The one who shut down when things got bad.
Two years ago. Also fourteen.
They were there. Three of them.
Eve’s friends. Long-lost friends.
All dead:
Alexis, Bryann, Caroline.
A chill seized Eve’s body.
A. B. C.
Four years ago. Three. Two.
D.
Danielle.
What about Danielle?
If she fit the pattern, she should have died a year ago.
Eve read the list over and over.
No Danielle.
She’s alive.
Or maybe not.
She tried to conjure her up. The way she used to, when she was a child. She tried to see her as she’d be now, age fifteen.
But nothing came to mind.
Have I lost the power?
Or is Danielle dead, too?
Maybe she was, but Kate and Eve simply hadn’t found her.
E.
Eve tried to shut out the thought.
E came next.
E was this year.
E for Eve.
Five girls, each born a year apart. Five little deaths, all in a row.
It was absurd. Preposterous.
But the names.
Alexis was real. You’ve been connected to her your whole life. What about the others?
Tanya?
She was T. She didn’t fit.
Neither did many of the other names.
Simple. Others have it, too. Not just you and—
Stop it!
Your sisters.
NO!
Your fourteen-year-old sisters.
Fourteen…She tried to remember what day it was.
She rummaged in her backpack for a calendar and pulled it out.
As she opened it, the sun peeked through the window.