"Mary, I don't have a brother," she said gently.
Confusion clouded the old woman's face. "Yes, you do. Joshua. Sprightly lad with a mass of red hair."
A chill ran down her spine. Joshua. The boy she'd dreamt about nearly every night. She licked suddenly dry lips. "Mary, I think you're confusing me with someone else. My name is Samantha, not Josephine."
"So you've changed it again. I can't keep up with you two." She sighed softly. "I wish them damn doctors would give you all names instead of numbers. Hell of a lot easier on the rest of us."
The chill increased. Hadn't Joe Black mentioned something about only being a number and never having a real name? She sank slowly back to the sofa. "Mary, when did you know Josephine and Joshua?"
"Years and years ago. I was in the military before I retired and became a nurse at Silhouettes, you know."
"And Joshua and Josephine — they were twins?"
The old woman smiled, her eyes distant, lost in the years. "And the liveliest of all my charges. I guess that's why you managed to survive at all."
She rubbed her arms. "Survive? Then many didn't?"
"Oh no. So many bonny babes were lost." She hesitated, sniffing back a tear. "That's why I left, you know. I couldn't stand to see all the dead children."
"And Hopeworth let you leave?" From what she'd learned about the place, she'd have thought no one would get let loose until they were well past their use-by date.
"They had no choice. The project was destroyed." Her gaze met Sam's, blue eyes shining with tears. "Until you walked into the room, I thought both you and Joshua were dead."
Allars had mentioned that the Penumbra Project had been destroyed by fire. Coincidence? Somehow, she doubted it. Joe Black had sent her to Silhouettes, with the warning she would find the first stepping stone to her past. Silhouettes had led her to Mary. Was the old woman that stone? Or was she so lost in the past that she was confusing reality with fantasy?
"What was the name of the project you worked in, Mary?"
"I... I can't remember." She rubbed her forehead with gnarled fingers. Tears ran silently down her weather worn cheeks. "It hurts if I try to remember."
Behind them, the door opened. A nurse stepped into the room. "Enough questions, agent Ryan. Mary's heart rate just leapt alarmingly. We can't afford to let you stay any longer."
She silently cursed, then rose. "I'll come back another time."
Mary caught her hand, squeezing it gently. "Do please come back, Josephine. I don't get very many visitors nowadays." She hesitated and frowned, looking around the room in sudden confusion. "This isn't my home. Why am I here?"
The nurse motioned Sam to the door, and then she squatted down in front of the old woman, gently taking hold of her hand.
"Mary, you were sick, dear. You came here to get better, remember?"
The door swung shut on the nurse's soft words. Sam stood in the corridor and took a deep breath. It was hard to decide whether she'd found a clue to her past or simply more confusion.
She glanced at her watch. It was close to ten o'clock. She needed to get something to eat, and she needed to call Gabriel. She reached for her viaphone, but at that moment, pain hit her head, hammering into her brain. She gasped, felt her shoulder hit the wall, then slid to the floor, holding her head and fighting the wave of nausea and darkness washing through her body.
Footsteps came running. Hands touched her shoulders. "Agent Ryan, are you all right?"
As quickly as it had come, the pain left, leaving her only with a vague sense that something was wrong. She took several deep breaths and nodded. "Yeah. Sorry about that. The sudden movement must have set off my headache again."
The reception nurse frowned. "If the headaches are as bad as that, you need to go see a doctor."
"I am." She struggled to her feet. If these damn headaches were an indication of what she had to look forward to every month, why the hell did she ever wish to fully develop as a woman? It was certainly a case of watch what you wish for, because you might damn well get it.
"Maybe you'd better sit down for a while," the nurse suggested, touching Sam's arm in concern.
She shrugged the touch away. "I'm fine, really. I just haven't had breakfast yet, and I do have an appointment with a doctor at eleven." She glanced at her watch. It was nine-thirty now. Time enough to get something to eat before she headed into the city.
"Maybe you'd better not drive until you do eat. Just in case that headache comes back."
She nodded. "I'll walk down to the shops first. Thanks for your help."