A knock on the door pulled her back into the moment.
The sight of just plain Mary Kate Malone without the surrounding aura of Sister Catherine still took Cee Cee aback. Emotions and memories caught about her heart—love, anguish, fear, but mostly love. Impulsively she hugged the light to her endless darkness close as if the ugliness of those years had been bad dreams to be pushed away and forgotten. If only . . .
As Cee Cee stepped back but not out of the circle of her friend’s arm, she was surprised to see Ophelia and Susanna also exiting the elevator. Unable to make a connection between the three very different females—M.K. minus her habit; Ophelia in her Bohemian scarves, sweeping skirt and chunky boots; and the doctor’s all-business Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, she suppressed her curiosity and ushered them in.
“Wow,” Ophelia murmured. “That’s a view.”
“Not quite heaven, but it’s our slice on earth.”
Her oldest, dearest friend smiled. “Who’d have thought this is how we’d end up back when we were living at St. Bart’s?”
“Finally happy?”
“Yes. Yes, we are.”
They embraced for an emotional squeeze then Cee Cee shooed her company toward the sunken living room, saying, “Sorry, the cupboards are bare, but I can call up something from the deli.”
“I’m fine,” Ophelia spoke up. “The only thing I need fed is my curiosity.”
“’Fraid I’ve no answers there.” She glanced between Mary Kate and Susanna, eyebrows raised. “Want to supply some?”
Cee Cee had never spent any real time with Ophelia one-on-one. But if the always suspicious Cale Terriot could embrace his new bond sister, she’d set doubts aside. Despite her surname, the capable, full-figured girl, with her eclectic clothes, Tarot cards and unerring intuition, had made a stand with the youngest shapeshifter prince, using her considerable family inheritance to provide not just for Kip’s numerous siblings, but for the protection of his extended displaced clan. That courage and integrity elevated the young woman to family status.
So, where did she fit into this new trio?
“Charlotte and I met at St. Bartholomew’s even before we started school,” Mary Kate began, filling in the newcomer as they settled onto opposite couches. “My parents had been killed in a car accident. Lottie’s father was a mostly absent cop, always on the job after her mother left them. St. Bart’s was our home, and Father Furness filled in for the family we’d lost.” Seated beside her dearest friend, she squeezed Cee Cee’s fingers tightly. In fond reflection . . . or warning? “I’d always considered that a heaven-sent coincidence, but it wasn’t. Not even close.”
Cee Cee’s self-protective alarm buzzed. “M.K., where you going with this?”
“The two of us and Nica Fraser, we were some of the first. Genetic experiments placed where we could be watched and monitored and tested without anyone noticing or caring.”
Even knowing those truths, they hit hard, stirring a bitter roux of anger and panic and frustration when Cee Cee looked back upon times seen through innocent eyes.
Mary Kate smiled gently. “We didn’t know. We never guessed what our mothers were. I learned from Father Furness, the night Jimmy Legere sent men to kill me for interfering with his plans for Max. Michael told me what I was and their plans for me and Charlotte. He told me to run, but I chose my own cowardly escape.”
Cee Cee’s breath hitched. Had that been behind her friend’s attempt to end her life? “He was using us while pretending to be our friend.”
“He was our friend, Lottie, and in his way, saved us. He told those in the North even if I recovered, I’d be too damaged to be of use to them. But then Dr. LaRoche’s treatment healed me, strengthened me, showed me what I really was. And what I’d narrowly escaped.”
“The Vantours, Mobster brothers who’d run the docks,” Mary Kate continued, “went from trafficking sex slaves to dealing in genetic breeding before they even had a name for it. That’s why Legere wanted Max enough to have his mother killed. He knew how valuable that little boy would become. The crossroads of two pure lines. Two of three in New Orleans at the time. My mother was the other.”
Cee Cee stared at her, the quick turns of her mind patching pieces together. “It wasn’t an accident. They killed your parents.”
Blue eyes swam with pain. “My mother wanted to protect me, so she bargained with them for my freedom and hers. She offered to participate in an experimental in-vitro fertilization with—”