Page 112 of Mirror Image

“Because if you checked your closet, you’d find a few missing. A few dozen of them, actually.”

“Really?” His attempted chuckle collapses halfway through. “And what makes you think that’s the case?”

“Because they’re sitting in an evidence locker down at the police precinct right now,” David says.

The air shifts. Julian’s hand tightens on the counter.

“You—you broke into my home . . . and stole my files?”

“Actually, Sam gave them to me,” I say.

His face reddens.

“And you took it upon yourself to read through my patients’ notes?”

“Yeah,” David says coolly. “All twenty-six volumes of them.”

“You had no right!” Julian snaps. “Those are confidential—clinical materials.”

“Please,” I say. “Spare us the righteous indignation. The evidence is all there, in your own handwriting. You split those girls up. You engineered every variable of their lives just to watch what would happen. You preyed on Doug and Terry, made them unwitting accomplices. And what about their biological parents? Did you victimize them too?”

He doesn’t even attempt to deny it.

He waves a hand.

“The mother was a teenager living on the streets. No family. No idea who the father was when she walked into the adoption agency I worked with and offered to sell them. Sell them. Her words. She saw her children as a commodity. When she died in childbirth, it was . . . ideal. Fortuitous.”

David’s voice sharpens. “And when Sam and Mary met? Fortuitous too?”

Julian exhales, almost fondly.

“I never expected them to find each other. Statistically impossible. But when the story broke—twins reunited, the world enthralled—I realized it could be . . . useful. A natural endpoint to the study.”

“Useful,” David repeats.

Julian nods eagerly.

“Exposure brings data. Patterns of attachment, shared memory formation—it was like watching my own experiment unfold in real time.”

Bile rises in my throat. I force it down. He clocks my disgust and smiles—thin, wistful, chilling.

“I did what had to be done. Everyone talks about nature versus nurture, but no one’s willing to face the cost. I don’t know what it is you think those journals prove. From where I’m standing, they’re nothing but notes for a longitudinal study.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” David says with a humorless huff. “And you should be aware how damning they are.”

Julian’s tone shifts—defensiveness morphing into pride.

The mask of benevolence hardens.

“Damning? You think this is about guilt? Identical twins, controlled environments—this is work that will be studied for generations.”

“In ethics courses, maybe,” I mutter.

His eyes flash.

“How dare you mock me. I made you, Jennifer. And look what you’ve become.”

The words land heavier than I expect.