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“So they just handed the girls to you even though they barely knew you?”
“Finn wasn’t unknown to the oracles or the ruse. He had helped them in Bordeaux, which is why he’s a kidnapping suspect in the first place. He was the girl’s driver, just some stranger driving an unmarked car, a show for the neighbors. I guess the neighbors got too good of a look this time, rather than a glimpse. He nearly got caught before he got the girl to the safe house. She’s happy now, though, from what the oracle tells me.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Quinn tried to tie Finn to another disappearance a few months later. That’s why we decided to leave. Chief Quinn would have arrested him for something eventually.”
“You don’t expect me to believe this, do you?” Lila asked. “If what you’re saying is true, then one of these girls somewhere would have been found out by now. All it would take is one prick from a DNA stick to reveal who they really are.”
Jake shook his head. “The oracles took care of the DNA database, or I should say, one of their faithful has been doing it. If you took a sample of the girls’ blood right now, they’d come up as Valerie and Vivian Vince, just as I claimed. I’ll need to remind the oracle to fix my sister’s data, though. That could be a problem in the future.”
“Give me their mothers’ names.”
Jake handed over his palm reluctantly, and Lila retreated into the girls’ bedroom for privacy, leaving Tristan and Dixon to watch the suspect. Or to help him finish breakfast, from the looks of things. They both believed him already, not a suspicious bone in their bodies.
Sloppy.
Lila moved past the pale pink beds, cringing at the green pastel walls, stenciled with overly happy bears and tigers. She had to admit, the men had dedicated a great deal of time and energy to build the girls a paradise. A full-length mirror stood in the corner surrounded by movie star lights. Costumes and boas spilled out of a trunk beside it. She counted at least a dozen stuffed animals piled on each girl’s bed. A dollhouse stood in the corner, made far too well to be from a factory. Lila peeked in, amazed at the dolls and tiny furniture inside.
Had one of their adopted fathers built it himself?
Lila sat down on one of the beds and scrolled through Jake’s palm, finding an entry marked taxi. A harried woman answered the palm on the first ring. She was an older copy of the little blackcoat in the living room.
“Where’s Jake?” she asked in alarm.
“I thought you were an oracle. You should have seen this coming.”
“My sister’s the oracle, not me, thank the gods. Why are you calling?”
“You know why.”
The woman licked her lips. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. I wanted to make sure that your daughter isn’t really missing, that she was only given away.”
“She’s not missing. Please, I’m begging you. My husband and I have given up a great deal to make sure she has a future.”
“A future you chose for her?”
“A future she’ll choose for herself when she’s old enough. I saw what my sister went through, what she still goes through. I’ll not put my daughter through it unless she wants it. The predictions will still come even if she decides to take a different path. The meds might stop the seizures, but they don’t stop the visions. They just make them gentler. She’s already called upon the New Bristol oracle a dozen times. She understands her duty.”
Lila raised a brow. That explained the vision paradox. If the missing girls relayed their visions to the oracles and the oracles claimed them, it stood to reason their counts would increase.
Lila flicked her thumb, ready to disconnect when the woman faltered. “Please, you’ve seen her? Does she look well? Is she—”
“They won’t let you see her?”
“We all thought it would be for the best if we don’t, at least not until she’s a little older, not until she learns her name better, not until she’s—”
“Old enough to lie well?”
“Don’t you dare judge me. You have no idea what it’s like. I’d have taken her away myself, but my face is too well known to those who follow the oracles.”
“And her father?”
“His mother is a matron. He couldn’t take her either. This was the only way.”
Lila hung up on the woman a few moments later, too tired to
