* * *
They ignored two calls from their mother to come help with dinner while they argued in heated whispers. When they heard their father arrive fifteen minutes later, they had reached a tentative agreement as to what to say and who should say it. They crept downstairs only to find their parents in the middle of their own whispered discussion.
Their mother hissed a curse word and growled softly, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, due diligence starts next week.”
“This is beyond insane.”
“It’s a holding company that they own. It could be just coincidence.”
“Yeah, right.” Their mother slammed shut the refrigerator door and yelled, “Girls!”
“We’re here.” Jillian answered for them as they had agreed on.
Their mother’s visible anger vanished when she saw their faces. “What did you do?” she asked warily.
“We know who robbed us and why,” Jillian said.
“What?”
“After we blew up our playhouse and found out where we came from, we got curious and went through your computer and found the name of our genetic donors.”
“Their names? On our computers?”
Jillian nodded and lied. “It was on some documents listing out their racial and religious and medicals records. White. Jewish. Which of their parents were still alive. Hereditary diseases. That kind of information.”
“I—I—I didn’t think we ever got their names.”
“It was there.” Jillian insisted. “And we copied their names and started to look up information on them. We just wanted to know if we had any older brothers or sisters.”
Their mother covered her face with her hands, which meant she didn’t want them to know what she was feeling. Her eyes, though, were very sad. Was it salt in her wounds at all the failed attempts to have babies before them?
Louise ignored the plan and jumped to the point. “Our eggs were from a woman named Esme Shenske. She’s Anna Desmarais’ daughter.”
Jillian frowned at Louise going off script. It forced her to jump ahead without all their quickly plotted arguments as to why they were right without incriminating themselves more. “That’s why we were robbed. Anna Desmarais is trying to find proof that we’re her granddaughters.”
Louise braced herself for her parents’ outburst. They stood silent for a moment and then looked at each other.
“Just coincidence?” Their mother finally broke the silence.
Their father spread his hands helplessly. “It is damning.”
“What is just coincidence?” Louise asked.
Their parents exchanged a look.
“I don’t think—We don’t know—It’s just going to scare them,” their father stuttered.
Their mother shook her head. “It’s better that they hear it from us first.”
Their father sighed and nodded. “Desmarais is buying my company.”
Louise swallowed down on the fear that jumped up inside of her. They’d erased all the information tracing back to them. More importantly, everything that connected Nikola to Esme. At least, everything that was online and easily searched. If the company used offline backup storage of data, then the twins didn’t get everything. Normally no one would have realized that there was a difference between online and offline databases, so the data would be safe. But if Desmarais was buying the company, they could do a more detailed search than anyone normally could.
“Now it could be just coincidence that they’re buying my company,” their father continued. “They own lots of companies. It’s mind-boggling how many they own. Edmond Desmarais is a very, very rich man.”
“They’ve given over three hundred million dollars to charities in New York City over the years,” their mother said.
How much of that was to the Museum of Natural History? If they’d given millions of dollars to the museum, it would explain why Yves Desmarais was walking around it as if he owned the place.
Their father nodded as if this proved something. “And it doesn’t mean that they had anything to do with the robbery. We have no proof, so we can’t go around saying that they did.”
The Flying Monkey at their school was proof that the Desmarais were closing in on the twins, but Louise and Jillian had agreed not to mention him. Anything related to elves and baby dragons and magic was too dangerous to Nikola to bring to their parents attention.
“They took your toothbrushes because they wanted samples of your DNA!” Louise clung to the only proof they had to offer.
“Honey, you don’t know that.” Their father patted Louise on the head like she was still three.