“I know,” she said over and over, as if trying to convince herself.
Ferrol’s mood darkened. “The only unanticipated problem is that the idiots Ferruccio got to do the job ignored their instructions. I wanted children from a poor family without the means to keep the case in the public eye. We got the opposite. A billionaire, God help us! I want to do something. As a precaution.”
“Do what?”
“I want you to write this Mikkel Andreason a letter. I want you to say that you’re a psychic who’s had a vision. You’ll say that in your vision, the girls were on a spaceship, abducted by aliens with gray skin, et cetera. You’ll offer to help.”
She had a nervous habit of twirling her long hair around a finger, and she was doing it now. Twirl, release, twirl, release. “Why would we do that?”
“Because if we decide to abort our mission prematurely, for whatever reason, or when the mission is completed, I want to make sure that as many signposts as possible point to alien abduction to reinforce the story the girls will tell.”
“A crazy letter from a psychic will do that?”
“One more brick in the wall. That’s all. Listen, you want us to have options, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The more we can rely on the alien story to deflect the police away from Spain, the less likely we would even contemplate the unthinkable.”
She stood and pointed an accusatory finger. “You wouldn’t dare hurt them, Ferrol.”
“Of course not. I just believe in options. I’ll compose a letter to send to Mikkel Andreason at his offices in America. They’ll get so many letters from sick and deranged people, they’ll take no action. They’ll file it away. I want you to write out the letter on stationery and sign it.”
“But not with my real name!”
“No, no, it will have to be your real name. In the most extreme of all the scenarios, it might be necessary for you to make yourself known, to actively make sure an investigation is steered toward gray men from outer space. You would have to use your real name. These things are too easy to check.”
“I’ll never show myself like that,” she said. “I won’t do it.”
He got up and drew her close. “Don’t worry. The odds of having to show yourself are a million to one. Those are good odds, no?”
*
A year passed, and then another.
They all had their own rhythms.
Victoria and Elizabeth talked and played games and read books and wrote stories and watched videos, some of them educational to keep their minds active and learning. When they tired of their old videos and games, Gray Woman produced newer ones beamed, she said, from Planet Earth. When Ferrol and Celeste worried they weren’t getting enough exercise, mini trampolines appeared and indoor badminton and football sets. For the most part, they remained healthy. Their only significant illness occurred during their first weeks of captivity, following chemotherapy to wipe out their bone marrows for the stem-cell transplantations. For a fortnight, they had nausea and diarrhea, fever and chills, and Celeste’s competence as a nurse got them through.
Gressani ran laboratory tests, checking on the function of the new line of stem cells, transplanted into the girls and measured the length of their telomeres. He kept meticulous records in case, miracle of miracles, Ferrol ever published a journal paper on a research project that broke a thousand laws. But Ferrol wanted everything documented for posterity. As Gray Man, Gressani split care and feeding duties with Celeste and divvied up night call, which consisted of keeping a video monitor at their bedsides in case of a night-time emergency in the white room. He played games with the girls and watched enough videos with them. To make himself comfortable, he ordered a beanbag chair and dragged it into their room.
“Look at Gray Man!” Victoria said, the first time they saw him with the chair. “He’s going to sleep!”
On his off-hours, he also watched a lot of football on TV and a lot of porn on his tablet and obsessively admired his growing bank balance. To better communicate with the girls, he improved his English. And every Sunday he called his mother in Italy, inquiring if she liked the latest gifts he’d sent.
Celeste had many of the same duties, although she was the one who closely monitored the girls’ health and recorded their weight, height and vital signs. While she and Gressani both bonded with them, he was more of a pal; she was more of a mother. If she had to pick a favorite, it was Elizabeth, who was smart and feisty and rarely seemed gloomy or depressed. Victoria was more petulant and defiant and she was the one who cried longest for her mother, but by their first anniversary, neither talked about their past lives.
When Ferrol was away in Madrid at the La Paz Hospital, as he was most weekdays, Celeste ruled the roost. The domestic and estate staff—with the exception of Gunar—looked to her for routine decisions. If she ever heard the cook or one of the maids whispering to one another about the trays of food that Celeste or Gressani took to the basement, she asked if they wanted to be reported to Ferrol. Gunar, was always patrolling the grounds and interiors of the castle, but Celeste stayed out of his way as much as possible, although sometimes, she caught him staring at her like a hungry dog. When Ferrol was back on weekends, she shared his bed and, increasingly and utterly, she fell in love with him.
Ferrol maintained his double life with skill and energy. During the week, he ran his hospital laboratory, churning out data and publications on his mainstream research and fulfilling his administrative duties as the head of the
