Marissa and Hanna filed into the room without a word. Alex's words were ringing in their ears.
"Sit down." Alex pointed to the settee in the sitting area of her hotel room. "I'm not going to kill you. If that were my intention, I'd have let our dear old dad do it."
"What are you doing, Alex? Is John Carmichael really dead? And you were his lover?" Marissa inquired. "We know about the poison."
"Ah, yes." Alex laughed bitterly. "I wondered when you were going to admit that you sent Hanna over here to spy on me. But it's an open book now. Ask what you want." She sat down on the bed that was opposite the settee.
"I wasn't sent by Marissa," Hanna began. "I came on my own."
"Hair sample from my hairbrush?" Alex asked.
Hanna nodded.
"In answer to your question, John really is dead." She sighed. "You may not know that Gordon poisoned the bullet that Sandy used to shoot him. He didn't die immediately. I spoke with him just yesterday before I got the call last night that he was gone."
Marissa looked surprised. "Did you know that he and I were… close at one point in my early career?"
A nearly unreadable expression of pain mixed with jealousy crossed Alex's face.
"Yes, I knew. But he told me it was brief and that it was over when we started seeing each other." He chose me.
Marissa nodded. "Just curious."
"It's due to that little interlude that you are still alive," Alex said. "If John hadn't remembered you more fondly when he realized his time on earth was short, I doubt he would have given me the instruction to protect you. He… did something good to me." Her voice softened as she remembered him. "Made me different than I was before. You don't have to believe me." The defensiveness suddenly returned to her tone. "He first became interested in me because I obviously reminded him of you, but then he fell in love with me. Alex. Not Marissa's sister." He chose me.
"How long did he know about you? That you're twins?" Hanna wanted to know more.
"I was very little when Gordon assigned a female agent to teach me the more feminine things that he didn't want to bother about. Her name was Alice and she was engaged to John. I met them both when I was maybe four years old. Gordon said that he washed to train me in Europe, so I lived with a nanny who never tried to explain his long absences when he was in the States with his real family. With you," she sighed, looking at Marissa.
"He lied to my mom, too," Marissa said. "He never mentioned a sibling. They were having trouble starting a family and one day he showed up with me. But I just learned all of this a few days ago when I called my mother about you. You should know, you suggested it."
"You fell for the locket trick," Alex said, frowning.
Marissa blushed, embarrassed to have been so naive.
"Gordon found out about your mother's gift and bought an identical one for me to use if I needed," Alex said. "He was furious with your mother for keeping the gift a secret from him. Said she was always protecting you and trying to ruin his training."
"My mother was the only adult who was kind to me when I was growing up," Marissa said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "It was love, not a lack of training. His training was just abuse."
"As if I don't know?" Alex shook her head. "I doubt he was any better to me than he was to you. I felt sorry for both you and I when I learned the truth. That's why he poisoned my coffee when I announced that I was leaving."
"What truth?" Marissa asked.
"That he wasn't in love with our biological mother and only had us to train as soldiers. Training me, according to him, was what inspired Utrax. If only he could have made me - and you - a little better, a genetic alteration here and there, he could reach perfection."
Marissa understood. "And woe to anyone who wasn't perfect in Gordon's eyes."
Alex nodded. "Now you see it. I had to get away. When I learned what he'd orchestrated… how he returned again to the same gene pool to create Hanna here," Alex bored her eyes into the girl. "I'm sure your test showed that Marissa and I are your biological aunts?"
Hanna shrugged. "It just said we were related. You and one of my parents."
A sinking feeling came over Marissa as an awful scenario played out in her mind. When the test results came back, it had just indicated that they were related. Not that she was a sister to one pf Hanna's parents. If she was Hanna's aunt, then there was a fifty percent chance that there had once been another sister in their family… Johanna Petrescu. Had Marissa killed her own sister without knowing who she even was? She dug her fingernails into her palms. It wasn't your fault. Until four days ago, you believed yourself to be the elder daughter of Gordon and Anne Evans. You had nothing to do with anyone named Petrescu. Nothing. Not your fault. She swallowed hard. The logic wasn't doing her any good. Now that she knew Hanna and loved her like a daughter, the thought that she had taken Johanna's life was bad enough. But if they were sisters?
Alex smirked at her. "You're doing the math," she said. "You'd better be decent to me because I have all the answers. My nanny turned out to be our biological mother. You want to know if you killed your own flesh and blood? Wouldn't that be just like Gordon to set it up that way? Have you kill Hanna's mother before chasing her daughter across Europe with the same intention?"
Hanna had reached her limit of patience. The stricken look on Marissa's face was too much. Her rage at the woman before them grew. "Just tell her! If not for her, tell us for my sake."
Alex nodded slowly. "Alright. Johanna Petrescu was…"