Constance (Constance #1)(91)

“Chamomile. How apropos.”

Cabigail prepared the other two mugs and slid one in the direction of Con. Con left it untouched; even if she liked tea, she didn’t trust Cabigail enough to drink anything she made. Pockmark and his team hadn’t died of natural causes.

“She doesn’t drink tea yet,” Abigail reminded her.

“True, that’s true,” Cabigail said, then asked Con if she would like something different.

“I’m fine,” Con said. “What is happening here?”

Abigail took a tentative sip. “Do you remember the last time we saw each other?”

“My father’s funeral.”

“How is the tea?” Cabigail asked.

“Perfect,” Abigail replied, then to Con: “That’s right. Your father’s funeral. September 7, 2022. Antoine D’Arcy was the most stoic human being I’ve ever met. The weight he bore. I honestly couldn’t say which was the more unforgiving taskmaster—the US Army or your mother. I don’t know anyone who could have taken it for as long as he did. And he never said a word. Never complained. Did his tours and carried the weight. In many ways, he was her anchor. The one thing keeping her from indulging her demons. I was heartbroken when he was killed in that absurd war.”

“Is that why you made a scene?”

“I made a scene?” Cabigail said, glancing at Abigail, who rolled her eyes. “Is that how the family tells it? Be honest, in your lifetime did anyone ever start a scene with your mother?”

Con had to admit she had a solid point. One of the risks of being anywhere in public with her mother was the high chance of drama. Con couldn’t remember a single time that her mother wasn’t feuding with someone in the family or at her church. Even as a little girl, she understood on some level that her mother was always the instigator. It was certainly that way between the two of them. She remembered once, without a trace of irony, her mother demanding to know why God cursed her with such a combative child.

“So, what set her off?” Con asked.

“I told her that I was sorry that I wasn’t in time,” Abigail said and sipped her tea. Each time she did, Cabigail nodded approvingly.

“In time for what?” Con asked.

“To save your father. Vernon and I founded Palingenesis in the spring of ’19. We made huge strides in the intervening three years. The dream of human cloning was within reach. I could see the way forward. All I needed was time and funding, both of which I knew Vernon would get me. He is a genius with such things.” Abigail paused to reflect and take a big drink from her mug. “I think I always had Antoine in the back of my mind. That I’d be able to give soldiers like him a second chance. But I was too late.”

“That’s what the big fight was about?”

“It was foolish of me. I was aware Mary had become more seriously involved with her church. I knew she disapproved of my work. But I hadn’t really been home in years, and it wasn’t until that moment at the funeral that I realized that I had become the enemy. So, I left and never came back. We have that much in common at least,” Abigail said, clearly hoping to find common ground. When Con only stared her down, she kept on with her story. “But five years later, when Palingenesis won its first contract with the DoD to provide clone backups for key military personnel, I thought of your father. It was the proudest moment of my career. Just goes to show you what a na?ve fool I was.”

“Na?ve how?”

“Scientists are trained to find answers. Locked in a laboratory, the real world has a way of becoming an abstraction. All that matters is solving the puzzle. Real-world applications are someone else’s problem, but I had this fantasy that my work would be used to help give working-class people in high-risk professions a second chance. People like your father. I never stopped to think of the billionaires who would line up, eager to buy themselves more time. But Vernon did. He always knew that our work with the military was only to gain a toehold. His leaking the news to the Times and the Post? A stroke of genius.”

“That was him?” Con said with a surprise that was already fading as the words came out of her mouth.

Cabigail cut in. “Who else? Once the story was out in the open, the demand created itself. Oh, I objected, but I was easily dealt with—in all things political, I was an infant. Just another idealistic scientist with her head in the clouds. Let’s just say, I am a very quick study.”

Again, Con saw the scope and sophistication of her aunts’ plan. “It was you who maneuvered his clone off the Palingenesis board, not Brooke Fenton.”

“Well, she did the maneuvering. I simply whispered in her ear that having a clone enmeshed in a legal challenge to his fortune with his heirs was bad for business.”

“After you murdered his original.”

“A person with a clone—” Cabigail said tiredly.

“Cannot be killed,” Con finished. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first dozen times.”

Abigail finished her tea and set the mug down clumsily. It toppled on its side and a little tea dribbled onto the table. Her eyes went wide as if trying to bring them into focus.

“I think it’s starting,” Abigail said, slurring over the last word. “I wonder if this is how Socrates felt.”

“What did you do to her?” Con asked Cabigail, pushing her own tea farther away.