Twin Genius

by Patricia Rice

  “Juliana came here?” I asked in confusion, not quite following his thought process.

  He nodded. “She thought it would be safe, knowing we had family in this city. She is an artist and not always practical. She loved working with the Americans on the school building projects and wanted to learn more. I think, mostly, she hoped she would meet our mother.”

  I rubbed my eyes at this combination of his twin’s sheer naiveté and pure Maximillian willfulness. “She didn’t try to find out if our family actually lived in D.C. but simply grabbed some offer to work on a project?”

  He nodded. Rummaging in his backpack, he produced a rumpled brochure and passed it over. “They are good people, and the village approved of us helping with this very Christian project. They did not know Juliana’s ulterior motives.”

  His English was better than mine, which gave his speech a foreign accent right there. He sounded vaguely British, although I knew his father’s family lived in a tribal village that had once been predominantly Zulu. I assumed private schooling had erased most of his mixed Afrikaans and tribal accents. His father had been a respected, fairly wealthy diplomat before he’d been kidnapped and killed.

  I glanced at the brochure. My eyebrows shot up and I studied it closer. Damn Graham to hell and back.

  The brochure was from Joshua Arden’s Christian America Development. My cynicism loved the acronym CAD and skipped right over Arden’s name.

  “Juliana came here to work for CAD?” I asked, still trying to puzzle out the chicken and the egg. I was still soaking up the joy of seeing the little brother I’d never been given a chance to know.

  “We graduated early, at the head of our class,” he said in halting explanation, not really looking at me. “We were offered grants to pursue the projects we began at university. Julie’s art project involved schools. She created a video that JACAD uses as a promotional tool. She wanted to inspire more people to contribute time and money to supporting education. They invited her to continue her education and join a much larger project here in DC. The grant allowed her to come, and she jumped at the chance.”

  “Thinking Max was still alive and Magda might be here?” I asked dubiously.

  He nodded. “She has always been curious about our mother. She took pictures of her that she found in our father’s effects and hid them from our family. Antie Hildegard did not approve of Mrs. Hostetter and is wary of all foreigners, so Julie had to plan this trip in secret. Even I did not know until she had her plane tickets in hand, or I would have researched more.”

  Mrs. Hostetter—how very proper for our very improper mother. None of us called her Mother. In time, Zander would learn the family pejoratives for the Hungarian Princess. His use of the affectionate antie spoke of a warmer upbringing than the rest of us had had—a more protected one.

  “How long ago did Juliana leave? Did you hear from her after she arrived in DC?” I’m a virtual assistant by trade, a very good one—hence Graham’s arrogance crack. It’s impossible for me to turn off my brain’s focus on details.

  “She left in early September. When Antie Hildegard found out, she went bosbefok and called all father’s friends, demanding that Julie be sent back, but of course, they could do nothing.” Zander shifted uncomfortably in the lumpy chair.

  I could just imagine his aunt going berserk. I’d rather not. She was one crazy lady.

  “At first, I received excited text messages,” he continued. “She loved where she was staying. She loved the project and was learning much in marketing classes. She was making friends. Then about the beginning of November, it was as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth. Antie Hildegard went. . . how do you say it? Ballistic?”

  Remembering the furious ebony Amazon who had snatched the twins from my arms, I could imagine that. At the time, I thought she’d snap my adolescent head off.

  “Ballistic probably covers it,” I acknowledged. “Did Juliana have money to buy a new phone if she lost the old one?”

  “She should. She was receiving a small stipend plus her family allowance and living free in what I assume is a dorm, since she has roommates. She was buying new photographic equipment. It is not like Julie to forget me.” He made an apologetic gesture. “Until this, we did everything together. Our background is so odd, that we did not fit well anywhere else.”

  “I completely understand.” And I did. My next youngest sibling, Nick, and I had been bonded by fire in our childhoods. It is not easy being the only white English speakers for hundreds of miles. The twins were mixed-race, so their experience wasn’t identical, but close enough to appreciate. “So when she quit texting, you did what?”

  “Panicked, essentially,” he said with a grimace, running his hand over his head. “I called everyone we knew, implored the American embassy to look for her, sent emails to all her friends, left messages all over social media—nothing. The embassy couldn’t be bothered, and no one else had heard anything. We enjoy geo-caching, so I sent messages to others in DC to put their phone numbers in caches and send out the coordinates to sites she might frequent. No result.”

  “So you decided to come here and look for her yourself?”

  He nodded again. “But I came prepared. I made Hilda give me the emergency number to reach our mother. It goes to voice mail, but she called me back instantly.” His voice cracked as he said this last. “When our father lived, he said he’d sent information about us to Mrs. Hostetter via some network that his enemies could not track, but I had never spoken with her until this. She couldn’t talk long, but she gave us your address and said our grandfather had died this past year.”

  “We call her Magda,” I said, worrying at my braid. There was only one good reason I could imagine for her not to talk to her long lost son all these years. “She’s trying to protect you, just as your aunt was. Magda has some dangerous enemies.”

  Alexander nodded wearily. “So did my father, so I understand. He arranged for us to be raised with extended family in a village with better security then he could provide in the city. Still, it was good to finally speak with her.”

  “I think your parents were very happy together in those few brief years,” I said as consolingly as I could. “They simply didn’t lead lives suitable for children.”

  “As my father’s assassination proved,” he said with a sigh. “Mrs. . . Magda told me that you were here in DC and would help me. It is strange, but you are my earliest memory. When Antie Hildegard and the rest of my father’s family took us away from you, I remember being very afraid. They were enormous and dressed in tribal attire, most certainly to frighten you because they normally don’t wear such things except for ceremonial occasions. Instead of being terrified, you grabbed both of us in your arms and held on and refused to give us up. They had us surrounded. There was no one to help but an old cook. But when anyone approached, you shrilled blood-curdling screams that I swear had lions roaring in the nearest jungle.”

  I’d blocked much of that day, but his words returned the terrifying moment, and I fought tears. None of Magda’s training had taught me how to hide from a tribe of armed natives.

  “I had my hands full and couldn’t fight,” I said with regret. “You weren’t big enough to run back to the house.”

  “You fought,” he said firmly. “You fought like a lioness. My uncle still proudly bears the scar on his shin. And my aunt wears the mark of your teeth like a badge of honor. When I told her that you were here, she agreed I might come.”

  I rubbed at my watery eye as if an eyelash bothered it. “I suppose it was best for you to be raised by adults, but I didn’t know that then. Losing you. . . almost broke my heart.”

  Alexander shot me a look of understanding. “We have often spoken of you, but our father would not say where you were. I think, once our antie talked him into letting her keep us, that was when our mother left him.”

  He was undoubtedly right. Magda had been in a fury when she’d returned and found the twins gone, as I recalled. “I hope you ha
d a good life,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. It was hard to grasp that those impressive warriors had admired my puny efforts to save the toddlers.

  “We did. We were raised by the whole village, given the best education my father could provide. When he was killed. . . we were sad, of course, but we saw him so seldom, that life went on as always. Until now.”

  Mallard carried in a tray of sandwiches and hot tea—his nonalcoholic beverage of choice—and left.

  Alexander scarfed down almost the entire platter while I nibbled on a Christmas cookie. Exhaustion lined his face. The trip from South Africa combined with his worry was taking its toll.

  “I need you to compile as much information as you have on Juliana—her phone number, birth date, schools, anyone she might know here,” I told him as he ate. “If she has a bank account, I need the name of the bank. Any little detail could help.”

  He gulped his hot tea and reached for his backpack again. “I have done all that. Before I left, I went through all her computer files. I emailed everyone in her address book. I made copies.” He produced a thumb drive and handed it over. “I am a financial analyst, not a computer person. Mrs. . . Magda said you might be able to do more.”

  It made me very uneasy that Magda hadn’t jumped right on this herself—or jumped right on a plane. I probably ought to expect her at any minute. Consumed by her obsessions, she wasn’t maternal, but she looked after her chicks to the best of her abilities.

  I took the thumb drive. “I’ll go over this while you get some rest. I’ll show you to a bedroom. Most of them have already been claimed by other family members. You’ll meet some of them later. It’s best to be rested when you do.”

  “I am very grateful that you are willing to take in a stranger, especially without warning.” He heaved his backpack over one slender shoulder.

  “You are not a stranger, you’re family. This house was meant for all of us,” I assured him. “Once I have the title back, it will belong as much to you as to me.”

  I defiantly aimed this last at the foyer chandelier. Graham had bugs in almost every light fixture.

  I wouldn’t give up without a fight, and he’d have more than teeth marks in his hide if he didn’t give in.

  Chapter 3

  Upstairs, I gave Zander the Lincoln bedroom. He studied the immense antique sleigh bed and mahogany mantel, while I lifted the oil painting of Lincoln and plastered duct tape over the camera lens beneath it.

  “Respect privacy,” I told the floor lamp as I reached beneath the shade and ripped out the bug.

  Alexander blinked in surprise when I handed it to him. “We do not need the security device?”

  Security device! I almost heard Graham howl in laughter. Except Graham never howled at anything.

  “If you feel safer having the spy in the attic listen to your every move, then reinstall it. But this is America. We don’t spy on our own citizens.” Which was a lie these days, but I didn’t want to argue details when he looked on the brink of exhaustion.

  That he accepted bugs as a security device said a great deal of the climate of violence he’d grown up in.

  “Thank you,” was all Zander said as he took the battery out of the bug.

  He was a foot taller than me, so I resisted the urge to give him an encouraging hug. I couldn’t give him comforting words either, because all my experience said Juliana was dead or in dire trouble if she had quit communicating. I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep.

  I left him unpacking, and gut roiling, hurried to my basement hideaway. EG would be home from school shortly. After a few harrowing episodes, we’d agreed to let Graham’s limo service take her to and from school. I feared we were losing our independence and survival instincts by living in luxury. It was a dilemma my mother would appreciate—security or independence? Paranoia versus freedom? It’s a choice we all make.

  Magda had run away from this comfortable life when I was just a toddler, after my father died in a bomb attack, along with Graham’s father and a few other rebellious young men. As a result, I’d grown up surviving on wits, bravado, and any martial arts I could learn on the run. I’d seen the results of bullets too many time to appreciate guns, so I declined their use. I’d rather die than do that to another human being.

  I wanted EG to grow up in a world of peace where she didn’t have to make that choice.

  Telling myself I could still teach her survival, I plugged the thumb drive into the Cobalt Whiz, the state-of-the-art computer Graham had provided, and went to work.

  Graham was far more than a security consultant. He’d once been an aide to the President of the United States, and he still maintained high level security contacts. I wasn’t entirely certain they all knew who he was since he’d dropped off the grid after 9/11, but I made use of every resource at hand without questioning.

  As I worked, Graham dropped files about JACAD into my computer. That pretty much meant that CAD was already on his hit list of suspicious organizations. We both had a vendetta going for Top Hat, a secretive cabal of tycoons that I blamed for killing Max. They were politically-connected, wealthy men with a right-wing agenda. I didn’t like the idea that he suspected Juliana’s employer to be involved with treacherous men who controlled financial institutions, oil companies, and the media.

  But it was best to know what I was up against if Juliana might have disappeared on JACAD’s watch. I skimmed through the files on the development’s philanthropic goals—building schools wasn’t their only project. Funded by gun lobbies, Christian groups, and a few purely political PACs, CAD had acquired some very pricey land across the river in Virginia.

  I almost poked my eyes out when I saw the architectural renderings of the planned project. Not low rent housing for the needy, no sirree. They were building a Christian amusement park. If I was making any sense out of these images, the park came complete with the disciples riding around on dinosaurs, and Jesus emerging from an Aladdin’s cave paved in gold. I closed the document and wished I could purge my brain and unsee that.

  My parents were Catholic—in all senses of the word. I’d attended synagogues and mosques and soaring cathedrals and fully respected those who believed in their faith.

  I did not, however, appreciate brainwashing. I’d seen the attempts to remove science and historical accuracy from EG’s textbooks in favor of Biblical beliefs. I knew the Top Hat cabal was behind a narrow-minded conspiracy to suppress free-thinking. Their clique hadn’t—yet—reached the demonic efforts of the Chinese to control opinion by snuffing those who questioned authority, but once Senator Rose, their candidate for presidency, was in office, I could see that as a very real possibility.

  I couldn’t grasp the unquestioning absurdity behind those dinosaurs. All they needed was a world-is-flat exhibit with the United States drawn as the only country on the planet. That really would make the rest of the world aliens, wouldn’t it? I tried to laugh, but I was too worried about my sister.

  As I drilled down through CAD’s donors, my mouth grew dry. Every dangerous Top Hat fat cat I knew had contributed exceedingly large sums for the development of Joshua’s berserk Jesus World.

  What the. . . dickens. . . had Juliana got herself into? These men were not philanthropists, although I suppose they might donate if they thought Joshua would shape the world in their white male image. But even in my cynicism, I couldn’t believe they swayed that way.

  I pulled myself away from my awful fascination with the cabal’s scurvy machinations and returned to searching for Juliana’s phone numbers, bank accounts, and credit cards.

  Alexander was undoubtedly too proper to hack his sister’s accounts. I wasn’t. She hadn’t even set up on-line access. I thoughtfully did it for her, copying passwords she’d stored from other applications.

  Her salary and allowance were still being deposited into her bank account. That was a relief of sorts. Surely CAD wouldn’t keep paying her stipends unless she was showing up for work, right? But why would she drop out
of her family’s sight?

  She’d had a field day at a photographic equipment shop when she’d first arrived in early September. The payments on her credit card balance from that spree had been automatically transferred from her bank in the months since. The only other withdrawal was nearly the balance of her account at the beginning of November.

  Phone and cash made her the target of every mugger in DC.

  EG clattered down the stairs. Nerves on edge, I almost jumped from my chair.

  “Who’s in the Lincoln room?” she asked as she burst in. “Did Magda come for Christmas?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Did you invite her?”

  Blithely uncaring of my long-term feud with our mother, she settled into one of my wing chairs. “She said she might come. Tudor and everyone will be here. It will be the first time we’ve all been together since—”

  “Since never,” I filled in for her. “They’re still bombing people in Iraq, and she wants to come home?” This was said in heavy irony. Magda always ended up in war zones, although Iraq was presumably being decommissioned.

  “I know. Isn’t it rad?” she asked excitedly, missing my sarcasm. “But shouldn’t she have Max’s room?”

  “Probably, if she were here, which she isn’t.” Max had died in a bed on the ground floor, just above my basement office. With illness, he hadn’t been able to climb the stairs, so he’d had an old parlor renovated into a massive suite containing everything a man could want, including bolt holes to my basement office and secret stairs to the attic for Graham to use. I hated the idea of having Magda staying overhead.

  EG glared at me expectantly. She really is too smart for her own good.

  “One of the South African twins is here—Alexander,” I told her.

  “Cool! Does he play video games?”

  One good thing about living life out of a suitcase, one learned to expect surprises and make do with what one was given.

  “I have no idea, and don’t wake him up to ask. How did your English test go?”