Savannah thought of Justice Turnbull, a distant relative of Catherine’s. He’d focused on the women of Siren Song with an unrelenting passion to kill, and his own death some six months earlier had been a blessing for Catherine and her brood. He’d definitely suffered from mental issues; there was no denying that.
Savannah had a sudden really bad feeling about this, and as if in response, the baby inside her started furiously kicking. She laid a light hand under her right ribs and asked, “What happened to them? The males?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re not here, from what I can tell, so where are they?”
Catherine frowned, as if Savvy had asked an unseemly question. “Mary adopted out her sons, except for Nathaniel, who was sweet, but slow. He died when he was young, but he wasn’t strong.”
“How many were adopted out?”
“Several.”
“You’re kind of loose on the numbers,” Savvy pointed out.
“We just felt it was better if they were raised by others.”
“Because being male, their gift would be . . . too much to handle?”
“Mary had a lot of children, and she wasn’t capable of taking care of so many of them.”
“But the males were more difficult as a rule,” Savannah said, pressing. “That’s what you’re saying.”
Catherine wanted to deny it, but in the end she went back to genetics. “I believe that with the female, the two Xs counterbalance each other, but with the males, on that missing part of the X that makes it a Y, there is no counterbalance, and therefore whatever gift you’ve been given is stronger and can manifest itself in psychotic behavior, which it has.”
“You’re talking about Justice Turnbull,” Savvy said and felt a particular chill when she considered his extreme cruelty and fixation.
“Mary, like Justice, possessed a dark gift, but Justice’s was more intense, and he was so focused. . . .”
“Are you saying you think he was involved with your sister’s death?”
“No, not Justice. But maybe a man . . .”
“A man with your family’s ‘gift?’ ” Savvy questioned.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m skittish and overly careful, but Mary couldn’t leave men alone. Wait here. . . .”
Savannah hazarded a glance at her watch as Catherine left the room. Catherine was skittish and overly careful, but she clearly had something specific on her mind.
She heard the older woman’s tread on the stairs, and as her footsteps faded away, she heard the sound of quick approaching feet, and soon another young woman entered the room, one she hadn’t met before. She stood at the edge of the kitchen, her shoulder-length hair ashy blond, her eyes a faded blue, her pupils and irises seemingly disproportionately large compared to the whites of her eyes. She was barefoot, and her dress was a blue and yellow calico print that swept her ankles.
“Hello,” Savannah said.
“Hello,” she answered, her eyes drifting to Savannah’s protruding stomach. “I’m Maggie.”
“I’m Detective Dunbar. Savannah,” she said.
“You’re having someone else’s child?”
Savannah stared at her. Did she mean what it sounded like she meant? “I’m a surrogate for my sister,” she admitted. “How did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess. I knew. That’s why they call me
Cassandra, even though my real name is Margaret.”
Like Cassandra, the seer of mythology, Savvy thought.
“Aunt Catherine says my mother thought it was more appropriate. Because of the myth, you know.”