Page 60 of The Gathering Storm

Chapter Fifteen

Early Monday morning, Sigrid walked across campus for her appointment with Rebecca Upton. Her team hadn’t yet located the box containing the remains stored erroneously in the one that should’ve contained Jaran’s skeleton, but they were making steady progress testing the many skeletal remains that had been stored at the IECS museum. The discovery of the correct box could occur at any moment, thus hopefully shedding light on the brittle bones of a possible Sister, possible being the operative word.

Sigrid jogged up the marble stairs fronting the main IECS office building and pulled the door open. In spite of her instinct’s insistence and the test results she’d personally pored over for hours, too much uncertainty remained. Everything hinged on careful retesting and examining the label of the storage box the bones had originally been housed in. Patience, she cautioned herself, but her patience, usually in such abundant supply, was running perilously thin.

She was going to lose Will.

Sigrid swallowed the bleak thought as soon as it arose, just as she’d done the dozens of other times it had popped into her mind since his mother walked out of their meeting on Saturday afternoon. Oh, Wilhelmina had been polite enough during the remainder of her and her husband’s visit, gracious even, but her smug triumph had cast a pall over the gathering.

It should’ve been a happy time, one of celebration and triumph of a different sort all together, that of two families intermingling through the union of two of its most respected members.

Sigrid shook disappointment away and marched into the director’s outer office with her head held high and her confidence firmly in place. There were more important events to consider now, ones with much larger ramifications on the People’s future than the trifling prospect of a lone Daughter losing a man’s affections.

Director Upton’s receptionist buzzed Sigrid through, and Sigrid walked in and shut the door behind herself.

Rebecca was sitting ramrod straight behind her desk, not a hair out of place. She glanced up as Sigrid approached and proffered a tired smile. “I hope you have good news.”

“I wish I could say I did.” Sigrid perched on the edge of a chair in front of Rebecca’s desk, set her briefcase on the chair next to her, and opened it. “I have a report on our latest findings for you.”

Rebecca waved a hand at her. “Summarize, please. I’m not sure I can decipher all the science behind your work this early on a Monday morning.”

Sigrid tugged out a copy of the report and passed it across Rebecca’s desk. “We’ve been running a variety of tests on the known Bones of the Just and using those as a measuring stick for tests on other remains.”

“And?”

“We may have found the remains of two other Sisters.” Sigrid held up her hands, nipping Rebecca’s enthusiasm in the bud. “The tests we’re using are problematic. It’s not just about DNA. We know all the remains are of direct descendants of the Sisters, if not the Sisters themselves, thanks to the miracle of mitochondrial DNA.”

Rebecca sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers together under her chin. “I thought testing mitochondrial DNA was a relatively simple and reliable procedure.”

“It is. That’s not the problem we’re running into.” Briefly, Sigrid explained their shift to using ethnicity estimates and the problems inherent to the methodology. “George introduced the idea and discovered, as we would’ve expected, that the Sisters ethnicity was nearly one hundred percent Near Eastern, though there were slight variations as to the exact percentage from Sister to Sister.”

“And the two sets of remains you believe may also be Sisters?”

“The ethnicity is a match, and the mitochondrial DNA does support their being of the People, but as to certainty?” Sigrid rolled her shoulders under the ivory suit jacket she wore. “Perhaps with other documentation, we could be more certain, but the science isn’t there yet.”

Rebecca dropped her hands and her gaze drifted away. “If it’s a matter of more staff or equipment…”

“I wish it were that simple. We’re continuing our work, sifting through results as soon as they’re available, and George discovers a new angle almost every day, but this is what we have to work with for the moment.” Sigrid threaded her fingers together and rested them in her lap. “How’s Robert?”

Rebecca’s gaze snapped back to Sigrid’s. “Fine,” she said evenly.

“Will told me he was ill.” Sigrid held up a hand, forestalling Rebecca’s next comment. “He only told me that, nothing more, and I didn’t press.”

“I’ve never known you to back down when you wanted to know something.”

Unaccountably, heat rose in Sigrid’s cheeks. She coughed lightly into her fist, clearing her throat. “It seemed like a sensitive matter.”

“Sensitive?” Rebecca huffed out a short laugh. “Moira told me you were dating Will, but I didn’t realize matters were so serious. Does Wilhelmina know?”

Sigrid barely stifled a flinch. “Yes.”

“That must not have gone well.”

It hadn’t, but nothing could be done about it now. “We’ll deal with it in due time.”

“We,” Rebecca murmured, then shook her head, a bemused expression gracing her delicate features.

Sigrid interrupted, half afraid of Rebecca’s next words. “One more thing. We have the results back on the blood of the Woman with No Face.”

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