Into the Flame Read Online Free PDF

child?’’

    Her father had the guts to look bewildered.

    Her brothers exchanged glances, the kind she’d seen so many times before, the one that said, She must have cramps.

    The other people in the tiny living room—her brothers’ women, the strange man she had yet to meet—looked the way people did when they’d fallen into an emotional episode they would just as soon avoid.

    But her mother . . . oh, yes. Her mother sat pale, frozen, wide-eyed . . . guilty.

    Jasha spoke first, in that excessively reasonable, older-brother tone of voice that made her want to scream. ‘‘Firebird, are you thinking you were switched in the nursery? Because you were born at home. Rememberthe story? We all remember that night, and we’ve told you the story at least a dozen times.’’

    His wife, Ann, touched his arm and, when he looked at her, shook her head.

    ‘‘What?’’ His voice rose a little. ‘‘I’m just pointing out the facts.’’

    Firebird’s voice rose, too. ‘‘And I’m telling you what the doctor told me. I am not related to any of you. He made that plain enough.’’

    Everyone at Seattle ’s Swedish Hospital had told the family that Dr. Mitchell was the best in the field of genetic illnesses. She herself had seen that he was first in the field of arrogance, and last in the field of tact.

    ‘‘Why the hell are your parents having me waste my time testing you ? You’re adopted. I’m looking for a genetic mutation that is causing your father’s disease. You’re no good to us.’’ He turned away.

    ‘‘Someone screwed up, and it’s not my parents.’’ Furious with him, Firebird stood and lunged, catching his arm. ‘‘I’m not adopted.’’

    He looked down at her as if she were a worm. ‘‘Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t have time to screw with this. I don’t have time to counsel you through your shock and anger. The lab redid the blood test three different times. You’re no more related to Konstantine and Zorana Wilder and their sons than you are to me.’’ He flung the chart at her. ‘‘Look for yourself.’’

    She had. She’d gone through the chart so many times the results were burned on her eyeballs. It never changed.

    Konstantine pushed himself upright in his recliner and robustly said, ‘‘That jackass of a doctor made a mistake.’’

    ‘‘No. He didn’t. Papa, you are type A. Mama, you are type AB. That means all of your children must be blood type A, B, or AB. The hospital lab typed me as O negative.’’

    ‘‘Well, they’re wrong.’’ Rurik was the second son, a former Air Force pilot with an officer’s forceful way of expressing himself. ‘‘Jasha’s right. I remember that night, and it was raining so hard—no way anyone was switching babies around.’’

    Adrik was the youngest son. He had been gone, vanished for seventeen years doing heaven knew what. He’d come back changed from a laughing teenager into a stern-faced man. Now he knelt beside Firebird and spoke gently, convinced he was right. ‘‘I remember seeing you the next morning. I thought you were the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, all wrinkled, red, and ugly. You were certainly a new baby. The hospital has to have messed this up.’’

    ‘‘I checked my card from the Red Cross blood center. I am O negative. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in genetics to see that someone with my blood type can’t be the child of two people who are their blood type.’’

    The men exchanged glances.

    ‘‘Isn’t it possible there’s some kind of genetic mutation?’’ Ann asked.

    Firebird looked right at Zorana. ‘‘I don’t know. Mama, what do you think?’’

    ‘‘God.’’ Zorana stared back, stricken with horror. ‘‘God.’’

    Adrik got to his feet. ‘‘Mama?’’

    ‘‘Zorana?’’ Konstantine leaned forward. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

    Big tears welled in Zorana’s eyes. She pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head in violent shudders.

    The sight