Conspiracy in Death (In Death #8)(11)

"Good choice. It's the best in the city, and likely the best on the East Coast." Considering, Roarke leaned back against his desk. "They took his heart?"

"That's right. He was a brewhead, an addict. His body was worn down. Morris says the heart was no good anyway. The guy Would've been dead in six months." She stopped pacing and faced him, tucking her thumbs in his front pockets. "What do you know about organ trading on the black market?"

"It wasn't something I dabbled in, even in my more... flexible days," he added with a faint smile. "But the advances in man-made organs, the supply still available from accidental deaths, the strides in health care and organ building all have cut the market for street organs down to nothing. That area peaked about thirty years ago."

"How much for a heart off the street?" she demanded.

"I really don't know." His brow winged up, and a smile ghosted around that sexy poet's mouth. "Do you want me to find out?"

"I can find out myself." She began to pace again. "What do you do on that board?"

"I'm an adviser. My own R and D department has a medical arm that cooperates and assists Drake's. We have a contract with the center. We supply medical equipment, machines, computers." He smiled again. "Artificial organs. Drake's R and D deals primarily with pharmaceuticals, prostheses, chemicals. We both manufacture replacement organs."

"You make hearts?"

"Among other things. We don't deal in live tissue."

"Who's the best surgeon on staff?"

"Colin Cagney is the chief of staff. You've met him," Roarke added.

She only grunted. How could she remember all the people she'd met in some social arena since Roarke came into her life? "Wonder if he makes -- what did they call them -- home calls?"

"House calls," Roarke corrected with a hint of a smile. "I can't quite see the distinguished Dr. Cagney performing illegal surgery in a sidewalk sleeper's crib."

"Maybe I'll have a different vision once I meet him again." She let out a deep sigh and tunneled her fingers through her hair. "Sorry to interrupt your day."

"Interrupt it a bit longer," he suggested and indulged himself by crossing to her and rubbing his thumb over her full bottom lip. "Have lunch with me."

"Can't. I've got more legwork." But the light friction on her lip made it curve. "So, what were you buying?"

"Australia," he said then laughed when she gaped at him. "Just a small piece of it." Delighted with her reaction, he yanked her close for a quick, hard kiss."Christ, I adore you, Eve."

"Yeah, well. Good." It continually left her hot and loose to hear it. To know it. "I gotta go."

"Would you like me to see what I can find out about organ research at Drake?"

"That's my job, and I know how to do it. It'd be really nice if you didn't get mixed up in this one. Just... go buy the rest of Australia or something. I'll see you at home."

"Lieutenant?" He turned to his desk, opened a drawer. Knowing how she worked, he tossed her an energy bar. "Your lunch, I imagine."

It made her grin as she tucked it in her pocket. "Thanks."

When she closed the door behind her, he glanced at his wrist unit. Twenty minutes before his next meeting, Roarke calculated. Time enough.

He took a seat at his computer, smiled a little as he thought of his wife, then called up data on the Drake Center.

CHAPTER THREE

Eve discovered it was just as well she hadn't gone after Mira first. The doctor was out. She shot off a quick E-mail requesting a case consult the following day, then headed down to Drake.

It was one of those block-stretching buildings she'd seen hundreds of times and never paid attention to. Before Roarke, that is. Since then, he had dragged, strong-armed, or carried her into their emergency treatment centers a number of times. When, she thought now, she'd have been perfectly fine with a first aid kit and a nap.

She hated hospitals. The fact that she was going into this one as a cop and not a patient didn't seem to make a difference.

The original building was an old and distinguished brownstone that had been lovingly, and she imagined expensively, preserved. Structures sheer and white speared up from it, out from it, joined together by the shimmering tubes of breezeways, the circling ring of glides that glinted silver.

There were juts of white that formed what she supposed might be restaurants, gift shops, or other areas where staff or visitors or patients might be allowed to gather and enjoy the view. And delude themselves that they weren't in a structure full of the sick and suffering.

Because her vehicle's computer was more reliable than her office unit, she was able to access some general data. The Drake Center was more of a city within a city than a health center. It contained training facilities, teaching facilities, labs, trauma units, surgeries, patient rooms and suites, a variety of staff lounges, and visitor waiting areas as one would expect from a medical center.

But in addition, it held a dozen restaurants -- two of which were rated five star -- fifteen chapels, an elegant little hotel for the family and friends of patients who wished to remain close by, a small, exclusive shopping arcade, three theaters, and five full-service salons.