Origin in Death (In Death #21)(74)

The copter was big, black, sleek as a panther. It stirred the air-and Eve smelled rain in it-then set down on the pad. It didn't surprise her to see Roarke at the controls. It barely irritated.

He flashed a smile as she climbed aboard. "Hello, Lieutenant."

"What a ride!" Louise was already unstrapping from the copilot's seat to move rear. "I'm inappropriately excited about this whole business."

"Then sit with McNab," Eve ordered. "And the two of you can giggle all the way. Just why are you and Louise included in this?"

"Because it's my copter-and," he added, "we can give you a rundown on our trip to the center on the way."

"Something definitely off there," Louise called up as Feeney and McNab stowed equipment.

"Mmm, plush." Reo rubbed a hand over the arms of her chair, the.-. shrugged at Eve's narrowed look. "If she can be inappropriate, so can I. Cher Reo, APA," she said and offered Louise her hand.

"Louise Dimatto, M.D."

"Eve Dallas, AK. Ass-kicker. Strap in," Eve ordered. "Let's move.

"Ladies, gentlemen, the air's a bit rough so you'll want to keep your seats until it smooths out." Roarke tapped controls, waited for his screen to show him air clearance. Then he boosted the copter into a straight vertical that had Eve's stomach rolling over and pitching toward Ninth Avenue.

"Shit, shit, shit." She muttered it under her breath, then sucked in air and braced. The copter punched forward, slapping her back. The first drops of rain splattered the windshield, and she prayed, sincerely, that she wouldn't boot her morning bagel.

She heard McNab's delighted "Yee-haw!" as they streaked, shook, and scooped through the sky. She imagined choking the life out of him to take her mind off what she was doing.

"Peabody, before we get official, let me say your hair is charming."

"Oh." She colored a little as she lifted a hand to the new, flippy ends. "Really?"

"Absolutely." Roarke heard Eve's low growl beside him. "Avril Icove, as acting CEO, met us in her father-in-law's office."

"What?" Eve's eyes-she didn't remember squeezing them shut- popped open. "What?"

He'd known that would distract her from her fear and queasiness. "She's acting CEO, until the board designates a successor, and arranged to meet with us privately. She claims not to be a businesswoman, nor to have any desire to become one. I believed her. She also asked that if I had any plans to buy up a controlling interest in Unilab or the Center, that I give the facility a window of time to recover from the loss of its two main spearheads."

"She seemed sincere." Louise leaned forward against her safety straps. "The controlled grief seemed equally sincere. She also, diplomatically, spoke of believing the Center would benefit from someone with Roarke's skills and vision."

"You figured she'd be willing to see you take over?"

"I do." Roarke adjusted for the turbulence. "She has no medical or business training. But I doubt her board would be as amenable, which is why she met us privately. Develop a relationship, a foundation, with the general before the coup."

"But she needs time so she can get what she needs out of it, or cover it up, or break it down. What the hell does she want?"

"That I can't tell you, but the COO, a Brookhollow alumni, was very careful about the areas we toured."

"If you're taking it at face value, the privacy obsession might not make you blink," Louise explained. "But if you're looking for undercurrents, it leads to all manner of questions."

"Particularly the hidden cameras in exam and procedure areas."

Eve measured Roarke. "If they were hidden, how do you know they're there?"

He gave her a look caught between smug and pitying. "Because, Lieutenant, I happened to have a sensor with me."

"How'd you get it through security?

"Perhaps because this particular canny device looks like, and reads like, a simple memo book. In any case, every area we toured had them, and they were active during our visit. You're going to find, at the center, a substantial subsecurity and data sector."

"Then there was the lab," Louise put in. "Architecturally interesting, elaborate, superbly equipped. And remarkably inefficient."

"How?"

Louise explained the setup while rain slapped the windscreen. "You might have different security levels," she continued. "You might have separate floors or tiers for specific areas of research and testing. You would certainly, on sensitive work, require high clearance. But this setup had no logical flow."

"Separate clearance required for every ray," Eve repeated.

"Exactly. And a separate chief, each completely isolated from the other lines."

"Standard security cams in view," Roarke added. "An equal number hidden for area scans. And, most interesting, every station fed data into its hub. Not results, but every step, every byte of data."

Eve thought of the police lab. The chief tech could access any sector, review and/or study any test in progress. But the place was like a hive, a maze of rooms, glass walls. While some sectors required high clearance, most areas connected with the busy bees buzzing not only in their own chambers but in others as well.