Origin in Death (In Death #21)(78)

"Samuels met with parents or guardians of potential students in here. Not that they took in many from the outside, just enough to add income and diversity. Keep up a strong public rep. She interviewed potential staff in one of her offices. Deena could've gone that route, but she chose this one. She wanted in here. She wanted something in here in addition to terminating Samuels. Let's find the hole."

She went to a small desk first. It was obvious, but sometimes things were obvious for a reason.

"I'm going to have to convince Hyer to let me transport the body to New York."

Roarke ran his fingers delicately over walls, around art. "Because?"

"I want Morris on it. Just Morris. I want to know if she had face and or body work. I want to run a match program on her with images or Wilson's wife, Eva Samuels."

He stopped long enough to look back at her. "You think she was a clone. Eva Samuels's clone."

"Yeah, I do." She hunkered down to search under a table. "And when I was examining the body, I learned something."

"What?"

"They bleed and die like anybody else."

"If you're right about Deena, they kill, like their naturally conceived counterparts. Ah, there we are."

"Found it?"

"Seems I have." He drew out the wall screen as she rose and crossed to him. "Now this is a beauty," he murmured, dancing his fingers over the face of the wall vault. "Titanium core with a duraplast shell. Triple combination including voice code. Incorrect sequence will automatically reset it to an alternate combination and code, while triggering silent alarms in all or any of five selected locations."

"And you know that by looking at it."

"As I'd recognize a Renoir, darling Eve. Art is art, after all. I'll need some time with it."

"Take it, tag me when you're in. I need to check in with the rest o: the team and get some statements."

She contacted Mira and met her outside the theater. "What's your take?"

"They're children, Eve. Young girls. Frightened, confused, excited."

"Dr. Mira-"

"They're children," she repeated, and the strain showed in her voice "However they came to be. They need to be comforted, protected, reassured."

"What the hell do you think I'm going to do, round them up for mass extermination?"

"Some will want just that. They're not us, they're artificial. Abominations. Others will want to examine them, study them, as they would a mouse in a lab."

"What do you think he did? I'm sorry it hurts you, but what do you think he did with them, all these years, but examine and study them, test and train them,"

"I think he loved them."

"Oh, f**k that." Eve spun around, strode a few paces away in an attempt to cool her blood.

"Was he right, was he moral?" Mira lifted her hands, as if to reach out. "No, not on any level. But I can't believe they were nothing but experiments to him. Means to an end. They're beautiful girls. Bright, healthy. They-"

"He made damn sure of that." Eve whirled back. "Damn sure they met and maintained his specifications. Where are the ones who didn't? And these?" She swung her arm toward the theater doors. "What are their choices. None. His choices, his vision, his standards, every one. What makes him different, at the core, than a man like my father? Breeding me, locking me up like a rat in a cage, training me. Icove had more brains, and we'll assume his training methods didn't include beatings, starvation, rape. But he created, imprisoned, and sold his creations."

"Eve-"

"No! You listen to me. Deena might have been a reasoned adult when she killed him. She may not have been in fear for her life. But I know what she felt. I know why she drove that knife into his heart. Until he was dead, she was still in the cage. It won't stop me from tracking her down, from doing my job to the best of my capabilities. But she didn't kill an innocent. She didn't assassinate a saint. If you're not capable of putting aside your image of him as one, I can't use you."

"How objective are you, when you see him as a monster?"

"The evidence portrays him as a monster," Eve snapped back. "But I'll use that evidence in my attempts to identify, apprehend, and incarcerate his killer or killers. Right now I've got nearly eighty minor females in there-and this doesn't speak to the nearly two hundred at the college-who may or may not have legitimate legal guardianship. They have to be accessed and interviewed, and yes, f**king A, they have to be protected. Because none of this is their fault. It's his. While I'm dealing with them, I want you to go back, wait in the transpo until such time as I can arrange to have you taken back to New York."

"Don't you speak to me that way. And don't treat me like one of the screwups you enjoy slapping back."

"I'll speak to you any way I damn well please, and you will obey my orders. I'm primary on the homicide investigations of both Wilfred B Icoves. You're here under my authority. And you are screwing up. You either go back to the transpo on your own, or I'll have you escorted.

She may have looked tired, but Mira went toe-to-toe. "You can't interview those children without me. I'm a licensed counselor. You can't interview minors without the presence of a licensed counselor without the express permission of said minor's parents or legal guardians."