Origin in Death (In Death #21)(88)

"Peabody, go in. Give them each a bathroom break, offer them food, drink. Then pick one. Take her out and start working her. Soft sell."

When she was alone with Mira, Eve walked to the large coffeepot Roarke must have put on a table. She poured a cup.

"I'm not going to apologize for my comments and reactions of earlier today," Mira began.

"Fine. Me, neither. If that's it-"

"Sometimes you seem so hard it's difficult to believe anything gets through. I know that's not true, and still. .. If Wilfred and his son did the things they-she-claims, it's reprehensible."

"Look through the glass. See them? I think that goes a long way toward corroboration of the statements given."

"I know what I see." Her voice trembled a little, then strengthened. "That he used children-not consenting, informed adult volunteers, but innocents, minors, the injured, the dying. Whatever his motives, whatever his goals, that alone condemns him. It's difficult, Eve, to condemn someone you considered a hero."

"We've been around that lap already."

"Damn it, have some respect."

"For who? Him? Forget it. For you, okay, fine. I do, which is why you're pissing me off. You got any dregs of respect left for him, then-"

"I don't. What he did was against every code. Maybe, maybe I could forgive what he started to do, out of grief. But he didn't stop. He perpetuated it. He played God with lives, not just in the creating of them, but in the manipulation of them. Of her, and all the rest. He gave her to his son as if she were a prize."

"That's right, he did."

"His grandchildren." Mira pressed her lips together. "He would have used his own grandchildren."

"And himself."

Mira let out a long, unsteady breath. "Yes. I wondered if you'd realized that yet."

"A man has the power to create life, why bow to mortality? He's got cells preserved somewhere, with orders to activate on his death. Or he's already got a younger version of himself working somewhere."

"If so, you have to find him. Stop him."

"She's already thought of that." Eve gestured toward the glass. "She and Deena. And they've got a big jump on me. She'd like the trial."

Eve moved to the glass, studied the two women still in the meeting room. "Yeah, if the kids were away, protected, she'd f**king love to face trial, and spill all this out. She'd spend her life in prison without batting an eye to make sure what was done is in the open. She knows she'll never spend a day in a cage, but she'd do it if she had to."

"You admire her."

"I give her an A for balls. I admire balls. He put her in a mold, and imprint or no, she broke it. She broke him."

She knew what it took to kill your jailer. Your father. "You should go home. You're going to have to spend time with them tomorrow it we're going to cross all Tibble's T's. It's too late to start that tonight."

"All right." Mira started for the door, paused. "I'm entitled to some degree of upset," she said. "To my irrational outbursts earlier, to anger and hurt feelings."

"I'm entitled to expect you to be perfect, because that's how I see you. So if you go around acting flawed and human like the rest of us lower beings, it's going to throw me off."

"That's so completely unfair. And touching. Do you know there's no one in this world who can annoy me so much as you, other than Dennis and my own children?"

Eve slid her hands into her pockets. "I guess that's supposed to be touching, too, but it sounds like a slap."

A smile whispered around Mira's lips. "That's a mother's trick, and one of my favorites. Good night, Eve."

Eve stood at the glass, watched the two women. They nibbled on what looked to her like a grilled chicken salad, sipped water.

They spoke little, then only about the innocuous. The food, the weather, the house. Eve continued to study them when the door opened and Roarke stepped in.

"Does having a conversation with your clone constitute talking to yourself?"

"One of the many questions and satirical remarks that will be made if and when this becomes public knowledge." He moved to her, behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders. And found exactly the spot where the worst of the tension knotted.

"Relax a bit, Lieutenant."

"Gotta stay up. I'm giving it about ten more minutes, then we'll juggle them around again."

"I take it you and Mira have made up."

"I don't know what we did. I guess we're down to irritated rather than supremely pissed."

"Progress. Did you discuss the fact that Reo told you what you'd hoped to hear?"

She let out a sigh. "No. I guess she was irritated enough that one got by her." She glanced over her shoulder, met his eyes. "Not you, though."

"I'm not irritated with you, which is approaching a term record, I believe. You don't want them punished. Charged and tried and judged."

"No. I don't want them punished. Not my call, but it's not what I want. It's not justice to lock them up. They've been locked up all their lives. It has to stop. What's being done, what they're doing."