In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

private residence. Toss out anything with families. The killer doesn't have a spouse and kiddies running around. I'm taking personal time," she added, "but tag me if you find anything that rings."
     
     
She clicked off, and headed toward home.
     
     
She hated taking personal time. Hated knowing she'd feel guilty and small if she didn't take it. Marriage was a big enough mass to negotiate, but it had so damn many offshoots. Who could navigate all that?
     
     
She should be heading back down to Central, doing the run she'd just dumped on Peabody herself. Letting the data circle around in her head without this outside interference.
     
     
Why did people say a busy personal life made you a well-rounded individual? What it did was make you insane more than half the time. Things had been simpler when her edges had been squared off.
     
     
She'd done the job, she'd gone home. Maybe, if she'd been up for it, she'd have hung out with Mavis. Now and again, she might catch a post-shift beer with Feeney.
     
     
But there hadn't been all these people in her life to worry about. To care about, she admitted. And now there was no going back.
     
     
For better or worse, she thought as she swung through the gates. There was plenty of better with Roarke in her life. She couldn't begin to measure it. And if the worst was a skinny, sour-faced snake, well, she was stuck with him.
     
     
But when the hour was up, she thought as she jogged up the steps to the front door, she was back on the clock and Roarke would just have to deal with the patient on his own.
     
     
The house was cool and quiet. Her first thought was that there'd been complications, or some holdup at the hospital and she'd beaten Roarke home. She turned to the monitor in the foyer.
     
     
"Where is Roarke?"
     
     
DARLING EVE, WELCOME HOME...
     
     
The endearment, in the computer's polite tones, had her rolling her eyes. Roarke had some weird-ass sense of humor.
     
     
ROARKE IS IN SUMMERSET'S QUARTERS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK WITH HIM?
     
     
"No. Hell." Did this mean she had to go back there? Into the snake's pit? She never went into Summerset's private quarters. Jamming her hands in her pockets, she paced in a circle. She didn't want to go back there. He might be in bed. Would she ever be able to erase the horror of Summerset in bed from her vision once seen?
     
     
She didn't think so.
     
     
But her only choice was to sneak out of the house again, and feel like an idiot for the rest of the day.
     
     
Stupidity or nightmare, she wondered, then hissed out a breath. She'd go back, but she was not going in the bedroom. She'd stay in the living area, consider it a courtesy to both herself and the patient. She'd see if Roarke needed anything-though what that might be she couldn't imagine-and get the hell out.
     
     
Duty done, life goes on.
     
     
She wasn't often in this section of the house. Why would she need to go to the kitchen when there were AutoChefs in virtually every other room? Summerset's private habitat was off the kitchen, with access via elevator and stair to the rest of the house. She knew he sometimes used some of the other rooms for music, for entertainment, and she liked to think for secret rituals.
     
     
The door to his suite was open, and the laughter that poured out put Eve in a better frame of mind. There was no mistaking Mavis Freestone's happy cackle.
     
     
Eve looked in and saw her oldest friend, still in mid-laugh as she stood in the center of the room. Mavis was made for the center, Eve thought.
     
     
She was such a little thing, almost fairylike. If you imagined your fairies in skin-baring sunsuits and neon gel sandals.
     
     
Mavis's hair was summer blonde today, a conservative color until you got to the pink and blue tips, and noted those curling tips were topped by tiny silver bells that rang cheerfully with every movement. The sunsuit was short and backless with a complex series of crisscrossing strips of that same pink and blue over each breast, to a bare midriff and a pair of micro-shorts.
     
     
Though the belly was flat as a board, Eve was reminded-with a sharp jolt-that Mavis had a baby cooking in there.
     
     
It was, probably, some sort of high-fashion, I'm pregnant getup, Eve mused, designed by Mavis's one true love, Leonardo, who was currently looking down from his great height on the stylish mother-to-be with such adoration Eve was surprised his pupils weren't shaped like little