In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

hearts.
     
     
Looking on from a mobile chair, his sour face wreathed in smiles, was Summerset.
     
     
She felt a stir of pity as she saw the stiff angle of his supported leg, wrapped in the skin cast, and the sling support on his shoulder. She knew what it was to break bones and tear muscles-and how much worse the cure could seem to anyone used to doing for himself.
     
     
She might have said something consolatory, even marginally friendly, but he shifted his head, spotted her. She saw surprise flicker an instant before his face shut down into an icy sneer.
     
     
"Lieutenant. Is there something you need?"
     
     
"Dallas!" Mavis gave a shout of greeting and threw out her arms. "Come on in, join the party."
     
     
Eve followed the direction of Mavis's hands and saw the colorful banner that shouted: WELCOME HOME, SUMMERSET, hanging between the elegant draperies on his windows.
     
     
Only Mavis, Eve thought.
     
     
"Want a drink? We got fizzy ices." Mavis spun over to an antique server that currently held a carnival setup of crushed ices, sparkling water, and syrups. "Nonalcoholic," she added, "because, you know. Hitchhiker in here's too young to drink." She patted her belly, wiggled her hips.
     
     
"How's it going?"
     
     
"I'm totally mag. Absolutely ult. Leonardo and I got the word on what happened to Summerset. Poor sweetie pie," she murmured, and whirled back to kiss the top of his head.
     
     
Eve felt her gag reflex engage at the thought of Summerset and sweetie pie in the same sentence.
     
     
"So we gathered up some fun stuff, and zipped right over to keep him company."
     
     
"We were at the doctor's this morning, too." Leonardo continued to beam at Mavis. He was draped in white, long, loose pants, long, loose shirt that flowed around his impressive body and gleamed against the gold-dust tone of his skin. He had a single pigtail draped down one side of his face, and like Mavis, had it tipped in pink and blue, and belled.
     
     
"Are you sick?" Eve demanded, forgetting her aversion to the room and moving quickly to Mavis. "Is the baby sick or something?"
     
     
"No, we're RRA-rolling right along," she explained. "We just had a checkup deal. And guess! We got pictures."
     
     
"Of what?"
     
     
"Of the baby!" Mavis rolled her baby blue eyes. "Wanna see?"
     
     
"Oh, well, I don't really have-"
     
     
"I've got them right here." Leonardo pulled a portfolio from some canny split in the shirt. "We only took the ones that don't show the baby's personal area. Because we haven't decided if we want to know."
     
     
"Isn't the whole..." Eve gestured vaguely toward Mavis's belly. "... place its personal area?"
     
     
"He means any of the shots that would show if the baby has a penis or a vulva."
     
     
"Oh." She actually felt blood draining out of her face. "God."
     
     
"Come on, come on, look at your godbaby." Mavis took the portfolio from Leonardo, flipped it open. "Aww, can you believe that? Is that too cute for words?
     
     
Eve saw something that looked, sort of, like an underdeveloped, hairless monkey with a really big head. "Wow."
     
     
"See, you can even count the tiny, little fingers."
     
     
Which, to Eve's mind, made it all creepier. What did it do with those fingers inside there?
     
     
"Leonardo's going to print the best ones on fabric and make me some tops." Mavis pursed her pink lips to blow Leonardo a kiss.
     
     
"Great. That'll be great. Um." Since they made her nervous, Eve looked over the top of the pictures to Summerset. "I just stopped by to see how everything was going."
     
     
"Let me make you a cold drink." Leonardo patted Eve's shoulder.
     
     
"Yeah, good, okay. Where's Roarke?"
     
     
"He's in the bedroom with the physician assistant, making sure everything's set up. Mavis and I will stay awhile."
     
     
"Sure we will." To prove it, Mavis perched on the arm of Summerset's chair. "We're going to be in town for the next couple weeks, so we'll come by every day if you want. And you only have to give me a buzz if you're lonely or feeling out of sorts. I'll come right over." She took Summerset's good hand, patted it.
     
     
Eve slurped up the flavored ice Leonardo passed her. "Well, I'll just see if Roarke... needs anything, then get going. I've got work to-" She let that hang, grateful when Roarke stepped in from the next room.
     
     
"Hello, Lieutenant. I wasn't sure you'd make it by."
     
     
"I was in the neighborhood." He looked harried, she thought. You