In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

they did, or didn't, we know his needs and his acts escalated. From the profile and your witness statements this man is in his mid to late thirties._ He didn't begin to kill at this age, didn't begin with Jacie Wooton. There'll be others. You'll find them," Mira said, "and they'll create a path to him."
     
     
"Yes, I'll find them. Thanks." 'Eve rose. "I know you were squeezed, and I've got a witness heading in." She started to speak again; then changed gears. "And thanks for the invitation for Sunday. Sorry I had to duck out the way I did."
     
     
"It was lovely to have you both there while you were." Mira got to her feet as well. "I hope you'll tell, me what's on your mind. There was a' time you wouldn't have-or wouldn't have let me see there was something troubling you. I thought we were past that now:
     
     
"My ten minutes are up."
     
     
"Eve." With that quiet word, Mira laid a hand on hers.
     
     
"I had a dream." The words came out fast, as if -they'd been waiting to be disgorged. "Sort of a dream. About my mother."
     
     
"Sit." Mira stepped to her desk, buzzed her assistant. "I'll need another few minutes here, she said and clicked' off before her assistant could respond.
     
     
"I don't want to hold you up. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't-a nightmare Exactly."
     
     
"You've had no real memory of your mother up until this."
     
     
"No. You know. Just one time before, I remembered hearing-her voice, yelling at him, bitching about me. But I saw her this time. I saw her face. I have her eyes. Fuck it."
     
     
She sat now, just dropping down and pressing the heels of her hands against those eyes. "Why is that? Goddamn it."
     
     
"The luck of the gene pool, Eve. You're too smart to think the color 'of your eyes means anything."
     
     
"Screw the science, I hate it. That's all. I saw the way she looked at me with them. She hated me, gut-deep hate. I don't' get it, 'I just don't get it. I was... I'm not good at judging ages of little kids. Three, four maybe. But she hated me the way' you hate a lifelong enemy."
     
     
Mira wanted to go over, to enfold. To mother. But knew it wasn't the way. "And that hurt. you."
     
     
`I wondered, I guess.' She drew in air, let it out explosively. "I, guest I wondered if-even though I knew from what I remembered-l wondered if maybe, somehow, he snatched me from her at some point. Beat the crap out of her maybe, and took off with me. I wondered if, even though she was on, the junk, she had some feeling for me. I mean, you cart somebody around inside you for nine months, you ought to feel something."
     
     
"Yes,, you ought." Mira spoke gently. "Some people aren't capable of love. You know that, too."
     
     
"Better than most. I had this fantasy. Didn't even know I had it until it shattered on me. That she was looking for me, worried about me. Trying to find me all this time because... under everything she loved me. But she didn't. There wasn't anything but hate in her eyes when she looked at me. Looked at the child."
     
     
"You know it wasn't you she hated because. she never knew- you. Not really. And her lack of feeling wasn't isn't- your fault. It was-and is-her lack. You're a difficult woman, Eve."
     
     
She laughed a little, jerked a shoulder. "Yeah. So?"
     
     
"A difficult woman, often abrasive, moody and demanding, and impatient."
     
     
"Are you going to get to my good parts anytime soon?"
     
     
"I don't have that much time." But Mira smiled, pleased to hear the habitual sarcasm. "But your flaws, as some might see them, don't prevent those who know you from loving you, respecting you, admiring you. Tell me what you remembered."
     
     
Eve blew out a breath, and ran through it with the cool dispassion and attention to detail she'd use in a police report.
     
     
"I don't know where we, were. I mean what city. But I know she whored for money and drugs, and that was okay with him. I know she wanted to ditch me, and that wasn't okay with him because he had other plans for me. For his investment."
     
     
"They weren't your parents."
     
     
"I'm sorry?"
     
     
"They conceived you-egg and sperm. She incubated you, and expelled you from her -body when it was time. But they weren't your parents. There's a difference. You know there is."
     
     
"I guess I do."
     
     
"You didn't come from them. You overcame them. There's another difference. Let me say one more thing before my assistant chews through my door- and punishes- me for ruining her schedule.