In Death 21 - Origin in Death

her cheek. "And you can call me Granny."
    She wasn't much of a cheek kisser, but there didn't seem to be any choice.
    "I really need to just..." Eve gestured vaguely toward the doorway. "Roarke's told us you're in the middle of an investigation." Sinead gave her an easy pat. "Don't mind us if you need to be doing something."
    "I just-a couple of things. For a minute."
    She started out, started to take her first easy breath. Roarke caught up with her at the stairs. "How'd you get the bruise this time?"
    "Minnesota backhand. I should've done something about it before I got here. I should've locked my weapon in my vehicle." The fact Roarke looked so ridiculously happy only flustered her more. "And I shouldn't have tried to get the kid-the Scan kid-to stop hammering me with questions by telling him there'd been a murder in Rockefeller Center last year."
    "Certainly not to the last, as you say murder to a young boy, you've only enticed him." He slid an arm around her waist, rubbed his hand up and down her torso. "You don't have to be what you're not with them. That, at least, I've learned. I appreciate you tolerating this, Eve. I know it's not entirely comfortable for you, and the timing turned out poor."
    "It's okay. It's the number of them that threw me off, especially since so many of them are kids."
    He leaned in, just to brush his lips over her hair. "Would this be the best time to tell you there are several more having a swim?"
    She stopped dead. "More?"
    "Several. One of the uncles stayed back, along with a scatter of cousins and my grandfather. They're minding the family farm. But that leaves a number of other cousins, and their children."
    Children. More. She wasn't going to panic; what was the point. "We're going to need a turkey the size of Pluto."
    He turned her, drew her in, pressed his lips to the side of her neck.
    "How you holding up?" she asked him.
    "There are so many feelings coming and going inside me." He rubbed her arms, stepped back.
    Touching her, she realized, keeping contact maybe because both of them needed it.
    "I'm so pleased they're here. I never thought to have any blood of mine under my roof." He gave a quick, baffled laugh. "Never thought I had any I'd care to welcome. And still, I can't catch up with them. I don't know what to make of them, that's God's truth."
    "Well, Jesus, there's so many it'd take you a couple years just to sort through and assign names to faces."
    "No." But he laughed again, more easily. "That's not what I meant. I'm happy they've come, but at the same time, I can't get used to having them. They ... I can't think of the word. Flummox is closest. They flummox me, Eve, with their acceptance, their affection. And there's part of me, part that's still the Dublin street rat, that's waiting for one of them to say: 'Roarke, darling, how about a little of the ready, since you've so much to spare.' It's uncalled for, and unfair."
    "It's natural. And it'd be easier for you if they did. You'd understand that. So would I." She angled her head. "Am I really supposed to call her Granny? I don't think I can get my mouth around it."
    He brushed a kiss on her brow. "It'd be a great favor to me if you'd try. Just think of it as a kind of nickname, that's what I'm doing yet. Now if you need to work, I'll make your excuses."
    "Nothing much left for me to do but wait. Mostly waiting now for the media to hit, and the feds to scramble. Departmentally, the case is essentially closed. Except, I was going to ask you to get me schematics, blueprints on the Center. If the base isn't at the school, I'm betting it's there. Maybe auxiliaries scattered. But there's got to be an operation center."
    "I can do that. I can get a search started, and check in on it by remote."
    "That'd be good. And maybe we could run another search and match on Deena. Use the image from the discs from Brookhollow. Possibly she's got more ID with that basic appearance. Could get lucky."
    "But the case is essentially closed," he said dryly.
    "Departmentally. But I'm damned if this is getting away from me until I've tried every avenue."

T
    here were more of them. Eve let names and faces buzz through her brain. It seemed there was at least one of every specimen, from seventy years to less than that many days. Every one of them was inclined to talk.
    As Scan seemed determined to shadow her every move, she concluded that young boys were much like cats. They insisted on giving their company to those who most feared or