In Death 21 - Origin in Death

on the walls of glass protected those inside from intrusion. Through them, the water was a soft blue-gray stretching toward the horizon.
    She would paint it that way, she thought. Empty and quiet and wide, with only birds strutting along the surf.
    She would paint again, and paint vividly. No more of the soft and pretty portraits, but the wild and the dark, the bright and the bold.
    She would live-soon-she would live the same way. Freedom, she imagined, was all of those things.
    "I wish we could live here. I'd be happy if we could live here. We could live here with the children and just be who we are."
    "Maybe someday, somewhere like it." Her name wasn't Dolores, but Deena. Her hair was dark red now, and her eyes a vivid green. She'd killed, would kill again, and her conscience was clear. "When it's finished, when we've done all we can do, it'll have to be sold. But there are other beaches."
    "I know. I'm just feeling blue." She turned, contained elegance, then smiled. "No point in feeling blue. We're free. At least as close to it as we've ever been."
    Deena walked over, took the hands of the woman she considered a sister. "Scared?"
    "Some. But excited, too. And sad. How can we help it? There was love, Deena. Even if it was twisted at its root, there was love."
    "Yeah. I looked in his eyes when I killed him, and there was love in. them. Sick and selfish and wrong, but love. I couldn't think about it, couldn't let myself." She breathed deep. "Well, they trained me how to do just that, shut out feelings and do the job. But after . . ."
    She closed her eyes. "I want peace, Avril. Peace and quiet and days with nothing but both. It's been so long. Do you know what I dream of.
    She squeezed Deena's fingers. "Tell me."
    "A little house, a cottage really. With a garden. Flowers and trees, and birds singing. A big silly dog. And someone to love me, a man to love me. Days of that, quiet days of that with no hiding, no war, no death."
    "You'll have it."
    But Deena could look back, year by year. There was nothing but Hiding, nothing but death. "I made you a killer."
    "No. No." Avril leaned close, kissed Deena's cheek. "Freedom. That was your gift." She walked back to the wall of glass. "I'm going to paint again. Really paint. I'll feel better. I'll comfort the children, poor little things. We'll take them away from all this as soon as we can. Out of the country, at least for a while. Somewhere they can grow up free. As we never were."
    "The police. They're going to want to talk again. More questions."
    "It's all right. We know what to do, what to say. And nearly all of it's the truth, so it isn't hard. Wilfred would have respected her mind, this Lieutenant Dallas. It's so fluid, and somehow straightforward. She's someone we'd like, if we could."
    "She's someone to be careful with."
    "Yes. Very. How foolish of Wilfred, how egocentric of him to have kept personal records in his home. If Will had known-poor Will. Still, I wonder if it's to the good that she knows about the project. Or knows something. We could wait, see if she's able to follow it through. She might end it for us."
    "We can't take that chance. Not after we've come this far."
    "I suppose we can't. I'll miss you," she said. "I wish you could stay. I'll be lonely."
    "You're never alone." Deena went to her, held her. "We'll talk every day. It won't be much longer."
    She nodded. "It's horrible, isn't it, to wish for more death. To want it to come quickly. In an awful way, she's one of us."
    "Not anymore-if she ever was." Deena eased back, then kissed her sister's cheeks. "Be strong."
    "Be safe."
    She watched while Deena put a blue bucket hat over her hair, dark glasses over her eyes, then picked up a bag to sling over her shoulder.
    Deena slipped out the glass door, jogged quickly over the terrace down the steps to the sand. She walked away, just a woman taking a stroll on a November beach.
    No one would know what she was part of, where she'd come from. Or what she had done.
    For a long time, there was only the water and sand and birds. The knock on Avril's door was soft, as was her voice command to release the lock.
    The little girl stood there, blonde and delicate like her mother, rubbing her eyes. "Mommy."
    "Here, sweetie, here, my baby." With love bursting inside her, she hurried over to lift the child into her arms.
    "Daddy."
    "I know. I know." She stroked her child's hair, kissed her damp cheek. "I know. I miss him, too."
    And in a strange way, one she couldn't