In Death 21 - Origin in Death

crazy.
    "What are we looking for?" he asked Eve.
    "Anything. The place is huge. I'd never get a warrant to go through the whole facility. If I tried they'd get a TRO, tie me up for months. If there's anything to find it'd be gone if I ever broke that down. If they’re doing illegal gene engineering or manipulation, it's likely they're doing the serious work elsewhere. Private property."
    "Like the school."
    "Yeah. Or some underground bunker in Eastern Europe. Or off planet. It's a great big freaking universe. But it strikes me that Icove, both Icoves, would want somewhere to work close by. The Center's the likely candidate."
    She gave him a thumbnail progress report as they strolled around the house. Twilight softened and cooled toward dark.
    "Perfect children," Roarke declared. "That's where you're headed”
    "I think that's what drove him. He worked with children in his early career. He had a child. He lost one along with his wife. A female child. He has the ability through surgery not only to rebuild or rep-" but to change-improve. Perfect. His close friend and associate is a geneticist, with radical leanings. I bet he learned a lot about gene research and treatment. I bet the good doctors had a lot of intense conversation.”
    "Then another child falls into his hands."
    "Yeah. With a connection to Samuels. Funny Wilson and his wife weren't named guardians-and I have to dig there. But they control her. Adults control children, especially if they isolate them."
    Roarke turned his head, brushed a kiss over her hair. A silent message of understanding and comfort.
    "Wilson could have screwed around with Avril even before she was born." The idea made Eve's stomach roll. "I'm damn sure they experimented on her in one way or another after. Maybe her kids were part of the project, too. That could be what snapped her. Having her kids under the microscope."
    By the time they'd circled the house-the equivalent, Eve thought, of hiking four crosstown blocks-she caught the glint of headlights turning through the gates.
    ''Damn. I guess the circus is coming to town after all."
    A circus, he thought. Maybe he could .. . stop the madness.
    "I love a parade."
    She might've tried to bolt up the steps, hide out at least for a bit. But Summerset merely stood like a statue at the base.
    "Hors d'oeuvres are in the parlor. Your first guests are arriving."
    Even as Eve curled her lips into a snarl, Roarke was nudging her away. "Come on, darling. I'll pour you a nice glass of wine."
    "How about a couple of double Zingers?" She rolled her eyes when he merely chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, a nice civilized glass of wine before the torture."
    He poured, leaned down to buss her lips with his as he handed her the glass. "You're still wearing your weapon."
    She brightened immediately. "Yeah, I am."
    But the brightness dimmed as she heard Trina's voice riding along with Mavis's chirpy tones as Summerset let them in. "Might as well take it off," Eve grumbled. "She doesn't have a nervous system to compromise."
    She wasn't sure how she'd ended up with a gang of females, or why all of them seemed so thrilled with the prospect of getting their faces, bodies, hair slathered with goo. They really didn't have that much in common, to Eve's mind. The dedicated doctor with blue blood, the ambitious and savvy on-air reporter, the stalwart cop with a Free-Ager background. Add in Mavis Freestone, the former street thief and current music vid sensation and the terrifying Trina with her bottomless case of glops and goos, and it was a strange mix.
    But they sat, stood, sprawled around Roarke's lush and elegant parlor happy as a pack of puppies.
    They chattered. She'd never understood why women chattered, and seemed to have an endless supply of stuff to talk about. Food, men, each other, clothes, men, hair. Even shoes. She'd never knew there was so much to say about shoes, and that none of it actually correlated related to walking in them.
    And since Mavis was knocked up, babies were high on the chatter.
    "I feel completely mag." Mavis gobbled up fancy cheese, crackers, stuffed veggies, and whatever else was in reach as if food were about to be declared illegal. "We're going into week thirty-three, and they say he/she can, like, hear stuff, and even see in there, and its head's down now-assuming the position. Sometimes you can feel his/her foot poking.”
    Poking what? Eve wondered. The kidneys, the liver? The very idea had her avoiding the pate.
    "How's Leonardo