Origin in Death

10

At seven A.M., Eve was drinking her second cup of coffee and studying the data she'd pulled up on Avril Icove.

She noted Avril's date of birth, her parents' dates of death, and that she'd become Icove's legal ward before her sixth birthday.

Eve read through Avril's educational data—Brookhollow Acad­emy, Spencerville, New Hampshire, grades one through twelve, with continuing education Brookhollow College.

So the kindly doctor had put his ward in a boarding school straight off the bat. How had she felt about that? Eve wondered. Loses her mother—and where had the kid been while Mommy was off in… where had it been? Africa. Who'd kept the girl while the mother was off saving lives, and losing her own in Africa?

Then she loses her mother and gets shipped off to school.

No living relatives. Really bad luck there, Eve thought. No sibs; par­ents were both only children. Grandparents dead before she was born. No records of aunts or uncles or fricking second cousins twice re­moved.

Kinda weird, Eve thought. Most everyone had some relation some­where. However distant.

She didn't, but there were always some exceptions to the rules.

Jeez, look what had happened to Roarke. Go around all your life thinking you're it, then bam! Got yourself enough relatives to people small city.

But Avril's records indicated no blood kin except her two children.

So, she's almost six years old, tragically orphaned, and Icove, her legal guardian, puts her in a swank school. Busy surgeon, busy becoming Icon Icove, raising his own kid, who'd have been, what, about seventeen.

Teenage boys had a habit of getting into trouble, causing trouble, br­ing trouble. But her run of Dr. Will had shown her a record as spotless as his father's.

Meanwhile Avril's doing sixteen years at basically the same school which struck her as close to a prison term. Of course, she considered as she sipped more coffee, school had been a kind of jail for her.

Marking time, she remembered, until she'd been of legal age and could escape the system that had gobbled her up after she'd been found in that alley in Dallas. Then straight to the Police Academy. Another system, she admitted. But her choice. Finally, her choice.

Had Avril had a choice?

Art major, Eve read, with minors in domestic sciences and theater Married Wilfred B. Icove, Jr., the summer after she'd gotten her degrees—putting him in his middle thirties, with no blemish on his official data, no cohabs.

She'd have to nudge Nadine, see if the reporter could find any juice on serious relationships for the young, rich doctor in any old media records.

No employment for Avril. Professional mother status after the birth of her first child.

No criminal.

She heard the faint swish of airskids and took another hit of coffee as Peabody came in.

«Avril Icove,» Eve began. «Personality assessment.»

«Well, hell, I didn't know there was going to be a quiz first thing.» Peabody dumped her bag, squinted her eyes.

«Elegant and contained,» she surmised. «Well-bred and –mannered, and I want to say correct. Assuming the house is her territory—as it most likely would be considering she's a pro mom and he's a busy doctor—I'd say tasteful and discreet.»

«She wore a red coat,» Eve commented.

«Huh?»

«Nothing, maybe nothing. All that quiet elegance in the house, and she wears a bright red coat.» Eve shrugged. «Anything else?»

«Well, she also strikes me as being subservient.»

Eve's gaze whipped over. «Why?»

«Our first visit to the house, Icove told her what to do. It wasn't 'Hey, bitch, get your ass out in the kitchen.' It wasn't harsh, not even really direct, but the dynamic was there. He was in charge, he made the decisions. She's the WIFE, in big letters.»

Peabody glanced hopefully at the coffee, but kept going. «Which is something I've been thinking about. She's used to him running the show, making the decisions. So it's not that off-base that she'd be kind of blank and out of it when you tell her he's dead. Nobody's giving her a playbook now.»

«She's had sixteen years gilded private education, with honors.»

«A lot of people are school smart and don't have any practical skills.»

«Get coffee, you're starting to drool.»

«Thanks.»

«Her father took off, mother's a medical missionary type, off in the wilds. Dies there.» Eve raised her voice as Peabody hotfooted it to the kitchen. «Only connection I find to Icove is the mother's professional as­sociation. Could be they were lovers, but I don't know that it matters.»

Eve cocked her head, studied Avril's ID image on screen. Elegant, she thought. Stunning. And at first glance, she would've said soft. But she'd seen that flash, that one instant. And there'd been steel in those eyes.

«We're going back to the scene,» she continued. «I want to go through the house, room by room. Talk to neighbors, other domestic. We'll need to verify her alibi. And I want to know the last time, prior to her father-in-law's death, she was in the Center.»

«Going to be busy,» Peabody said with her mouth full of glaze doughnut. «They were right there,» she mumbled when Eve frowned at her.

«Where?»

«Under D on the menu.» She swallowed hastily. «McNab went in with the electronics, so he got home after me. Way. He said he red flagged them. He'll bring Feeney up to date this morning, save you the trouble.»

«She wasn't worried about the electronics. She wasn't sweating the security, the transmissions, data.» Eve shook her head. «Either she's ice, or there's nothing there to point at her.»

«I'm still leaning toward the adultery angle. If Avril's in it, she had to have a partner. You don't kill for someone unless you love them, or they've got you by the short hairs on something.»

«Or you pay them.»

«Yeah, that. But I was rolling it around. I know it's high yuck factor, but what if the father-in-law had been up her skirt? We're looking at him to have an interest in young women with that project. She was his ward. So he could've been using her sexually. Then passes her to the son so he could, um, keep her handy. Maybe they were tag teaming her.»

«It's crossed my mind.»

«Then how about this? She's been dominated and used by men. So she turns to a woman. Emotionally, maybe romantically. They hatch it up.»

«Dolores.»

«Yeah. Say they meet, become lovers.» Peabody licked sugar of her fingers. «Between the two of them they figure out how to take out both Icoves, without implicating Avril. Dolores might have worked on Junior, hooked up, seduced him.

«He saw her picture after his father's murder. He didn't blink.»

«Okay, that's cold. But it's not impossible. Or she might've looked different with him. Changed her hair, that kind of thing. We damn well know Dolores killed number one. The same method, same weapon used on number two. Probability is ninety-eight and change that she did both.»

«Ninety-eight point seven. I ran it, too,» Eve said. «Going by that and adding my conviction that Avril's in this, they know each other. Or Avril hired her. It also means Dolores was in town after the first mur­der. And may still be. I want to find her.»

The door between the offices opened, and Roarke stepped through. The charcoal suit that showed off that lithe body somehow deepened the already staggering blue of his eyes. His hair was swept back from that gorgeous face, and the slow easy smile did something almost obscene to a woman's belly.

«You're drooling again,» Eve muttered to Peabody.

«So?»

«Ladies. Am I interrupting?»

«Running a few things,» Eve told him. «We're going to head out shortly.»

«Then my timing's good. How are you, Peabody?»

«Up, thanks. And I wanted to thank you for the invite to Thanks­giving. We're bummed we can't make it, but we're going to shuttle it to my parents' for a couple days.»

«Well, it's about family, isn't it, and give them our best. We'll miss you. I like your necklace. What's the stone?»

It was somewhere between red and orange, and chunky. Eve's only thought on seeing it around her partner's neck was that in a chase it would probably swing up and put Peabody's eye out.

«Carnelian. My grandmother made it.»

«Really?» He stepped forward, lifted the pendant. «Lovely work. Does she sell her jewelry?»

«Mostly through Free-Ager channels. Indie shops and fairs. It's kind of a hobby.»

«Tick-tock,» Eve grumbled, and had both of them glancing over at her, Peabody bemused, Roarke amused.

«It certainly suits you,» he continued and let the pendant drop again «But I have to confess, I rather miss your uniform.»

«Oh, well.» She pinked up as Eve rolled her eyes behind Peabody's back.

«I'll be out of your way in a minute, but I have a thing or two that might interest you.» Roarke glanced down at the cup Peabody had for­gotten, in a hormonal haze, she held. «I could use some of that coffee.»

«Coffee?» Peabody all but sighed it, then snapped back. «Oh yeah sure. I'll get it. I'll get it.»

Roarke smiled after her. «She is a treasure,» he stated.

«You got her stirred up. You did it on purpose.»

His expression was all innocence. «I haven't any idea what you mean. In any case, I'm glad you'd asked her and McNab for dinner and I'm sorry they won't make it. Meanwhile, I've done some poking around for you, after my morning meeting.»

«You had a meeting? Already?»

«Holo-conference. Scotland. They're five hours ahead of us, and I accommodated them. I needed to speak with my aunt in Ireland as well.»

Which explained, she thought, why he hadn't been in his usual spot in the sitting area of their room when she'd gotten up at six.

«You find me money?»

«In a sense.» He paused, smiling over at Peabody again as she brought in a tray.

«I got fresh for you, Dallas.»

«In the sense of what?» Eve demanded impatiently.

But Roarke took his time, personally pouring coffee all around. «In the sense of large bequests and annuities channeled through various arms of Icove's holdings. On the surface, extremely generous and philanthropic. But added up, pushed through the surface and carefully ex­amined, questionable.»

«How?»

«Nearly two hundred million—so far—over the last thirty-five years that I can't account for through his income. A man gives away that kind of green, it should put a bit of a dent here and there in his rockets. Not so.» He drank coffee.

«Indicating another source of income. A hidden source.»

«It would seem. I suspect there's more. I've only just started on this line. Interesting, isn't it, that a man with a questionable income would choose to donate it—quietly, even anonymously—to worthy causes. Most would buy themselves a nice little country.»

«Anonymously.»

«He's gone to considerable trouble to distance himself from the do­nations. A lot of layers between. Trusts, nonprofits, foundations, all crisscrossing, padded between with corporations and organizations.» He shrugged. «I don't imagine you need or want a lesson in tax shelters or the like, Lieutenant. Let's just say he has excellent financial advice, and had elected to dump these funds without taking credit for them. Or the considerable write-off on his income. Then again, he isn't reporting the income.»

«Tax evasion.»

«In a sense. Difficult though, even for the Internal Revenue to squeeze anything out, since the money was shifted to charities. But surely there's an infraction.»

«So we need to find the source of the income.» Eve took her coffee, circled the office. «There's always a trail.»

Roarke's lips curved, slyly. «There isn't, no. Not always.»

She shot him a narrowed look. «Somebody who knows how to erase trails ought to be able to find one.»

«Somebody should.»

«Maybe start at the back end,» Peabody suggested. «Places that got the money.»

«Give me, say, the five biggest beneficiaries,» Eve said to Roarke. «You can shoot it to my office at Central.»

«I'll do that. The biggest, by far, is a small private school.»

«Brookhollow?» Eve felt the sizzle.

«Gold star for you, Lieutenant. Brookhollow Academy, and its higher-education companion, Brookhollow College.»

«Pop.» Eve turned back to her wall screen with a thin, satisfied grin «Guess who got her entire education at those institutions.»

«It rings,» Peabody agreed. «But it could be argued he sent his ware there because he believed in the school and put his money in it. Or h; put his money in it because his ward went there.»

«Check it out now. When was it established, by whom? Lists of fac­ulty, directors, whatever the hell. Find me a list of the current students . And the names of female students who took the tour with Avril Hannson.»

«Yes, sir.» Peabody hurried to Eve's desk unit and set to work.

«This feels hot,» Eve said, then looked over at Roarke. «It's good lead.»

«My pleasure.» He tipped her chin up with his finger, touched his lips to hers before she could object. «On a personal front, would you like me to contact Mavis about Thanksgiving? We're getting close to the mark, and it appears your plate's more full than mine at the moment.»

«That'd be good.»

«Anyone else?»

«I don't know.» She shifted, uncomfortable. «I guess Nadine, maybe Feeney'll probably be doing a family deal, but I'll run it by him.»

«What about Louise and Charles?»

«Sure. Fine. Are we really doing this?»

«Too late to turn back.» He kissed her again. «Keep in touch, will you? I'm caught up now.» He strolled back into his office, shut the door.

«I love McNab.»

Even as she turned toward Peabody, Eve could feel the muscle under her right eye vibrating toward a twitch. «Oh man. Do you have to do this?»

«Yeah. I love McNab,» Peabody repeated. «It took me a while to realize it, or get there, however it works. But he's the one. If you were to drop down dead, and Roarke decided I could comfort him with wild sex I probably wouldn't do it. Probably. But even if I did, I'd still love McNab.»

«At least I'm dead in your sexual fantasy.»

«It's only fair. I wouldn't cheat on my partner. So I probably wouldn't have sex with Roarke, should the opportunity arise, unless both you and McNab were killed in a freak accident.»

«Thanks, Peabody. I feel a lot better now.»

«And we'd probably wait a decent interval. Like two weeks. If we could control ourselves.»

«It just gets better and better,» Eve remarked.

«In a way, we'd really be celebrating your lives, and our love for you both.»

«Maybe you're the ones who die in a freak accident,» Eve tossed back. «Then me and McNab… No, Jesus. No.» She visibly shud­dered. «I don't love you that much.»

«Aw, that's not very nice. Too bad for you, because McNab's an airjack in the sack.»

«Shut up now. Save yourself.»

«Brookhollow Academy,» Peabody said in dignified tones. «Established 2022.»

«Just a couple years before Avril was born? Who's the founder? Put the data on-screen.»

«On screen one.»

«Private educational institution,» Eve read, scanning. «For girls. Just girls. Founded by Jonah Delecourt Wilson—secondary run on him, Peabody.»

«On that.»

«Grades one through twelve, full boarding. Accredited by the Inter­national Association of Independent Schools. Ranked third in U.S., fifteenth worldwide. An eighty-acre campus. That's a lot of ground. Six-to-one student-to-instructor ratio.»

«Serious individual attention.»

«College preparatory, full housing for students and staff. An Inten­tional Community. Huh, some phrase. A challenging, yet supportive environment. Blah, blah. Foundation for Brookhollow College, and blah about that. Tuition… Holy Mother of God.»

«Wowzer!» Peabody's eyes widened. «That's a semester. That's a semester for a six-year-old.»

«Get me a comparison to another top-level boarding school.»

«Coming up. What are we chasing here, Dallas?»

«I don't know. But we're gaining. Double,» she replied. «Brookhollow's priced double a comparative facility.»

«Got the founder. Jonah Delecourt Wilson, born August 12, 19t-Died May 6, 2056. That's Dr. Wilson,» Peabody added. «M.D. as well as Ph.D. Known for his research and work with genetics.»

«Really? Hmm.»

«Married Eva Hannson Samuels, June of 1999. No children. Samuels—also doctor—predeceased her husband by three years. Private shuttle crash.»

«Hannson. Avril's maiden name. Gotta be related.»

«Wilson founded the school, served as its first president for five years, then his wife took the helm. She remained in that position until her death. Current president is an Evelyn Samuels—listed here as her predecessor's niece—and one of the first graduates of Brookhollow College.»

«All in the family. Bet when you pump money into an institution like this, you get all sorts of perks. I bet you could have your own lab. Maybe send some of your subjects in as students. Get them a fine edu­cation, while you were monitoring them. A geneticist, a reconstructive surgeon, and a private all-girls' boarding school. Mix well, what might you get?»

«Um. Really, really major fees?»

«Perfect females. Gene manipulation, surgical enhancements, speci­fied educational programs.»

«Jesus, Dallas.»

«Yeah, pretty fucked up. Screwed squared if you take it a step fur­ther and speculate that the grads might be 'placed' for a stinging fee with interested parties. She said—last night during her statement— Avril said she was what Will Icove wanted. Just like that. Wouldn't a doting daddy want to give his only son what he wanted?»

«It's a little science fiction, Dallas.»

«DNA.»

«And?»

«Dolores Nocho-Alverez. DNA. I bet that alias is a little private joke.» She picked up her 'link when it beeped. «Dallas.»

«Got a freaking tome so far on Senior. Due to the recent events, I'm working on one for Junior. What's going on, Dallas?» Nadine demanded.

«Is there anything in that tome regarding an association with a Dr. Jonah D. Wilson?»

«Funny you should ask.» Nadine's eyes sharpened. «They both gave their time and skill during the Urbans. Became friends, and associates. Helped found rehabilitation centers for children during and after the wars. There's more on that, and other things, but I need to dig more. I'm getting a whiff of something—maybe a censure from the AMA, internal inquiries, but it's buried deep.»

«Mine it out, and if I'm on the right track, you might just have the story of your career.»

«Don't toy with me, Dallas.»

«Send me everything you've got. Get more.»

«Give me something to air. I need a—«

«Can't. Gotta go. Oh hey, if Roarke contacts you, it's about an invite for Thanksgiving.»

«Oh yeah? Frosty. Can I bring a date?»

«I guess. Later.»

She clicked off. «Let's go take another look at Icove's house.»

Peabody saved data, jumped up. «Are we going to New Hampshire on this?»

«I wouldn't be surprised.»

In a palatial house overlooking the sea, the privacy screens 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 understand herself, she spoke the pure truth.