Origin in Death (In Death 21) - Page 99

"Oh." She colored a little as she lifted a hand to the new, flippy ends. "Really?"

"Absolutely." Roarke heard Eve's low growl beside him. "Avril Icove, as acting CEO, met us in her father-in-law's office."

"What?" Eve's eyes-she didn't remember squeezing them shut- popped open. "What?"

He'd known that would distract her from her fear and queasiness. "She's acting CEO, until the board designates a successor, and arranged to meet with us privately. She claims not to be a businesswoman, nor to have any desire to become one. I believed her. She also asked that if I had any plans to buy up a controlling interest in Unilab or the Center, that I give the facility a window of time to recover from the loss of its two main spearheads."

"She seemed sincere." Louise leaned forward against her safety straps. "The controlled grief seemed equally sincere. She also, diplo­matically, spoke of believing the Center would benefit from someone with Roarke's skills and vision."

"You figured she'd be willing to see you take over?"

"I do." Roarke adjusted for the turbulence. "She has no medical or business training. But I doubt her board would be as amenable, which is why she met us privately. Develop a relationship, a foundation, with the general before the coup."

"But she needs time so she can get what she needs out of it, or cover it up, or break it down. What the hell does she want?"

"That I can't tell you, but the COO, a Brookhollow alumni, was very careful about the areas we toured."

"If you're taking it at face value, the privacy obsession might not make you blink," Louise explained. "But if you're looking for under­currents, it leads to all manner of questions."

"Particularly the hidden cameras in exam and procedure areas."

Eve measured Roarke. "If they were hidden, how do you know they're there?"

He gave her a look caught between smug and pitying. "Because, Lieutenant, I happened to have a sensor with me."

"How'd you get it through security?

"Perhaps because this particular canny device looks like, and reads like, a simple memo book. In any case, every area we toured had them, and they were active during our visit. You're going to find, at the cen­ter, a substantial subsecurity and data sector."

"Then there was the lab," Louise put in. "Architecturally interest­ing, elaborate, superbly equipped. And remarkably inefficient."

"How?"

Louise explained the setup while rain slapped the windscreen. "You might have different security levels," she continued. "You might have separate floors or tiers for specific areas of research and testing. You would certainly, on sensitive work, require high clearance. But this setup had no logical flow."

"Separate clearance required for every ray," Eve repeated.

"Exactly. And a separate chief, each completely isolated from the other lines."

"Standard security cams in view," Roarke added. "An equal number hidden for area scans. And, most interesting, every station fed data into its hub. Not results, but every step, every by

te of data."

Eve thought of the police lab. The chief tech could access any sector, review and/or study any test in progress. But the place was like a hive, a maze of rooms, glass walls. While some sectors required high clear­ance, most areas connected with the busy bees buzzing not only in their own chambers but in others as well.

"Keep each line focused on its work. Limit or eliminate fraternizing and shop talk. Deny access to all but the top level. Not inefficient if you want to keep dicey stuff wrapped."

She rolled it around in her head, then peered through the rain. "There'd be room there to close off a sector from the rest. Room for ... what do you call the having-a-baby area of medicine."

"Obstetrics," Louise answered.

"The patient room I saw was like a high-end hotel suite. So maybe you keep your human incubators in-house, in style, segregated from the general population. Peabody, run a list. See what graduates got themselves medical degrees-highlight obstetrics and pediatrics."

"Warrant's coming through." Reo had a small, bulky briefcase unit in her lap. As it started to hum, her face brightened. "We're good to go."

"Need to practice, though," Eve mumbled. "Practice makes perfect. School's all about practice. Gotta have something going there."

"Hopefully, we'll soon see." Roarke tapped controls. "Starting de­scent."

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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