Origin in Death (In Death 21)

"What did you think of her?"

"Quiet, dignified elegance. Lovely in grief. A devoted mother. I liked her. Couldn't get much going on her personally as she insisted this interview deal with her father-in-law and husband, out of respect. But I'll dig down the next layers. I've got a three-part deal."

The last two of which she would never collect, Eve thought. But there would be compensation. Big-time.

She ran a scanner over Nadine. "Believe it or not, I did all that to protect you as much as me. I'm about to break Code Blue."

"Icove."

"You're going to want to sit while I outline my conditions- nonnegotiable. First, we never had this conversation. You're going to go home and get rid of the 'link you used to take my transmission. You never received the transmission."

"I know how to protect myself and a source."

"Just listen. You've already done extensive research on the Icoves- and connected them, independently, to Jonah Wilson and Eva Hannson Samuels, and from there to Brookhollow. Your police sources would not confirm or deny any of your research. You're going to make a trip to Brookhollow. You'll need that on your logs. You're going to connect the murder of Evelyn Samuels to those of the Icoves."

Nadine started scribbling. "That's the Academy's president. When was she murdered?"

"Find out. You're going to be curious and smart enough to run ID checks on the students and cross them with same on former students. In fact, you've already done that." Eve drew a sealed disc out of her pocket. "Get this in your log. Get your prints, only your prints on the disc."

"What's on it?"

"More than fifty student IDs that match-exactly match-former students' IDs. Falsified data. Make another copy, put it wherever you put data you want to protect from confiscation."

"What were the Icoves doing that required falsifying data on students?"

"Cloning them."

Nadine broke the tip of her pencil as her head snapped up. "You're serious."

"Since the Urban Wars."

"Sweet little Baby Jesus. Tell me you have proof."

"I not only have proof, I have three clones known as Avril Icove un­der house restriction."

Nadine goggled. "Well, fuck me sideways."

"I've had a long day, I'm too tired for sex games. Start writing, Na­dine. When we're finished you go home, you make an electronic trail that'll verify you found this information. You burn those notes and make new ones. Get to Brookhollow and dig. You can contact me, and probably should, demanding confirmation or denial. I'll give you nei­ther, and that's on record. I'll go to my superiors with the fact that you're sniffing this out. I have to. So sniff fast."

"I've already done a lot of the legwork, put some of this together. I didn't jump this far. I figured gene manipulation, designer babies, black-market fees."

"That's in there, too. Get it all. I've got a day, maybe a few hours more, before the whistle's blown and the government steps in. They'll cover it. Spin what they can't bury. So get it all, get it fast. I'm going to give you everything I can, then I'm walking out. I won't give you any more. I'm not doing you a favor," Eve added. "If you go out with this, you're going to tak

e a lot of heat."

"I know how to handle heat." Nadine's eyes were razor sharp as she continued to write. "I'll be soaking in the rays while I blow this open."

It took an hour, another pot of the vicious coffee, and both of Na­dine's notebooks.

When she left, Eve didn't trust her reflexes and put her vehicle back on auto. But she didn't sleep, didn't close her eyes. Once home, she moved from the car to the house like a sleepwalker.

Summerset was waiting for her. "God. Even vampires sleep some­time."

"There's been no sanctioned or unsanctioned hit on either Icove."

"Yeah, fine."

"But you knew that. Are you also aware there is purportedly a fee-based operation that offers young women, educated through Brookhollow College in New Hampshire, to clients for purposes of marriage, employment, or sexual demands?"