The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [75]
Her hair was wound high, pink and green ropes. There were feathers hanging from her ears. And a sparkly miniature heart at the corner of one eye.
“We should get started.” Trina, who’d transformed her own hair into a waterfall down her back, in blinding white, smiled—evilly, Eve thought. “Lots to do. Where we going for it?”
“Roarke had the pool house set up,” Mavis said and popped something else in her mouth. “I asked if we could play there. Swimming’s good for me and the belly.”
“I need to talk with Nadine and Louise. Separately,” Eve added. “Official.”
“That’s chilly. We can split off down there. We can take the food, right?” Mavis grabbed a tray, just in case.
It was no way to conduct official business, Eve thought, sitting in the steam room with Louise.
“I’m in,” Louise said, and chugged from a bottle of water. “I’ll set up the time with Roarke. If I see anything suspicious, I’ll let you know. It’s doubtful—if there is illegal genetic manipulation or engineering going on—that they’d be in accessible areas, but I might get a sense of something.”
“You agreed pretty fast.”
“Adds a little excitement to my day. Plus, there are lines, or should be in medicine and science. This is one of them for me. I don’t have a problem with the illegality, frankly. Hell, birth control for women was illegal right here in the U.S. of A. less than two hundred years ago. Without research and underground movements, we might still be having kids every year and burning our bodies out by forty. No, thanks.”
“So what’s the problem with tidying up genes until everything’s just perfect?”
Louise shook her head. “Have you looked at Mavis?”
“Hard not to.”
With a laugh, Louise took another drink. “What’s happening to her is a miracle. Anatomy and biological process aside, creating life is a miracle, and should stay that way. Yes, we can—and we should—use our knowledge and our technology to insure the health and safety of the mother and child. Eliminate birth defects and disease whenever possible. But crossing that line into designing babies? Manipulating emotions, physical appearance, mental capacity, even personality traits? That’s no miracle. It’s ego.”
The door to the steam room opened, and Peabody, her face covered in blue gunk, stuck her head in. “You’re up, Dallas.”
“No, I’m not. I have to brief Nadine.”
“I’ll go now.” With what Eve considered sick enthusiasm, Louise sprang up.
“Send Nadine into my office,” Eve ordered Peabody.
“Can’t. She’s in stage one of detoxification. Wrapped up like a mummy,” Peabody explained. “In a seaweed deal.”
“That’s revolting.”
Eve pulled on a robe. The pool area, always lush with plants and tropical trees, had become a horrifying treatment center. Padded tables with bodies stretched on them. Weird smells, weirder music. Trina had decked herself out in a lab coat. The splatters on it were a rainbow. Eve might have preferred blood. At least she understood blood.
Mavis lay, her colorful hair covered with a clear, protective cap, the rest of her coated with various hues of substances Eve didn’t want to identify.
The belly was . . . prodigious.
“Check out the tits.” Mavis lifted her arms, waggled her fingers toward her breasts. “They’re, like, mongo now. It’s a total side benny of being pregs.”
“Great.” She patted Mavis on the head and moved on toward Nadine.
“I’m in heaven,” Nadine murmured.
“No, you’re naked in a bunch of seaweed. Pay attention.”
“The toxins are oozing out of my pores, even as we speak. Which means, yay, more wine for me when I’m done.”
“Pay attention,” Eve repeated. “Off the record until I give you the go-ahead.”
“Off the record,” Nadine mimicked, eyes still closed. “I’m going to pay Trina a thousand bucks to tattoo that on your ass.”
“I believe the Icoves headed, or at least actively participated in, a project with its roots in gene manipulation, and a good portion of the funding for said project may have come from selling females who had been engineered and then trained to suit the needs of prospective clients.”
Nadine’s eyes popped open, sharp