"You didn't recognize me. Evelyn," she added as Samuels gaped at her. Blood trickled onto her crisp white blouse. "You only saw what you expected to see, just as we thought. You perpetuate this obscenity. But then, you were created for that, so maybe you can't be blamed. I'm sorry," she said as she watched Evelyn die. "But it has to end."
She rose, sealing her hands quickly, moving to the screen. She found the control where she'd been told it would be, opened it, then used the decoder she'd tucked in her purse to unlock the vault.
She took every disc. She wasn't surprised or displeased to find a substantial amount of cash as well. Though she preferred electronic funds, paper would always do.
She relocked the vault, swung the screen back in place, secured it.
She left the room without a backward glance, set the privacy mode.
Unhurriedly, pulse galloping, she walked out of the building t: where the car and driver waited.
She breathed, just breathed as they drove toward the gates. When they opened, the pressure on her chest lifted a fraction.
"You were quick," the driver said softly.
"It's best to be quick. She never knew me. But... I saw Diana, and she did. She knew,"
"I should have done this part."
"No. The cameras. Even with an alibi, you couldn't beat the cameras. I'm smoke. Desiree Frost is already gone. But Avril Icove." She leaned up in the seat, squeezed Avril's shoulder. "She still has work to do."
T
he push of his name, and the considerable billions behind it, bagged Roarke a ten o'clock meeting with the acting CEO of the Icove Center.
"It'll be informal, and very preliminary," he told Louise as they were driven through ugly traffic. "But it gets us in the door."
"If Dallas is on the right track, the repercussions are going to be staggering. Not only the technology that's been developed underground, the explosion of the Icoves' reputation, and of this facility and all the others involved, but for God's sake, Roarke, the ethical, legal, moral dilemma of dealing with the clones themselves. Medical, legislative, political, religious wars are inevitable. Unless it can be buttoned up, covered up."
He shifted to face her, lifted a brow. "Is that what you'd chooser'
"I don't know. I admit, I'm torn. As a doctor, the science of it fascinates. Even bad science is seductive."
"Often more so."
"Yes, often more so. The debate on artificial twinning crops up from time to time, and while I'm opposed to it on a basic level, it's powerful stuff. In the end, too powerful. And too fraught. Replicating human beings in a lab, selecting traits, eliminating others. Who decides what are the parameters? What of the failures, as there must be in any sort of experimentation of procedures. And again, if she's on track, what of the temptation a man as reputable as Icove allegedly gave in to-to use those clones as commodities?"
"And if, and when, it gets out," he added, "people will be horrified and fascinated. Is my next-door neighbor one of them? And if he is, and pisses me off, don't I have the right to destroy him? Governments will vie for the technology. And yet, should those responsible go into history untainted? There has to be payment, balances. Justice. That's what Eve will think."
"First things first, I suppose. We're nearly there."
"Will you know what to look for?"
She moved her shoulders. "I guess we'll find out if I see it."
"Would you want it?"
She glanced over at him. "What?"
"To re-create yourself."
"Oh God, no. You?"
"Not in a million. We tend to ... reinvent ourselves, don't we? We're in constant evolution, or should be. And that's more than enough. We change, we're meant to. People and circumstances, experiences change us. Better or worse."
"My background, my blood, upbringing, early environment, all of that was supposed to-according to my family-predispose me for a certain kind of life and work." She lifted a shoulder. "I didn't choose it, and those choices and experiences I had changed me. Meeting Dallas changed me again-and it's given me the opportunity to work at Duchas. Meeting the two of you put Charles in my path, and our relationship has changed me. Opened me. Whatever our DNA, it's living and being that make us. We have to love, I think-as frothy as that sounds-we have to love to be fully alive, fully human."
"It was death that brought me and Eve together. And as frothy as it sounds, there are times I feel as though that was when I took my first breath."