«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? Manipulate 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 covert 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 paints 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 green against skin painted pale yellow. «You are shitting me.»
«No, and you look like a fish. Smell like one, too. It's bad. I believe Avril Icove might have been part of this experimentation, and that she was an accessory in the deaths of her father-in-law and husband.»
«Get me out of this thing.» Nadine tried to sit up, but the thin warming blanket was strapped around the table.
«I don't know how, and I'm not touching it anyway. Just listen. I'm hitting this from a lot of angles. I may be off on some of it, but I know I've got the gist. I want you on Avril Icove.»
«Try to keep me off her.»
«Wheedle an interview, you're good at it. Get her to talk about the work both these guys are known for. Circle around the genetic stuff. You found the connection to Jonah Wilson, so you can touch on that. But you've got to keep it sympathetic, play up what they did for humanity and all that crap.»
«I know how to do my job.»
«You know how to get the story,» Eve agreed. «I want you to get data. And if I'm right, and she's been part of two murders, if she thinks you're digging close to that mine, why would she hesitate to eliminate you? You're research, Nadine. I don't have anything on her, nothing I can use to pull her into Interview.»
«But she may say something to a sympathetic female reporter that could point you.»
«You're smart. That's why I'm asking you to do this, even though you're lying there looking like some sort of mutant trout.»
«I'll get you something. And when I break this story, the fucking sky's the limit for me.»
«It doesn't break until the case is closed. The Icoves couldn't have been the only ones involved in this. I don't know if she's going to be satisfied with taking only them out. So you're looking for the human angle. Her father figure and her husband, father of her kids, both lost to inexplicable violence. Ask her about her education, her art. You want the woman, the daughter, the widow, the mother.»
Nadine pursed her yellow lips. «The many facets of her, appealing to her individuality. So she leads me into her relationships with men, rather than them leading me into her. She's the spotlight. That's good. And it'll keep my producer very happy in the meantime.»
There was a soft triple ding. «I'm done,» Nadine announced.
«I'll get the tarter sauce.»
There was no getting around it. With Mavis sitting beside her hands and feet in frothy blue water, and Peabody snoring lightly nearby under relaxation VR, Eve stoically endured a facial. The cumlike substance Trina swore by was already slicked through her hair.
«What we're gonna do is a full-body facial while your hair soaks in the joy juice.»
«That doesn't make any sense. The body is not the face.»
«Some people'd be better off if their ass was their face.»
Eve snorted out a laugh before she could stop herself.
«Everybody but Mavis is getting hair. Did hers this morning. You want something different with yours.»
«No.» Defensively, Eve reached for her hair, and got her hand covered in slime. «Oh man.»
«Could give you a temp tint, or try extensions. Just for fun.»
«My world can't take any more fun. I don't want different.»
«Can't blame you.»
Eve opened one eye, suspiciously. «For?»
«Keeping it as is. It's working for you. But you don't take care of it, or your skin, like you should. Doesn't take that long for basic maintenance, you know.»
«I maintain,» Eve said, but under her breath.
«Your body, yeah. You got a prime one. Mag muscle tone. Some of my clients? They got shit under the sculpting.»
Eve's eyes blinked open. Fear, she thought in disgust, had blinded her to an excellent source.
«You work on anybody who's used the Icove Center?»
«Shit.» Trina sniffed as she worked. «Probably fifty percent of my base. You don't need them, take my word.»
«Ever worked on Icove's wife? Avril?»
«She uses Utopia. I worked there about three years ago. She had Lolette, but I filled in on her body care one appointment 'cause Lolette was out with a black eye. Boyfriend was an asshole, which I told her, but would she listen. No, not until he—«