Seduction in Death (18 page)

"With honors," Lucias pointed out and poured scotch neat into heavy crystal. "Just taking a sabbatical after years of study. And actually, I've been doing some work in my lab. A pet project. You know all about pet projects, after all."

McNamara turned away briefly. The boy was a disappointment to him. A severe disappointment. He had helped create him, hand-picking the man he'd deemed best suited for his daughter. A man much like himself -- intelligent, driven, strong. Ambitious.

Their inability to conceive a child had been a monumental frustration for him, but had helped him launch the project. The project that had advanced his career, created his grandson. And had very nearly ruined everything.

Still, he had risen above it. His name had never been marred. And never would be.

And hadn't he nurtured the child? Educated him, molded him, given him every opportunity to refine and develop the superior mind he'd been born with?

Instead, the boy had been spoiled. His mother's doing, McNamara thought grimly. A woman's weakness. She'd pampered and coddled him. Had ruined him.

Now, he was very much afraid that child had put his name, his career, his reputation in the greatest jeopardy.

"What have you done, Lucias?"

Lucias downed the scotch, poured more. "I'm not prepared to talk about the experiment, though it's coming along quite well, I believe. And how is Grandmother?"

"As ever." He took the glass Lucias offered, studied his grandson's face. And saw what he had always seen. A blank wall. "She misses you. It seems you had no time to visit her, or call, while I was away."

"Well, I've been a busy little bee." The whiskey helped, considerably. "I'll be sure to make time for her very soon. Ah, here comes Kevin."

He went back to pour a drink for his friend, and yet another for himself.

"Dr. McNamara, what a delightful surprise."

"So I just said myself." Lucias handed Kevin the glass. "It isn't often we're so privileged. That will be all," he said to the droid, then dropped into a chair. "Now, what shall we talk about?"

"I want to see your lab," McNamara demanded.

"I'm afraid not." Lucias sipped scotch. "You know how we mad scientists are about our experiments. Hush-hush. Top secret. After all, I learned all about the sacrosanct from you, didn't I?"

"You've been using illegals again."

"No, I haven't. I learned my lesson. Didn't I, Kevin? We both learned our lessons well when you had us tucked quietly away in rehab on Delta last year. Hush-hush," he said again and nearly giggled. "Top secret."

"You're a liar." McNamara exploded, striding to his grandson, knocking the heavy glass from his hand. "Do you think I can't recognize the signs? You're using again. Both of you. Destroying your minds, your futures for a weakness, a temporary indulgence."

"That glass was an heirloom." Lucias's hands wanted to shake, but with anger as much, as the innate fear, the bone-deep loathing his grandfather always brought to him. "You should have more respect for family, Grandfather."

"You speak to me of respect? The police came to my office today. They questioned me. I've been ordered into Interview tomorrow, and there's a request being processed to open the sealed files on the project."

"Oh-oh." Lucias's bright blue eyes twinkled, a mischievous boy caught in a prank, as he looked at Kevin. "Now that would be quite the scandal. What do you think, Kevin, about having all those secrets, the grand passions that conceived us both, revealed?"

"I think it would be embarrassing, in some quarters."

"Yes, indeed. Couples, well, coupling, under the fierce scrutiny of the exalted Dr. Theodore McNamara. No candlelight and music to romanticize the exercise. No indeed. No muss, no fuss. Just a clinical process hyped by sexual enhancement drugs with one purpose. Us."

He laughed now and swilled back scotch. "And a rousing success it was."

"Medical advancement. Procreation of the species." McNamara's voice trembled with rage. "I had assumed, incorrectly it seems, that both of you were mature enough to understand the scope of what you were part of."

"But then we weren't really part of it, were we?" Lucias countered. "We were simply part of the results. I don't believe we were given a choice in the matter. I don't believe a number of the participants were, either. Isn't that what we discovered, Kev, when we read through the files?"

"Those files are sealed," McNamara said.

"Seals were made to be broken." Lucias continued. "Just like rules. You broke a number of rules, Grandfather, in the name of science. Why shouldn't Kevin and I do the same, in the name of... entertainment?"

"What have you done?" McNamara demanded.

"Nothing to concern you."

"It concerns me when I'm ordered into Interview. And it best concern you as well, as questions will be asked about murdered women that lead to you."

"To us?" Kevin set down his drink. "But that's not possible. How could they know -- "

"Shut up." Lucias sprang to his feet. "What did they say about us? What did you tell them?"

"I didn't want to believe it." McNamara braced a hand on the back of a chair, forced himself to stand when he wanted to sink. "You murdered those women."

"Don't be ridiculous. Murder? You've lost your mind. If you're in some sort of trouble with the police -- " Lucias's tirade was cut short as McNamara slapped him.

"You disgust me. All of my hopes for you, my dreams, and look at you. You're worthless, you and your pathetic friend. All of your talent, wasted, wasted on games, drugs, and your selfish pursuit of pleasure."

"You created me." Tears, hot with humiliation from the slap, stung Lucias's eyes. "You made me."

"I gave you all that was in my power to give. Every advantage. And it was never enough."

"You gave me orders! Expectations. I've detested you all my life. I live as I choose to live now, and there's nothing you can do."

"You're right. Quite right. And nothing I will do. I won't clean up your mess this time. I won't pay to have you protected, nor will I sacrifice myself to shield you. When they find you, and they will find you, I won't lift a hand."

"You won't let them take me. I'm all you have."

"Then God help us both."

Changing tacks, Lucias grabbed McNamara's arm, put a plea in his voice. "Grandfather, we mustn't argue like this. I apologize. I was overwrought. Kevin and I have been working very hard."

"Working?" McNamara repeated. "How did you come to be monsters? With so much at your fingertips."

"We're scientists, Dr. McNamara." Kevin ranged himself beside Lucias. "This is all a mistake. That's all. Just a mistake. There was an accident."

"Yes, an accident." Lucias tried to nudge his grandfather into a chair. "And perhaps we got a little carried away. But these things happen when you try to... expand the box. You understand that. They were only women. Test subjects."

"Take your hands off me. You'll face this, both of you. You'll pay the price for your actions. If you want my help, you'll come with me to the police tomorrow. I'll arrange for a legal team, and a psychiatric study."

"We're not crazy! You'd let them lock me up? Your own flesh and blood." He leaped, knocking over a table as he fell on top of his grandfather. The priceless lamp that stood on it crashed and showered glass. Enraged, McNamara shoved Lucias aside and tried to regain his feet.

"For years I tried not to see what you were. Allowed myself to see you -- both of you -- as what I knew you could be." He managed to kneel, braced a hand on the arm of the chair.

"What we've done is no different from what you did a generation ago." Lucias swiped a trembling hand over his mouth. "You dosed test subjects, some with their knowledge, some without, for the purpose of copulation and conception. You did it for procreation, so you say. We're doing it for fun. And with more style."

"You've killed."

"A lab rat is a lab rat and an acceptable sacrifice."

It was horror now that clutched in McNamara's throat. "You've destroyed yourselves. I'm going to the police. The two of you are nothing but an experiment gone wrong."

With a cry of fury, Lucias snatched up the base of the lamp, used it like a club.

"We're men! Men!" Blood sprayed over the chair, the rug as McNamara slumped to the side, flailed out to try to defend himself. "They'll send us to prison. To prison. Stupid old bastard!" He staggered to his feet, screaming as he pounded his grandfather to the floor. "I won't go in a cage because you have no vision."

Breath heaving, Lucias stepped back, tossed the bloodied lamp aside.

"My God." Kevin's voice was soft, almost reverent. "Is he dead?"

McNamara's face was bloody, his mouth agape. Still panting, Lucias crouched down and checked for a pulse. "No, not yet." Then he sat back on his haunches and forced himself to think. "But he will be. He has to be. He'd give us over to the police, give us over like we were nothing."

Though his breathing was shallow, Kevin nodded. "We can't let that happen."

"We'll finish it." Lucias got carefully to his feet. "But not here. We have to take him away from the house, make it look like a robbery."

"You... I've never seen anything..."

"I've done us both a favor." Staring down at his grandfather, Lucias patted Kevin's arm. He was in control again. Perhaps, he realized, fully in control for the first time in his life. "He's outlived his usefulness. And he's a danger to us. So, we take him out of the equation."

"It has to be done. But, my God, I've never seen so much blood."

"If you're going to be sick, get it over with."

"No, I'm not going to be sick." He couldn't look away. "So much blood. It's... fascinating. The others, the women, it was almost gentle, really. But this..." He moistened his lips and his face was pale and shining as he looked at his friend. "How did it feel? When you struck him? How did it feel?"

Lucias had to stop and consider. His hands, slick with blood, were steady now. His mind already clearing. "Powerful," he decided. "Extremely. Energizing."

"I want to try it."

"We'll finish him off together then. But not here." Lucias checked his wrist unit. "We have to work quickly. I have a date tonight."

It didn't take long, all things considered.

It was a matter of pulling his grandfather's car into the garage. As a point of pride and control, Dr. McNamara made a habit of driving himself nearly everywhere. He wouldn't, Lucias thought, drive himself to his final destination. With Kevin's help, he wrapped his grandfather's nude body in plastic and folded it into the trunk.

"He might have told someone he was coming here," Kevin pointed out.

"Low probability. He disliked sharing personal business."

"Your grandmother?"

"Her least of all." Lucias tossed the bag of clothes and valuables into the trunk. "It wouldn't have occurred to him to bother, nor would it occur to her to ask if he had any plans. Now." He slammed the trunk closed, brushed his hands together. "You've reprogrammed the droid?"

"Check. There'll be no record we had any company."

"Excellent. We have the location for disposal your computer scan indicated was the best for our purposes. You follow in your car, we finish it, then dump him and the goodie bag. You did weigh it down enough, didn't you?"

"Absolutely. It'll sink to the bottom of the river."

"And he won't. Perfect. We torch the car, drive back home. And I have plenty of time to dress for my evening out."

"You're a cool one, Lucias. I've always admired that about you."

"Thank you. Well, we'd best be off. You know, this will be a record. Two perfect crimes in one night. I'll have to claim the lion's share of points for the first, though."

"I can't argue about that." Kevin gave him a friendly smack on the shoulder.

"Clean as a whistle," Eve said as she studied Lucias's data. That either makes him a droid or a... what's that term Mavis uses? Dweebazoid. No school infractions, no traffic violations. Following right along with the family tradition, too."

"That's why they're called family traditions," Roarke pointed out. "What will ours be, I wonder? Crime, of course, but which side of the spectrum?"

She spared him a look. "He's got his own residence here in the city. I'm going to make time to talk to him. He's rolling in money, so he's a hit there. He's got knowledge of chemistry."

"Attractive young man," Roarke commented, nodding toward the picture beside the written data. "Young being the operative word. He's barely been out of university a full year."

"I'm checking him out. And I'll use checking him out to see if it makes his grandfather a little more forthcoming."

"He pissed you off."

"That's affirmative. And I'm going to piss him off right back when I get authority to open the sealeds."

"I can get that data for you."

"I've already had you do an unauthorized and illegal computer block. Let's leave our black marks to a minimum."

"The block may save a life. That's no black mark. And I can get you some of that sealed data by perfectly legal means. A single 'link call to a source at Allegany who worked on the project. If you want names to run, I'll get you names."

"Just a call?"

"Very simple."

"Then do it."

"All right, but it'll cost you."

Because she recognized the gleam in his eye, she narrowed her own. "Get out. I'm not paying for information with sex."

"Consider it taking one for the team," he suggested, and tumbled her into the sleep chair.

By the time she'd paid up, her ears were ringing and every ounce of tension had melted out of her body. It seemed her bones had melted along with it as she discovered when she tried to stand.

She wore only her boots and the diamond pendant he'd once given her.

"You know if you hadn't become a cop, you might have had a future in porn vids. And I mean that in the best possible way. Christ, Eve, you're a picture."

"Don't even think about trying for a second round. I want that data, pal."

"A deal's a deal." He rose, fluidly, wearing nothing but his grin. "Why don't you order us up a meal of some sort," he suggested as he started for his office. "I'm starving."