Fade To Midnight. Shannon McKenna

a hawk. It’s too risky.”

      “Charles Parrish has been raking in hundreds of millions in medical patents for years,” Ava said bitterly. “Like he cared where the smell came from before his nose got rubbed in shit.”

      “Thank God he’s retiring. I’m giving a fawning speech for that pompous tightass at the retirement banquet. Fucking bore.”

      “Retiring? That’s good.”

      “Not really. It just leaves him that much more time to be possessive and controlling about Parrish Foundation research money.”

      Ava gave him a big, brilliant smile. “So let’s kill him.”

      Des looked startled. “That wouldn’t solve our problem.”

      “No? You’re on the board. You handpicked the last two board members after we got rid of Linda. If Parrish disappeared, the rest of them will do anything you want, for the 400K salaries, the skybox, the Lear jet. The paid luxury vacations. They’re sheep. It’s easy, Dessie.”

      Des grunted. “Hardly. Don’t oversimplify.”

      “But it is simple,” Ava said. “We create the perfect board. Eliminate the watchdogs. Create a perfect screen of bland, squeaky clean product development projects that they can all feel virtuous about. Siphon a percentage of the money back to the real stuff, like Dr. O did. Except we won’t fuck up, and let it explode in our faces.”

      Des looked dubious, but he wasn’t rejecting it out of hand.

      “Who inherits Parrish’s fortune when he dies?” Ava asked.

      Des frowned thoughtfully. “His younger daughter, Ronnie. Ronnie’s thirteen. Edie, the older one, was at the Haven with us, remember? Glasses, braces. Woof, woof. The cognitive enhancement program bombed out bigtime on her, as I recall. She never got into Club O. Just didn’t have what it took.”

      Ava nodded. She remembered the tongue-tied Edie. One of the privileged ones, like Des himself. Rich kids who did the soft core version of Dr. O’s dirty mind games, because Mommy and Daddy wanted better grades. Ava hated the pampered little cunt for that.

      “Who inherits if Ronnie dies?” Her voice hardened.

      “Av. Please,” Des grumbled. “We can’t kill everyone in sight.”

      “Who?” she persisted.

      He shrugged. “The Foundation, I guess. I know that Edie’s out of the will, because I overheard Dad and Charles talking about her. He’d cut off her personal funds. He was arranging to disinherit her. That was a few years ago.”

      “What did she do? Drugs? Partying? Fucking the wrong men?”

      Des shook his head. “No, she’s just weird. She embarrasses him. Charles can’t stand that. She had, ah, problems. You know…” He twirled his index finger in a circle at his temple. “Doesn’t surprise me, since she’s one of Dr. O’s duds. Most of them cracked up years ago.”

      Ava tapped her lip. “Dr. O wanted to do an interface with Edie Parrish so bad, he was practically pissing himself,” she said. “She had the perfect test results for it, but she was Charles Parrish’s little baby girl. He had to keep her in bubblewrap. Stick with the standard cognitive enhancement program. It drove him crazy.”

      She left the rest of the thought silent. How she, Ava, had borne the brunt of Dr. O’s frustration. He’d taken it out on her. She had good reason to hate that mealy-mouthed little Parrish princess bitch.

      Des looked baffled. “What was it that he liked about her? What can you see from test results and MRI’s?”

      Ava’s smile was bitter. Des was such an ignorant dickhead sometimes. “They were exactly like mine,” she said softly.

      Des’s face was still blank. “Meaning?”

      Ava sighed. “I was his best interface, Dessie. Besides Kev McCloud, of course. We were the only ones that didn’t die of brain bleed. Some lasted a few days, but only McCloud and I were genuinely reusable. That’s why I survived. That’s why I wasn’t flushed down the john with the rest of them.” She brushed her hair back with a swipe of her hand, preening. “And being pretty helped, too.”

      Des looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Um. I see. I’m, ah, sorry.”

      The insincere, pat words grated on her. “No, you’re not. You don’t give a shit, and we both prefer it that way,” she said crisply. “Kev McCloud was the cornerstone of Dr. O’s research. X-Cog wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for McCloud. So Dr. O was always looking for test results similar to his, and mine. And Edie Parrish had them. That’s all.”

      Des let out a dubious grunt. “Kev McCloud managed to escape and practically fuck the whole project. Looks like that perfect interface had some pretty big fucking holes in it. And his twin, Sean, forced Dr. O to slit his own throat, remember? That should give you pause, Av.”

      Pause, hah. It had given her sleepless nights for years. Wondering frantically how Sean McCloud had managed it. When she could not.

      How? How the fuck had he done that? All those years of being Dr. O’s slave-crowned dollbaby. Used like a puppet, all the while dreaming of hammers crushing, knives gouging, axe blades hacking. Gouts of black arterial blood. Her hands began to shake, just thinking about it.

      She locked the feelings down automatically, so that she could function. “The McClouds are freaks. Edie will be different. She’s female, artistic, creative. Shy, introverted personality. Probably emotionally crushed by her father, which is fine for our purposes. She’ll be a good little girl. She won’t slit my throat.”

      Des’s blue eyes narrowed. “What is this? First you want to kill her. Then you want to crown her.”

      “Crown first, kill later,” she said airily. “Waste not, want not.”

      Des shot a speaking glance at Mandy, who was rocking on the ground, sucking on her thumb. “You don’t call that a waste?”

      Ava’s teeth ground. “No. I call that a calculated risk. So what are we going to do about Parrish?”

      Des looked irritated. “Shit,” he muttered. “I don’t know.”

      Ava sighed. Des was so fucking slow sometimes. “Des. Honey. Brainstorm with me. He’s about to retire, right? Dangerous age for a man. Health problems, chronic pain? Grief, solitude? And he was bereaved last year, too. Poor Linda. He must be fragile. Depressed. And his daughter, with her mental problems? Oh, dear. So sad. Plus, he disinherited her. She must be so angry with him. She must feel betrayed. Maybe even…” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Murderous?”

      Des’s face took on an expression of dawning discovery. “She might. Wouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s such a self-righteous, pompous tight ass. I’m surprised someone hasn’t beaten her to it.”

      “So sad,” Ava said solemnly. “All those years of staunch service to the company, the community…and it has to end like this, at the hand of his own flesh and blood. It’s Shakespearean in scope.”

      “But there’s Ronnie to consider, if you’re talking about the money,” Des said. “Ronnie would inherit the—”

      “Edie must be so jealous of her little sister,” Ava cut in dreamily. “Daddo’s little favorite, right? I bet Edie lies awake nights contemplating how that complacent, self-satisfied little piece of shit deserves to die. So she offs the sister—and then kills herself. It’s awful. It’s epic.”

      Des chuckled. “I love the way your mind works,” he said, with frank admiration. “Your twisted genius knows no bounds.”

      “No bounds except for your pussy squeamishness, that is.” Ava kicked the girl curled on the floor in the back of her thigh. “Get rid of this trash for me. I’m sick of looking at her.”

      Des’s smile vanished. “I don’t