Death Match

Lash’s uncomfortable feeling returned. “And did that exacerbate things?”

“What things?”

“Your feelings of frustration.” Lash chose his words carefully. “Having Lindsay matched in a supercouple could only have added fuel to the fire.”

“Christopher, it wasn’t like that at all.”

The uncomfortable feeling grew stronger. “Then perhaps you could explain it to me.”

Silver looked at him in genuine surprise. “Do you mean that all this time — despite everything I’ve told you — you still don’t understand?”

“Understand what?”

“You’re right. Lindsay was killed.”

The statement hung in the air, a dark cloud that refused to dissipate. Lash glanced again at Tara.

“But Christopher, I didn’t kill her.”

Very slowly, Lash looked back at Silver.

“I didn’t hurt Lindsay. She was the one person who gave me hope.”

Lash was suddenly afraid to ask the next question. He licked his lips. “If you didn’t kill Lindsay Thorpe — who did?”

Silver rose from the bed. Even though they were alone in the room, he glanced uneasily over his shoulder. For a minute he said nothing, as if in the grip of some internal struggle. And when he spoke, it was in a whisper.

“Liza,” he said.

FIFTY-SEVEN

For a moment, Lash could not reply. He felt stu

All this time, he’d been sure he was listening to a murderer’s confession. Instead, he’d been hearing a condemnation of someone — something—else.

“Oh, my God…” Tara began. Then she fell silent.

“I began to suspect just after the second couple died.” Silver’s voice had begun to tremble. “But I didn’t want to believe it. I wouldn’t let myself think about it, do anything about it. It wasn’t until you were named as the suspect that — that I finally took steps to learn the truth.”

Lash struggled with this revelation. Could it be true?

Perhaps it wasn’t true. Perhaps it was Silver, still trying to save himself. And yet Lash had to admit that, no matter how hard he’d tried to pigeonhole Silver into the profile of a serial murderer, the man never quite fit.

“How?” he managed. “Why?”

“The how would be all too easy,” Tara answered. She spoke slowly. “Liza knows everything about everybody. She had access to all systems, internal and external. She could manipulate information. And because everything was in the digital domain, there would be no paper trail to follow.”

Silver did not respond.

“Was it scolipane?” Lash asked.

Silver nodded.

“Liza would have known about the reaction with Substance P, the catastrophic results of the early trials,” Tara said. “It would have been part of her dataset from the days when PharmGen was our parent company. She wouldn’t even have needed to search.”

It seemed incredible. Yet Lash had seen Liza’s power, firsthand. He had witnessed the Tank, witnessed the intelligence at work. And if he had lingering doubts, all he needed was to look at Tara’s expression.

“I understand how Lindsay died,” he said. “The drug interaction, the high-copper condition from the antihistamine. But what about the Thorpes?”

“The same,” Silver said without looking up. “Karen Thorpe had a blood disorder that caused her to take prescription vitamins. The vitamin prescription was changed to a high-copper formulation, and the dosage increased. I checked her records. Karen Thorpe had recently undergone a physical exam. Liza took advantage of that not only to change the vitamin formulation, but to add a prescription for scolipane. On the heels of the physical, Karen would have no reason to doubt the new prescription.”

“What about the third couple?” Tara asked. “The Co

“I looked into them, as well,” Silver replied, his voice very low. “Ly

“So?”

“There was no record of anybody from Eden authorizing such a present. So I looked deeper. Only one grower in Ecuador markets that particular brand of pears for export. And that grower uses an unusual pesticide, not approved by the FDA.”

“Go on.”

“Ly

“Let me guess,” said Lash. “Substance P.”

Silver nodded.

Lash fell silent. It was outrageous. And yet it explained a lot of things — including the a

But still, something didn’t make sense. “Couldn’t Liza have killed the Wilners in some other way?” he asked.

“Sure,” Tara replied. “She could have done anything. Tweaked medical sca

“So why kill the couples in such a similar way? And why were their deaths so precisely timed, each exactly two years after they’d been matched? The similarity of deaths raised the alarm in the first place. It makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. You’re not thinking like a machine.” It was Silver who spoke this time. “Machines are programmed for order. Since scolipane solved the first problem successfully, there was no need for further optimization when solving the second problem.”

“We’re not talking about a ‘problem,’ ” said Lash. “We’re talking about murder.”

“Liza’s not a murderer!” Silver cried. He struggled to control himself. “Not really. She was simply trying to remove what she perceived as a threat. The concept of hiding, of deception, came later, when… when you became involved.”

“What she perceived as a threat,” Lash repeated slowly. “A threat to whom?”

Silver didn’t speak, and he didn’t meet Lash’s gaze.

“To herself,” Tara said.

Lash glanced at her.

“Dr. Silver instructed Liza to remove his avatar from the Tank after the match with Lindsay Thorpe. But I don’t think she did. I think his avatar was in the Tank all the time. Unknown to the technicians or engineers. And it found a match exactly five more times. Karen Wilner. Ly

“Each of the women in the supercouples.”

“Yes. Although I’m not sure they were supercouples, after all.” Tara looked over. “Dr. Silver?”

Silver, eyes on the ground, still said nothing.

“You know Liza’s been imprinted with personality traits,” Tara went on. “Curiosity, for example.”

Lash nodded.

“Jealousy is an emotion. Fear is another.”

“Are you saying Liza was jealous of Lindsay Thorpe?”

“Is that so hard to believe? What are jealousy and fear, except stimuli for self-preservation? If you were Liza, how would you feel when your creator — the person who programmed you, shared his personality with you, spent all his time with you — found a life mate?”

“So when Liza matched Lindsay Thorpe with somebody else, she marked it as a supercouple.”

“It must have seemed the most likely way of ensuring Lindsay would never again be a threat. The Thorpes were a valid match, of course — just not a perfect one. But the comparison process was so complex, nobody but Liza could know it wasn’t one-hundred-percent perfect.”

Lash struggled with this. “But if you’re right — if Liza matched Lindsay with somebody else, removed the threat — why kill her?”