Книга - Flashback

Flashback
Justine Davis


THE WOMEN OF ATHENA ACADEMY WERE BECOMING KNOWN AS A FORCE FOR JUSTICE AROUND THE WORLDAnd when new clues surfaced about the decade-old murder of Athena Academy founder and U.S. senator Marion Gracelyn, FBI forensic scientist Alexandra Forsythe jumped to investigate the stone-cold case. With fellow Athena alums and special agent Justin Cohen rallying to the cause, Alex uncovered an intricate web of deceit and murder.The evidence she uncovered could send shock waves around the nation: D.C.'s corridors of power and privilege were harboring a ruthless killer. And this time, all Alex's special skills couldn't protect those she loved from the killer's wrath.…












Flashback

Justine Davis








Special thanks and acknowledgement are given

to Justine Davis for her contribution to the

ATHENA FORCE miniseries.




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Coming Next Month




Chapter 1


The satisfaction of a tight grouping in the ten ring on her shooting qualification was fading as Alexandra Forsythe sat cleaning her new Glock on her grandfather’s front porch.

Charles Bennington Forsythe was rarely jittery. That he was now acting as if he’d been mainlining double espressos for hours was a fact not lost on his granddaughter. When he resorted to pacing the farmhouse porch, she couldn’t hold back any longer.

“G.C.?”

Alexandra Forsythe used the nickname with affection and concern. As a child she’d made it up for this beloved man, who was more a father to her than her real one had been, even before his untimely death. “Grandfather” had seemed too distant, and “Charles” far too lacking in respect. The fact that G.C., her shortening of Grandfather Charles, had made her mother wince was merely a side benefit.

He kept pacing as if she’d not spoken, which began to make her jittery in turn. Normally she would not push him, having learned in her years as a forensic scientist for the FBI that patience usually paid off. But this was so uncharacteristic of him that she found she couldn’t just ignore his mood.

The afternoon breeze swirled her hair, and she shoved red-gold curls back from her face. Determined now, she quickly finished up on the Glock, put it back in the case, then got up from the cushioned wicker chair that sat near the porch railing. She leaned forward onto the rail, taking in the expansive view of Forsythe Farms.

This was the place she loved most, the place she considered home, and of late the only place she found peace. But peace was obviously not within her grandfather’s grasp this afternoon, and neither, apparently, was patience within hers. Not when G.C. was this edgy.

“You have two choices,” she said without preamble. “You can either tell me what’s chewing on you or I can go saddle Twill and he can beat it out of you.”

She’d finally gotten his attention. He turned to look at her, one corner of his mouth quirking.

“So, you’d like to see your old grandfather groveling in the mud, would you?”

As she knew from personal experience, the big bay hunter was a handful, by turns all heart or all contrariness as the spirit moved him on any given day. But her grandfather had been a horseman for decades, and there were few he couldn’t handle.

“As if even Twill would have the nerve to toss you,” she said, in exaggerated outrage.

He gave her that smile that had always made her feel as if she could conquer the world. “Only because you’ve taught him to trust.”

“True. Now, if I could only get you to trust me with whatever it is that’s bothering you,” she said, looking at him steadily.

Her grandfather sighed. “I trust you,” he said. “You know that I always have.”

“But?”

“I’m not sure that what’s bothering me matters after all these years.”

She studied his face for a moment, saw the troubled look in his eyes and the furrow between silver brows that matched his still-thick mane of hair.

“It matters to you,” she said softly. “So it matters to me.”

His expression softened. “Inside with you, then. I’ll tell you over lunch.”

Their weekly lunch was a tradition Alex worked hard to maintain whenever she was at home. She’d gone through thinking she was going to lose her grandfather once before, and the awareness that he wasn’t getting any younger rarely left her mind. She didn’t like thinking about it, but there it was.

The only thing she thought about more was Justin. And that in itself bothered her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her fellow FBI agent, wasn’t sure she wanted to feel about him at all. That he’d already assumed such importance in her mind was disconcerting enough.

But she couldn’t deny she was tremendously attracted to him; he was good-looking without being pretty, confident without being cocky, and smart without being a smart-ass. He also seemed determined to make their relationship exclusive, and she didn’t know if she was ready for that. She wished she could get him out of her head, at least for a while.

As was his wont, G.C. flipped on the noon news for background as they ate. No new disasters had struck the world, no one they knew had died, and the stock market had held steady. Alex had hopes this would cheer him, but then a clip of a politician flinging some charges G.C. strongly disagreed with set him off on a rant.

“He’s an idiot. Most of them are, anymore. Hasn’t been a decent senator elected since Marion,” he muttered as long-time cook and housekeeper Sylvia Barrett set bowls of her homemade sorbet in front of them.

“Speaking of Marion,” her grandfather began, then stopped. Finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. Again he hesitated, enough unlike him to make Alex’s concern rise again. But finally he handed it across the table to her.

“And this is?” she asked, still focused on him rather than the envelope she’d taken from him.

“I’d like you to read it yourself and tell me what you think.”

Something in his tone and manner told her he was speaking to his granddaughter the FBI agent. This relieved her; she’d been afraid what he’d handed her was some sort of medical report she wasn’t going to like.

She studied the envelope for a moment. The paper was heavyweight, rich feeling. It was addressed to her grandfather here at the farm, in a bold, looping hand that looked familiar. There was no return name or address, only an Arizona postmark, which made her frown. Her forehead creased when she noticed that the letter had been postmarked ten years ago.

Her gaze flicked to G.C., who sat across the table from her with an expression she couldn’t read. He rarely used the mask honed by years in the upper echelons of power and the business world on her, and that he was using it now told her this was even more important than she’d guessed.

She slid out the folded pages. They were the same rich, ragg-heavy paper of the envelope. When she lifted the pages above the first fold, a familiar letterhead at the top of the page stopped her dead.

She knew now why the writing had looked familiar.

“Marion,” she murmured under her breath.

She glanced at her grandfather again, saw that he was quietly, expressionlessly waiting. She looked back at the words handwritten on letterhead from the United States Senate, further labeled in the upper corner as from Arizona senator Marion Gracelyn. The list of committees she’d served on during her tenure as junior senator ran a considerable length down the left margin.

Alex fought off the instinctive shiver a communication from the dead gave her and read. And reread the letter, her shock growing. Finally she lifted her head and stared at her grandfather. She’d wanted a distraction, and she’d gotten one in spades.

“She knew,” she whispered. “She knew someone was trying to kill her.”

Charles let out a suppressed sigh. “I was almost hoping you’d see something different there.”

She shook her head slowly. “It’s…right here. Three accidents, that close together, that weren’t really accidents? What else could it be?”

Charles nodded. His eyes were full of remembered pain as he gestured at the letter she held. “It’s as if she’s saying goodbye.”

Alex looked at the letter again. Looked at the closing line she had at first skimmed over in her shock at the other revelations the page held.

I don’t want this to sound like a letter from a foxhole, Charles, but I hope you know how much I love you and yours. We too often don’t tell the ones we should, and sometimes we leave it too late.

He was right, Alex realized. She’d been focused on the warning implicit in the letter and hadn’t recognized the tone of farewell until he pointed it out. Marion had not only known someone was after her, but had been convinced they were likely to succeed.

“What could have made her expect to be murdered?” Alex asked, forgoing the obvious next step, that Marion had been exactly right.

“More to the point, who on earth thought they could get away with murdering a U.S. senator?” Her grandfather’s tone was grim.

And why hadn’t this come out before now, all these years later? Alex wondered.

When Marion Gracelyn had been bludgeoned to death in a lab building on the grounds of her brainchild, Athena Academy for Women, it had been headline news for weeks. Speculation, both wild and informed, had flown around the country.

And if she’d been too young to know then, Alex certainly knew now what kind of pressure that type of high-profile case put on investigators. She’d borne the brunt of some of the frustration agents working such cases felt, when they wanted evidence processed immediately and everybody thought their case was more important than anyone else’s.

She could only imagine what it must have been like after the murder of a United States senator.

So why hadn’t this come to light? Why hadn’t the investigators back then put it together? In all the digging she knew had to have been done, how had this been overlooked, the fact that Marion had known someone was trying to kill her?

Once more she looked at the second page of the letter, which held the short, stark documentations of the three events that on the surface looked like accidents or to the mystics, a string of Mercury retrograde bad luck. An automobile malfunction, a fire at her home and the crash landing of the small plane she’d chartered to make it to D.C. in time for a crucial vote.

Taken individually, Alex might have thought the same. But when you looked at them all together, she thought, took into account that they had all happened in the space of two months, and added the final, grimmest fact, that Marion had indeed been murdered, there was no way to see it differently.

And Marion had known it.

“Why didn’t she tell me before?”

There was an undertone to her grandfather’s voice, an almost plaintive note that made a long-ago and long-forgotten suspicion resurface in her mind, that her grandfather and the late senator had perhaps been closer than she herself had then been aware of. And something she’d at first skimmed over made her look back at the first page of the letter, addressed, she only now realized, to “My Dearest Charles.”

She wondered, but she knew this was not the time to pursue that particular possibility.

“I don’t quite understand, G.C. Have you had this all this time?”

“Yes and no,” he said, his mouth twisting slightly. “I had it, but didn’t know it. Obviously, from the postmark it came around the time Marion was murdered. Sylvia found it tucked away in the back of a drawer, under some linens. Our best guess is that one of the staff, knowing we were all grieving, put it out of sight to avoid causing more pain at that time, and then forgot about it.”

And so it had languished there, hidden, for a decade, Alex thought. Only to surface now, when the case was as cold as a winter desert night at Athena.

“I suppose we need to step up the spring cleaning around here,” G.C. said, but the quip fell flat. And since she didn’t know what to say, Alex instead reread the details of the three incidents.

“She must have had some idea who was behind all this,” Alex said, almost under her breath. “Why didn’t she say so?”

“Marion was never one to make accusations without having specific proof,” Charles said, his voice level again.

Alex looked at him. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Obviously, her death wasn’t at the hands of the casual burglar the police wrote it off to,” he said.

“Obviously. But that leaves a host of other possible suspects, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Charles agreed. “Marion made enemies as both a prosecutor and as county attorney.”

“And from what you’ve told me about her, some of them were near the top of the criminal food chain.”

He nodded. “And some were people who had a great deal to lose.”

“She took down a couple of politicians, too, didn’t she?”

“Yes. Powerful ones. And it wasn’t easy. In fact, that’s why she ended up running for office, when she saw how much housecleaning needed to be done.”

“Which means somebody with some dirt under the rug might not be too happy with her,” Alex speculated, thinking that the list of possible suspects was growing exponentially.

“And then, of course, there’s Athena,” Charles said quietly.

Alex’s breath caught. “Do you think it could be related to what happened to Rainy?” Alex and her best friends and Athena Academy classmates, the small, tight-knit group self-dubbed the Cassandras, had just gone through a nightmare of untangling a vicious-threaded mess of science corrupted and murder freely practiced. A nightmare that had begun with the loss of one of their own, Lorraine “Rainy” Carrington.

“It could have been, although the timing falls between when Rainy’s eggs were harvested and her murder twenty years later. I think it’s more likely that it’s connected to Marion founding Athena Academy. Opposition to the academy was…virulent, in some quarters. And it was her brainchild, her vision that brought it to life.”

Alex knew this. She’d always thought of Marion Gracelyn as a sort of unofficial aunt and a personal hero, but above all she’d been grateful to her for envisioning and making real the place that had changed Alex’s life—and the lives of countless other women—forever.

Thanks to Marion, Athena Academy existed, and women had chances that had been denied them for so long, chances to make the most of themselves in whatever field they chose…as long as they could excel to meet Athena’s stringent standards. Law enforcement, the military, science, athletics, whatever the discipline, it was open for Athena’s students, and in the relatively short existence of the school her graduates were already proving themselves all over the world.

“The Athena Factor,” Alex said softly, lost for a moment in the immensity of what Marion’s dream had accomplished. She’d been hearing the phrase more and more, as the power brokers of the world ran into the results of an academy devoted entirely to the advancement of women without interference from misguided or antiquated views and glass ceilings.

“Yes,” G.C. said. “But that’s the very thing some powerful people were afraid of. Sad to say that some still are.”

“Afraid enough to kill?”

Even as she said it, Alex shook her head ruefully. Of all people, she knew better than to question that.

“Just how bad was the opposition to Athena?”

“Startling,” G.C. said. “Or at least it seemed that way to me.”

“But you thought it was a good idea to begin with,” she pointed out.

“Yes. I’d wished there was something like it from the time you were five years old and I realized what we had on our hands.”

She blinked. “What you had on your hands?”

G.C. gave her the amused and proud smile that had warmed and encouraged her throughout her life. He’d made the absence of her late father so much more bearable, even through his own pain at having lost his beloved son.

“A girl who refused to see or set any limits,” he said, “no matter what anyone said.”

He didn’t say it, he never would, but Alex knew he meant her mother, who had seemingly spent her life trying to rein in her rambunctious, redheaded daughter. Girls don’t do that was the phrase she remembered hearing most. She’d have been crippled by it if she hadn’t been so stubbornly resistant, and if it hadn’t been for G.C. countering her mother’s negativity with his own brand of high-powered encouragement.

And, she had to admit, her brother, Ben, and his teasing that had goaded her on—intentionally, she later realized—to greater heights. If not for these things, she might have succumbed and become one of those women she had little use for, because they had little use.

Women like, sadly, her mother.

She jerked her mind out of that well-worn rut and back to the matter at hand. “What kind of opposition? From what quarters?”

Resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, G.C. steepled his hands in front of him and rested his chin on his forefingers. It was his pondering position, and as a child who adored her grandfather, Alex had long ago adopted it herself. She saw his eyes go distant, unfocused, knew he was remembering.

“Athena was truly Marion’s brainchild,” he said. “Her views on women’s rights were well-known. So, many were surprised when she opposed opening U.S. military academies to women. But she knew what they’d be facing, that they’d have to fight so much harder than the men at those institutions did.”

Alex nodded. “And it was hard enough for the men, without adding intimidation, harassment and the just plain not being wanted that women would face into the mix. I understand all that. But didn’t a ‘separate but equal’ sort of solution placate those opposed?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But we found that many simply opposed women being prepared for any part in what was then a man’s world. Some almost violently so.”

“And one perhaps murderously so?” Alex said softly.

G.C. sighed. “It certainly seems possible.”

“Even probable.” Alex shook her head. “Although it’s hard for me to believe anybody could hate us that much.”

“I’m not sure it’s about hatred,” G.C. said, “as much as hanging on to a tradition, a way of life that’s all they know.”

“So was the Civil War,” Alex pointed out in a wry tone.

G.C. smiled at her as if she were an exceptionally clever student. “Point taken.”

Turning her attention back to the letter, she held up the last page.

“What’s with this?” she asked, pointing at the drawing in the lower left corner.

“I don’t know,” G.C. said, the tone of his voice telling her that he had spent more than a little time trying to figure out the meaning of the hand-drawn graphic that was almost cartoonish, yet at the same time quite ominous.

Only, she told herself, because it was a spider. A big, fat one, crouched in the middle of a web made small by the looming body of the arachnid.

“All I can tell you,” Charles said, “is that Marion was not a doodler.”

Alex looked at the drawing again. “So…this isn’t a casual scribble. It means something.”

“It did to her,” he confirmed.

Which meant it did to Alex, as well. Marion Gracelyn was Athena; it wouldn’t exist without her vision and effort. And anything that threatened Athena or anything connected to it threatened Alex, because Athena was irrevocably entwined in her life and her heart.

As was the case for all the Cassandras. They’d renewed their promises to each other and to Athena in the aftermath of the investigation that had begun with Rainy Carrington’s murder. She hadn’t expected to have the call come again so soon, but apparently it had. And she would respond.

Any and every Cassandra would always rally to Athena.




Chapter 2


“So, what do you know about working cold cases?”

Justin Cohen blinked, then drew back slightly as he stared at Alex across the table and the remnants of their lunch. He was in town from Phoenix for a week of seminars he’d been sent to attend, but their schedules were so chaotic that moments like this when they both had a few minutes of free time were pounced upon somewhat rabidly.

“Probably not as much as you do?” he suggested, sounding puzzled at the unexpected question. “I mean, you’re the forensics expert, and forensics is where more cold cases are broken than just about anywhere else.”

Alex stirred her glass of iced lemonade with the straw. “I’ve gone over and over what’s there, in our files. Nothing that led to a suspect at the time, but plenty to nail him once he’s found.”

His eyes—those stunning blue-green eyes whose image she’d been carrying around in her head since she was a teenager—narrowed.

“So you’re talking about a specific case, not just cold cases in general.” He didn’t make it a question, but she answered that way, anyway.

“Yes.”

“And a federal case, if we have a file on it.”

“Yes. Federal because of who was involved.”

“How cold a case is it, dare I ask?”

“A chilly decade or so,” she answered.

“Hmm. Well, I’ve heard of worse. It’s becoming more common as the technology advances. A guy I went through the academy with broke a thirty-five-year-old kidnapping case a couple of years ago.”

“How?”

“DNA,” Justin said. “But that was just the end result. He spent months before that talking to a lot of people, some of them old enough or sick enough that he had a lot of work to do sorting out what information was reliable. And going through every bit of paperwork and evidence with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. Over and over and over again. Until he found the guy to match the DNA to.”

Alex’s mouth quirked. “I was afraid of that.”

“You?” Justin scoffed in disbelief. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

The response warmed her, but still she told him silently, Oh, yes I am. I’m afraid of you, how you make me feel.

She knew her reaction was over the top, but the logical side of her mind kept insisting she was nurturing a childish fantasy she should have long outgrown.

The Dark Angel.

The memory of Athena’s midnight intruder, the boy the Cassandras had dubbed with that incredibly romantic nickname, kept getting in the way of her looking honestly at the man he’d become, who had so quickly become part of her life—mostly because he simply refused not to be.

But that boy, so passionately dedicated to finding out the truth about his sister Kelly’s death back when Alex was still in school, had fired all their imaginations and been so deeply etched into her mind that…

It suddenly struck her that he knew more about cold cases than she did on a very personal level.

“You never gave up on your sister’s case,” she said. “You became an agent because of it.”

He never liked talking about the reason he’d joined the FBI. She never doubted the death of his sister was the reason, but that kind of obsession was too Mulder-ish, he’d joked.

But she knew it was true. She knew he’d been driven, some even said possessed, so much that she’d been a little concerned about what would happen, what he would do when his quest was finally over. And last year it had ended, as triumphantly as it could for him. But he seemed to have settled nicely into the life he’d carved for himself by sheer force of will and determination.

Perhaps in the process of his quest, he’d found his true calling. She hoped so.

After that moment’s inner acknowledgment of his success, she went on. “Even when everyone told you there was no case, that she had simply died in surrogate childbirth, you kept on. For nearly twenty years.”

He sat there for a long moment. Alex guessed he was thinking, as was she, of the huge, frightening mess his sister had been devoured by—the mess she and the Cassandras had recently exposed. Since it had directly involved Athena, the Cassandras had vowed not to stop until the truth was uncovered. When it finally had been, the ramifications were so broad she still had trouble taking it all in.

“That was personal,” he said at last.

“So is this,” she said.

“What? Your federal cold case is personal?” He seemed surprised.

“It is. It’s connected to Athena.”

“Isn’t everything you do?”

His tone was wry, but he was grinning. Justin had come to know a great deal about Athena and the kind of women it turned out in the past year and a half. He knew what the school meant to all who attended, and Alex knew he’d come to appreciate the strength of the bond between the graduates and their alma mater.

“Yes,” she said without embarrassment. “But this is different. It’s not just the school. This has to do with the…creator of Athena.”

His brow furrowed. “Allison’s mother?”

He’d met Allison Gracelyn during the unraveling of the mystery surrounding Lab 33 and its genetic experiments, the motive behind Rainy’s murder. Rainy had found out that the lab had used her for an experiment, back when she’d been an Athena student. And when her adult investigation had threatened to expose them, they’d killed her. Alex felt the usual pang the thought of Rainy, and how much she missed her, brought on. But she buried it for now; there was another Athena murder to unravel.

“Yes,” she said. “Marion Gracelyn. Senator Marion Gracelyn.”

His forehead cleared. “Ah. Hence the federal investigation.”

She nodded.

“Didn’t they determine she’d interrupted a burglar?” he asked.

“That’s what they said,” Alex agreed, her voice neutral.

“But you’re not buying it.”

“I never did,” she said. “There was no reason an ordinary burglar would have broken into Athena.”

He considered that for a moment. “Can’t argue with that,” he agreed. “It’s too far out, too isolated, and there wasn’t enough to steal—except maybe some hard-to-fence lab equipment and computers—to make it worthwhile.”

She smiled, grateful he had so quickly seen the facts. His eyes widened, and she thought she heard him suck in a breath.

“Whatever brought on that smile, tell me so I can do it again. And again.”

Alex fought down the heat that threatened to rise in her cheeks. He always managed to do that to her. He was so…blunt, sometimes, about how much he wanted her, and wanted her to feel the same way. It was such a change from Emerson Howland’s cool, unaffected manner. It was taking her a while to adjust, to trust that it was real.

She pushed thoughts of her former fiancé away, along with any effort to respond to Justin’s unexpected request. She knew she was going to have to quit putting it off soon, but now was not the time. She had too much on her plate right now.

“There’s new evidence,” she said.

He seemed reluctant to accept the change back to the original topic, but at last nodded at her to go on. She told him about the letter. And again he wasted no time with trying to explain things away.

“So she knew someone—or maybe plural—was after her. And those supposed accidents were just failed attempts.”

She nearly smiled at him again, but stopped in time; she wasn’t ready for another round of dealing with his ardency just now.

“Exactly,” she said.

“How long’s the list?” he asked.

“Of suspects? Lengthy. I was thinking I’d start with the ones here.”

“Here? You mean in D.C.?”

She nodded. “There are a few of them who didn’t want to see Athena even exist, let alone succeed.”

“Which it has, and then some. It’s a force to be reckoned with these days.”

Athena Force. The new nickname they’d chosen for their expanding group of crime-fighting Athenians echoed in her head. The warmth of belonging to such a stellar group—and of having Kayla, one of her closest friends—back in her life, filled her.

“Given the circumstances and that a lot of those people are still here, that’s where I’d start,” he said.

“But?” she asked, hearing the unspoken qualifier in his voice.

“In the end, I think most cold cases are solved at the scene, or in the place most closely connected to it.” He shrugged. “That’s why I kept going back to Athena over and over again after Kelly died. It was the only connection to her death that I was sure of.”

She’d already had the feeling that she was going to end up back in Arizona. It all seemed to come back to that. As before, Athena seemed at the center of the storm. Marion had to have known she’d be stirring up things when she’d begun the academy for young women, but Alex wondered if she’d ever imagined just how much. Or how far and for how long the ripples would spread.

So, she’d be going back. She hadn’t expected to be investigating another murder so soon, but when it came to her beloved school she’d do whatever had to be done. Any Cassandra would.

“Anything I can do to help?”

At Justin’s words she snapped back to the present. She appreciated the offer, but this was Athena, her home and her problem. Or theirs, she amended. She figured she’d end up calling on some of her fellow Cassandras before this was over and done. And Allison, of course. She was first on the list.

But she’d leave the door open, she thought.

“Not yet,” she said.

He nodded as if he understood.

And perhaps he did, Alex thought. He seemed to understand a lot. Perhaps it was just his innate knowledge and acceptance of the concept of loyalty. She knew he had it; the man had spent half his life pursuing the truth about his sister’s death. They’d been closer than most siblings, the barely legal Kelly having fought hard to keep her teenage younger brother with her after their parents had died. And Justin had never lost his determination to see through the last and only thing he could do for his beloved big sister.

Would he be that dedicated and loyal to anyone he loved?

She brushed away the question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered just yet. But she was going to have to deal with it soon. They were growing steadily closer, and she was going to have to make up her mind just how close she wanted to get to this man who was both a teenage dream come to life and a threat to her adult peace of mind.

But for now she had to focus on Athena. And a decade-old murder.



“I’ve moved on, Ms. Forsythe. Long ago.”

Was there a bit of extra emphasis on the Ms.? Alex wondered. Was that General Stanley’s way of releasing a lingering distaste for what, at the time, he felt had been forced upon him?

It made no sense, really. Marion had been one of the military’s greatest supporters, and to kill her over something like this would be an exceptionally grievous case of cutting off their own nose.

She pondered her next words. She’d taken the week off work, hoping in that time that she could at least get a feel of how difficult investigating Marion’s death was going to be. She’d already made a flight reservation to Phoenix for a couple days from now, based on what Justin had told her, so she was pushing to either clear the people who were here in D.C. or pry a direction to look out of one of them.

“How do you feel about Athena now, sir?”

She made her tone respectful, both because of his two-star rank and because she wanted answers more than she minded giving a verbal bow to the man. She had tremendous admiration and respect for the military—“land of the free because of the brave” summed it up for her—so it wasn’t difficult for her to speak carefully to this veteran.

“If you’re looking for a rash quote to spatter across the front pages, you’ll have to go elsewhere,” he said.

He sounds defensive, she thought.

“Why would you think that?” she asked, still careful to keep her voice level.

“Because you’re a graduate of Senator Gracelyn’s invention.”

She hadn’t mentioned that, but she supposed it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out. And she couldn’t help but notice that for someone who insisted he’d moved on, he certainly seemed touchy about the subject.

But what she noticed most was that despite his obvious feelings about Athena, he referred to Marion Gracelyn by her proper title and with the respect it was due. That, and her gut was telling her this man hadn’t been involved. She’d learned to trust her gut.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” she said, not caring quite as much now about being tactful, “why did you agree to see me?”

The man in uniform leaned back in his chair. “You can’t live in this town for very long without learning that antagonizing a Forsythe isn’t wise, no matter who you are,” he said bluntly.

An image flashed through her mind of a dinner her grandfather had hosted a couple weeks ago, at the gracious Alexandria home he’d built for his late wife, Alex’s grandmother. Alex lived in the house now, as much as she lived anywhere other than her job and the farm.

But she’d absented herself that night, intentionally; she didn’t have the clearance required to be present given the guest list and some of the topics that would be discussed. It had been a small gathering inside, but the number of secret service men outside spoke volumes about the attendees.

No, in this town Forsythe was not a name to take lightly. The name was a weight Alex was always aware of, although she preferred her grandfather’s style to her mother’s more pretentious, self-aware version.

“No,” she admitted, with a grinning, inward salute to G.C., the man who’d so quietly built the Forsythe name into what it was, “it’s not. But I thought perhaps it was the FBI on my ID card that convinced you.”

“We try to cooperate with all federal agencies,” he said stiffly, “but although you’re an agent, you did say your visit was…unofficial.”

Which, Alex nearly said aloud, was akin to having a reporter say you’re off the record. “It’s personal,” she acknowledged.

“You writing a book or something?”

“A book?”

“About the founding of that school of yours?”

Not a bad idea for a cover, actually, Alex thought. “Everyone else in this town seems to be,” she said.

“Yeah.” An inelegant snort accompanied the tone of disdain. “So, if your question is did I support the senator’s plan, the answer is no. It was too late. We’d already been forced to open up the established academies to women. I didn’t see the point.”

Alex went back to her earlier question. “And now?”

“Hasn’t done any harm,” he said, and to his credit there was a minimal amount of grudgingness in his voice.

But still, Alex thought, faint praise. She’d be upset if she didn’t know the truth. Athena tracked alumni well after graduation, and she’d seen the figures comparing their success to that of women who hadn’t had the advantage of an Athena education. The difference was nothing less than remarkable. Athenas consistently went higher faster than any others, living proof of the validity of Marion Gracelyn’s vision.

But part of that vision had also been maintaining a low profile. Drawing less attention was one of the reasons Athena was a college prep—grades seven to twelve—and not a university. Athena’s goal was to empower women, not gain glory for itself. It didn’t rely on fund-raisers or tax dollars, and so didn’t need a high profile to curry favor and cash. Which explained why many still didn’t know of its existence, or that the difference they were seeing in the number of women raising the glass ceiling and earning influential positions these days was because many of them were Athena graduates.

Alex thanked the general, noted he didn’t try to crush her hand as she stood and shook his, and moved him down toward the bottom of her list.

She didn’t take him off it. She wasn’t taking anybody off at this early stage.

Her afternoon appointment netted her an endorsement from a senator she wouldn’t have expected it from. Patrick Rankin, Junior Senator from New Hampshire, told her that he’d only opposed the school for political reasons, that he himself had always thought it would work.

This was a surprise, because the man was an ally of senate lion Eldon Waterton, who had been an Arizona senator since long before Marion was elected. Waterton had opposed her on nearly every matter, although he’d stayed out of the Athena issue.

G.C. had always suspected that it was because he had a granddaughter he hoped might attend someday. Politicians, he grumbled, were all for standing on principle for everybody else.

As Alex barely managed not to gape at Rankin, he went on to say that he was glad he’d been proven right, that Athena women were shining in all fields. He seemed a bit too curious about why she was asking, but she also couldn’t help but notice that his statements were peppered with comments that revealed a certain admiration for Senator Gracelyn. Or perhaps it was simply courtesy to a fellow senator.

She moved him farther down the list as well.

Not that I won’t put you all back on top if necessary, she said to herself later as she wearily kicked off her shoes in the foyer of the Alexandria house.

The second her bare feet touched the floor the phone rang. She considered not answering since she was so tired, but a glance at the caller ID told her it was Justin. She was answering before she even realized it.

“How’d it go today?”

“Just got home. I’m afraid I haven’t had the proper appreciation for you field guys,” she said.

“Well, that’s certainly true.” She could almost see him grinning, could almost see the dimple that slashed into his right cheek when he did.

“People complicate things. Forensics, physical evidence, is…not simpler, but cleaner somehow.”

“It doesn’t lie.”

“Exactly. And it doesn’t try to hide. If you can’t find it, you’re just not looking hard enough, or in the right place.”

“Welcome to my world,” he said. “You sound a bit weary of it all.”

“I am,” she admitted. “Exhausted.”

“People will do that do you,” he said, sounding annoyingly chipper. “But since you have the grace to admit that you’ve underestimated us field grunts, I’m going to reciprocate.”

“Reciprocate?” she asked, puzzled.

The door chimes rang—they were loud, to be heard throughout the large house—and drowned out whatever his answer had been.

“Hang on,” she said, “there’s someone at the door.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

Boy, I am tired, and apparently confused as well. He’s not even making sense to me, she thought as she walked back to the front door, glad she hadn’t sat down yet; she wasn’t sure she could have gotten up again.

“I know,” he repeated as she peered through the security peephole.

“Oh.”

She felt beyond silly. Not even the fish-eye lens of the peephole could totally distort Justin’s dark good looks. She pulled the door open to the sight of him standing on the porch, cell phone in one hand and a large bag in the other.

“Cute,” she said, disconnecting.

“I thought so.”

His smile was irresistible. “Not that it’s not good to see you,” she said, accepting the kiss he planted somewhere between her cheek and her right ear, “but…what are you doing here?”

He flipped his cell phone closed and held up the bag in his other hand. “Dinner. Chinese okay?”

The smell had hit her nose by then, a lovely, warm barrage of soy and spice and sweet, and her stomach lurched hungrily.

“Bless you,” she breathed fervently.

“I thought you might be glad not to cook tonight.”

“I’m always glad not to cook,” she pointed out as she stepped back to let him in.

“And I’m glad to let you,” he retorted, ducking her halfhearted swipe at him.

“I have other skills,” she said as she snatched the bag from him.

The familiar white cartons were stacked high, topped by a pile of napkins and plastic utensils and emitting those luscious aromas that made her stomach growl in anticipation yet again. She barely managed to stop herself from burying her face in the bag just to get a deeper whiff.

“Indeed you do,” he said. “And I hope to sample them all someday.”

Alex was glad she had her back to him, although she didn’t need to see his expression to know what it looked like. Not when his voice had gone so dark and smoky all of a sudden.

The Dark Angel speaks, she taunted silently, trying to chide herself into a cooler response.

It almost worked.

But then he stepped up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and bent to gently kiss her neck. The shiver that went through her warned her yet again what she was likely in for should she ever—perhaps inevitably—give in and sleep with the guy.

Holy fireworks was all she could think of.

“I’m reading an awful lot into the shiver that just went through you,” Justin whispered.

That dark angel voice nearly made her shiver again. “I suppose saying I got a chill won’t work.”

Her irritation at herself for being unable to control her reaction to him echoed in her voice.

“Not a chance,” he said, his voice still soft, his breath still warm and making her skin—and other things—itch. She barely managed not to squirm, he was so close.

She twisted and ducked away from him. “Just what were you figuring I tipped for food delivery?”

He made no move to come after her, merely stood watching her with an expression she could only describe as amused. In a tone that sounded just as amused, as if it were the middle of some casual conversation, he said, “I’m very patient, you know.”

Alex swallowed tightly. She knew that. He’d waited years to get the people who had murdered his sister. She’d just never quite applied the knowledge to their personal situation before. And now that she had…

She was going to lose this battle, she thought. He would wear her down with that damnable patience of his. She’d hold out a good long time but in the end she would lose.

She tried not to hear the little voice that seemed to emanate from the tightness low and deep inside her saying that in this case, losing meant winning.




Chapter 3


As usual when she needed to think, Alex retreated to Forsythe Farms and the back of a horse.

“I hear you’re writing a book.”

Alex blinked, startled. She reined her horse in as she stared at her grandfather. “Well, that didn’t take long,” she said.

“I have my sources,” he said blandly.

“Don’t I know it,” she said, remembering the times when he knew about her college escapades before she’d even returned to her dorm room. She’d always been aware he seemed to know things—even trivial information—before anyone else, but she hadn’t quite expected this to get to him this quickly.

“I assume that’s your cover, for those who don’t already know you’re with the FBI?”

She nodded and nudged Silk forward again. The cream-colored filly was aptly named; her gait was as smooth as her coat. As was her disposition. Even the fidgeting of the temperamental Twill, in an exceptionally feisty mood this evening and only grudgingly bending to her grandfather’s experienced hands, didn’t seem to phase her.

Her calm temperament was unusual for such a young horse, and Alex suspected they had a real treasure in the making. It was horses like this that made her sometimes wish she’d stayed in this world and pursued her riding career. But she knew she wouldn’t trade the challenges of her job for anything, and that moments like this she could steal would have to do for now.

“General Stanley guessed that that was what I was there for, and I sort of let him go on thinking it. It seemed like a decent cover. Although he did say to pass along his thanks to you, for always being there for the military when they need you.”

G.C. nodded. “What little I can do these days. But we’ll stick with the book story for now. I suppose being rather well-known here could make things difficult.”

“It’s a handicap and a benefit,” she said. “I get in to see higher-ups more easily, but those higher-ups know more about me than I’d like for this purpose. It affects what they’re willing to tell me. I think I may do better in Arizona, where I’m more anonymous.”

“You’ve called Allison?”

“Yes. I left a message since she was out. I didn’t say it was urgent, since we’re just starting, but I thought she should know.”

Twill snorted and danced as a dragonfly darted in front of them. With practiced ease G.C. brought him back in line. Silk shook her head when the insect came too close to her nose, but otherwise remained calm.

“Learn from your daughter,” G.C. told the big bay stallion in mock sternness.

It was a minor chastisement directed in jest to an animal, but Alex couldn’t help thinking how the words he’d said demonstrated one of the things she loved most about her grandfather. Despite his position and the importance others assigned him, he never thought he was too big or too important, never thought he knew too much to ever learn from anyone around him.

They finished their ride, untacked and groomed the horses under the hovering eye of head groom Jacob Garner. Garner, even after years of working for the Forsythes, had never quite gotten used to their penchant for taking care of their own horses. He’d even told her once that it was a topic of discussion among other grooms in the area, how unusual it was that the Forsythes insisted on doing such things themselves instead of just handing their horses off to staff as most others in their circle did.

It wasn’t until they were walking from the stable back to the house that G.C. returned to the subject of her investigation.

“Will you be talking to the police in Phoenix? Asking them to reopen the case?”

“Officially? I’m not sure yet. I’ll talk to Kayla, certainly, and maybe the detective assigned to the case if he’s still there.”

Her beloved Lacy, registered name Chantilly Lace, whinnied at her from the paddock where she was enjoying the spring day. She laughed, and changed direction.

“She’ll never forgive me if I don’t take her out soon.”

“Jacob says that tendon is healing nicely, so a little ramble shouldn’t be out of the question by next week.”

Alex nodded, glad the horse she’d grown up with since she was a child was doing better. She didn’t push her so hard anymore, now that she was in her twenties, but Forsythe horses were long-lived and spirited, so she expected to be out on the trails with Lacy again soon.

After the horse had been greeted and cooed over and seemed satisfied for the moment, they resumed their walk up to the house, and the conversation.

“I’d like to do as much as I can under the radar,” Alex said. “Less warning, and less time for the roaches to scurry into hiding.”

She was certain Kayla Ryan, her friend and fellow Cassandra, who was now a lieutenant of the Athens Police Department, would have some ideas on how to proceed. And knowing Kayla, she’d be off and running herself once she found out what Alex now knew from Marion’s letter.

Alex felt no hesitation about letting Kayla in on what they’d found out. Despite the rough patch their friendship had been through, she had never questioned Kayla’s loyalty to Athena. And she didn’t question it now, or that Kayla would be eager to start digging the moment she heard.

“And I suppose professional courtesy requires that I let the locals in Phoenix know that I’ll be poking around,” she went on, thinking aloud now. “I don’t want to use the book-writing cover story with them only to have them find out later I was scamming them. I might need their cooperation before this is over.”

“Spoken like a woman brought up around politics,” he told her.

“Yuck,” she said succinctly, making an exaggerated face of distaste as she knew G.C. expected. She won the grin she was after; her grandfather knew quite well her aversion for the world he held so much power in, despite the fact that he had never run for or held public office.

“That feeling you have is why Marion ran for office,” he said.

Alex shook her head. “I admire her for that. I think. My first thought about a filthy pond is how to clean it without going swimming in it.”

He looked at her with an amused expression. “And how would you do it?”

“Drain it?” she suggested. “Then shovel the dregs out into the compost pile and start all over with clean water.”

He chuckled. “You’d be amazed at how many people agree with exactly that idea. Too bad more of them aren’t in positions to do it. Yet.”

The rest of the evening, except for a brief phone call from her mother—brief because Alex escaped by saying she was busy preparing for the trip to Athena—passed in the pleasant manner that made her long for this place when she was gone. She was so relaxed and calm by the time her grandfather said good-night that she was startled when he added soberly, “Be careful, Alexandra.”

“Of course,” she responded automatically.

But as she lay awake that night, turning things over in her mind, she wondered what he thought might happen in Arizona, what had compelled him to issue that caution about a case that was a decade old.

It might be a decade old, a small voice in her head pointed out, but it was still murder.

And the murderer was still out there.



“I can’t believe Jazz is old enough to be at Athena,” Alex said.

Kayla Ryan laughed. “Neither can I.”

“She’s doing quite well already.”

Christine Evans, the only principal Athena had ever had, or had needed, spoke enthusiastically as she handed the two other women glasses of the lemonade she’d just fixed. They’d both chosen it rather than wine, knowing they’d be driving later tonight.

They’d wanted to meet here, not just because they loved Athena and came back often, but also to check on Christine, and make sure she was truly completely recovered from the gunshot wound she’d suffered during their unraveling of Rainy’s murder. It seemed that she had, and Alex knew that yet another Athena class would be whipped into shape by the indefatigable ex-army captain.

That class was here now and was the main reason Alex was staying in town instead of out here at the campus. With a new session of school in full swing, Alex hadn’t wanted to intrude on the rhythm, even if Christine had said she wouldn’t be at all in the way.

“Jazz has some awfully big footsteps to follow in,” Alex said, nodding at Kayla, whose honey complexion pinkened in what Alex guessed was pride more in her daughter than herself. But her brown eyes sparkled, much as Alex guessed her own blue ones did at the happiness of having her closest friend back in her life.

“A little mother-daughter competition won’t hurt her.”

“I’d argue that,” Alex said ruefully, “except you are thankfully nothing like my mother.”

“And Jazz can’t, and shouldn’t, be me.” Kayla grimaced slightly. “Hopefully she’s smarter than I was at her age. She’s her own person, and she’ll have to find her own path, her own talents.”

“And Athena’s the place to do it,” Alex said, shifting her gaze to Christine, “thanks to you.”

“My, you’re just full of praise tonight,” Christine teased.

“Maybe I’m just glad to be with people who love Athena as much as I do.”

“Uh-oh,” Kayla said instantly at the undertone Alex hadn’t meant to let show in her voice. “Problem?”

“No, not really. Not a current one, anyway. But I do have some news.”

She filled both women in on why she was there, and both were, as she’d expected, as eager as she to get to the truth about Marion Gracelyn’s murder. Christine spent quite a bit of time walking Alex through every bit she could remember about that day.

“Did Marion ever tell you anything about those three incidents that happened before she was killed?” she asked Christine.

Christine frowned. “I knew she had that fire at her home here in Phoenix, the one that they thought was arson, and then, of course, that awful crash with that plane that ran off the runway when taking off.”

“And a week before that, the steering on her car went out,” Alex said. “Her mechanic said the fluid was contaminated. Something that gummed up the works. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Highly unusual but not unheard of.”

“Well, yes,” Christine said. “I heard about that, but…you’re saying they’re all connected?”

“Marion thought so.”

“The fire was arson,” Kayla put in. “I remember looking up the report shortly after I started at the PD, when I had access to old reports.”

Christine looked thoughtful. “It does seem a bit much to have three ‘accidents’ of that severity in such a short time span. I should have…I just never put them all together that way.”

“You were in shock,” Alex said. “Everybody who knew and loved her was in shock, not thinking clearly.”

“So you think those accidents were failed attempts on her life?”

“I pulled the NTSB report on the plane accident. The official verdict was accidental debris on the runway, but there were two dissenting investigators who thought it might have been intentional damage done to the plane’s tires.”

Kayla drew in an audible breath. “So if we accept that these were all caused incidents, we’re down to who caused them.”

“And if we can figure out who caused them, it should lead us to who killed her,” Alex said. Then she looked at Christine. “Did you have any suspicions, at the time it happened?”

“I never thought it was someone who’d been against Athena,” Christine answered. “Not that there weren’t plenty of them. But Athena already existed, and was successful, by the time Marion was killed. Why would anyone wait that long?”

“I tend to agree,” Alex said. She knew that Christine had excellent instincts about people, and a great deal of common sense.

“Judging from what I’ve heard around town over the years,” Kayla offered, “it could just as easily have been some conspiracy freak, with a crazy idea about what Athena is. People still have some out-there theories.”

“I guess I hadn’t realized,” Alex said, “that so many people had such wild ideas about us.”

Christine chuckled. “It’s the price we pay for the low profile. When people don’t know exactly who or what you are, they either don’t care or tend to make it up for themselves. And most people who make it up have outrageously over-the-top imaginations.”

“Tell me about it.” Kayla’s tone was wry. “When I applied at the PD, and they found out I went here, the first thing one of the old farts on my oral board asked was if that was the school that taught women to take over the world and drive men out.”

“Good grief,” Alex said. “What did you answer?”

“I said no, but that it did teach us to recognize men whose masculinity was so fragile they were afraid of strong women, and how to treat them gently.”

As Christine laughed, Alex hooted aloud; she’d never heard that story from Kayla before. “And yet you still got the job?”

Kayla grinned. “Turned out they dragged out the old dinosaur for every female’s entrance exam. Figured if she could deal with him without getting rattled or angry, she had a chance of making it.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Alex said.

“It is,” Kayla agreed. “And come to think of it, the idea came from Eric Hunt. The detective who handled the investigation, although he was still the dinosaur’s partner when I came on. He was Phoenix PD then, but he’s ours now.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a cop,” Kayla said, as if that said it all. As perhaps it did, Alex thought. But then Kayla added, “A good one.”

Alex waited, sensing there was more but not wanting to push. At last, with a sigh, Kayla went on.

“He’s just in a rough place right now. Tired. A string of tough cases and long hours. He’s liable to be a little touchy at first, that’s all.”

Alex nodded. “I’ll be gentle.”

Kayla laughed. “Don’t be. Eric doesn’t need it. As long as he knows you’re not there to make cops look bad, he’ll help you.”

“You know that’s not why I’m doing this, right?” Alex asked. It was an aspect that hadn’t occurred to her before Kayla had mentioned it.

“Of course I know,” Kayla said. “But it’s him you have to convince.”

“I’ll manage.”

“You always do,” Christine put in. Then, settling back in her chair, she eyed Alex with interest. “So…tell me about you and the Dark Angel.”

Alex nearly groaned. “Can’t we stick to something easy, like ten-year-old murders?”

It was Kayla’s turn to laugh. Alex quickly turned on her friend; anything was fair game now. “Why don’t we talk about you and Peter instead?” she said, referring to the detective Kayla had gotten involved with during Rainy’s murder case.

“Because he’s not an Athena legend,” Kayla said with exaggerated blitheness.

“Fine,” Alex said, defeated. “He’s fine. I’m fine. We’re still testing the waters, trying to make the long-distance thing work.”

“Wasn’t he supposed to be in D.C. about now?”

“Yes.” She tried to leave it at that, but Kayla and Christine were both watching her too intently. “He is in a D.C. Training seminar. We’ll be getting together when he gets back here.”

And if I weren’t the biggest coward on the planet, I’d probably be staying at his place, like he’d offered, instead of a hotel.

Later, she tried not to fixate on the thought as she headed back to her nice but impersonal room at that hotel. Justin had been great about not pushing for more than she was ready to give, while at the same time making it clear that he wanted more. Much more.

Not that she didn’t want it, too. She was just…what? Cautious? Careful? Wary?

Afraid?

She didn’t like the idea, but she couldn’t definitively say it wasn’t true. She was honest enough with herself to admit it, even to figure out why. It annoyed her that she was letting her mother influence her, but it was an example she’d had all her life.

But she knew she couldn’t drag it out forever. Either they were in a relationship that would by definition have to progress, or they weren’t. Justin was tacitly giving that decision to her, telling her that his was already made.

He’d also understood her need to dive into this investigation, and accepted easily her leaving for Arizona so soon after he’d left it for D.C. He was going to be busy most of the rest of the week, anyway. He’d simply changed his schedule to come back when he was done, instead of hanging around there an extra few days to spend them with her.

She wished she wasn’t so confused about her feelings. There was more to it than the fact that she’d barely escaped what she was sure would have been a disaster with her former fiancé, Emerson. She just wasn’t sure what it was. While her maternal grandparents and her parents had had a rocky relationship, G.C.’s had been solid and happy until her grandmother’s death, and that was what she thought of when she thought of such things.

And while she’d been relieved to end her engagement to Emerson, she hadn’t been wary of marriage itself. Not that she was sure that was what Justin had in mind, of course. Nor was she sure how it would work out if it was. Not with careers that had them currently living with most of the country between them. Twenty-three hundred plus miles was at the upper end of geographically undesirable.

The only thing she really was sure of was that Justin wouldn’t wait forever.



Alex shivered.

She had to be having a flashback to the last time she’d been here, when they’d been trying so desperately to disprove the assumption that Rainy, their beloved Rainy, had fallen asleep at the wheel and died in the ensuing accident. Why else would she feel a sudden chill, despite the fact that the temperature was a balmy, Phoenix-in-spring seventy-two?

She pulled the rental car into the left lane to pass a slow-moving gardening truck. Someone behind her had the same thought and also pulled to the left. She glanced at the truck as she passed, noting the lawnmowers in the back, and wondering about the people who insisted on having a lawn in this climate.

She smiled at the driver as she passed, silently congratulating him for managing to make a living at being an anachronism.

She eased back into the right lane so she could make the turn up ahead that would take her to the Athens Police Department. As she went, she resumed mentally running through the contents of Marion’s letter. She had it virtually memorized by now, both intentionally and from repeated readings, including last night at the hotel.

She’d left the original with her grandfather, who was going to keep it safe just in case. She’d thought it wise not to carry a copy of the letter around with her, so she’d made a list of the high points in an encrypted file on her PDA.

She slowed her speed after she completed the right turn. Building was going on here at a mad pace, as it seemed it was everywhere in the greater Phoenix area, and she wasn’t sure she’d spot the driveway she needed in time to make the turn.

Sure enough, the vacant lot next to the police station, that area of scrub and mesquite that had always been her landmark, was no longer empty. The big marquee for the new convenience store nearly obscured the small sign for the department, and she almost missed it.

A quick glance in the mirror told her she had enough room between her car and the blue sedan behind her to make the quick turn. She heard some hard braking farther behind her, and silently apologized to the driver of the gardening truck, who was now pulling over to the curb, probably to resecure something that had come loose because of her quick move.

She found a parking spot in front and was quickly out and heading for the front steps when she remembered she’d left her PDA in the car. Since it had all her notes in it, including those on Marion’s letter, she turned to go back for it.

And stopped dead, staring.

She blinked, but she knew she wasn’t mistaken. The blue car that had been behind her was stopped in the convenience-store parking lot. The vehicle was still running, dark-tinted windows closed. Angled so the driver could see the police department building, and the spot in which she’d parked her rental.

She recognized it now as the car that had pulled out from behind the gardening truck at the same time she had. As if the driver had seen her spot him, the car suddenly reversed out of the drive, tires squealing. The car rocked as the driver hit the brakes. She heard the bark of tires biting as the car accelerated hard and fast, cutting back into the traffic lane, nearly clipping an SUV that was driving decorously along in the slow lane.

In moments the blue car was out of sight.

Coincidence?

She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think so.

What she did think was that she had the answer to that chill she’d felt before. On some level she’d been aware of the car’s presence.

On some level she’d known she was being followed.




Chapter 4


“Just what I need, a fed.”

Alex caught the muttered imprecation, although she doubted she’d been meant to. Detective Eric Hunt—Kayla had introduced them and then sneakily decamped—looked up quickly, as if he suspected he’d spoken too loudly.

He’d be nice looking, she thought, if he ever smiled. There was something appealing about his boy-next-door looks, sandy hair and golden-brown eyes. He seemed…trustworthy, she thought. A good quality in a cop.

“Look,” he said, “I know you’re a friend of the lieutenant’s—”

“Don’t let that influence you.”

He gave her a look that told her what he thought of that piece of impossibility.

“Just,” she said lightly, “think of me as a P.I.”

She smiled. He frowned.

“A P.I.? With an FBI badge?”

“This has nothing to do with the FBI. I’m investigating an old case of yours, yes, but as a private citizen.”

She supposed she couldn’t blame him for the suspicions that showed in his expression. In his place, she’d be hard-pressed not to wonder herself.

In his place, she thought, I’d get some sleep.

He looked beyond tired. Beyond even exhausted. He looked, she realized, burned out. She’d become familiar with the look, that world-weary, heard-too-much, seen-too-much expression that could quickly collapse into don’t-give-a-damn. Once somebody hit that wall, coming back was a long, hard road many chose not to even attempt.

He leaned back in his chair. It creaked, the way just about every government chair she’d ever seen did. His cubicle was typical, small but not cramped, plastered with notices and suspect photographs, official memos and reminders.

But not, she noticed, much in the way of personal items. A postcard with a photograph of a snowcapped mountain, a snapshot of what appeared to be that same mountain and, looped over a pushpin, a long chain with a set of dog tags. She couldn’t read the name from where she stood.

“How long have you been a cop?” she asked.

His frown deepened. She guessed if she’d been anybody else the answer would have been “What’s it to you?” Instead it was a grudging, “Eighteen years.”

Long enough to burn out. And then some. “First job?” she guessed. He didn’t look over forty, even with the tired eyes.

“Yeah. Straight into the academy from college.” He shrugged. “All I ever wanted to be.”

He still sounded a bit on edge, so she tried another tack.

“Just so we’re clear, I don’t expect anything from you. I’m not asking that you reactivate the case or get involved at all. I’m just letting you know I’m here, and what I’ll be doing.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Your thoughts about the case, mainly. And a look at the original file. I’ve seen ours but not yours. Although, if you have any personal notes or recollections, copies of those would help, too. Beyond that, I’ll stay out of your hair.”

He leaned back slightly, puzzlement replacing the frown on his face. “Why?”

She lifted one shoulder. “Because, this is personal, not official.”

“Oh? You guys took over the case in the first place, the vic being a senator and all, so why don’t you check with your own investigators?”

“I have. But you were first investigator on the scene. Your impressions are the most important.”

“So I’m supposed to believe an FBI agent—”

“Scientist.”

“Whatever. I’m supposed to believe the FBI shows up in tiny little Athens asking about the unsolved ten-year-old murder of a former U.S. senator, and it’s only personal, I’m not going to get sucked up into the federal wood chipper?”

Her mouth twitched. She fought the grin. “It is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?”

She finally got the smile she’d been thinking about earlier. And it did, as she’d suspected it would, transform his face. He went from guarded and world-weary to open and approachable—and charming—in the space of a few seconds.

“It really is personal,” she assured him. “Marion Gracelyn was a longtime family friend. She was like an aunt to me, and my family would really like to know the full truth of what happened that night.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” Hunt said wryly.

“It means even more to me, because of where it happened.”

He lifted one sandy brow. “The women’s academy? You go there?”

“I did.”

He looked curious then. “I hear it’s quite a place. Lieutenant Ryan went there didn’t she?”

Alex nodded. “She did. We were best friends.”

“And she’s one of the best cops I’ve ever worked with.”

“I’ll tell her you said so,” Alex said with a smile.

“Oh.” He looked chagrinned. “I guess you already knew that.”

“We were in the same class,” Alex said. “So yes, I know how good she is.”

No point in trying to explain about the Cassandras; he didn’t need to know, and likely wouldn’t understand anyway. Nobody would who hadn’t been in that kind of situation where the bonding was deep and permanent.

Whether it was that she knew Kayla, curiosity about Athena or something else, she didn’t know, but he came over to her side after that.

“Look, your guys pretty much nudged me out of the whole investigation once they got here. Not that I blame them, really,” he added in a burst of refreshing candor. “I was pretty green.”

“Sometimes I think I still am,” she commiserated, and earned another smile.

“Naw. Definitely red,” he quipped, and to her surprise she didn’t mind the reference to her hair. Perhaps it was the boy-next-door thing that softened it from taunt to friendly tease.

“Anyway,” he said quickly, as if he’d embarrassed himself, “most of the files of that era aren’t digital, so they’re in storage in Phoenix. I can send for them, but it’ll raise a flag.”

She knew that was likely true; you didn’t dig out a murder case on a U.S. senator without drawing attention.

“I could tell them it’s just been bugging me, and I want to look at it again,” he said.

Something in the way he said it told her it wasn’t totally a ruse. “Does it? Bug you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted with a half shrug. “It does. It was my first murder, and probably the biggest case I’ll ever be involved in.”

She nodded in understanding. “Well, I’m not really trying to hide what I’m doing, just to keep it under the radar as long as I can. So if you think you can do it without sending up a flare…”

“I think so,” he said, and she smiled at the change in his attitude. Oddly, he glanced away for a minute, much as she did when she thought she was going to blush.

“Thank you.” She put every bit of sincerity she was feeling into her voice. “I really appreciate it.”

As if inspired by the positive reception of his first offer, he said “I can dig out my own notes, if you think it would help. I kept all the old ones on paper, so it’s not a digital file.” He gave her a slightly sheepish smile. “And back then, I wrote down everything.”

Definitely boy-next-door material, Alex thought.

“So did I,” she said, grinning at him. “I think it would probably help a lot, then. Thanks, Eric.”

He colored visibly then, and grinned back at the same time, a combination she thought awkwardly sweet.

It seemed she had gained an ally.

“Anything else, Agent Forsythe?” he asked.

“Alex,” she said, granting him the familiarity she’d already taken. She started to answer his question in the negative, then thought again. “Could you have a license plate run for me?”

He looked surprised, but nodded. “Sure.”

She handed him the piece of paper she’d scribbled the number from the blue car on. He took it and sat down at the computer terminal on a table behind his desk. Less than a minute later he handed her a printout.

The name and address meant nothing to her, but she hadn’t really expected it to. She tucked it away, just in case, while he dug into the bottom drawer of the big file cabinet that stood beside the desk. While it was in the back of the very full drawer, he had no trouble finding the file, and Alex guessed it was because he looked at it with some regularity. As did most cops with the cases they couldn’t forget.

He straightened, glanced inside the dog-eared and marked-up manila folder and then held it out to her.

She opened the cover, scanned the first page of neatly written, single-spaced notes. “Are you sure you don’t want to just make me a copy and keep the originals?”

“I’d just as soon you had to bring them back,” he said.

Her gaze snapped back to his face. Had she interpreted that right?

He gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “You brighten up the decor around here,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, a little taken aback. But he didn’t press any further, and she was left not certain if he’d meant it as merely an aesthetic comment or an invitation.

He walked with her back to the front of the department. As they neared the doors, Alex held back. “Would you do me a favor? Look out and see if you see a medium-blue sedan with very dark tinted windows parked anywhere within line of sight?”

“The license plate?” he guessed.

She nodded. Without further questions he walked over to the doors and stepped outside. After a couple minutes he came back inside. “Don’t see him. But if you want, I’ll open the back gate for you, and you can get out using our employee exit. Maybe a pile of marked units will make him think twice.”

“Thanks,” she said, meaning it as much for the fact that he hadn’t asked her any questions as for the escape plan.

As she pulled out of the rear parking lot, drawing some curious glances from uniformed personnel, she was relieved to see no sign of the blue car there, either. Perhaps it really had been a coincidence. But once again she had to admit, there were times when her distinctive curly red mane of hair was a definite drawback.

In case it was not a coincidence—and she was inclined to go with her gut reaction that it was not—she headed back to the hotel by a different route than she’d come by. She had Eric’s personal notes in her satchel, and her plan for the afternoon was to settle into her room and go over them inch by inch. It would take a while; he hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he wrote everything down.

But that could only help her in her quest for anything that would mesh with the new information she had from Marion’s letter. Hopefully, he would have the original case file by tomorrow, and she could plow through that, hot on the heels of the notes, and everything would mesh together.

At her hotel room door she had to shuffle her load of satchel and the lunch she’d picked up on the way—a fast-food drive-through purchase that would have made her mother faint dead away—to insert her card key again. And again.

Nothing. No blinking green light to signal the unlocking of the door.

With a sigh she looked around, spotted the courtesy phone in the elevator lobby and headed that way. She called the desk and explained her problem.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Forsythe. Let me just check something here….”

There was a pause that went on a moment too long, and Alex’s antenna for trouble snapped up.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Well…I…we thought you had checked out,” the young male voice said, sounding nervous.

“Checked out? I just got here, and my reservation is open ended.”

“I know, but…let me check this note on the file…here it is, it says you had to return home unexpectedly. A family emergency.”

Alex went cold, the chill weakening her joints and making her skin clammy.

“Who gave you that information?”

“Um…it doesn’t say.” The young voice sounded even younger, and very worried now. “But I’ll send someone up right away with a new key.”

“To a new room. And send someone with a clue about how this happened, please.” She realized she had sounded very sharp, and tried to ameliorate it. “I realize this is not your fault, but I need to know how and why this happened for…other reasons.”

“Very good, Ms. Forsythe.” The voice seemed calmer then, and Alex hoped that would result in answers to her questions sooner.

But first she had a much more important question that had to be answered immediately.

She yanked out her cell phone and hit the voice-activated key. She had to rein herself in to say “G.C., home,” in a tone the phone would understand.

The five rings before his voice mail picked up seemed to take forever. She left a hasty message and hung up to try the private line to his home office; if he was busy there he often didn’t answer the house line.

No answer again.

Damn this age where we all have so damned many phone numbers, she thought as she tried his cell phone.

It went immediately to voice mail, telling her he was either on it or it was turned off. He always turned it off at home or in meetings, she told herself. Or when he simply didn’t want to be reached, wanted to, as he put it, slip the electronic leash. She left another message.

Her hands were shaking now, and she took a deep breath to steady herself before her last chance. She apparently didn’t do that well, because the phone didn’t recognize her voice command on two tries. She canceled the effort and hit the speed-dial button to dial her grandfather’s office in the city.

She held her breath until his assistant, Ruth Epson, answered.

“Ruth? It’s Alex.”

“Hello, dear! How are you?”

A normal greeting, Alex thought, her hammering pulse slowing a bit. “Fine, but in a bit of a rush. May I speak to my grandfather?”

“Oh, he’s not in today, dear. He has that meeting with the FTC, remember?”

She did, suddenly. There was a Federal Trade Commission hearing coming up, about a proposed new tax structure on textiles, and her grandfather, as usual, had been called upon to explain the facts of the industry to those ignorant of it.

“Have you seen or spoken to him today?” she asked Ruth, who had been G.C.’s right hand for twenty years.

“This morning,” she said, relieving Alex’s worries a bit more. “He called to pick up messages before he went to the meeting.”

“Did he seem…all right?”

“Why yes, he seemed fine. His normal self. Why?”

Well, she’d done it now, she’d managed to spark that note of worry in Ruth’s voice. She tried to lighten up her voice.

“Oh, nothing really. I think I just had a joke played on me, about G.C., but I had to make sure, you know?”

“Some people just have sick senses of humor,” Ruth commiserated.

“You would know, you’ve been in that city long enough,” Alex said, and was gratified to hear the woman laugh. She herself was feeling a bit better, although she wouldn’t relax until she’d talked to G.C. herself. “If you hear from him, please ask him to call me as soon as possible. Or if he can’t get free, would you call me and tell me you’ve heard from him?”

“Of course I will. You’re really concerned, aren’t you?”

Alex tried to soothe the woman’s own motherly concern. “I just worry about him. He means the world to me.”

“Ah, child, as you do to him. I’ll make sure you either talk to him or I’ll let you know when I have. Don’t you worry.”

Alex said goodbye as she heard the elevator doors open. A woman in the tailored blazer of the hotel staff hurried toward her, already apologizing. Behind her was a bellman with a suitcase and carry-on bag that looked very much like hers.

“I just don’t understand,” the woman whose name tag read Lynn said. “The man had your room number and reservation code.”

“Man?”

“Yes.” Lynn consulted a piece of paper in her hand. “He called at 10:00 a.m., from out of state, and said you’d had to come home immediately. That you’d asked him to call and handle this because you’d be on a plane.”

“Did he give you a name?”

“No, but he identified himself as your brother.”

Ben?

Alex’s heart picked up speed again; was there really an emergency after all? Had he been hurt, injured? Was he in trouble? Or was it Tory? She knew her brother and her fellow Cassandra were involved with each other. In fact, it had been Tory Patton who had strongly hinted to her that Ben wasn’t merely the scapegrace it appeared he’d become, relieving somewhat her constant worry about her beloved brother.

Still, she hadn’t thought of contacting him. Her focus had been on G.C., not her brother. She wasn’t even sure where he was at the moment.

Heck, you’re not even sure who he is at the moment, she muttered to herself.

“He said to pack up your things carefully,” the woman went on, “and that you’d send someone for them later.”

So those were her bags on the cart, she thought. And this was rapidly moving from the arena of sick joke or harassment to carefully thought-out plan. And that made her very nervous.

“Again, I can only say we are so very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“I have a feeling it was totally out of your control,” Alex muttered.

“What can we do to make up for this unfortunate mixup?” Lynn asked.

“I would like another room, please, on a different floor. But I need to get into this one first, to make sure nothing was overlooked.”

“Of course,” the woman agreed immediately. “And if you find any damage to anything in your luggage, the hotel will be responsible.”

I’m not the lawsuit type, Alex thought, realizing the woman was working hard to make it right and avoid anything unpleasant for her employers. But right now she just wanted to get this done.

Lynn unlocked the door, and Alex cautiously stepped inside. The maid had apparently already been in, the towels were fresh and the bed was made. The drapes were nearly closed, the slight gap letting in a swath of light that fell across the table beside those windows, as if it were a spotlight highlighting the one thing in the room that looked out of place. A single page of newspaper, with a ragged edge that told her it had been torn out.

“I don’t know how they missed that,” Lynn said, taking a step toward it.

“I’ll get it,” Alex said hastily, stepping ahead of the woman. She paused only to look at the door itself; the lock appeared intact. She bent to look and saw what appeared to be a small amount of some kind of smeared residue on the faceplate of the lock.

She reached into her purse and took out a latex glove from the small packet she always kept handy. She pulled it on her left hand and touched the edge of the residue. The glove clung for a moment, then released. Whatever it had been, an effort had been made to clean it, which had probably destroyed any evidence value.

Lynn was staring at her, but she wasn’t about to take time to explain. She entered the room, and after a quick look to be sure she wouldn’t be disturbing anything else, she reached out for the torn newspaper page. When she got to the new room, she’d pull out an evidence envelope to put it in, and keep from disturbing any trace evidence or prints that might be on it. At least it was porous paper, and more likely to retain prints.

She wished she had her own lab equipment handy, or even just a lab to borrow, but she knew any good forensics person would find anything that was there.

Then she saw what was on the page, the story that had been highlighted by the way the page was folded, and her heart slammed into her throat.

She stared down at the small but painfully clear picture of the man who had been at the center of her life for as long as she could remember. And couldn’t deny what was right in front of her. The threat was implicit, just short of declared in black-and-white.

The story was from yesterday’s paper, about the upcoming FTC hearings, accompanied by a photo of her grandfather, exiting the Federal Trade Commission Building after a meeting last year.

The very same building where he was meeting with them today.




Chapter 5


Although she knew it was relatively quick, it seemed like forever before they had arranged a new room. On the concierge level this time, no doubt as part of their effort to placate her, because they had no way of knowing that this little inconvenience was the very least of her current worries.





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