Athena Force: Books 1-6 Read online

  It was just after 6:00 a.m., but she didn’t hesitate in dialing Kayla Ryan’s cell phone.

  She felt a strange sense of both familiarity and oddness as she made the call. There had been a time when she would have called her old Athena classmate anytime there was something bursting out of her that she simply had to talk about. But that closeness had disappeared a long time ago, and the chasm that had opened between them over Kayla’s affair with Mike Bridges, the cocky young officer who had fathered Kayla’s daughter and then deserted them both, had never quite healed.

  But none of that ancient history mattered now. The Cassandra promise had been invoked. Every one of them would live up to the promise, and they would all pull together as if the years since they’d left Athena Academy had never existed.

  Kayla answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Alex.” She wasted no time on preamble. “An intruder was in the morgue at the hospital. He was trying to do something to or with Rainy.”

  She heard Kayla suck in a breath, could imagine the change in her expression as she snapped into police mode. “Any idea who?”

  “No. Didn’t get a look at him at all. He was tall, in good shape. He was good, maybe a pro. Probably covered his tracks well. But I’m not even sure what he was going to do. I interrupted him just as he was…reaching for her.”

  She bit her lip. Hard. Tasted blood. Didn’t care. God, this hurt so much, to even think that the cold, lifeless body in a drawer was really, truly Rainy. Or at least all that was left of her in this world.

  “We’ve got to get her out of there and back on Athena turf,” Kayla said, with a briskness Alex guessed hid feelings similar to her own. Kayla had also voiced her own first choice; she’d feel much better when Rainy was out of the hands of strangers who didn’t know who they had, how special she was, that she was worth any effort.

  “Yes. To the morgue there in Athens, preferably,” Alex said, referring to the small town adjacent to the academy. On the map Athens was a continuation of the Phoenix sprawl, but in fact had grown up into a town of about five thousand as an adjunct to the academy, housing many of the staff and support services, and suppliers to the school.

  It was also Kayla’s jurisdiction.

  Kayla quickly picked up on her inference. “You want her there, not just to a mortuary?”

  “Exactly. I want her where we can have someone we know and trust take a closer look. This doctor’s good, but he’s not a coroner or an investigator. The county doesn’t have one, they have to borrow from the next county over, and they won’t do it unless they’re really suspicious.”

  “And they’re not,” Kayla said.

  “No. They’re already convinced it was just an accident, that she fell asleep.”

  “As if,” Kayla muttered, and Alex’s mouth quirked at the perfect repetition of her own response, even as she felt a qualm that she and this woman she had once been so close to had become so estranged. Kayla’s next words wiped all levity from her mind.

  “I was going to call you this morning. Your guy isn’t the first intruder. Someone was inside Rainy and Marshall’s house yesterday.” Kayla explained that the person had run and Kayla hadn’t gotten a look at him. Or her. “I also checked out Rainy’s car at the county forensics lab. The seat belt failed.”

  Alex sucked in a breath. “Any sign of tampering?”

  “None. What are the odds.” Her tone was grim.

  “We should move her today.”

  “I’ll make the arrangements with Marshall,” Kayla said.

  “How is he?” Alex asked. Then felt foolish. Rainy had been their friend but Marshall Carrington’s wife, so how did she think he was?

  “He’s…handling it,” Kayla said.

  Alex wasn’t sure what that meant, or what the odd note in Kayla’s voice indicated, but she didn’t have time to delve into extraneous details now.

  “Will he agree to move her?”

  “I think so. I’ll make the arrangements from here, and I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.”

  “Good.”

  “Listen, Alex…there’s something else that might play into this.”

  “What?”

  “Marshall said Rainy had been undergoing fertility treatments. He told me that her doctor said she might not be able to conceive because of scarring on her ovaries.”

  Alex instantly went on full alert. She’d called Kayla after the autopsy to tell her about Rainy’s appendix and the scars, but hadn’t mentioned any of her vague suspicions. “Oh?”

  “Yes. Apparently Dr. Halburg, Rainy’s gynecologist, said the scarring was natural. And not uncommon, even.”

  “Hmm.” Alex frowned. “Did he say if they were trying for in vitro?”

  “I didn’t get to ask. That’s when we realized someone was in the house. But there was information on egg mining in Rainy’s office.”

  “Maybe it’s nothing more than that, then.” Alex said it, but she didn’t believe it. Not with two intruders in the same twelve-hour period. Or perhaps it was the same person.

  “You’ll be headed to Athens, then?” Kayla asked.

  “Yes. I’ll follow the transport to the morgue, just to be sure.” She made a mental note to call work and extend her personal leave, as well.

  “Will you be staying on the grounds at Athena? Do you want me to call Christine?”

  “No, I’ll get her on my cell when I’m on my way,” Alex said.

  Athena’s principal was getting ready for the arrival of students for the next trimester starting on the first of September, but Christine Evans lived by the philosophy “Once an Athena woman, always an Athena woman,” and all the graduates were like family to her. And she’d been especially close to Rainy, so Alex knew she’d do anything necessary to help find the truth about her death.

  “I’ve got an investigation that’s got to be tied up,” Kayla was saying, “but I’ll check in with you and get to Athena when I can. I’ll see when my sister can watch Jazz.”

  “How is she?” Alex asked, embarrassedly aware that this was the first time she’d asked. Kayla’s eleven-year-old daughter, Jasmine, was one positive thing that had come out of Kayla’s youthful fling. The girl was bright and pretty, looking much more like her honey-skinned mother than what Alex remembered of her father.

  “She’s the light of my life,” Kayla said simply, and quickly went on. “I’ll be in touch when arrangements are made to move Rainy.”

  Alex felt the sting of the quick subject change.

  “All right,” she said, realizing this was not the time or place to go into things like their personal situation.

  There was an awkward moment of silence between them, a moment that would have once been impossible between the two who had been the closest of friends. On the heels of the sting, Alex felt a moment of the old irritation at the fact that this estrangement was over, of all things, a man.

  A boy, really, she amended silently. Mike had been a shallow charmer with zero sense of responsibility. And still was, most likely. But Kayla had thought herself in love, and had thrown her childhood away for it.

  Just goes to show, Alex thought, even Athena Academy can’t break all of women’s stupid habits.

  Chapter 2

  The stark difference between this time and all the other times Alex had traveled the road from Phoenix to Athena tore at the very core of her. Before, she had always approached this passage with joy, anticipating the turn onto Olympus Road, knowing that soon after she’d reach Script Pass, the road to Athena, all the while eagerly awaiting another new year of school. But now…

  She shook her head, trying to clear it as she drove behind the black van that was serving as a hearse for Rainy’s body. She knew she was tired, she’d been up nearly all night, but adrenaline was still pumping and she knew from past experience just how far it would carry her. She was all right for a while yet.

  Once she was through the Phoenix metro area, Alex slipped her headset over her right ear and hit the speed dia
l number on her cell for Christine Evans at Athena. Christine answered on the second ring. Alex gave her only the essentials over the cell connection. She was bringing Rainy home, and would need a place to stay for a while.

  “Of course,” Christine said instantly. “Everything’s open until the first, including your old dorm if you want it. After that you can stay with me, or in one of the guest houses. We won’t have any families or guests visiting for the first month.”

  Alex knew that was standard, to give new students time to settle in to the school routine without interruption. Those 6:30 a.m. reveilles were a shock for some students, as the hot, dry climate was for others, and the acclimatization to both took time.

  “That’s fine. I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

  “Which will be?”

  “I just cleared the Phoenix city limits, so I’m about a half hour out. But I’ll be…securing things at the morgue in Athens first.”

  The former army captain didn’t miss the inference. She also didn’t make the mistake of pursuing it in a cell conversation that could be monitored. “I see. I should expect you in the early evening, then?”

  “Probably. I’ll call you.”

  “All right.” There was a pause. “Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “It will be good to spend time with you. I just wish the circumstances were different.”

  “No more than I,” Alex said fervently.

  After the call Alex tried to think of other things. Of how strange this place had seemed to her east-coast eyes the first time she’d come here. Used to the rolling green hills of northern Virginia and the time-worn mountains of the east coast, she’d found the dry desert flatness and jagged peaks as strange as any moonscape.

  She’d initially wondered why on earth they’d located the school here, when they’d had the entire country to choose from. She’d even asked her grandfather, Charles Forsythe, one of the founders and main backers of Athena, why they’d picked that spot. And had asked it, she’d much later realized, with all the arrogance of a teenager who was certain she knew it all.

  He’d told her that they’d chosen this place for all the reasons she thought it was a bad choice. She hadn’t understood then, but eventually she’d realized the wisdom of the selection.

  And she had come to love it for its own kind of stark, harsh beauty, and to respect it for what it had to teach the women of Athena about reality and survival and the incontrovertible facts of nature and life. It had become their sanctuary even as it was their proving ground. Being dropped in the wilds of the White Tank Mountains with minimal supplies and told to find your way back had a way of teaching you a new perspective.

  But she doubted there was any perspective to be gained in this case. There had been no one in her life quite like Rainy. And there never would be again. There had been only five years age difference between them, but at times Rainy had seemed as much a mother figure as an older sister. Perhaps, Alex had thought more than once, because her own mother had been so cool and distant.

  She’d felt closer to Rainy than even her own blood sibling. She loved her big brother, Bennington, dearly, but he also had the knack of irritating the heck out of her more than anyone else ever could. In fact, she’d felt closer to Rainy than any of her family except her grandfather Charles, or G.C., as she’d called him since childhood. It was a nickname her mother had despised, which of course had guaranteed Alex would use it as often as possible.

  Alex reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed the bottle of spring water she’d tucked inside the large shoulder bag she used as both purse and briefcase. And holster, if it came to that. The bag had a special outside-access pocket for her duty weapon concealed between the two divided sections.

  She took a long drink, knowing that keeping hydrated in this desert climate was crucial. She’d been gone long enough to have lost some of her adaptive abilities to this kind of arid heat; Washington D.C. was beyond hot in the summer, but arid was not a frequently used adjective there. She was thankful the new FBI crime lab was in Quantico; the proximity to the Potomac gave a bit of relief when the capital itself was sweltering.

  The black van in front of her changed lanes to go around a slow-moving truck, and Alex had to wait for a break between vehicles to follow. There hadn’t been this much traffic when she’d attended Athena, either, she thought. She’d graduated just thirteen years ago, but the roads between Phoenix and Athens had been a lot emptier then. Traffic would thin out the closer she got, but still, there was a marked difference.

  Not for the first time she was grateful to the people, including her grandfather, who had had the vision for Athena. The late Arizona senator Marion Gracelyn had begun it, and it had evolved from her initial idea of a military-type academy just for women into the much bigger, more far-reaching thing it was now, an institution dedicated to helping women take their rightful place in a world that was still very much run by men.

  When she’d first arrived, after the trek through a strange land to a strange place, she’d been wondering why she’d worked so hard to come here. She’d known it was expected of her, the Forsythe fortune having helped found the school. But as seventh grade and the time to go to the school she hadn’t chosen neared, she had rebelled against this set future even as it closed in on her, purposely refusing to do her schoolwork and messing around during national testing. Only the awful disappointment of her beloved grandfather had shaken her off her mutinous course and sent her back to work.

  As it was, she’d lost a year and had come to Athena as an eighth grader. She’d been assigned an orientation group with seventh-grade girls who would become the Cassandras. The age difference had made for problems in itself, but Rainy had straightened that out as she had straightened them all out.

  She had been the force that had brought them together, had taken the young girls they had been and transformed them into a cohesive unit of smart, capable, skilled women who could handle anything thrown their way.

  Alex blinked rapidly as tears blurred her vision. This was impossible. It just could not be happening. She could not be driving back to Athena behind a van carrying Rainy’s body.

  Her cell phone rang, startling her. She’d forgotten it was still in her lap. She glanced at the caller ID, considered letting it go to voice mail, then chided herself for being a coward. She flipped the phone open.

  “Hello, Emerson.”

  “Alexandra.”

  Emerson Howland, Alex's fiancé, was the only person on the planet besides her mother who called her that. Even her grandfather called her Alex. Emerson’s manner sometimes made her feel as if the age gap between them was even greater than twelve years. But he had told her once he thought Alexandra a lovely name, so she’d finally given up trying to break him of the habit. She admired so much about him—the man’s work was, after all, saving others—that it seemed a petty thing to nag him about.

  She waited for him to speak. He seemed to be waiting for her to do the same. She was never sure if it was some kind of power thing on his end, or simply that generation’s deep, inbred, sometimes cool politeness that marked his every interaction.

  She found she was in no mood for that, either. “You called me,” she pointed out.

  There was a pause, just long enough for her to consider how snippy she’d sounded. But before she could say anything, he spoke again.

  “Your mother says hello.”

  “Oh?”

  She stopped herself from pointing out that her mother had her number if she wanted to say hello. Not likely, she knew. Odd, when her own mother would rather speak to Alex’s fiancé than her. But then, her upper-crust mother highly approved of Emerson. In fact, she usually seemed happier to see him than her own daughter on those occasions they were together—which came as infrequently as Alex could manage.

  “Yes, I dropped some flowers off at the house today. For her birthday.”

  Drat. I forgot. I’ll have to send something. Fast.

  “That wa
s thoughtful,” she said into the phone. “I’m sure she appreciated it.”

  Funny how he remembered her mother’s birthday, and her mother remembered his, while the woman could barely bestir herself to remember her own daughter’s. But if that daughter forgot hers…

  “She mentioned she hadn’t heard from you.” He paused, but she said nothing. She had long ago stopped responding to her mother’s guilt-laden efforts at what she called communication. “So…how are you?” This time he sounded as if he really wanted to know.

  “About like you’d expect.”

  “I am sorry, Alexandra. I know she was a dear friend.”

  She felt bad about her snappishness. “Thank you, Emerson. I’m just a little edgy.”

  “I should go. I have a meeting.”

  “The triple valve replacement?” she asked, expressing an interest she didn’t really feel.

  “Yes. The surgery is scheduled for Tuesday. We’re optimistic about the final result.”

  She was certain he had reason to be. Emerson was one of the premier cardiac surgeons in the country, and his skill in saving lives and his willingness to travel anywhere to do it were two of the things she loved about him.

  “Good luck, then.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence followed by perfunctory goodbyes. They had never done that very well, as if each of them felt there should be more said but neither knew what it was.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Relationships were so much more complex then the trails of evidence she loved to analyze, dissect and follow to an inarguable conclusion.

  She thought about what she’d seen in the cold storage room when she’d gone back in to look at the scene and resecure Rainy before she’d contacted anyone about the intruder. She’d found no trace evidence, and hadn’t had the means to check for fingerprints. But there had been a gurney near Rainy’s body. And on that gurney an empty black body bag.