Trained together at the Athena Academy, these six women vowed to help each other when in need. Now one of their own has been murdered, and it is up to them to find the killer—before they become the next victims….

Alex Forsythe:

This forensic scientist can uncover clues others fail to see.

PROOF by Justine Davis

Darcy Allen Steele:

A master of disguise, Darcy can sneak into any crime scene.

ALIAS by Amy J. Fetzer

Tory Patton:

Used to uncovering scandals, this investigative reporter will get to the bottom of any story—especially murder.

EXPOSED by Katherine Garbera

Samantha St. John:

Though she’s the youngest, this lightning-fast secret agent can take down men twice her size.

DOUBLE-CROSS by Meredith Fletcher

Josie Lockworth:

A little danger won’t stop this daredevil air force pilot from uncovering the truth.

PURSUED by Catherine Mann

Kayla Ryan:

The police lieutenant won’t rest until the real killer is brought to justice, even if it makes her the next target!

JUSTICE by Debra Webb

ATHENA FORCE:

They were the best, the brightest, the strongest—women who shared a bond like no other….

Proof
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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JUSTINE DAVIS

lives in Kingston, Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course. Justine says that years ago, when she worked in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was, at that time, occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington State, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?” And with a kick-ass career on the force, how could Justine not write a Silhouette Bombshell novel? Justine has put her police background to use to launch Silhouette Bombshell’s twelve-book continuity, ATHENA FORCE, with Proof.

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 1

I need your help.

Four small words, yet they had the power to turn an FBI agent into a burglar.

It had been a while, but Alexandra Forsythe quickly saw that the locks at the hospital, in this basement area anyway, were not going to be a particular challenge. The security of the small-town medical center wasn’t designed to protect against people like her.

She was thankful the practice of observation had become so ingrained in her. As a forensic scientist with the FBI, she focused on tiny details every day, so even though she’d been here earlier under horrible circumstances, she was still able to recall most of what she needed now. The layout of the building, the basement and the morgue itself.

That she was risking her career with the FBI was something she was quite aware of. Yet, when placed on the opposite end of the scale from the woman who lay on the other side of this door, it didn’t even move the dial.

Lorraine Miller Carrington had counted on that commitment when she’d put out the call invoking an old promise among friends. Alex had made the Cassandra promise with all the zeal of a passionate young woman, but her dedication to what it meant had never wavered as time passed. She would do what had to be done, whatever the cost. They all would, every one of the remaining six Cassandras. They would keep their word.

It was what graduates of the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women did.

“Oh, God, Rainy,” she murmured, feeling her eyes brim with the tears she had been fighting so hard all day.

Alex had come back to southern Arizona expecting trouble. She could only guess at the severity of the situation that would make the cool, unflappable Rainy put in that call for help. She knew it hadn’t been done lightly.

But she had never expected to end up here, in the small town of Casa Grande, just north of the smaller town of Eloy, where Rainy’s car had crashed. Rainy had made it only a third of the way from her home in Tucson to Athena Academy, just west of Phoenix. It was there where four of her former mentees, the Cassandras, had waited with Athena Academy principal Christine Evans to hear what dire event had instigated Rainy’s desperate call.

Now Alex wondered if there could be anything worse than watching an autopsy on someone you loved.

She reined in her emotions and glanced up and down the hallway to be certain she was alone. Foot traffic down here was rare at 3:00 a.m. She’d waited in a shadowy side corridor until she’d seen a man with a cleaning cart load up with fresh supplies and get on an elevator. He was the third uniformed worker to have followed this route, and she was guessing from the fact that she’d seen three of the big carts in the storage room that he was the last of the night cleaning crew. Still, she waited a little longer, just to be sure.

Finally she slipped on the blue uniform smock she’d liberated from a linen closet on the third floor ward, figuring it might buy her a few seconds if she was discovered. Her intractable red-gold spiral curls were already pulled up into a tight knot at the crown of her head, to further the makeshift disguise and to avoid leaving any telltale hairs behind. She’d come to appreciate the uniqueness of both the color and curls. But tonight her distinctive hair was a nuisance.

She turned her attention to her lock picking.

It took her less than thirty seconds to get the door to the morgue open. The room was very dim, the only light coming from one fluorescent ceiling fixture in the far corner. A couple of new residents had arrived since she’d been here last, and Alex made a silent apology as she intruded.

One of the gurneys held an elderly woman who was partially uncovered, the cloth over her lined face having slipped off. Alex hesitated, then gently pulled the cover back up. She might not have bothered before, but the harsh reality of death was weighing heavily on her, and she couldn’t help thinking about the loved ones who no doubt would still grieve even though this soul’s suffering had ended.

She suppressed a shiver and began to walk toward cold storage. A separate small room in the back of the morgue, it was where bodies were kept when the paperwork was complete, before they were picked up by a mortician. Oddly, the door wasn’t secured. In fact, it stood slightly ajar, and she frowned. She could feel the cool air escaping through the gap.

A slight noise followed by a barely audible muttering came from the room. She froze in her tracks. If she’d been given to horror stories, a thousand possibilities would have raced into her mind. But she glimpsed something through the narrow gap between the door and the jamb that catapulted what she’d heard into an entirely new category. A narrow beam of light, moving.

A flashlight.

The room was pitch black. Anyone who belonged there would have turned on the overhead lights. And they wouldn’t worry about making noise. The furtive implications of that flashlight and the effort to stay quiet started the flood of adrenaline in Alex.

She crept forward, her body instantly in the high state of alert and muscle tension that allowed her to make every careful movement utterly silent. She’d come prepared, wearing soft, leather-soled shoes rather than her running shoes with soles that could squeak too easily on the polished vinyl floors.

She peeked through the gap, saw a dark figure moving in the back of the room. The beam of the flashlight was small and intense, a xenon bulb, most likely.

The angle of the beam told her the person was tall. But it didn’t reflect enough light back at its holder to enable her to see anything other than short hair and a strong build. That, coupled with something about the way he held himself, added up to her assumption of gender.

What the faint light did show her, with shocking clarity, was what the person was doing. He had opened the drawer that held Rainy’s body. The sight made her stomach roil.

She must have made a sound, although she wasn’t aware of anything but the outrage that filled her as she pushed open the door. The man whipped around. Instantly he aimed the high intensity flashlight at her face, blinding her and preventing her from getting a look at him. That single action told her the guy knew what he was doing. Instinctively she backed up into the morgue.

He came at her.

She took what little she knew—he was tall—and used it. She crouched. Leaped forward. Caught him just below the knees. Used the muscles of her legs to drive forward and up. Felt the moment when she had him. Flipped him.

He was back on his feet fast. Came at her again. She knew he’d be ready for her this time. But he might not expect the same thing twice. She had a split second to decide. She went for it. This time she didn’t get the right angle and he flew awkwardly sideways as she rushed past him.

Still in motion she reached a counter and hit it with her right hand. Used it as a platform to spin and launch a side kick at his chest. A kick that Rainy—a tae kwon do black belt and instructor—would have been proud of. Caught him dead center and sent him reeling backward.

She landed on the balls of her feet, ready to strike in any direction. Yet the man hesitated. He’d slid into the main door to the hallway in his sprawl, and it had opened behind him, offering escape. It kept him backlit, and she was still unable to see his face.

She took a step toward him.

He pulled the gurney with the old woman forward until it was between them, then darted out the door. By the time she dodged around and reached the hallway, he was gone. She looked quickly up and down the hall but there was no sign, no doors just closing, no elevator just heading upstairs.

And I never saw his face, damn it.

She had no idea who he was, what he wanted with Rainy, if he was acting alone or if someone had sent him. Had no idea what he would have done had she not come along. She knew only that he hadn’t been anyone with official authorization, from either hospital or police or family. That alone would have told her that there was more to Rainy’s death than a simple accident.

But there was another layer of weirdness to this painful situation, a layer that had driven Alex back to the morgue in the middle of this hot August Sunday night for another look at her friend’s body.

Copies of Rainy’s medical forms from Athena Academy, which Christine Evans had e-mailed to Alex that afternoon, clearly stated that an emergency appendectomy had been performed on Rainy when she was fourteen. Alex had already known this, because when she’d been stricken with appendicitis herself in her junior year, Rainy had reassured her that all would be well, citing her own experience and showing off her scar.

And that made this situation all the more impossible.

What Alex had wanted to see again, what she hadn’t been able to study and make sense of during the autopsy, were other scars that Rainy had never mentioned. Scars on her ovaries.

Because the woman on that table in the morgue had a scar in approximately the right place for an appendectomy.

And a perfectly healthy appendix.

“And you didn’t recognize him? Sometimes family members go a little crazy in times of grief.”

The hospital’s night security supervisor, a middle-age black man with kind eyes, spoke to her gently. Alex wondered if he was implying she had also gone a little crazy, but he seemed so sincere she chose not to believe it. You had to draw the line somewhere or you’d end up hating every human being in the world.

“No, I didn’t,” she repeated for at least the fifth time. He was the third person she’d told the story to in the past two hours. “It all happened very fast and he came out of a dark room, but it was no one I knew. Besides,” she pointed out, “if he had been a family member or friend, he would have recognized me.”

She hadn’t told him the whole story, didn’t want to deal with the questions that would arise if he knew she’d also been inside the room and had in fact been involved in very brief hand-to-hand combat with the man. So she’d told him she’d been unable to sleep and had come to see if there was anyone here who could let her in for a last goodbye. She’d found the door unlocked—okay, so she didn’t specify which door, but she didn’t want to have to explain how she’d gotten in—and once inside had encountered a man who seemed to be sneaking around the back room with a flashlight.

The security man seemed to accept her implication that the man had left the outer door open. At least, as much as he was accepting any of her story. She didn’t care as long as he took some action. Her main concern was to have the area secured until she could get Rainy out of there.

“Hmm.” The security man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Your friend who died, was she FBI, too?”

“No. She’s an—she was an attorney, in Tucson.”

He noticed her stumble on the change in tense and seemed to reach a decision. Thankfully, it was the decision she had wanted.

“I’ve got a couple of hours of paperwork to do this morning before the end of my shift. I’ll just grab myself a chair and do it sitting down here. That give you enough time to make your arrangements?”

“It should.” Alex smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this.”

He didn’t mention calling the sheriff’s office, and she was glad of that even though it suggested he still didn’t quite believe there was reason for alarm. Alex knew she was already on thin ice here. Only professional courtesy, the fact that police lieutenant Kayla Ryan had requested it and a fierce, stubborn insistence on her part had enabled her to sit in on Rainy’s autopsy that morning in the first place.

They’d cut her some slack because she was FBI, but it wouldn’t take much more to wear out her welcome. It never took a whole lot to wear out a fed’s welcome with city, county or even state law enforcement. And pointing out that they were all supposed to be on the same side never seemed to help much.

The local authorities hadn’t been enthused about the autopsy in the first place. They had clearly already resolved the case in their minds.

Rainy had fallen asleep at the wheel just outside Eloy, then gone off the road and crashed into a pole. Period. There was nothing left but the loose ends to tie up. That was the way the official report read, and that was what the investigating officers believed.

Alex knew the autopsy had been done because there were no apparent reasons for the accident. She guessed that the officers suspected Rainy had been drunk or on something illegal.

As if.

Alex had the sudden thought that she herself had sometimes dismissed the claims of family and friends about their loved ones.

In the lab, she let the fascination of the scientific process keep the reality of death at a safe distance. The fact that she was in the trace evidence department and dealt mostly with hair, fibers, paint, blood, glass and other things added to that buffer.

When the evidence pointed strongly one way, sometimes you did have to go with the numbers, simply because you had nothing else to base a decision on. If the odds were high in one direction, it took a lot of solid evidence to counter them.

And that was evidence they didn’t yet have for Rainy.

“Yet” being the operative word there, she told herself, shoring up her determination.

But she was going to have to tread very carefully. Those local authorities had also made it clear what they thought of her getting any more involved because of her personal relationship with the deceased.

The deceased.

That’s what Rainy was to the officials. All she was. Just another fatality case. Already death was stealing away Rainy’s identity, stealing away the essence of who and what she was. These people here, making these decisions, had never known the brilliant, beautiful, generous woman she’d been. The woman who by sheer force of personality had changed six young lives and touched countless others, and who would never have tolerated being referred to in such an impersonal manner.

But Alex had known her. And loved her. And she’d be damned if she’d let anyone reduce Rainy to a case number, a statistic, just another nameless driver falling asleep at the wheel. There was more to this than that, much more. Her gut was screaming that there was, and she’d learned to trust it, whether in the lab or in life.

The problem was, her gut feelings and what little strange evidence she had led to Athena Academy. And Alex wasn’t about to draw any attention to the school unless there was no choice. For now, the team name the Cassandras had chosen all those years ago would have an ironic significance—they were all feeling there was more to Rainy’s demise than the official determination of “accidental death,” yet, like the prophetess of old, they could get no one to believe them.

As she waited for the security man to return with the mentioned chair, Alex retrieved the smock she’d hastily stuffed into the trash can just down the hall after calling in the intruder to security. There was a laundry cart standing unattended outside another door, and she ran down and stuffed the disguise into the soiled linens bag.

By the time the security supervisor came back she was standing back where she’d been, looking as if she’d been there all the time. In addition to the chair, he carried a large clipboard with a stack of forms on it, so he’d clearly been truthful about settling in to do paperwork.

She thanked him again, clasping his hand in hers, and told him she’d let him know as soon as arrangements were made to move Rainy. Then she headed quickly toward the elevators. It took her a few minutes to find a place at the hospital where she was both allowed to use her cell phone and able to get a signal. She ended up back at the main front doors, and even then she had to walk out from under the huge cement quadrangle-shaped portico that marked the entrance.

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 dial 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 was 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.

And she wondered if his plan hadn’t been to tamper with Rainy’s body, but to steal it.

Alex didn’t protest when Christine pressed a glass of wine into her hands. She knew she was on edge, now that she was here and the task at hand had been accomplished. Rainy’s body was secured in Athens’s small morgue and was being watched over by an off-duty officer hand-selected by Kayla. Alex had forced herself to leave and get some food and rest, knowing she was in no shape to act or think clearly in any technical area.

Besides, the doctor Christine had called in would not be available until tomorrow. So, in the morning she would head to the morgue and get her questions answered. Those that had answers, anyway.

Alex looked at the woman who had been the heart and soul of Athena for over two decades. Christine had built the crucial part of Athena from the beginning, had searched out and handpicked the staff of instructors, carefully assessing each for not just their intelligence and aptitude for teaching, but for their ability to understand and dedicate themselves to Athena’s cause.

It was that last that had eliminated more candidates than anything else. Not everyone had the mind-set to work for the most state-of-the-art college-prep school for women in the country. When you threw in some of the more controversial subjects in the program of study, it made the selection process even more delicate. Not everyone agreed with Athena’s stated goal, the empowerment of women in America. In all areas. It was Christine’s job to weed out those who couldn’t come to Athena with the wholehearted desire to make it possible for her students to achieve what was now so difficult simply because they were women.

Christine also made the final choices of the students, selecting only the best and brightest in both academics and athletics. Those few who met her standards were sent invitations to attend Athena Academy. In fact, a stack of folders was on the coffee table in front of her, and Alex knew Christine was going through them, familiarizing herself with each of the thirty or so new students who would be entering the academy. She was careful to welcome each new arrival by name when she first saw them. Athena, she always said, was an intimidating place, and she wanted to be sure each girl knew she was expected and wanted. That it was not simply that the student was lucky to be here, but also that Athena was lucky to have her.

And Alex was just rattled enough tonight to ask something that had been living in the back of her mind for years, ever since she had realized how truly hard one of those invitations was to get.

“Why did I get asked to Athena?”

Christine blinked. She turned her head slightly, as she did when she wanted to study something or someone carefully. She’d been blinded in her left eye in a training exercise, which had resulted in her retirement from military service. But it was also why she’d ended up running Athena, so she’d often said she had no complaints. Even at sixty-one she could still keep up with most of the rigorous training at Athena, and she ran the weaponry, horsemanship and survival courses herself. She even taught Arabic.

“You were asked,” Christine said after a moment, “because you deserved to be asked.”

“It wasn’t because of my grandfather?”

Christine leaned back in her chair. She took a sip from her own glass of wine. “You know what Athena is all about. Do you really think we support nepotism? That we would take someone who didn’t qualify simply because they had a relative who is on the board?”

“No,” Alex admitted. “I know the school takes nothing with any strings attached. But—”

“And even if we did,” Christine went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “no one graduates here without having earned it. Fully and completely.”

“But you go by federal and state test scores, and mine had plummeted,” Alex said. “My whole average, in everything, took a big hit the year before I came to Athena.”

“We only begin the selection process with those scores,” Christine corrected her mildly. “And, independently of your grandfather, you had come to our attention long before that year when you decided to resist.”

Alex colored slightly. Christine smiled.

“Did you think you were the only rebel we ever took on? The only one who purposely messed up, just to spoil everyone’s expectations?”

Alex shook her head, feeling a bit sheepish. “I guess I didn’t think about it at all.”

“And you,” Christine said, gesturing toward Alex with her glass, “had the highest set of expectations imaginable placed on you, with your grandfather being a founder, on the board and a primary financial backer of Athena.”

“It was just that nobody asked me what I wanted to do,” she said, suddenly feeling compelled to explain that year of rebellion when she’d refused to work at all. “It was like it was a given I’d come to Athena, whether I wanted to or not.” She grimaced. “So I set out to make that impossible, just to show them.”

It was the only time in her life she’d intentionally done something she knew would hurt or disappoint her grandfather. And although he’d gently forgiven her and told her he understood, she still regretted it.

“We know how to look beyond rebellion,” Christine said. “In fact, we often look for it. A strong spirit and will are also essential here.” Then, in a seeming non sequitur, Christine asked, “How is Emerson?”

Alex blinked. “Fine, I suppose. I talked to him earlier today.”

If Christine thought it odd that she hadn’t mentioned the man she was supposed to marry since she’d arrived, it didn’t show in her face. And Alex wondered if there had been a point to this seeming change of subject, if Christine was implying that Emerson and a woman of strong spirit and will were a questionable match. The woman had met Emerson once, when she’d made a trip to D.C. and they had gotten together for dinner and introductions. But Christine was better than anyone Alex had ever known, inside the FBI or out, at sizing people up quickly. And she was rarely wrong.

Christine studied Alex for a moment, her expression softening. When she spoke, it was on the previous subject. “Do you regret giving in?”

Alex drew back sharply. “And coming to Athena? Of course not!”

“You seemed to, at first. I know you had a hard time, being older than the other Cassandras.”

“I was a pain in the butt,” Alex said bluntly. “I know everyone thought I was snooty and aloof because of my background, because I was a Forsythe, but really I was just…ambivalent about the whole thing.”

“And now?”

“Athena was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t trade coming here, and what I learned here, for anything.”

Her voice had grown rather fierce, and it made Christine smile. “We’re changing the world, Alex. Slowly, but with each graduating class, we’re showing humankind just how much women are capable of, given the same training and opportunities men have.”

Alex thought about what Christine had said later, as she lay in bed. She was in the guest house closest to the mountains, which she had picked for its relative isolation. She’d originally intended to sleep in her old dorm room, but the memories were far too strong there, the hole left by Rainy’s death too ragged and fresh for her to stay. It was in that room that they’d made the Cassandra promise, the pledge to come if any of the others needed them, no questions asked.

We’re changing the world…

She rolled onto her side, punching a hollow for her head in the pillow. Were they? Really? It didn’t seem that way sometimes. The man she’d encountered in the morgue seemed living proof of that. But Josie Lockworth, a fellow Cassandra, had always said they had to look at the bigger picture. Alex had valued Josie’s words because she felt that Josie could really relate to her background, Josie’s father having been both a supporter of the building of Athena and not coincidentally the director of the CIA at the time. Alex supposed that butting her head against that thickest of glass ceilings, that of the military establishment, had made Josie more aware that changes like this took not years but decades, generations.

She changed to her other side, kicking off the sheet and thin blanket.

Maybe that’s what they were doing, she thought. Changing the long-term, bigger picture. Each woman they put in a position denied to women before meant a younger generation of men and women grew up with the idea that it was normal. Which cleared the way to the next step. And then the next.

Alex sat up with a disgusted sigh. She’d expected to be asleep before she had time to think about anything, especially after being up since two that morning and having a full meal and a glass of wine. But here she was, wide-awake, unable to shut off her mind.

Never one to resort to chemical sleep aids, she rolled out of bed and dressed in jeans, running shoes and a white knit tank top. At night, at least, she didn’t have to pour sunscreen on the pale skin that went with her hair.

She stepped outside, the shock of heat hitting her. In D.C., it got hot, seemed hotter because of the humidity, but it generally cooled off at least some at night. Here, at this time of year, it wasn’t unusual to be out at 2:00 a.m. in temperatures near ninety. Fortunately it wasn’t that hot now, but it was still enough to bring on memories of hot summer nights at Athena.

She needed no flashlight. She knew these grounds as well as she knew her house in Alexandria, a D.C. suburb. Off to her right she saw lights on in Christine’s bungalow, where Christine was no doubt still working in preparation for the incoming students. To her left was the library, and in front of that, beyond the parking lot, was the dorm building she’d avoided tonight.

She stopped walking and looked at the two-story building that had once been a spa of the sort that rich people who had picked up certain addictions went to for treatment. It had been converted into an efficient and pleasant, if no longer quite so luxurious, fifty-room dormitory.

She turned and looked up at the mountains behind her, at the view she’d had from her dorm room’s balcony for her entire stay at Athena. More than once she’d slept out there so that she could wake to see the first rays of the sun paint the stark landscape that had once been so strange to her.

She made her way past the library to the science labs, then wandered toward the main building that housed the classrooms, offices and auditorium. She’d been awed by the options presented at Athena, at the chances to study things never offered in a regular school—the local high school didn’t run to martial arts, cryptology, weapons and criminal profiling in addition to lock picking, nor did they encourage students to intern with the FBI, CIA or other agency of choice.

Moved by an emotion born of her discussion with Christine and her thoughts afterward, she walked to the front entrance of the school. She went on to Script Pass, the only road that led to Athena. She turned and looked back, past the fountain and flowers at the center of the circular drive, over the lawn in front of the main building, up to the dark shapes of the mountains beyond. In the moonlight it all had an ethereal silver glow.

It was almost as ethereal in the public eye. The founders had decided from the beginning to keep Athena low profile. Their goal was not glory for the school, but for its students. And invitation-only institutions were subject to too much speculation and self-righteous curiosity, especially when it came to those that were funded the way Athena was. The students were not encouraged to discuss their alma mater with outsiders, but in educational circles and beyond, the sheer and consistent excellence of the Athena graduates was beginning to create a stir.

Most people have never heard of us, but we are changing the world, Alex thought.

In a burst of nostalgia, she headed back onto the school grounds, her goal the stables. She and her horse Lacy had spent many a long hour exploring those mountains. She’d honed Lacy’s condition in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park. Now twenty years old, Lacy—registered under the name of Chantilly Lace, a tradition with Forsythe horses since the family fortune had been founded on rich fabrics centuries ago—was living a well-earned retirement on her grandfather’s Virginia ranch, nothing more pressing to do than graze on the rich grass. But several of Lacy’s offspring were here, contributing to the versatility of Athena students just as the mare had.

Alex was past the admin office when she felt the tickle at the back of her neck.

Chapter 3

She was being followed.

She knew her hair alone made her quite recognizable, even in just the moonlight. Red, curly manes like hers weren’t that common. So it followed that if it were Christine, or one of the other staff who knew she was there, they would call out to her.

She picked up her pace without appearing to hurry, merely lengthening her stride. So did the person behind her, although he—or she—kept to the shadows to stay hidden. And if Alex’s nerves hadn’t been so ragged, the ploy might have succeeded; whoever it was was good. Very good.

Trained.

That was the word to come into her mind, and she’d learned to go with gut feelings like that, because most of the time they were right. The man from the cold storage room in the morgue? That, she couldn’t tell.

She veered to the right, toward the riding arena. The open area left little cover for her follower. It also made Alex’s path quite visible in the moonlight, so whoever it was could see her direction without having to leave cover. It was clear he—she became fairly certain of her shadow’s gender as she watched the way he moved—was following her.

The question of why was looming, but she didn’t waste time on it. More important right now was the question of his capabilities. Trained could easily mean armed. But she’d already given him ample chance to try to take her out that way if that was his goal.

So if that wasn’t his goal, what was? Was he after someone else? Something else?

Alex changed course again, heading once more toward her original goal, the stables. She stepped inside. Her pursuer hung back, waiting, she guessed, to see if she emerged. She checked the door of the always lit up stable office. Locked. Did she have time to break in and use the phone? She could probably find something to use on the lock, but she would lose track of her stalker. She risked a look out the tack room window that faced back the way she had come.

After a moment she saw the slightest movement in the shadow of the science lab building. An even darker shadow. It moved again, barely, and she saw the slightest glint of moonlight on metal.

A gun?

It had been in the right place for a waistband holster. If she was right, he was indeed armed. She was not.

She darted out of the tack room, whispered an acknowledgement to the horses who nickered a greeting, then raced up the ladder to the hayloft with all the speed of the fourteen-year-old she’d once been. From there she could see clearly both where her follower was hiding and the path to the staff bungalows. She settled in to see what the man would do.

He waited.

Patient, she thought. But was he waiting until he was sure the coast was clear to make a move, or waiting for her to emerge?

She could be just as patient. They’d taught that at Athena, too.

She waited. And so did he. Minutes ticked away. She wished she’d brought her cell phone, she could call Christine and warn her there was someone skulking around. She wondered who would break first.

And with a sigh, she knew. She would. Because while Athena had taught her patience, it had also taught her about the benefits of taking action, striking first, of bringing the game to your own court and on your own terms.

Athena was her court. No one except another Athenan could know it as well as she did. She would use that. And whatever else came to hand.

Alex crept back to the tack room. Amid the hanging saddles, bridles and blankets, she found an old hunt coat. It was obviously due for retirement, more than a little threadbare, but it was dark and hid the white shirt that glowed like neon in the moonlight.

She harvested a bonus out of the right pocket, a large, dark blue bandanna. In a few seconds she had the red-gold beacon of her hair bundled up and covered. She searched around for additional trimmings and found a pair of rubber knee-high muck-out boots. They were large enough to slide on over her shoes. There was a mirror in the tack room, and she checked out the look. With luck, it would pass.

She went back to the door. She took a couple of deep breaths. Little steps, she thought. The boots would help, they were big enough that she’d have to alter her stride anyway. She purposely slumped her shoulders, as she’d seen women do who weren’t comfortable with their height. She bent her knees slightly, as far as she thought she could without it being obvious from a distance, to make herself seem shorter. She changed everything she’d been taught to watch for to see through disguises in her own training.

If the man was trained as she thought he was, he wouldn’t miss the marked differences beyond simple appearance. She just had to hope he wouldn’t look close enough to see through her ruse.

She stepped out of the stable through the same door she’d entered, figuring he’d be watching where she’d gone in. When she was in full moonlight, she turned back and waved at the doorway.

“See ya tomorrow!” she called out cheerfully, raising the pitch of her natural voice and injecting just the slightest bit of a drawl.

She set off toward the staff housing, humming a light, cheerful tune. But every bit of her awareness and concentration was focused on the perimeter of the science lab building. She caught the faintest glint as moonlight reflected on what she still suspected was a gun. Then she made out a slightly darker shadow within the shadow. He moved, she thought. No, turned. Just turned to watch her. Made no move to follow her. And after a moment, she saw the glint again, as he turned back and resumed his scrutiny of the stables, clearly indicating his lack of interest in this “second” woman.

So he is following me, specifically, Alex thought. She could handle that. At least the guy wasn’t after Christine. Although even if he was, he’d find he had his hands more full than he might have expected, especially if he judged her only by her age. Athenan women didn’t just age gracefully, they aged tough.

She took advantage of the fact that he’d returned his attention to the stables. She dodged behind the school’s large, four-horse trailer, parked beside the stable. From where he was, he shouldn’t be able to see beneath it all the way, and so couldn’t see her feet. Since it had living quarters at the front, it was nearly thirty-five feet long and covered her retreat back to the stables. Keeping the trailer between her and the man watching, she made her way to the back side of the stable, out of sight. She went over the fence, through an outside stall door and back into the building, whispering soothingly to the chestnut gelding who occupied the stall.

“Easy, sweetie. Just passing through.”

She quickly went out the inner stall door. She shed the dark jacket, the boots, and freed her hair. She knew which horse she wanted, although she didn’t know which stall she was in. But as if she sensed Alex’s presence, the gray stuck her head over the half door. Alex hastened to greet the mare, a granddaughter of her beloved Lacy.

“There you are, gorgeous. Wanna play?”

The mare called Charm—short for Charmeuse, another in the line of Forsythe fabric names—had the same bright intelligence in her dark eyes as Lacy had. Alex had ridden the mare back on her grandfather’s farm, before Charm was donated to Athena, so she knew what the horse could do. She also knew Charm had the same sensitivity, willingness and trust as her granddam. And for a gallivant such as Alex had in mind, that was what she needed.

She bridled the mare, who took the bit easily despite the oddity of the hour. Grabbing a handful of mane, Alex launched herself onto the horse’s back. She settled into place and headed the gray toward the still-open door she’d exited in her other guise. The clatter of the shod hooves on the stable floor was comfortingly familiar. In fact, it felt so good to be on a horse again, she wondered why she didn’t ride more regularly. It wasn’t like she had to go very far, since her grandfather’s farm was only half an hour outside of D.C.

She leaned forward to pat the mare’s neck. “All right, my Charm girl. Let’s teach somebody a lesson about messing with Athena.”

They stepped into the moonlight. Alex sat the horse casually, as if a moonlit bareback ride was what she’d had in mind all along. She reined the mare slightly toward the building where the watcher was hiding, just to make sure he got a good look. Alex sensed as much as saw a sharp movement in the shadows.

Gotcha.

She headed the horse slowly toward the trail that led into the mountains behind Athena. Then she urged the gray into the leggy canter that was like riding a rocking chair, even bareback.

She had mentally picked her spot before she’d ever started in that direction. She’d spent so many hours staring up at the mountains from the grounds that she knew exactly what could be seen from where. She cued Charm as they neared the cluster of scrubby whitethorn acacia trees. The moment they were past them she spun the gray off the trail into the soft dirt behind the trees, the perfect spot for an ambush. The mare dug in her heels and executed a stop that would have done a champion stock horse proud.

Alex leaped down and ground-tied the mare by tossing the reins over her head to dangle, all it took for the well-trained animal. She moved in a crouch to where she could look back the way they’d come. She spotted him immediately. Her lure was working, and he’d stepped out from the shadows and stood in plain sight, looking up toward the mountains.

“If I had my HK, I could take you out just like that,” she whispered to herself. “Come on, follow me.”

She was joking about the Heckler & Koch sniper rifle. But she took the man seriously. Whoever he was she sensed he was a threat to someone or something she held dear. And she, as any Athenan, would protect what she loved. Whatever it took.

She waited, watching, as he moved across the open land between the science lab and the stable. He stopped near the stable door and stared up the trail. Charm stood quietly, patiently, as any Athena horse was expected to do. Seconds, then minutes ticked by. Still she and her amiable companion waited and watched, Alex deriving not a little pleasure in having so completely turned the tables on their observer.

She saw him glance at the stables, and instinctively knew what he was thinking.

She almost hoped he would do it. It would be something to see, since she somehow doubted he was an experienced horseman.

Instead of getting a horse he started walking along the path she’d taken between the stable and the arena. He probably thought she had continued at full tilt up the mountain trail, and thus was long out of sight and hearing. Which had been, of course, her intent. He’d have been more on guard approaching her in the stable, but here he had no idea what her position might be.

He stopped at the foot of the mountain trail, still looking upward. She could see him a little better now, not his face, but at least that he had dark hair, was solidly built and tall.

So was the guy at the morgue in Casa Grande.

Was this him? Could she have been followed? Was he good enough to tail her without her noticing? She didn’t think so, not all the way to Athena.

Another thought struck her. What if he hadn’t had to follow her? What if he’d already known Athena was where she was going? Or would go?

That idea made her jaw tighten. Being followed was one thing. Having somebody know for certain where she would go, and having him also know where Athena was, indicated prior knowledge and had implications she didn’t like.

She inhaled sharply when he turned and walked back to the stable. As he peered through the stable door she’d left open, she had to suppress a sudden urge to vault onto Charm’s back and charge down there, yank the guy off his feet and do whatever it took to get him to talk, to tell her what he was doing here, what he was after. Patience had been a long and hard lesson for her to learn in her years here, she who had never had to wait for much in her privileged life. But like everything at Athena, the lessons—both academic and otherwise—had been tailored to the individual, and she’d been forced to learn that one, albeit sometimes the hard way.

She waited.

He stepped inside the stable.

She waited some more.

And waited.

Waited still.

After an hour, she wondered if he were simply going to stay there until she came back, stage an ambush of his own. Did he figure he could get away with it because there was so little staff here on the break between trimesters?

As she sat there she puzzled through what few facts she knew. She was fairly certain no one would be after her because of any cases she’d worked. As a Forensic Scientist II in the Trace Evidence unit, she wasn’t high profile enough for that. She hadn’t testified in any big cases that would bring someone down on her. Her superiors generally took care of that, even if she had done the work. She wasn’t in it for the glory, so didn’t care. Although if the promotion she was up for came through, that would change.

It had to be about Rainy. And if that were the case, that left only a few possibilities she could think of. Somebody thought she knew something they didn’t want her to know. Or, they were afraid she’d find something.

If she was right and this was connected to Rainy’s death, it quite simply proved her theory that there was much more to this than an accident.

Suddenly she sharpened her attention, realizing her tired mind and body had been drifting. She hadn’t slept, she was sure, but the sky was changing from black to inky blue. As the first glow of actual light broke in the distance, she realized she’d have to risk the gun and go down before it became too light to move surreptitiously, if she wanted to catch him. Moving quickly, running on sheer willpower, she remounted the ever-patient Charm and tried to keep the stable in sight as she headed down the trail slowly enough to stay quiet.

As it turned out, she didn’t need to be quiet. She heard the throaty roar of a motorcycle break the stillness. Charm’s ears snapped forward at the unaccustomed sound.

Not a machine to sneak around with, Alex thought as the sound echoed around her, but ideal for coming and going cross-country rather than by the road, which probably made it a good choice, she admitted reluctantly.

Moments later as the sound began to fade to the north, she realized he’d done exactly that.

“Okay,” she muttered, “so you’re a smart boy.”

She legged Charm into a gallop and sent her cutting across the grounds back to the stable. She entered cautiously, but the man was gone. Quickly she took care of the willing gray, crooning to her as she did a quick grooming and checked her hooves for stones. Satisfied, she double-checked the feeding instructions posted on the stall and gave the horse a small scoop of the appropriate grain mixture, not enough to interfere with her routine but enough to reward her for the extra effort of the night.

Then she set about searching the stable, both to make sure he’d left nothing behind and that he had done no damage. The horses began to nicker greetings, no doubt thinking she was there for morning feeding. She checked the stalls first, to make sure each animal was safe and unharmed. Then she went about the rest methodically, starting at one end of the building, intending to work to the other, from top to bottom. Then she stopped. Turned to look from the doorway across the stable.

He was good, she thought. She’d seen that. Likely a pro. So where would he have gone to wait? Where would she have gone? She scanned the shadowy interior, gauging. After a moment she headed for the third stall on the right.

It was empty. There was no feed and care regimen posted, so she assumed it had been vacant for a while, the straw inside waiting for a new occupant.

He’d been very careful. But she knew. Not just because the empty stall was the most logical, but because there was the faintest of flat spots in the straw near the outer door. When she got there she covered her hand with her shirt and unlatched the top half of the Dutch door, knowing she’d come back to check it for prints, though she doubted there’d be any. Then she knew she was right, because without opening it any farther, she could see straight up the trail she had taken into the foothills.

He’d watched from here. Patiently. Until the growing light had chased him away.

What he would have done if she’d come back, she had no idea. Would he have attacked? Tried to kill her? He’d had a chance at that, so she didn’t think murder had been his intention. At least, not yet. But what could he have hoped to accomplish simply by watching?

Contact? Had that been the goal? And if so, why? And why her?

She had no idea and at this point was simply glad he hadn’t hurt the horses in any way. She hastened out of the stall, secured the doors once more, and continued her search. When she was satisfied that he’d left nothing behind—at least, nothing that she would be able to find without some equipment she didn’t have—she headed at a jog toward staff housing and the principal’s bungalow.

This was not going to please Christine at all. Athena was her baby, she had dedicated herself to the school and its students completely, and she would take any threat to it very, very seriously.

“I’m taking it pretty damned seriously myself,” Alex muttered aloud. “In fact, I’d have to say I’m downright ticked off.”

Well, whoever he was, he probably hadn’t gotten what he wanted. And if he came back, he would soon learn it wasn’t smart to tick off a Cassandra.

Chapter 4

“You’re certain you’re all right?”

“Of course,” Alex told her former principal. “He never got anywhere near me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get near him, either.”

“Mmm,” Christine murmured. “And if he’d gone after someone or something else?”

“I would have stopped him.” She frowned. “I should have just grabbed him while I had the chance. I would have found out what he was after.”

“You said he was armed. You weren’t.”

“Yes.” She turned to look at Christine head-on. “So?”

Christine chuckled. “I wasn’t impugning your competency, Alex. Merely pointing out that in those circumstances, with an opponent you haven’t been able to assess, it’s wisest to leave hand-to-hand combat as a last resort.”

“Well,” Alex groused, “at least we’d know who he was, or who sent him.”

“We will,” Christine said. “Eventually.”

“I want to know now.”

“Remember that old Dutch proverb, Alexandra.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. But somebody else said you had to have patience to learn patience.”

Christine chuckled. “It was always your biggest challenge, wasn’t it?”

“Isn’t it,” Alex corrected her wryly, acknowledging the lifelong battle it would probably be for her.

“That you know it is still your challenge indicates you’re winning the fight,” Christine said, ever the wise mentor. “Of course, wandering around Athena at night isn’t exactly new to you, now is it? After all, you’re one of the few to actually see the Dark Angel.”

Alex’s eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. Christine smiled at her.

“Did you really think I didn’t know what you girls called him?”

“I…we…”

Alex fumbled to a halt, a little amazed at how embarrassing it was now, looking back over the years at that bit of adolescent romanticizing.

“You were teenage girls,” Christine said soothingly. “It’s in the nature of the creature to romanticize something like that.”

Alex’s mouth quirked. “I suppose. And it did seem wildly romantic to us back then, this tall, dark and handsome guy so desperate to find out what happened to his sister that he broke in here.”

“He was that. For him to come back after the first time we caught him here, when he was just a boy, he had to be desperate.”

“It was crazy that he thought Athena had something to do with her death. I don’t get that, his sister wasn’t even a student here. But it was still romantic. That we never knew his name, or who he really was, just made it more so.” Alex’s smile faded. “I hadn’t thought about him in years.”

“Considering the celebrity seeing him made you, I’m surprised you could ever forget.”

Alex’s smile returned then, but it was touched with a lingering sadness. “He did increase my cachet considerably. I wonder what ever happened to him?”

Christine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just glad we made the right decision in not prosecuting him for burglary. He never came back.”

“It was just the desperation,” Alex said with a shrug. “People do crazy things when someone they love…”

Her voice trailed off as she realized they were now in the same boat that young man had been in, over fifteen years ago. Were they crazy for believing there was more to Rainy’s death than what the officials believed? She didn’t think so. So, were they any different than he had been?

“I guess I understand him better now,” she said, her voice softened by emotional pain.

Christine smiled, a smile that was as pained as Alex’s voice had been. But her words were gentle, approving. “You’ve come a long way, Alex. All the Cassandras have. I’m so very proud of you all.”

Alex saw the smile, saw the moisture in Christine’s eyes, and guessed she also had been thinking about the new presence of death here in this place they both loved.

“We’ll find the truth about Rainy. I promise we will,” she said.

“I know you will.”

A yawn crept up on Alex, and she couldn’t quite stop it. “I am tired,” she admitted before Christine could point out the undeniable fact.

“I should think you would be. I thought when you finally hit the pillow last night that you’d be out like a light for hours.”

“So did I. I haven’t really slept for more than a couple of hours for—” she had to stop to calculate, proving the truth of what she was saying “—almost forty-eight hours now.”

“You’d better now. Stay here this time. I’ll be making some calls to step up security around here.”

“I can’t. I need to call Kayla, and then get over to the morgue and take another look.”

She was very aware of how unspecific she was being, how vague, as if avoiding stating the fact that it was the body of their friend she was talking about would somehow make it not true. And she knew by Christine’s expression that she was just as aware. But she said nothing about it, merely nodded.

“You can call Kayla after you rest. You can’t do anyone any good if you’re so tired you can’t think straight.”

Alex opened her mouth to argue, to protest she could keep going. Saw the glint in Christine’s good eye and capitulated so quickly it was almost embarrassing. Some old habits were very hard to break.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, with a meekness that would have astonished anyone who knew Alex but had never met Christine Evans. Christine occupied a unique place in the hearts and minds of all Athenans. She was both disciplinarian and inspiration, stern and gentle, and a teacher who was willing to learn from her students, all rolled into one. It was a rite of passage to earn the privilege of calling her Christine instead of Ms. Evans.

Alex did go to bed and knew she was beyond exhausted when the fold-out sofa bed felt like the most comfortable thing she’d ever slept on. This time she did sleep, and surprisingly the nightmares she had feared didn’t come. She dreamed, but the tangled images of Rainy alive and smiling, telling them it was all a silly mistake, were somehow comforting. After a while even those stopped, and she slept deeply and barely remembered them when she woke up a few hours later.

The minute she sat up she knew Christine had been right. She felt much better. And ready to go. Ready to get to some answers.

And if need be, ready to fight.

There had to be something there, Alex thought as she paced the small morgue, waiting for the doctor to finish.

She had a feeling Christine had pulled some strings and called the woman in from neighboring Luke Air Force Base. Although Dr. Ellen Battaglia wasn’t in uniform, she gave the impression. Alex recognized it because fellow Cassandra and air force captain Josie Lockworth had it, as well.

No one who met Josie was ever surprised to find out that she was a take charge woman, making a success of her air force career. And if that new stealth system she was working on for the Predator spy plane functioned as well as it was supposed to—something Alex didn’t at all doubt, knowing Josie—there was likely no limit to how far she could go.

“Ready,” the doctor said.

Taking a deep breath, Alex braced herself to look at a very intimate part of one of the dearest people in her life, excised from her body with cold steel. Then she turned around.

The doctor had set a gleaming silver metal tray on a table. Knowing what was in it, Alex had to once more beat down her emotions.

It’s a scientific puzzle, just like anything else you work on every day, she told herself. You can do this. You have to do this.

Still, the two small organs on the gleaming tray made her shiver. With a final effort, she made herself focus on the puzzle, of which these were just a single part. But perhaps a crucial part.

Now that she again saw what she’d seen previously, with plenty of time to look carefully, she was certain her first thought was right. And now she noticed something else, something that bothered her even more.

“Dr. Battaglia?”

The doctor, who had turned away with a welcome sensitivity, turned back. “Yes?”

Alex pointed to the areas on the outer surface of the ovaries. “If you had to guess…how old would you say those scars are?”

The woman leaned over for a closer examination. “These things can be tricky,” she said. “There are so many variables. I’d guess they are older, but I’d hate to testify to an exact age. I’ll take some tissue samples, that may help. But one thing I can say with some certainty.”

“What?”

“The majority of those scars are the same age.”

“The same age?” Alex’s breath caught. If all those scars were made at the same time, then her suspicions had to be correct. “And the regularity of the spacing,” she said. “It looks…mechanical.”

The doctor nodded. “I noticed that, as well. No, those scars aren’t the result of natural monthly ovulation. But the work is somewhat sloppy. As if someone was in a hurry.”

Or scared?

“Work, you said. Something was done to her,” Alex whispered, fighting down a growing feeling of dread.

“I’d say so. A procedure of some kind. Was she undergoing fertility treatments?”

“Yes, but only recently.”

The doctor frowned. “That doesn’t fit. That’s what the scars look like, sloppy or hurried harvesting, but these aren’t recent.”

Alex fought off the ripples of nausea that the scenes in her imagination were causing. “Could what was done to her be done and leave a scar that would look like a routine appendectomy?”

“Absolutely. In this case a bikini scar, such as…your friend has.”

A bikini scar.

A new thought careened into her mind, and Alex had to suppress a shiver as Dr. Battaglia turned and went to work getting her tissue samples.

A bikini scar. A fake appendectomy. Mechanical puncturelike marks on the ovaries.

What had happened to Rainy?

Alex left the morgue quickly. This time, as she stepped outside, she welcomed the blast of heat that hit her. She blinked against the brilliant desert sun and freed a tangled strand of curly hair from the strap of her shoulder bag-cum-holster. She pulled her sunglasses out and slid them on. She walked to her car, careful not to touch any metal part while unlocking it. Got in. Set her bag on the passenger seat. Slid the key into the ignition. Started the motor. Flipped on the air.

She concentrated on each routine step as if it could not be done with anything less than full attention.

She leaned back in the driver’s seat. After a few moments the blast of air from the rental’s vents began to come out cooler, soothing her flushed skin but doing nothing at all for her tangled, wild emotions.

And finally, finally, she let the thought she’d been fighting surface.

She had her own bikini scar. From when she’d had her own appendix out, junior year.

Or she thought she had.

More memories flooded her. Rainy soothing her, saying this made them more sisters than ever, and joking about Athena’s water supply causing appendicitis.

But Rainy had never had her appendix out. Instead, she’d had some ominous procedure done, something to do with her ovaries, likely her eggs.

Alex knew she was making a lot of assumptions on circumstantial evidence, but her gut was telling her she was right. That those scars were as old as Rainy’s supposed appendectomy. It only made sense. Perhaps whatever had made them had rendered her infertile, hence her inability to conceive when she and Marshall had so desperately wanted a child.

What if her own operation was also a hoax? What if it had been a fake of some kind, the abdominal pain induced artificially? Perhaps exacerbated by drugs she thought had been given to help?

What if what had been done to Rainy had been done to her?

Alex sat there for a long time. The very idea of such a deeply personal, intimate violation made her stomach churn, and brought sweat to her skin despite the now chilly blast of the air-conditioning.

She had never thought much about having children, and when she did, it was off in the future somewhere while she concentrated on her career in the here and now. Although she had empathized with Rainy’s quest, she had often doubted that she would be horrifically upset if she herself never had children at all.

But that was before she came face-to-face with the outrageous possibility that that choice had been stolen from her, taken away without her knowledge or consent.

This scraped raw something in the very core of her being. Her world, her whole life, while never dull, had always been within her control. Academics and athletics came easily to her, and she chose what courses she would take and then proceeded to excel in them. Then she had decided to show her parents and her grandfather that she wouldn’t always dance to their tune, and had done so.

In the face of her grandfather’s disappointment she had then decided she’d made her point and worked hard to turn it around. And she had learned quickly that the rigid expectations she’d feared at Athena were in fact the keys to doors too often locked against women in the world.

Athena’s stated goal was to open those doors, expand possibilities and promote opportunities in all fields for women. The bigger picture included empowering women far beyond just the work-place. But above all, the goal was to help students find the person they were meant to be. They were never pushed or prodded in any direction, only given the tools necessary to make the right choice, and the chance to make that choice work.

Choice.

Such a simple thing. Or it should be.

She thought again of Rainy’s craving for a baby. Of the nights she’d spent on the phone listening to her old friend talk about it, so longingly.

“You never had a chance, Rainy,” Alex murmured. “And maybe now, neither do I.”

A slow, burgeoning heat began to build in her. She recognized it for what it was, a rising anger. It would reach the level of red-hot fury, she was sure, before this was over. But then it would cool, set and become rational, become the driving force of a woman with the knowledge and tools to exact retribution.

“Hurt one Cassandra, hurt us all,” she spoke into the now chilly air of the car. “Use one of us, and all of us will exact payment. Whoever you are, whatever your goal, you will regret it.”

The moment she cleared the dead zone, that brief stretch along Olympus Road where her cell service always failed, her phone beeped at her. She quickly dialed her voice mail to play her messages. There were two, the first from Christine letting her know she was still off campus, finishing up interviews with a couple of potential instructors.

A smiled quirked one corner of Alex’s mouth. She didn’t envy the applicants, who were likely expecting a typical job interview. An interview for Athena Academy was anything but typical. No one was even brought to the school until they had passed both the initial and secondary screenings, and the first interview with Christine. And they only got that far if they passed an extensive background check.

The second message was from Kayla. It was short. A bit cryptic. And very disturbing.

She had searched Rainy’s papers and her computer at home and at her office, and was now reluctantly working with a police detective who was looking into Rainy’s accident. Reluctantly, because Kayla was as protective of Athena Academy as Alex and all Athena graduates were. And the suspicion Kayla had developed about Rainy’s death echoed Alex’s deepest fear.

Someone at Athena was part of it.

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