LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Good. Now, you go to the hospital, get checked out. Once you’re green lighted, you can come back to the office and start paperwork.” He hesitated, then looked away. “You saved that kid’s life, Katie. One hell of a good day.”

      From Evangelista, that was effusive praise. He put his heavy, warm hand on her shoulder for one very short second before rising and striding off to oversee the mop-up.

      This time, when the paramedics moved toward her, she didn’t object. She was starting to ache now, and tremble with reaction. Being poked and prodded would give her time to get herself together again.

      Katie was watching two equally heartwarming events— Samuel Kaltoff’s weeping parents embracing him, and the sole surviving kidnapper getting handcuffed to a gurney—when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it from her jacket pocket before the paramedics took it away from her. “Hey, could you wait a second while I answer this?”

      The paramedic undressing her shook his head and tugged open the Velcro straps of the vest. The sudden rush of air on her sweat-soaked skin was like being doused in cool water. He pulled the heavy armor over her head and set it aside. Katie ignored him as he lifted up the damp fabric of her shirt and probed the bruising beneath.

      She flipped open the cell phone. “Rush,” she said, a simple declaration of name as well as an instruction. She expected it would be a call from the field office asking for details, but instead she glanced at the number and saw that it was from out of state.

      Arizona.

      “Katie?” A young girl’s voice. It sounded high and uneven. “Katie, it’s Jazz. I need help. We need help!”

      Jazz? Katie’s mind froze for a second, then smoothly shifted gears. Jazz was Kayla Ryan’s daughter. The voice had sounded unlike her, but now Katie recognized that it was probably due to stress. “Yes, I’m here. What’s wrong, honey?” As far as Katie knew, Jazz was at the safest place on earth—at the Athena Academy, a secluded campus just outside of Glendale, Arizona. “Jazz, is your mother all right?”

      There was a brief sound of shuffling, and then Kayla’s no-nonsense voice said, “I’m right here. We’ve got a situation here, and I don’t think the local resources are enough to handle it. We need you, Katie.” Kayla was a cop, a good one, besides being a fellow Athena graduate and friend. Not a close friend, exactly—Katie didn’t seem to attract many of those—but more of a sister. Athena alumni were all sisters. It was an implicit responsibility they all took very seriously. They’d suffered losses these past few years that had hurt them all. At least Jazz was safe. That was something.

      “What happened?”

      “I’ll let Jazz tell you.”

      Another handoff, and Jazz’s higher voice came back on the line. “It’s Teal and Lena—Teal Arnett and Lena Poole. They’re at the Academy with me. They’re my friends. They were taken.”

      “Taken,” Katie repeated. Her fingers tightened on the phone, and she forced them to relax. She’d seen the tragic aftermath of too many stories that began just this way, but none of them had involved girls from the Athena Academy—her own very extended family. If all of the Athena Force women were sisters, then all the girls at the Academy were nieces. “How did it happen?”

      The very slight hesitation before Jazz answered raised a red flag in Katie’s mind. Need to get her away from her mother and get the full story, she thought. Even though Kayla was a cop, and Athena Force, that didn’t mean mothers and daughters should or could share everything. Daughters had secrets, and in cases like this, secrets cost lives. “We were going to the movies,” Jazz said. “Off the school grounds, in town. But they were waiting for us, I don’t know how. It was a coordinated attack. Teal and Lena gave me time to get away, they told me to run. I didn’t want to leave them, I swear I didn’t!”

      “I know you didn’t. Jazz, tell me what you saw. Exactly what you saw.”

      Jazz took a deep breath. “We were walking on the sidewalk, talking, and a van pulled up to the curb ahead of us. It was a blue cargo van, and the license plates were muddy. I couldn’t see any letters or numbers. There was dark tinting on the windows. I think it was a Ford van, probably about eight years old. Oh, and there was a fresh scratch on the passenger side, like somebody had keyed it in a parking lot.”

      Katie raised a commanding finger to the paramedic to back off when he tried to speak to her. He did, finally taking the look in her eyes seriously. “And?”

      “The side door slid open, and two men jumped out. They were both tall, but one was bigger than the other one—I think they were about six feet and six feet four inches.”

      “What did they look like?”

      “I couldn’t tell,” Jazz said unhappily. “They were wearing these mesh masks and bodysuits. I guess that was to keep from leaving trace evidence. They didn’t say anything at all, and they were really fast and strong. Lena almost got away, but they caught her.”

      Sometime during Jazz’s recital, Katie had closed her eyes, painting the picture in her mind. A cloudless Arizona day, clear and sunny. The van pulling to a smooth stop at the curb so as not to alarm the girls into flight. A blitz attack, scientifically calculated. Two abductors, plus a third to drive the van. They’d cut their losses once they’d realized they’d lost the initiative and Jazz was beyond their control…. More impulsive predators would have gone after her, allowed Teal and Lena space to act. Instead, these men had disengaged to minimize their exposure.

      Dangerously competent. And the fact that they’d succeeded at all meant that they’d known what they’d be dealing with.

      “Tell me about the girls,” she said. “Teal and Lena.”

      “Teal’s the oldest, she’s seventeen. She’s really fast—the fastest runner in the school. She looks a little bit like you in the face, and she’s tall, too—she has lighter hair, and her eyes are more green.” Jazz took a breath. “Lena’s fifteen. You can’t miss her. She’s got purple streaks in her hair, it’s cut all different lengths, you know? She was wearing a purple skirt and a hot-pink top.” Jazz’s voice wavered. “They’re my friends, Katie. Really my friends. I should have stayed with them. I let them down.”

      Jazz was small, but she was a dynamo, like her mother. Self-possessed. A fiercer friend Katie couldn’t imagine. Jazz was someone who wouldn’t take failure easily in a situation like this. Athena Academy instilled that quality in those who hadn’t come in the doors gifted with it, but in Jazz tenacity was a purely natural talent.

      “Jazz, it’s going to be all right. We’re going to find them. Now, put your mom on the line, will you?” Jazz did. Katie dropped the warm-and-fuzzy from her voice. “I’m heading for the airport now,” she said and slid off of the tail end of the ambulance. “I’ll take a cab to the crime scene. What are the cross streets?”

      Kayla gave them to her, relief evident in her voice. “Thanks for agreeing to help. I know you’re the best at this, Katie, and I have the feeling we need to find these girls quickly. This wasn’t random. No way was it random.”

      Kayla was being careful, not saying things that they were both thinking.

      “Did they have enhancements?” Katie asked. She would have asked straight out, psychic abilities, but Kayla knew what she meant, knew exactly what made many of the girls fostered by the Athena Academy special. She and Kayla were included in that number, most definitely, although Katie herself had tried her best to downplay it throughout her career.

      Kayla confirmed her worst fears. “Yes. Definitely…enhanced abilities.”

      “What about Teal and Lena’s parents? Has somebody talked to them?”

      “We’re handling notifications through the school. I’ve already talked to Ms. Evans.” Christine Evans, the principal of the Athena Academy—as tough as they came, even by Katie’s admittedly high standards. So tough, cops and FBI agents still

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