LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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