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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.
