Flashback

“Here? You mean in D.C.?”

She nodded. “There are a few of them who didn’t want to see Athena even exist, let alone succeed.”

“Which it has, and then some. It’s a force to be reckoned with these days.”

Athena Force. The new nickname they’d chosen for their expanding group of crime-fighting Athenians echoed in her head. The warmth of belonging to such a stellar group—and of having Kayla, one of her closest friends—back in her life, filled her.

“Given the circumstances and that a lot of those people are still here, that’s where I’d start,” he said.

“But?” she asked, hearing the unspoken qualifier in his voice.

“In the end, I think most cold cases are solved at the scene, or in the place most closely connected to it.” He shrugged. “That’s why I kept going back to Athena over and over again after Kelly died. It was the only connection to her death that I was sure of.”

She’d already had the feeling that she was going to end up back in Arizona. It all seemed to come back to that. As before, Athena seemed at the center of the storm. Marion had to have known she’d be stirring up things when she’d begun the academy for young women, but Alex wondered if she’d ever imagined just how much. Or how far and for how long the ripples would spread.

So, she’d be going back. She hadn’t expected to be investigating another murder so soon, but when it came to her beloved school she’d do whatever had to be done. Any Cassandra would.

“Anything I can do to help?”

At Justin’s words she snapped back to the present. She appreciated the offer, but this was Athena, her home and her problem. Or theirs, she amended. She figured she’d end up calling on some of her fellow Cassandras before this was over and done. And Allison, of course. She was first on the list.

But she’d leave the door open, she thought.

“Not yet,” she said.

He nodded as if he understood.

And perhaps he did, Alex thought. He seemed to understand a lot. Perhaps it was just his innate knowledge and acceptance of the concept of loyalty. She knew he had it; the man had spent half his life pursuing the truth about his sister’s death. They’d been closer than most siblings, the barely legal Kelly having fought hard to keep her teenage younger brother with her after their parents had died. And Justin had never lost his determination to see through the last and only thing he could do for his beloved big sister.

Would he be that dedicated and loyal to anyone he loved?

She brushed away the question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered just yet. But she was going to have to deal with it soon. They were growing steadily closer, and she was going to have to make up her mind just how close she wanted to get to this man who was both a teenage dream come to life and a threat to her adult peace of mind.

But for now she had to focus on Athena. And a decade-old murder.

“I’ve moved on, Ms. Forsythe. Long ago.”

Was there a bit of extra emphasis on the Ms.? Alex wondered. Was that General Stanley’s way of releasing a lingering distaste for what, at the time, he felt had been forced upon him?

It made no sense, really. Marion had been one of the military’s greatest supporters, and to kill her over something like this would be an exceptionally grievous case of cutting off their own nose.

She pondered her next words. She’d taken the week off work, hoping in that time that she could at least get a feel of how difficult investigating Marion’s death was going to be. She’d already made a flight reservation to Phoenix for a couple days from now, based on what Justin had told her, so she was pushing to either clear the people who were here in D.C. or pry a direction to look out of one of them.

“How do you feel about Athena now, sir?”

She made her tone respectful, both because of his two-star rank and because she wanted answers more than she minded giving a verbal bow to the man. She had tremendous admiration and respect for the military—“land of the free because of the brave” summed it up for her—so it wasn’t difficult for her to speak carefully to this veteran.

“If you’re looking for a rash quote to spatter across the front pages, you’ll have to go elsewhere,” he said.

He sounds defensive, she thought.

“Why would you think that?” she asked, still careful to keep her voice level.

“Because you’re a graduate of Senator Gracelyn’s invention.”

She hadn’t mentioned that, but she supposed it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out. And she couldn’t help but notice that for someone who insisted he’d moved on, he certainly seemed touchy about the subject.

But what she noticed most was that despite his obvious feelings about Athena, he referred to Marion Gracelyn by her proper title and with the respect it was due. That, and her gut was telling her this man hadn’t been involved. She’d learned to trust her gut.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” she said, not caring quite as much now about being tactful, “why did you agree to see me?”

The man in uniform leaned back in his chair. “You can’t live in this town for very long without learning that antagonizing a Forsythe isn’t wise, no matter who you are,” he said bluntly.

An image flashed through her mind of a dinner her grandfather had hosted a couple weeks ago, at the gracious Alexandria home he’d built for his late wife, Alex’s grandmother. Alex lived in the house now, as much as she lived anywhere other than her job and the farm.

But she’d absented herself that night, intentionally; she didn’t have the clearance required to be present given the guest list and some of the topics that would be discussed. It had been a small gathering inside, but the number of secret service men outside spoke volumes about the attendees.

No, in this town Forsythe was not a name to take lightly. The name was a weight Alex was always aware of, although she preferred her grandfather’s style to her mother’s more pretentious, self-aware version.

“No,” she admitted, with a grinning, inward salute to G.C., the man who’d so quietly built the Forsythe name into what it was, “it’s not. But I thought perhaps it was the FBI on my ID card that convinced you.”

“We try to cooperate with all federal agencies,” he said stiffly, “but although you’re an agent, you did say your visit was…unofficial.”

Which, Alex nearly said aloud, was akin to having a reporter say you’re off the record. “It’s personal,” she acknowledged.

“You writing a book or something?”

“A book?”

“About the founding of that school of yours?”

Not a bad idea for a cover, actually, Alex thought. “Everyone else in this town seems to be,” she said.

“Yeah.” An inelegant snort accompanied the tone of disdain. “So, if your question is did I support the senator’s plan, the answer is no. It was too late. We’d already been forced to open up the established academies to women. I didn’t see the point.”

Alex went back to her earlier question. “And now?”

“Hasn’t done any harm,” he said, and to his credit there was a minimal amount of grudgingness in his voice.

But still, Alex thought, faint praise. She’d be upset if she didn’t know the truth. Athena tracked alumni well after graduation, and she’d seen the figures comparing their success to that of women who hadn’t had the advantage of an Athena education. The difference was nothing less than remarkable. Athenas consistently went higher faster than any others, living proof of the validity of Marion Gracelyn’s vision.

But part of that vision had also been maintaining a low profile. Drawing less attention was one of the reasons Athena was a college prep—grades seven to twelve—and not a university. Athena’s goal was to empower women, not gain glory for itself. It didn’t rely on fund-raisers or tax dollars, and so didn’t need a high profile to curry favor and cash. Which explained why many still didn’t know of its existence, or that the difference they were seeing in the number of women raising the glass ceiling and earning influential positions these days was because many of them were Athena graduates.

Alex thanked the general, noted he didn’t try to crush her hand as she stood and shook his, and moved him down toward the bottom of her list.

She didn’t take him off it. She wasn’t taking anybody off at this early stage.

Her afternoon appointment netted her an endorsement from a senator she wouldn’t have expected it from. Patrick Rankin, Junior Senator from New Hampshire, told her that he’d only opposed the school for political reasons, that he himself had always thought it would work.