Athena Force 7-12
Page 20
Dawn had arranged for a car to be waiting for them, and within minutes of arriving in Phoenix, they were leaving it behind, headed for the small town of Athens.
The scenery was like nothing Lynn had seen before…barren and brown and filled with rock formations that looked like alien landscapes.
As they traveled through the desert, they shared with each other bits and pieces of their former lives.
Lynn found herself telling Dawn about life with Jonas, about the loneliness and isolation of that life and about the nights she’d gone to retrieve precious treasures, believing she was doing something good.
“I know you’re unusually fast and agile,” Dawn said. “Are there any other enhanced traits?”
“Nothing like your healing ability,” Lynn replied. It still amazed her, remembering that moment when Dawn had cut her wrist and the wound had healed before her eyes. “I have enhanced senses. Smell, touch, hearing and sight—they’re all unnaturally heightened.”
“That must be awful,” Dawn exclaimed.
Lynn was surprised by Dawn’s reaction and pleased that her sister obviously understood the ramifications of such a gift.
“It can be awful,” she agreed. “If I allow myself, I hear a cacophony of sound that hurts my head. I can smell every product anybody has used on their body, what they had for lunch and everything in a mile radius. But I learned fairly early on to block out everything extraneous. The enhanced eyesight isn’t bad. It’s nice to know I’ll probably never need glasses, and the enhanced senses of touch and feel are a real gift.”
“How so?”
“When a nice breeze blows across my face, I think I feel it more than other people. The warmth of the sun, the feel of a particular fabric against my skin…” Her voice trailed off as she thought of making love with Nick…the feel of his hands against her skin, the whisper of his breath on her face, on her body. The pleasure had been near mind-blowing. She blushed as she caught Dawn eyeing her curiously.
“I would imagine that means you feel pain more intensely.”
Lynn frowned. “I guess. I never really thought about it much before.” She reached a hand up to touch the side of her head where Jonas had hit her. It was still tender to the touch, but not bothersome.
She looked at Dawn once again. “If Rainy was our mother, then who is our father?”
“We think he’s a man named Thomas King. He’s a Navy SEAL commander and his sperm was stolen from a fertility clinic around the time that Rainy’s eggs were mined.”
“Is he alive?”
“Very much so. I don’t know how much you watch the news, but he was held captive for a year in a secret prison on the island of Puerto Isla in Central America.”
“Puerto Isla!”
“You know it?”
“I’ve been there many times. It was one of Jonas’s favorite places to visit.” Imagine, the last time she’d been there her biological father had been there as well—as a prisoner. “Small world, I guess.”
Dawn flashed her a dark look. “Or huge conspiracy.”
They fell silent after that. They drove for about an hour leaving behind the Phoenix/Glendale area and arriving in Athens. They drove down Olympus Road, the main street, and Dawn pulled into a motel parking lot.
“Good, Kayla is already here.”
Lynn tried to remember which one Kayla was…the six Cassandra women had become jumbled in her mind. “And what does she do?”
“Kayla works as a police lieutenant on the Youngstown, Arizona, police force. Part of her area is Athens.”
As they got out of the car nerves jittered through Lynn. With her past burned to ashes, she realized how important it was that these women accept her, like her.
Kayla had been friends with the mother Lynn would never know, and more than anything Lynn wanted Rainy Carrington to be proud of the woman Lynn had become.
A beautiful, tall woman with long brunette hair, brown eyes and a honeyed complexion to envy answered Dawn’s knock on room 1. She wrapped her arms around Dawn in a hug and at the same time eyed Lynn in open curiosity over Dawn’s shoulder.
“You must be Lynn,” she said as she released Dawn. She held a hand out to Lynn. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Kayla, and I loved your mother very much.”
Together the three of them went into the room, and Kayla motioned them to the small table in the corner of the room. “I’m expecting Darcy at any moment,” Kayla said to Dawn. “She called a little while ago and said she had news for us.”
While they waited for Darcy to show up, they talked, letting Lynn and Kayla get to know each other.
Lynn learned that Kayla was a single mother. She had a daughter named Jazz who was twelve years old. Jazz was starting Athena Academy in the fall. Kayla explained that she was half Navaho and had grown up on a reservation with loving parents.
Kayla also gave her more information about the other Cassandras and about the woman who was Lynn’s surrogate mother, Cleo Patra. Lynn learned that Cleo was a beautiful African American.
“Years ago she was a prostitute in Phoenix,” Kayla explained. “She answered a newspaper ad about becoming a surrogate and was placed in the care of Dr. Henry Reagan and Betsy Stone, who was also the nurse for Athena Academy. Cleo’s been frightened for a long time by what happened the night the baby was stolen from her, but now she’s helping us get to the bottom of all this.”
“I want to help. I’ll do whatever is necessary to take down the people responsible for our mother’s death,” Lynn said.
“We need all the help we can get,” Dawn said. At that moment a knock sounded on the door.
Kayla jumped up. “That must be Darcy.” She opened the door and hugged the woman who stepped in.
Lynn looked at the woman with interest. She knew from what Kayla and Dawn had told her that Darcy was a former Hollywood makeup artist who now worked as a beautician and a private investigator.
Darcy Steele was fragile looking, with dyed brown hair that she was growing out, judging by the blond roots, and blue eyes. She greeted Dawn with a hug, then turned and smiled at Lynn. “I can see the resemblance,” she said, and gestured toward Dawn. “It’s amazing. You both have the very same eyes.”
For the next couple of minutes it seemed as if everyone was talking at once as the three caught up with each other, and Lynn sat back and watched. She knew from Dawn that Darcy ran a sort of underground railroad for abused women and realized the woman’s appearance of fragility hid a wealth of inner strength.
They also told Lynn more about Lab 33, that it was built underground with an entrance in the side of a rock formation. It was Dawn who told her about the many levels of the structure that went down into the earth, and to Lynn it sounded like something from a science-fiction novel. However she knew from the look in Dawn’s eyes when she spoke of the place that it was very real and the people who worked there could be very dangerous.
It was a conversation of discovery for Lynn as she learned more about the Athena Academy and the women who had been Rainy’s friends.
“You mentioned on the phone that you have news,” Kayla said to Darcy.
“I got a late response to the ad,” she said.
Lynn looked blankly first at Kayla then at Dawn. It was Dawn who explained. “Darcy has been hunting down the surrogate angle. She found ads in some of the tabloids in the Phoenix area and decided to place an ad of her own.”
“I offered a reward for anyone who might have information about surrogate mothers from about twenty years ago. It’s through the ad we found Cleo. And now I found somebody else.”
“Who?” Kayla asked and leaned forward.
Darcy looked at all of them. “A woman called me. She told me that years ago she worked with a woman who answered an ad for surrogate mothers. She also said that this woman, Tamara Hallwell, paid her to give her a urine sample at the doctor’s office. According to the woman who called me, Tamara Hallwell had unusual pale blue eyes. She sounds like a woman Cleo remembered se
eing in the doctor’s office.”
“When Cleo went to the doctor’s office for her pregnancy test, she remembered seeing a nervous-looking woman with startling blue eyes,” Dawn explained.
“What are you thinking?” Lynn asked. “Why would a woman pay another one for a urine sample?”
“So that nobody would know she was pregnant?” Kayla said.
Darcy nodded and leaned back in her chair. “I’m thinking that maybe this Tamara Hallwell was a third surrogate and she didn’t want anyone to know that the pregnancy was a success.”
“So she paid a woman who wasn’t pregnant to provide a urine sample—and then what happened to her?” Kayla asked.
“She disappeared. Or maybe was killed,” Darcy replied. “I’ve tried to find her and there’s no trace.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then it’s possible there’s another one of us.” Dawn looked at Lynn. “We could have another sister.”
Hours later Lynn sat in her motel room alone. The four of them had talked until after ten, then Kayla and Darcy had left to return to their homes, and Dawn and Lynn had gone to separate rooms for the night.
It had been a night of revelations, ending in a new mystery. Someplace there might be another sister, and if that were true then they needed to find her. She and Dawn needed to find the rest of their family.
Family. She got up from the bed and undressed. As she slipped her silk nightgown over her head, she thought of the women she’d met tonight and the rest of the women she knew she’d meet in the future.
Funny, but in a matter of hours she’d felt as though they were family. She’d felt the bonds that tied them together, bonds of love and respect for each other.
Their obvious love for Rainy Carrington, and their commitment to each other, was as strong a bond as any family could ever offer, and Lynn wallowed in the warmth of knowing that she was now a part of such a warm, caring, strong group of women.
She’d found her place among these women, and she shared their common goal in finding out what had happened so many years before at the Athena Academy and discovering the secrets of Lab 33.
She slid into bed and tried to blank out the neon buzz of the motel sign just outside of her room, the noisy tick of the clock on her nightstand and the sound of water running in another one of the units.
As she quieted the noise of her mind, she heard Nick’s deep, sweetly familiar voice telling her that all she needed to do was call him and he’d wait for her.
He hadn’t been far from her thoughts throughout the day. Even as she had listened to the women talk about mysteries and potential siblings and danger, Nick had remained in the back of her mind.
She had no idea what the future held. She had no idea where the winds of fate might carry her. She certainly didn’t need Nick in her life.
But she wanted him. Eventually, hopefully, the answers they sought would be found, the mysteries all solved and Rainy’s children reunited.
It would be nice if she and Nick could pick up the pieces of what they’d only just begun—a relationship that had felt good and right and wonderfully real.
Magic. That’s what he’d told her they’d had, a magic they had just begun to explore when she’d had to say goodbye.
She thought of his smile, that slow, sexy grin that warmed her from the inside out. He’d listened to her like no other person had listened in her life. Her opinions and thoughts had been important to him.
He’d asked her to stay, but when she’d made it clear that she had to go, he hadn’t tried to change her mind. He’d cared enough about her to let her go. He’d allowed her wings, and she’d known that he hoped eventually those wings would bring her back to him.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the telephone. It was after ten here in New Mexico, which meant it was after midnight in Florida. Too late to call him, she thought, even as her hand reached out for the phone receiver.
She didn’t realize she’d memorized his number until she punched it in. She held the receiver tight against her ear as she waited for him to answer.
It was possible that the words he’d spoken to her had been spoken in the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline of Jonas’s escape still rushing through him. It was possible now that he no longer needed her to put Jonas behind bars, that he would realize he hadn’t meant what he’d said.
If that were the case, she would survive. She had learned in the past couple of days that she could survive many things and, if she had to, she would survive the loss of Nick.
His deep voice filled the line. “Hello?”
She gripped the receiver even tighter, surprised by the depth of emotion that swept through her at the sound of his voice. “Nick? It’s me. I know it’s late…”
“Lynn. I’ve been hoping you’d call. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m not sure why I called.”
“Because you miss me?”
She smiled, her heart warming. “Yes, because I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Has Jonas been arrested? Did they find him?” This wasn’t why she’d called him, wasn’t really what she wanted to hear from him.
“So far he’s managed to elude us, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that you know that my bed isn’t the only lonely place right now. My life is lonely without you in it.”
She gripped the receiver so tightly she was afraid she might shatter it. This was what she had wanted to hear.
“I don’t know any more now than I did this morning. I don’t know when I’ll be back to Miami or when I’ll see you again.”
“Lynn, honey, I don’t know what demons are chasing you, but you slay them, then you come back to me.”
She closed her eyes, her love for him filling her up. “Thank you, Nick. For believing in me.”
“I told you, you’re an amazing woman. I’m a patient man, Lynnette, when it comes to things that matter to me. You matter. I’ll wait.”
In those simple words Lynn knew whatever her future held, it definitely included Nick.
CONTACT
EVELYN VAUGHN
Published by Silhouette Books
America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to
Evelyn Vaughn for her contribution to the
ATHENA FORCE series.
For my sisters at Silhouette Bombshell.
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 1
It was sensory overload. Especially for her.
“You been here before?” shouted the bartender over the noise. He was a gruff old Vietnam-vet type with a long cowboy moustache and tattoos, but Faith didn’t sense any threat off him. Of course, in this chaos, he’d have to come at her with a switchblade before she sensed a threat.
Maybe noise created its own kind of pseudo-silence—a benefit to partying with her new roommates that she hadn’t expected.
“Here, New Orleans?” she shouted back from the sanctuary he’d allowed her on his side of the bar, out of the worst of the crowd. “Or here, DeLoup’s?”
With a bottle of tequila he pointed at her green crop top which read, Tulane University. Ah, proof of her previous life. He could see she’d been in New Orleans awhile now. He grinned. “DeLoup’s.”
Faith shook her head and grinned back while, ever in motion, the bartender set some tourists up with shot glasses, lemon and salt. She usually avoided places like DeLoup’s. She
wouldn’t be here now except that she hated to back down from a challenge.
Like she’d told her mom in that last, ugly argument before she’d moved out, she was through hiding in the shadows. Faith wanted people in her life, even if only people on the margins of society could really accept her. And people—social people—went dancing. And drinking. And…
And other things she’d avoided.
On that determination, she said, “It’s fun!”
And despite her enhanced senses, inexplicably keen for as long as she could remember, it was. Fun. In a throw-you-in-a-blender-and-hit-puree kind of way.
Jazz music bounced off walls hung with crooked neon beer signs and dented license plates. It mixed with laughter and shouted conversation—and heartbeats, the vibration of dozens of thudding heartbeats. Bare, multicolored bulbs dangled from ceiling fixtures, not quite reaching some of the bar’s intense shadows, but Faith could see in the dark almost as clearly as she could in the light. Frigid air-conditioning fought a losing battle against the hot, humid Louisiana night that poured into the bar every time the doors opened, not to mention the heat rolling off of its gyrating patrons. The aromas of beer and rum, sweet fruit drinks and fried appetizers mingled with colognes, breath mints and sweating, pressing humanity.