Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  Kayla waited a full five seconds for that information to sink in before reiterating, “You’re Rainy Carrington’s daughter.”

  The side door of Lu Wan’s suddenly flew open.

  For a split second Kayla’s attention splintered.

  A man wearing a white apron sauntered into the alley, simultaneously lighting up a cigarette.

  Dawn leaped into the air, jerking Kayla’s gaze back in that direction.

  Her left foot shot outward and the weapon in Kayla’s hand flew from her grasp.

  Dawn’s feet hit the ground running.

  Kayla snatched up her weapon and raced after her.

  Down the street…past the few other shops that made up the tiny community of Athens.

  Dawn cut into another passage that ran between two buildings with Kayla right on her heels.

  Shoving her weapon back into its holster she pushed hard…harder…came almost within reach of her. Using her weapon to stop the woman was out of the question.

  Dawn flung herself toward a towering chain-link fence that separated commercial property from residential.

  Kayla grabbed on, scaled after her. She manacled the other woman’s ankle just as she straddled the top of the fence. Dawn kicked to free herself. Kayla held on, dragging herself upward with her free arm.

  The back of a hand collided with Kayla’s cheek. She grunted but didn’t back off. She reached the top of the fence, flung her arm around Dawn’s waist.

  Dawn twisted.

  They both went over…falling…slamming into the ground, then struggling against each other.

  Rolling to a grinding stop, Kayla pinned Dawn onto her back.

  The seemingly unarmed young woman suddenly had a weapon in her right hand.

  “Back off!”

  Kayla froze.

  “Get off!”

  Kayla held her ground. “Think about what I said, Dawn. Cipher and his people killed your mother.”

  Dawn rammed the muzzle of the weapon beneath Kayla’s chin. “Get off!”

  Kayla held up her hands to show her surrender. “All right.” She pushed to her feet and backed away.

  Dawn scrambled up, her gaze and the aim of her weapon never deviating from her target.

  “Toss your weapon over there.” She jerked her head toward the clump of grass a few feet away.

  “They lied to you, Dawn.”

  “Shut up and do it!”

  Kayla drew her weapon from her holster. She held it firmly. Giving up a weapon was the stupidest thing a cop could do.

  “I guess you’ll just have to shoot me,” she suggested, hoping like hell the girl wouldn’t. She’d had other opportunities and had chosen not to. Then again, maybe her orders hadn’t included killing Kayla until now. Kayla’s last images of Jazz flashed through her mind in rapid succession. That her final moments with her daughter had been angry ones ripped at her heart.

  Dawn blinked, then did something totally unexpected.

  She turned her back and sprinted away.

  Kayla started to yell for her to stop. But she knew that wouldn’t happen this side of the grave.

  Instead, she let her go. She put her weapon away.

  There was nothing else she could do.

  Jim and another deputy showed up. Kayla told her partner what she could, which included everything but the woman’s identity and connection to Rainy Carrington. For now, she had to keep that to herself.

  As Kayla climbed back into her Jeep the smell of Chinese food met her with a vengeance.

  Her gaze flew to the digital clock on her dash.

  12:45 p.m.

  She swore.

  Jazz.

  She was half an hour late picking up her daughter.

  She backed out of the parking slot and burned rubber. As an afterthought she one-handedly tugged on her seat belt.

  Driving as fast as she dared she reached the small church in only four minutes.

  She’d been that damned close and still she was late.

  She didn’t bother dusting off her clothes or checking her face to see if she had a shiner blooming there. After double-timing it up the front steps she forced herself to slow, to pull together her wobbly composure as she entered the solemn house of God.

  “I am so sorry I’m late picking up my girl,” she said to the choir director the moment their gazes met. She gestured to her disheveled appearance. “Police business.”

  The choir director’s pleasant expression fell slightly. “I thought you already picked up Jazz.”

  Fear clenched around Kayla’s heart. “No. No. I just got here.”

  The director looked around as if searching for someone to confirm her statement. “I’m certain she’s gone. I think I saw her get into a car.”

  Kayla heaved a sigh that allowed her heart to start beating once more. “Mary must have picked her up.” She should have thought of that. Jazz would have called Mary since she was likely still angry with Kayla.

  The director’s smile lifted back into place. “Sure. She must have gone with your sister.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “My goodness. What a scare. There were so many children and so many cars. I just knew everyone was accounted for.”

  Kayla felt about as miserable as she no doubt looked. “Sorry.”

  She walked as quickly as she dared down the quiet corridor. Once she got through the doors she ran to her Jeep, grabbed her cell phone and stabbed in her sister’s number.

  “I’m sorry I was late. Thanks for picking up Jazz.” Deep in her gut that funny feeling had started all over again. Regret, guilt, she told herself.

  “What?” her sister’s voice echoed across the connection.

  A flood of anxiety washed over Kayla a second time in as many minutes. “Jazz. You picked her up at church, right?”

  “I thought you were going to pick her up.”

  Full throttle terror banded around her heart. “Dammit, Mary, did you pick her up or not?”

  “No, Kayla. I didn’t pick her up. I haven’t—”

  Kayla’s phone fell from her useless fingers and bounced twice on the ground. She turned all the way around in the middle of the street. But there was no one to call to for help.

  Where was her daughter?

  Chapter 12

  Kayla’s phone started to vibrate against the asphalt at her feet.

  Still in shock she stared down at it as if it would somehow explain what was happening.

  The grating sound echoed again and she jerked out of the trance she’d lapsed into.

  She had to find Jazz.

  She grabbed the phone and jumped into her car.

  “Ryan,” she snapped as she started the engine.

  “Lieutenant Ryan, how nice to finally hear your voice.”

  A wave of nausea rolled over Kayla. She didn’t know the voice. That alone told her this was no friendly call.

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed by now. You seem to have figured out everything else. And here I thought that you would be a bigger problem than Christine and Betsy.”

  Carl Bradford?

  Fury obliterated her fear.

  “Where’s my daughter, you son of a bitch?”

  “Now, now, is that how you were taught to speak at the police academy? I know you weren’t taught such crude language at Athena.”

  “If you hurt her, Bradford, you’re dead.” Her voice cracked with the mixture of rising hysteria and shuddering fury. “Know that right now. I will kill you if you harm her in any way.”

  The thought of what he and Reagan had done to Rainy twisted in Kayla’s chest like barbed wire. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears burning there.

  “Perhaps, but you see, Lieutenant, I’m the one holding all the cards, so let’s not waste anymore time exchanging meaningless chitchat.”

  “What do you want?” She went completely numb with the exception of the rage roiling inside her.

  “As if you don’t know. Please, don’t patroni
ze me, Lieutenant. I have no patience for such trivialities. Follow my instructions precisely and you might see your daughter one last time before she joins your dear friend Rainy.”

  Kayla restrained the clawing desire to scream at him. To reach through that phone and break his sick neck. “Tell me what you want me to do,” she said with a sudden, unexpected calm. The abruptness of it made her dizzy. For the first time in her life the idea of taking someone else’s life appealed to her like the thirst of blood to a vampire. She was going to kill this man. Whatever it took, he was dead.

  “Ah, now that’s more like it. I’m sure you’ll recall that there’s a special place you girls used to go. Meet me there and I’ll allow you and your daughter to die together. Come alone, Lieutenant Ryan,” he cautioned, “or else I will have no choice but to cut her tender throat on the spot. I think you know I won’t hesitate to do so.”

  A single click punctuated his final threat.

  Kayla stared at the phone, her heart sinking all the way to her feet. His intentions were crystal clear. He wanted her as well as her daughter dead. Kayla for what she knew, Jazz for simply being her child…for being Kayla’s entire life.

  She couldn’t let him get away with this.

  The only question was, could she risk going in alone? There would be no objectivity…her ability to reason was already greatly compromised.

  But could she take the chance and call for help?

  Kayla rammed the gearshift into drive and rocketed onto the street. She had to assume that someone would be watching her. Quite possibly Dawn O’Shaughnessy. Or that her cell was bugged or locked into some sort of monitoring system.

  Kayla would have to do this another way.

  When she arrived at the main entry gate of Athena Academy she paused for the guard at the guard shack though she knew he recognized her vehicle.

  She stretched out her hand to him, her wallet open, displaying her driver’s license as ID.

  “You didn’t need to stop, Lieutenant.” He looked at her wallet, confusion marring his brow.

  Oh, but she did. She kept her wallet thrust at him until he reluctantly accepted it. “Do you have a cell phone I could use for a few minutes, my battery is dead. I’ll only be an hour or so. I’ll drop it back by on my way out.”

  “Sure.” He passed her wallet as well as his cell phone to her. “Just remember I go off duty at four.”

  Kayla managed a brittle smile as she drew the two items into the Jeep with her. “I’ll be back in a flash,” she promised. Anyone watching her would not realize she’d just picked up an alternate means of communication.

  She eased forward, her heart pounding like a drum in spite of the relief gushing through her. With a few flicks of her fingers she’d entered a number. She held the phone to her ear as discreetly as possible while she maneuvered the road that would take her to the foothills of the White Tank Mountains.

  “I need your help.” She gave the location and an abbreviated version of the situation. “Approach with caution.” Then she disconnected. She couldn’t afford to say more. There was no time to devise a plan. Chances were help wouldn’t even arrive in time. But someone had to know she and her daughter were in danger. However Bradford intended to cover up their disappearance, she didn’t want him to succeed.

  She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel. She’d either just made the biggest mistake of her life or she’d saved her daughter’s life. There was no way to predict which just yet.

  Kayla didn’t know how Bradford knew about this special place. She and the Cassandras had gathered here when necessary for private consultations. Rainy had made them all promise to never speak of this special place unless it was to call a meeting there.

  But that had been years ago…when they were kids. Kayla hadn’t even thought of that spot in years. Obviously Rainy hadn’t either, since her final call to the Cassandras had been for a meeting at Christine’s bungalow. But then, they were much older now. A warm living room with a comfy sofa was far more appealing than a scrub of brush in a thicket of trees in the dead of night.

  Her heart wrenched at the idea that her daughter was out there…scared to death…wondering why this was happening to her. Kayla would make that bastard pay for this.

  She could only assume that one of Bradford’s cronies, such as Nurse Stone, had kept track of where the Cassandras went, even when they didn’t know it. Maybe even with a tracking device like the one Hadden had dug out of Kayla’s back.

  She prayed the guard wouldn’t find her actions suspicious. She’d driven through that gate enough times without stopping in the months since the guards had been posted. All the guards recognized her. This one had likely noted the direction she’d taken. But then, he also knew that she was investigating Christine’s shooting. He probably wouldn’t consider anything unusual under the circumstances.

  The gate and the guard were all well and good, but the fact of the matter was that there was simply no way to protect five hundred acres of academy property from intruders. Bradford had gotten in. He definitely wouldn’t have come in through the gate.

  Of all people, she knew how easily someone could slip in and out of Athena if he or she really wanted to. Wasn’t that why no one had ever learned what happened to Marion Gracelyn? Years from now would others still be wondering what happened to Christine Evans? To Kayla and Jazz? Without a small battalion of soldiers it would be impossible to guard every possible access to school property.

  Bradford could have a whole team of thugs out here.

  She refused to think the worst until she’d assessed the situation. She couldn’t do it. Focus on the next step, she told herself. Do this one step at a time and pray help arrives in time. Bradford would likely have someone monitoring dispatch at the office. Calling her partner had been out of the question. She could only hope Bradford hadn’t thought of the option she’d utilized.

  When the service road ended, Kayla parked her Jeep and got out to make the rest of the journey on foot.

  The White Tank Mountains towered over the valley where Athena Academy ruled. The freestanding range of mountains rose sharply from its base, offering deeply serrated ridges and inspiring canyon walls. Folks loved walking those slopes, climbing to those peaks. Kayla had always equated the mountains with peace and serenity, a monument to all her people believed in.

  But there was nothing peaceful or serene here today.

  As she crossed the wash trail left behind by the infrequent heavy rains, she thought of how the bedrock revealed by the flash floods looked as barren and defeated as she felt just then.

  She didn’t care that this fragile desert landscape of cholla, ironwood, and creosote had always given her a safe feeling of being home.

  None of it made her feel safe and welcome today.

  Her daughter was out there, held by a madman.

  The only thing she wanted was to make sure his black heart stopped beating here and now.

  Her skin prickled and Kayla drew her weapon. She slowly scanned the open landscape but discovered nothing. She wondered if her shadow had followed her here. Why not? This was what she’d wanted. To lure Kayla to her death or to find the right moment to execute her. But now it had gone too far. Kayla had learned too much and had outwitted her pursuer, leaving Bradford feeling desperate.

  Desperation was a bad thing. It caused people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Taking Jazz had been an extreme measure but one that assured him that his orders would be followed.

  Her fingers tightened around the butt of her weapon. Maybe she wouldn’t ever know who had commissioned Bradford and Reagan to carry out these heinous crimes, but she would end Bradford’s participation. Officially Reagan was dead of a heart attack but he could have been murdered. Maybe she could beat it out of Bradford before she killed him.

  The need for revenge for what he’d done to her daughter this very day…for what he’d done to Rainy all those years ago…sang in Kayla’s blood.

  As she neared the base of
the mountains she slipped into the thicket of trees, used the patches of thick growth to move toward the larger copse of trees where she and her Cassandra sisters had met so many times all those years ago.

  It wasn’t until she’d gotten within thirty yards of her destination that she saw Jazz. She sat on the ground. Her hands appeared to be bound behind her back.

  A new flash of white-hot rage surged inside Kayla.

  A man who must be Bradford stood over her daughter, holding court and seemingly alone. But she knew better. The bastard would have backup around here someplace.

  As she watched he surveyed the landscape, looking for her, she surmised. He would know she was close if by no other means than the passage of time. She’d driven straight to the campus. He would be expecting her about now.

  She crouched down and moved from one rock outcropping to another, used bushes, trees, whatever was available for cover as she journeyed closer to her target. The sun warmed her back, making it hard to remember that it was almost Christmas. That her daughter would forever associate this terror with Christmas gave Kayla all the more reason to want to wring the breath out of him.

  Bradford appeared to go to no particular trouble to determine her whereabouts. He looked around now and then but nothing more.

  Additional measures were definitely in place. No way would he be so nonchalant otherwise.

  The thought fully evolved into Kayla’s mind at the same instant the cold hard muzzle of a weapon bored into the back of her skull.

  “On your feet, Ryan.”

  Kayla didn’t have to turn around to identify the voice.

  Dawn O’Shaughnessy.

  Kayla had never known anyone else who could sneak up on her like that. The girl was good.

  She stood slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves.

  “Lose the weapon,” Dawn ordered.