Athena Force: Books 1-6

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

  Kayla shrugged. “Who knows? Things were happening pretty fast and I was worried about Jazz.”

  Jim’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “It’s over now, right?”

  She offered a halfhearted shrug. “Pretty much.”

  Clearly that wasn’t exactly the response he’d hoped for. “I guess I’d better get going.” He sauntered to the door then hesitated. “Make sure you get ahold of Devon first thing in the morning.” He gave her a meaningful look. “And try to stay out of trouble.”

  He worried about her. That touched her more than he could know. “Will do.” She could feel an interview with the sheriff coming on. Two shootings in the space of one week. He didn’t like those kinds of odds.

  Kayla waggled her fingers at Jim as he opened the door. He gave Hadden a nod the way men do when they make an exit and don’t want to bother with what they consider unnecessary pleasantries.

  “Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  She turned to face Hadden, not really surprised that he didn’t plan to give up on his pursuit of the facts. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you,” she said in all honesty. “There are parts I don’t even understand.”

  “Why don’t you try starting at the beginning,” he suggested as he took a step in her direction.

  That sweet glow of heat he always generated shimmered through her again. This thing between them had gotten completely out of hand. But it damn sure felt nice.

  “How about we talk about this tomorrow? I’m really beat.” And right now, this instant, she could use some distance to try and recover her perspective on a number of things. Dawn O’Shaughnessy for one.

  For a second or so she wasn’t sure he would let it go quite so easily, but he finally caved.

  “All right. For now,” he clarified.

  Relief made her knees weak. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her. Damn, he was handsome. And she could definitely deal with those big strong arms tonight.

  But she needed that distance. Had to get her head back on straight. Too much had happened too fast. She also needed to feel her daughter in her arms tonight. Today had been far too close.

  Hadden pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Call me,” he murmured, “when you’re ready to talk.”

  His thumb slid across her cheek before he let go.

  He left. Kayla stood there, her eyes closed, her heart fluttering wildly. There was a lot she had to do before she could go where he threatened to take her.

  Lots and lots to do.

  First and foremost, she had to make sure she could take the risk. She needed to call the gang…fill them in on all that had taken place. Take care of Jazz. Find a way to apologize to Mike for behaving like a jealous kid. Boy, she had her work cut out for her.

  A soft rap on the front door dragged her attention there. She scrubbed her hands over her face and took a deep breath in preparation for facing her family. She’d called her sister and her mother from the hospital to let them know that Jazz was fine. Mary had promised to call the choir director at church. Word traveled fast in a small town, especially when a child went missing.

  Her new company would no doubt be the Ryan cavalry.

  Sure enough, her sister and her family, along with Kayla’s mom and dad, poured into the house. A five-course meal, all packaged neatly in covered plastic containers, was placed on her kitchen table. That’s what the Ryans and their people did when they got nervous, they cooked. Well, all the Ryans except Kayla. She’d somehow missed out on that genetic trait.

  No one wanted to risk disturbing Jazz, so little peeks were taken around the edge of her bedroom door and then the entire family rendezvoused in the living room.

  “She’ll be fine,” Kayla’s mother said with a nod. “She’s a strong girl.”

  Kayla’s father put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Good and strong.” His dark gaze settled on Kayla. “Like her mother.”

  Kayla tried not to cry but she couldn’t help herself. Her parents held her and then Mary plowed her way through for a hug of her own.

  “I was scared to death,” Mary whispered.

  Kayla couldn’t answer.

  Mary drew back and looked at her. “But I knew if anyone could save her, you could. The spirit is with you, sister.”

  Her parents seconded Mary’s assertion. “Your grandmother’s spirit guides you,” her mother added.

  Kayla’s grandmother—her mother’s mother—had always urged Kayla to follow her instincts. Apparently the lady had known what she was talking about.

  “Now, you must eat,” Kayla’s father urged. “You need to replenish your strength.”

  Kayla swiped her eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Her mother laughed. “Please, Kayla, a Ryan can always eat. It’s in the genes.”

  Kayla had to laugh with her when she noticed her father was already unwrapping her mother’s broccoli casserole.

  So she nibbled. Let her family fuss over her, as they needed to.

  Oddly she couldn’t help thinking of Hadden—and wishing he was there, too.

  When her folks were convinced Kayla was really all right, hugs were exchanged and her family left in a flurry of parting queries: Are you sure you don’t want one of us to stay with you? and Is there anything else we can do to help?

  Kayla sagged against the closed door when everyone was at last gone. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to figure out a response to another single question.

  Hot tea. That would do the trick. Wine was out of the question though she could sorely use some about now.

  She had just put the kettle on the stove when a firm knock resonated from the front door yet again.

  Kayla heaved a sigh and headed in that direction. What now? Surely Investigator Devon hadn’t decided to get his statement tonight. She checked the viewfinder and her breath caught.

  Alex and Justin.

  Jesus, she’d forgotten Alex was flying in from D.C.

  Kayla jerked the door open. “You’re here.” It was all she could think to say.

  “Kayla, are you all right?” Alex surveyed her from head to toe. “We heard about what happened with Bradford.”

  Kayla pulled Alex into a hug, couldn’t resist. “I’m okay.”

  “Thank God.” Alex drew back to look at her. “And Jazz is all right?”

  Kayla nodded. “She’s a little shaken up but she’s going to be fine. Come in. Sit.” She gestured to the sofa. “I was about to have some tea.”

  “I’ll help.” Alex moved to her side. “Then you can fill us in on exactly what happened. You can’t imagine how worried we’ve been.”

  As the two of them prepared the tea, Alex brought Kayla up to speed on how they’d arrived earlier that afternoon but hadn’t been able to find her at the office or here. Alex had even gone by her sister’s home as well as her parents’. What she hadn’t known, of course, was that Jazz had been missing by that time and Kayla’s whole world had turned upside down. Finally Alex had tracked down Rebecca Claussen and learned about the kidnapping and shooting, well after the fact.

  Back in the living room seated around the coffee table, Alex’s faced paled as Kayla related the story of what Bradford had done. Justin Cohen, the man clearly in love with Alex, and a brother to one of the women who may have surrogated a child of Rainy’s, listened intently. A member of the FBI as well, he had been working with Alex to try and find the surrogates as well as any offspring that had resulted.

  Alex picked up a framed photograph of Jazz from the coffee table. She sighed softly as she stared at the photo that had been taken at Thanksgiving. “I can’t believe she’s so grown up.” Her gaze met Kayla’s. “I’m looking forward to finally meeting her.”

  Kayla smiled, her heart bursting with joy at hearing Alex say those words. “She’s a treasure.”

  “She looks exactly like you.” She traced the image in the photo. “Just like you did when you started at Athena.”

  There was that.

  Trepidat
ion chased away those softer feelings. “I’ve decided to let her attend next fall.”

  Alex drew in a sharp breath as her gaze locked with Kayla’s once more. “That’s wonderful. I know she must be brilliant as well as beautiful.”

  Kayla somehow kept her smile tacked in place. “She is very bright.”

  Her friend’s expression fell. “You’re still worried about what happened to Rainy and…” She shook her head, the movement as weary as Kayla felt. “All this other confusion.”

  “It was a big decision,” she admitted. “But I know sending her is the right thing to do. I just have to get to the bottom of what happened to Rainy first.”

  Alex placed her hand on top of Kayla’s. “We’ll find the truth and then you can feel good about sending Jazz.” A grin slid across her face. “Imagine, Kayla, at the adventures she’ll have…the amazing young women she’ll meet.”

  The smile was contagious. “I’ve been thinking about that.” She laughed. “And some of the great times we had. All of us.”

  Alex nodded. “We were so lucky to have each other. The Cassandras.”

  Kayla remembered Justin then and wondered if their sentimental journey bothered him considering what had happened to his sister. But he seemed quite pleased to hear about Alex’s life at Athena. Still, he had a right to know the rest of what had happened today.

  “I suppose Rebecca filled you in on Betsy Stone.”

  Alex nodded. “Cyanide. Not a pleasant end.”

  Ditto. “She did confess to being involved with Bradford and Reagan. She claimed they forced her to take part. I had no doubt that she feared for her life. With good reason.”

  “What did Bradford hope to accomplish by kidnapping Jazz?” Alex asked.

  “He considered my investigation the main threat to him. I live here, have the most opportunity to investigate Rainy’s death and its connection to Athena. I believe he felt that if he got rid of me, the rest of you would let the whole thing die.”

  “Then he didn’t know the Cassandras very well.”

  “I still haven’t had any luck tracking down Dr. Reagan’s files,” Kayla mentioned in hopes of drawing Justin into the conversation. His sister had also been Reagan’s patient, and a surrogate, and more information on her might be in those files. Reagan’s files were crucial and Kayla sensed that his death was too convenient.

  “We’ve hit a stone wall as well,” Justin answered. He stared at the cup of tea waiting on the table before him. “But I have to admit at this point that it looks as if my sister did die from complications in childbirth.”

  “With Bradford dead,” Kayla pointed out, “we may never know what really happened to Reagan or the location of his files. Bradford did say Reagan had outlived his usefulness.”

  “You killed Bradford?” Alex broached the question cautiously as if she feared Kayla’s emotions might be too fragile to go there right now.

  She took a deep, bolstering breath and said what she’d been dancing around all evening. “No. I didn’t. The truth is, I’d be dead right now if someone hadn’t intervened.”

  Alex blinked, stared at her expectantly. “That Detective Hadden who’s been ridding your ass all this time?”

  Kayla felt her face redden at Alex’s too-close-to-home remark. She couldn’t possibly know about last night. That was one venue she didn’t plan to visit with anyone just yet.

  “No. It was someone who’d been tracking my every move for months now.”

  A frown worked its way across Alex’s smooth brow. “I remember you mentioned once or twice that you felt as if someone were watching you.”

  “I was right. I discovered a tiny tracking device implanted just beneath the skin on my left shoulder. I had it analyzed. It was state-of-the-art technology…top-secret, futuristic technology.”

  Alex tensed. “Lab 33?”

  Kayla nodded. “That’s my thinking.” She picked up her cup of tea, her hands suddenly ice-cold and needing the warmth. “I figured out that Betsy Stone implanted it when I fainted at the Athena infirmary shortly after Rainy’s death.”

  “The Cipher set it up,” Alex remembered. “Just like he did my accident.” She stared down at her own cup. “Like he did Rainy’s.”

  “Now that I think about it—if they eliminated Reagan, maybe Lab 33 took his files,” Kayla said, mulling over the idea even as she said it.

  “That would make sense,” Alex agreed.

  Silence took over the group for a time. Kayla sipped her tea, needing the sweet heat to soothe her frazzled nerves to tell the rest of the story.

  “Today I finally met the person who’d been shadowing me,” she said, knowing there would be more questions than she could answer, but she couldn’t keep this a secret any longer. She looked from Alex to Justin and back. “Female. Former Athena Academy student by the name of Dawn O’Shaughnessy.”

  Alex sat her cup on the table with a clang. “It was her?”

  Kayla nodded. “The face—now there’s something I won’t forget.” She cradled her hands in her lap and looked directly at Alex. “She’s definitely one of Rainy’s children.”

  Justin’s shoulders stiffened. “How can you be certain of that?”

  “Because I knew Rainy. Dawn is the spitting image of her, except for the hair and eyes.”

  They waited for her to continue.

  “Blond hair, gold-green eyes. Extraordinary eyes. Those she inherited from her father.”

  Like Kayla, Alex had seen pictures of Thomas King. One wasn’t likely to forget those eyes.

  “I did a thorough background investigation,” Kayla explained. “Just about everything about her past was falsified. She came to Athena in her junior year only, just long enough to get those skills that are offered at no other preparatory school, like flying.”

  “Did you speak with her?” Justin asked.

  “Yes. She grew up thinking Lee Craig was her uncle. The Cipher.” Adding that part wasn’t necessary. They knew who Craig was.

  “Where is she now?” This from Justin. The anticipation radiating from him now was palpable.

  “I don’t know. She saved my life and then she took off. She could be the child Cleo Patra carried.” She didn’t want to give Justin hope that the child his sister had died giving birth to had survived after all. At this point, all the evidence they had, meager as it was, indicated the opposite.

  “She shot Bradford?” Alex looked totally confused.

  Kayla nodded. “She saved my life. Mine and Jazz’s.”

  Alex shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. From what I gathered listening to Bradford ramble on, she was supposed to have killed me days ago. He decided he’d just do the job himself when she continued to ignore his orders.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with this, Kayla.” Alex pursed her lips and considered what she wanted to say next. “We need to talk this over with the other girls.”

  “I agree. Darcy will be here tomorrow.” Darcy had called to say she was coming to see Christine.

  “We can dive into the Bureau files,” Justin suggested, “see what we can find on this Dawn O’Shaughnessy.”

  “That would be useful,” Kayla encouraged. “Everything I turned up was crap.”

  “Have you heard anything more about Marshall?” Alex asked. A new kind of emotion joined the mix in her eyes.

  Kayla shook her head. “Nothing yet. Peter—Detective Hadden—will let me know when the…body…is back in the States.”

  “I’m trying to find out what I can,” Justin added. “But it may take some time. He was involved in a case that’s ongoing, so security is tight.”

  Kayla remembered that Hadden had said the FBI were involved. God, she still couldn’t believe Marshall was dead.

  “It’s so hard to believe,” Alex murmured. Kayla started. Alex had seemed to read her mind, and Kayla choked up as she remembered how, back in their Athena days, they’d practically been able to finish each other’s sentences. Thin
gs really were coming full circle.

  Justin took Alex’s hand, and Kayla almost got teary at the tenderness the tough agent showed her friend. “It may be days or even weeks before his body is brought home. The Colombian government isn’t always cooperative.”

  Kayla shuddered. Well, when he did come home, they would still gather to acknowledge his life and death in a way that would make Rainy proud. No matter what he’d done, Marshall had loved their friend, and they would always respect him for that. Suddenly, a familiar sensation prickled Kayla’s skin. She stilled.

  Alex was the first to notice her heightened tension.

  Kayla held up her hand then made a circling motion for them to continue.

  While Alex and Justin went back to discussing ways to look into where Dawn had come from, Kayla eased toward the kitchen. Maybe it was nothing, but she’d felt a subtle shift in the atmosphere of her home. Felt that familiar tingling. Someone else was there….

  She palmed her weapon and swung around the corner into her kitchen, her aim leveled on the first object she identified as out of place.

  Dawn O’Shaughnessy stood in the middle of the room. No weapon visible, but that didn’t mean anything, as Kayla had learned the hard way. Nor did locked doors, apparently, when it came to the young woman’s determination to access her target.

  “I want to talk.”

  Kayla put her weapon away and exhaled a tension-reducing breath. “Would you like some tea?”

  The look Dawn sent in her direction spelled an unequivocal no. Kayla had to admit, she didn’t act like the tea type.

  Kayla led the way into the living room. Alex gasped as her gaze roved over Dawn’s face. She didn’t wait for an introduction. “She is Rainy’s daughter.”

  Justin appeared uncertain how to cope with what his eyes saw. Kayla knew he was wondering if there was any chance his sister might have given birth to this young woman. He would always hope.

  “She wants to talk,” Kayla explained to Alex.

  They all sat, except for Dawn. She didn’t allow herself to get too comfortable or too far from the door.