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?”
