Athena Force: Books 1-6

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

  Eventually Kayla stopped, leveled her gaze back on Stone’s. “You don’t know anything about Cleo Patra or Kelly Cohen receiving fifty-thousand dollars to become surrogate mothers.”

  Stone moved her head adamantly from side to side. “I have no idea what this woman is talking about.” Disgust glinted in her eyes. “How could you believe anything a slut like that would say?”

  Kayla quirked one eyebrow. “Slut? I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Stone averted her eyes. “I do remember her coming into Dr. Reagan’s office,” she admitted. “She was nothing but trash. She’s probably making up her testimony just to get the attention.” She smirked. “Cleo Patra, please. She’s likely as unreliable now as she was then.”

  Kayla braced her hands on the table and leaned toward the nurse, who’d finally started to get a little nervous. “Actually, her testimony isn’t all we’ve got to go on, Ms. Stone. Christine Evans gave a statement before the shooting indicating that she’d caught Dr. Carl Bradford going through student files around the same time Rainy’s emergency surgery took place. And she caught Bradford cheating on her—with you.” Kayla smiled at the slight telling flare of the woman’s pupils. “It doesn’t take much of a leap to put together the error in Rainy’s medical files along with the damage to her ovaries from the egg harvesting to a surrogate named Cleo Patra under the care of Dr. Reagan—who, conveniently enough, performed Rainy’s supposed appendectomy. Hmm. Now, why would a gynecologist be the physician of record for an appendectomy?”

  Stone shook her head again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t—”

  Kayla put her face in the nurse’s. “Yes, you did. You and Bradford selected the best candidate. Reagan took care of the rest. I know that’s how it happened. Don’t lie to me. It’s over, Betsy, we’ve got you.”

  “No jury is going to take that whore Cleo Patra’s word over mine,” Stone argued, though her voice lacked conviction. The slightest hint of panic had niggled its way into her expression.

  Kayla straightened. “You could be right. So, let’s make this easy. Cleo has already agreed to a polygraph, we’ll want the same from you. That should tell us what we need to know.”

  Stone’s eyes rounded. “You know those things aren’t always accurate.”

  Kayla turned her palms upward in a gesture of indifference. “If you’re telling the truth you have nothing to worry about.”

  Stone’s hands shook before she clasped them together in front of her. “I…want a lawyer.”

  Jim walked in just then. “Let’s go, Ryan,” he said to Kayla. “Christine Evans just regained consciousness. She wants to give a statement about the identity of her assailant.” He flicked a suspicious glance in Betsy’s direction. “She apparently knew the perp.”

  Kayla headed for the door. “Think about what I said, Ms. Stone.”

  “Wait.”

  Kayla stilled, turned slowly so as not to act too enthusiastic. “I really have to go. We can finish this later.”

  Betsy exhaled a shaky breath. “I’ll tell you what I can.” Her gaze fastened on Kayla’s. “But you’ll have to promise me protection. They’ll kill me if they find out I talked.”

  Kayla looked to Jim and smiled. “You go ahead without me.”

  Jim closed the door and headed for his real destination, lunch. Christine Evans hadn’t regained consciousness, unfortunately. But Kayla had suspected that Betsy wouldn’t want to risk that whoever had shot Christine might have revealed something that would incriminate her. Or that the shooter’s identity could be tied to her in any way.

  “He made me do it,” she said right off the bat but Kayla didn’t believe her for a second. “Carl Bradford told me that I’d lose my job if I didn’t help him. He’d already pitted Christine and me against each other. I just didn’t know it.” Her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did was help him review the files so he could select the best candidate. Dr. Reagan took over from there. That’s all I know. I was told nothing more.” She looked up at Kayla, a plea in her eyes. “I was just a pawn. They used me.”

  Kayla had to suppress the urge to punch the woman. She’d helped do this to Rainy.

  “Why?” Kayla asked, her tone lethal.

  “I…I don’t know what you mean.” Stone looked scared now. Really scared.

  “Why did Reagan and Bradford do this? Who backed their work…commissioned it? Why Athena Academy?” She moved in close to the woman again. “I need to know.”

  “I don’t know why,” she trilled. “I just did what he made me do…that’s all…” She dropped her head into her hands. “That’s all I’m guilty of.”

  Kayla sensed she was lying. But she couldn’t make her confess to anything else just yet. “And what about the tracking device? I know you did that.”

  Betsy’s head shot up, her expression startled. “You just don’t understand, if I had refused I’d be dead now. I couldn’t say no…not to him.”

  “To the Cipher, Lee Craig?”

  Stone’s surprise morphed into shock. “How did you know…?” She blinked, glanced around the room like a caged animal. “You have to protect me.”

  Kayla ignored her plea. “I’m going to have you transferred to county lockup. It’s the only way I can protect you.”

  To her surprise Stone nodded in agreement.

  Kayla moved toward the door without saying anything more. She wanted to shake the woman, somehow make her understand that what she’d done had culminated in Rainy’s death. But she had to tread carefully. Alienating Betsy at this juncture would be a mistake. She knew far more than she was telling.

  “Kayla.”

  The woman’s voice sounded small and uncharacteristically fearful. Kayla hesitated at the door and turned back to her. “Yeah.”

  “They’ll kill me if they get to me, just like they tried to kill Christine. You have to believe that, if you believe nothing else I say.”

  Kayla felt certain she would never forget the look in Betsy Stone’s eyes when she said those words. She was terrified. Whatever else she knew, she understood that her life was in jeopardy because of it.

  With orders in place to relocate her to county lockup, Kayla intended to check on Christine, then pick up Jazz for lunch. After she’d had her talk with Jazz, she’d pay another visit to the nurse and see if she had suddenly remembered something more. At the last minute, she’d confessed to having risked returning to the bungalow for her passport. As Kayla had suspected, she’d hoped that ransacking the place would make it appear she’d gone missing, throwing both the cops and her former colleagues off her trail.

  Sitting in county lockup was no walk in the park. Kayla imagined that environment would have the woman ready to make any kind of deal she could.

  Kayla didn’t want to make any deals, she just wanted the truth. She wanted to bring down whoever had done this to Rainy. She wanted to clear Athena Academy, ensure that the school was safe again.

  Her cell phone vibrated. “Ryan.”

  “Kayla, Investigator Devon just called. He’s going to need you to come in ASAP and have that interview with the D.A.”

  “Now?” She couldn’t believe this. She was in the middle of an official investigation that involved attempted murder. Not to mention the unofficial one into Rainy’s murder. Surely her chat with the D.A. could wait.

  “Sorry, kiddo, but this new hotshot D.A. ain’t gonna take no for an answer.”

  Frustrated, Kayla drove all the way to Casa Grande to meet with the D.A. in charge of the bike bust that was apparently turning into the sting of the decade.

  The interview didn’t take long. Kayla had a feeling it had more to do with his measuring the strength of her presence and ability to present her testimony. He was taking no chances on this case. Understandable, since the key witness against the big fish he’d nailed was a slimy thief himself.

  “Thank you for coming in, Lieutenant Ryan.” He shook her hand and offered that million-dollar smile that had
likely gone a long ways in getting him into this high-profile office.

  “Not a problem,” she lied. “It’s my job.” She produced a smile of her own and tried her level best not to look impatient. She had things to do!

  “Just so you know,” he said, waylaying her once more, “we’ve written a clause into Terrence Swafford’s immunity contract.”

  Kayla pushed aside her impatience for a moment. “A clause?”

  “If he threatens you or anyone close to you he’ll be in violation and then—” the young, clearly ambitious D.A. grinned “—his ass will be mine and there will be no bargaining.”

  This time her smile was the genuine article. “Thanks.”

  So maybe this little side trip hadn’t been a waste of time after all.

  She glanced at her watch. She still had time to get to the church and pick up Jazz.

  As she neared Athens her phone vibrated once more. She hoped she wasn’t late. Shortly after noon was the time she’d understood, but all this business with Marshall, Mike and Hadden had her second-guessing herself.

  Heat rushed through her at the thought of Hadden and the way they’d made love last night. She had so needed that, as foolish as getting involved with the guy was.

  “Ryan.”

  “Kayla, I’ve got that analysis for you.”

  Fred. “Great, what’d you find?” She rolled her shoulder, wincing at the small sore spot where the device had been removed.

  “Definitely a tracking device,” Fred told her. “I’d estimate that considering the tissue collection on its surface it’s been implanted about three-and-a-half to four months.”

  Boy, he was good. That’s why she loved him.

  “I thought as much.” That would tie in with when she’d fainted at the Academy. “I’ll swing by and pick it up this afternoon if that’s okay.”

  “There’s something else.”

  The ominous tone in her friend’s voice was more than his usual dramatic flare. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ve never seen a device like this. I had to show it to one of my colleagues in D.C.” Which meant he’d uploaded a digital image for cyber-perusal. “He says it’s the latest technology.”

  Kayla’s heart rate picked up a few extra beats. “Does that mean it’s not available on the general market?”

  “That’s only the beginning.” Fred laughed, the sound strained. “Kayla, he says this thing is ultra-secret military shit. He wants to know where the hell we got it.”

  And then she knew her worst fears were on the money.

  This went way higher than a couple of staff members at Athena Academy. Josie’s sister was right. Whatever Lab 33 was, that tracking device had to have come from there.

  The government held a great deal of power over Athena Academy. Was this why they’d created an all-girls school in the first place, to lure in potential egg mining candidates? Had Marion Gracelyn discovered that evil scheme and lost her life because of it?

  “You still there, Kayla?”

  She swallowed hard and scrambled to find her voice. “Yeah, Fred, I’m here. Listen, put that thing up where no one can find it, would you? I’m going to need it.”

  “What do I tell my D.C. colleague?”

  “Tell him a cop in Athens got it from someone connected to Lab 33.”

  “What the hell is Lab 33?”

  “Just tell him, okay?”

  Kayla ended the call and tossed her phone into the seat.

  She could feel the news vibrating across the airwaves already. A cop in Athens, Arizona, had discovered a link to Lab 33. Fred’s colleague in D.C. probably wouldn’t know what that was, but he’d report it to his superior. That superior would report it to his, and so on. Within an hour or so, the information would reach the right ears. And someone at Lab 33 would know that Kayla Ryan was onto them.

  She glanced in her rearview mirror. She hadn’t felt her shadow around today. Maybe she’d better make it a little easier for him. Instead of going straight to the church, she swung by the house, then dropped by hers and Jazz’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

  If her shadow wanted to follow her now, he’d have to get a little closer. That’s all the leverage Kayla needed.

  She put their lunch in the floorboard on the passenger side of the Jeep. She closed the door and started around the hood but that familiar sensation of being watched stopped her. Goose bumps scattered over her skin and those tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Well, well, about time.

  Instead of getting into the Jeep, Kayla strolled back toward the small restaurant. She moved around the side of the building, past the Dumpster and the employees’ entrance, and headed to the very back where the restaurant nestled up to an apartment building and a Laundromat.

  She rounded the rear corner of the building but instead of continuing down the alley, she flattened against the brick wall of Lu Wan’s.

  Assuming a battle-ready stance, she waited.

  The whisper of a soft sole on asphalt broke the silence.

  Then nothing.

  Kayla held her breath. She focused her full attention on the person around that corner. She couldn’t be certain how close he or she was…but close.

  An abrupt shuffle of footsteps told her he’d decided to cut his losses.

  Kayla barreled around the corner and lunged into a dead run.

  Target was maybe ten yards ahead.

  Medium height. Thin.

  Tufts of blond hair showed beneath a baseball cap.

  “Halt or I will shoot!” Kayla leveled her weapon, not daring to slow in her pursuit.

  Surprisingly the perp skidded to a stop near the Dumpster. Kayla hadn’t really expected that to happen. She drew up short, coming to her own sudden stop.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered. “Get your hands up where I can see them.”

  A pair of gloved hands went up. It was chilly out, but not that damned cold. The gloves weren’t about protection from the weather. Kayla’s internal alarm shifted to a higher state of alert.

  Despite the bulky jacket and baggy trousers, Kayla suspected her shadow was female. It was as much about the way she held herself as it was the attire. A kind of sultry confidence that didn’t scream femininity but definitely lacked any true masculine quality.

  “Turn around.”

  She, or he, if Kayla was wrong, didn’t move.

  Kayla’s pulse tripped into triple time. She braced herself for a tactical maneuver. “I said turn around!”

  Only three or four feet stood between them, Kayla held her aim steady.

  Slowly, her body moving in timed increments almost like the eight count of dance moves, the perp executed a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn.

  The hair might have been stuffed beneath that cap but Kayla would have known the eyes anywhere. The exquisite line of her jaw…the straight sophisticated nose.

  Dawn O’Shaughnessy.

  “Caught me,” she said flippantly, “whatcha gonna do now? Shoot me?”

  For two beats Kayla couldn’t respond. She could only stand there and stare into the eyes of the young woman she knew with every fiber of her being was Rainy’s child.

  “You’re Dawn O’Shaughnessy.”

  “And you’re a murderer. You and your friends,” she snarled. Any softness Kayla had thought she’d noted in the woman’s face transformed into a hard mask of determination.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear, Dawn.” As much as Kayla would have preferred to lower her weapon, considering the woman’s identity and attitude, she couldn’t see taking the risk. “I imagine you’ve been told a lot of lies.”

  The girl stormed up to her, allowing the barrel of Kayla’s weapon to press into her chest. Not the first spark of fear showed in her eyes. This woman was prepared to die if necessary. Kayla didn’t doubt for a second that she was just as prepared to kill.

  “You and your friends killed my uncle.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve got me at a loss.” Kayla’s brain worked
double time to figure out who Dawn was talking about.

  “He was the only family I had. And you’ll all pay.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Your uncle—”

  “Lee Craig,” Dawn snarled.

  Who the hell…? And then she knew. The Cipher.

  “He was your uncle?”

  “That’s right.”

  Kayla’s heart missed a beat. She knew where this was going. “You’ve been following me using the tracking device Betsy Stone implanted.”

  That Dawn didn’t look surprised to hear Kayla had connected the tracking device to Nurse Stone told her two things: she already knew Stone had been compromised and whoever wanted to stop Kayla and the Cassandras from learning the truth was running out of time. Things were escalating rapidly.

  “Are you ready to die, Lieutenant Ryan?”

  Dawn’s penetrating gaze bored into Kayla’s. Somehow she couldn’t help finding the situation just a little ironic. She’d spent months trying to bring to justice those behind Rainy’s murder and now Rainy’s own child wanted Kayla dead.

  Though the other woman didn’t appear to be armed, one of them wouldn’t be walking out of this alley. Kayla knew instinctively that it was as simple as that. She had one chance here at preventing bloodshed.

  “Don’t you want to know why my friends and I tracked him down?”

  Dawn’s gaze narrowed with mounting suspicion. “Nothing you have to say interests me.”

  She said the words with a total lack of emotion and yet Kayla saw the lie in her eyes. The faintest flicker of uncertainty and curiosity.

  “Lee Craig—the Cipher—killed Lorraine Miller Carrington. She was a dear friend,” Kayla explained.

  “Too bad.”

  Kayla bit back a scathing retort. That’s what Dawn wanted, animosity. “That’s right. It was too bad. Rainy Carrington was one of the finest people I’ve ever known. And she was your mother.”

  The statement visibly startled the younger woman. “Lying won’t save your ass, Ryan.”

  “Then check it out,” Kayla urged. “If you know the Cipher, then you probably know the people who sent him. Those people took something from Rainy about twenty years ago.” She searched Dawn’s eyes as she spoke, looking for any hint that she was making headway. “That something they took was eggs from her ovaries. A man named Dr. Henry Reagan and another, Dr. Carl Bradford, orchestrated at least part of the procedure. They used those eggs to produce offspring through a sperm donor and surrogate mothers. You’re one of those children.”