Flashback

that I’ll be poking around,” she went on, thinking aloud now. “I don’t want to use the book-writing cover story with them only to have them find out later I was scamming them. I might need their cooperation before this is over.”
“Spoken like a woman brought up around politics,” he told her.
“Yuck,” she said succinctly, making an exaggerated face of distaste as she knew G.C. expected. She won the grin she was after; her grandfather knew quite well her aversion for the world he held so much power in, despite the fact that he had never run for or held public office.
“That feeling you have is why Marion ran for office,” he said.
Alex shook her head. “I admire her for that. I think. My first thought about a filthy pond is how to clean it without going swimming in it.”
He looked at her with an amused expression. “And how would you do it?”
“Drain it?” she suggested. “Then shovel the dregs out into the compost pile and start all over with clean water.”
He chuckled. “You’d be amazed at how many people agree with exactly that idea. Too bad more of them aren’t in positions to do it. Yet.”
The rest of the evening, except for a brief phone call from her mother—brief because Alex escaped by saying she was busy preparing for the trip to Athena—passed in the pleasant manner that made her long for this place when she was gone. She was so relaxed and calm by the time her grandfather said good-night that she was startled when he added soberly, “Be careful, Alexandra.”
“Of course,” she responded automatically.
But as she lay awake that night, turning things over in her mind, she wondered what he thought might happen in Arizona, what had compelled him to issue that caution about a case that was a decade old.
It might be a decade old, a small voice in her head pointed out, but it was still murder.
And the murderer was still out there.
“I can’t believe Jazz is old enough to be at Athena,” Alex said.
Kayla Ryan laughed. “Neither can I.”
“She’s doing quite well already.”
Christine Evans, the only principal Athena had ever had, or had needed, spoke enthusiastically as she handed the two other women glasses of the lemonade she’d just fixed. They’d both chosen it rather than wine, knowing they’d be driving later tonight.
They’d wanted to meet here, not just because they loved Athena and came back often, but also to check on Christine, and make sure she was truly completely recovered from the gunshot wound she’d suffered during their unraveling of Rainy’s murder. It seemed that she had, and Alex knew that yet another Athena class would be whipped into shape by the indefatigable ex-army captain.
That class was here now and was the main reason Alex was staying in town instead of out here at the campus. With a new session of school in full swing, Alex hadn’t wanted to intrude on the rhythm, even if Christine had said she wouldn’t be at all in the way.
“Jazz has some awfully big footsteps to follow in,” Alex said, nodding at Kayla, whose honey complexion pinkened in what Alex guessed was pride more in her daughter than herself. But her brown eyes sparkled, much as Alex guessed her own blue ones did at the happiness of having her closest friend back in her life.
“A little mother-daughter competition won’t hurt her.”
“I’d argue that,” Alex said ruefully, “except you are thankfully nothing like my mother.”
“And Jazz can’t, and shouldn’t, be me.” Kayla grimaced slightly. “Hopefully she’s smarter than I was at her age. She’s her own person, and she’ll have to find her own path, her own talents.”
“And Athena’s the place to do it,” Alex said, shifting her gaze to Christine, “thanks to you.”
“My, you’re just full of praise tonight,” Christine teased.
“Maybe I’m just glad to be with people who love Athena as much as I do.”
“Uh-oh,” Kayla said instantly at the undertone Alex hadn’t meant to let show in her voice. “Problem?”
“No, not really. Not a current one, anyway. But I do have some news.”
She filled both women in on why she was there, and both were, as she’d expected, as eager as she to get to the truth about Marion Gracelyn’s murder. Christine spent quite a bit of time walking Alex through every bit she could remember about that day.
“Did Marion ever tell you anything about those three incidents that happened before she was killed?” she asked Christine.
Christine frowned. “I knew she had that fire at her home here in Phoenix, the one that they thought was arson, and then, of course, that awful crash with that plane that ran off the runway when taking off.”
“And a week before that, the steering on her car went out,” Alex said. “Her mechanic said the fluid was contaminated. Something that gummed up the works. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Highly unusual but not unheard of.”
“Well, yes,” Christine said. “I heard about that, but…you’re saying they’re all connected?”
“Marion thought so.”
“The fire was arson,” Kayla put in. “I remember looking up the report shortly after I started at the PD, when I had access to old reports.”
Christine looked thoughtful. “It does seem a bit much to have three ‘accidents’ of that severity in such a short time span. I should have…I just never put them all together that way.”
“You were in shock,” Alex said. “Everybody who knew and loved her was in shock, not thinking clearly.”
“So you think those accidents were failed attempts on her life?”
“I pulled the NTSB report on the plane accident. The official verdict was accidental debris on the runway, but there were two dissenting investigators who thought it might have been intentional damage done to the plane’s tires.”
Kayla drew in an audible breath. “So if we accept that these were all caused incidents, we’re down to who caused them.”
“And if we can figure out who caused them, it should lead us to who killed her,” Alex said. Then she looked at Christine. “Did