“Learn from your daughter,” G.C. told the big bay stallion in mock sternness.
It was a minor chastisement directed in jest to an animal, but Alex couldn’t help thinking how the words he’d said demonstrated one of the things she loved most about her grandfather. Despite his position and the importance others assigned him, he never thought he was too big or too important, never thought he knew too much to ever learn from anyone around him.
They finished their ride, untacked and groomed the horses under the hovering eye of head groom Jacob Garner. Garner, even after years of working for the Forsythes, had never quite gotten used to their penchant for taking care of their own horses. He’d even told her once that it was a topic of discussion among other grooms in the area, how unusual it was that the Forsythes insisted on doing such things themselves instead of just handing their horses off to staff as most others in their circle did.
It wasn’t until they were walking from the stable back to the house that G.C. returned to the subject of her investigation.
“Will you be talking to the police in Phoenix? Asking them to reopen the case?”
“Officially? I’m not sure yet. I’ll talk to Kayla, certainly, and maybe the detective assigned to the case if he’s still there.”
Her beloved Lacy, registered name Chantilly Lace, whinnied at her from the paddock where she was enjoying the spring day. She laughed, and changed direction.
“She’ll never forgive me if I don’t take her out soon.”
“Jacob says that tendon is healing nicely, so a little ramble shouldn’t be out of the question by next week.”
Alex nodded, glad the horse she’d grown up with since she was a child was doing better. She didn’t push her so hard anymore, now that she was in her twenties, but Forsythe horses were long-lived and spirited, so she expected to be out on the trails with Lacy again soon.
After the horse had been greeted and cooed over and seemed satisfied for the moment, they resumed their walk up to the house, and the conversation.
“I’d like to do as much as I can under the radar,” Alex said. “Less warning, and less time for the roaches to scurry into hiding.”
She was certain Kayla Ryan, her friend and fellow Cassandra, who was now a lieutenant of the Athens Police Department, would have some ideas on how to proceed. And knowing Kayla, she’d be off and running herself once she found out what Alex now knew from Marion’s letter.
Alex felt no hesitation about letting Kayla in on what they’d found out. Despite the rough patch their friendship had been through, she had never questioned Kayla’s loyalty to Athena. And she didn’t question it now, or that Kayla would be eager to start digging the moment she heard.
“And I suppose professional courtesy requires that I let the locals in Phoenix know 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