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The temperature had reached the 106 degrees Fahrenheit mark and every Looney Tune in and around Athens had rushed to run a red light, decided speed limits were only recommendations and gotten in squabbles with their neighbors over the lack of water pressure in the neighborhood.

By the time she got home, prepared dinner and helped Jazz with her homework, Kayla was ready for that long relaxing bath she'd been promising herself all day.

As soon as she sank into the tub of gloriously scented water, she heard the phone ring. She prayed it would not be Detective Hadden. She'd managed to get through a full twenty-four hours without interference from him. She wanted to keep it that way. Maybe it was Marshall calling back with more funeral information. He and the Millers had changed their minds so many times that Kayla wasn't sure there would be a funeral.

A part of her would rather not have to say that kind of permanent goodbye to Rainy. But it had to happen eventually.

"Mom!" Jazz shouted through the door. "It's for you!"

"Come on in," she mumbled, not one bit pleased at the prospect of having to take a call while she was trying to relax.

Jazz brought the phone to her, her expression almost as annoyed as Kayla's must surely be. She couldn't help smiling. Like mother like daughter. "Thanks, sweetie."

Her daughter loped off to whatever television program she'd been watching or computer game she'd been absorbed in. v "Ryan."

"Was that Jasmine?" v Alex. v Kayla tensed. "Yeah. That was Jazz." She and Alex had never, not once, discussed the child Kayla had given birth to out of wedlock. It wasn't the whole "not married thing" that had gotten Alex so riled up. It was the fact that Kayla had fooled around with the forbidden in her last year at Athena. Had altered the entire course of her life. Alex, who was a year ahead of the other Cassandras and had already graduated and gone on to college, had tried to set her straight, but Kayla had been blinded by what she'd thought to be true love. They'd argued bitterly over the phone and hadn't spoken for years. Until this week.

"She sounds…so grown-up."

For one second Kayla had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she knew she would regret. But Alex's sigh on the other end of the line told her she didn't have to say it. She knew how much time had passed without her once asking about Jazz.

"There's something you should know."

Kayla sat up straighter as she listened to Alex explain why she hadn't heard from her in more than twenty-four hours as well. She'd been busy. She had confirmed with the medical examiner that the scars on Rainy's ovaries were very old. Something dark passed through Kayla. The damage could have occurred back when the supposed appendectomy had taken place. The memory of that egg-mining article and its implications when combined with this new information slammed into Kayla. She forced herself to focus on the rest of the call.

Just when she'd thought she'd heard the worst, Alex dropped another bombshell. Last night she'd tracked but lost an intruder on Athena grounds. The same as Kayla had done at Rainy's house. Then today Alex had discovered a man claiming to be FBI in the Athena Academy infirmary going through the files! He'd gotten away, using Athena Academy nurse Betsy Stone's arrival as a distraction.

"Christ, Alex, are you sure there wasn't something else?" And here Kayla had thought she'd had an eventful day.

Silence emanated across the line for too long before Alex said, "I've got a bad feeling about this, Kayla. Could Rainy's death have something to do with Athena?"

Hearing Alex voice the same worry she had been experiencing only compounded the anxiety. It couldn't be.

Neither of them had any real proof, so further discussion of the topic was pointless for now. Alex would be leaving the next day to go back to her job in Washington, D.C., but she'd be back for the funeral. Kayla promised to follow up on the files at Athena Academy to see if she could find anything out of sync. She also made a mental note to talk to Betsy Stone. Betsy had been with Athena Academy from the start, and would have been there when Rainy got sick. Maybe she could shed some light on the subject.

Before ending the call, Kayla gave Alex the scoop on her detective shadow. Alex remained oddly distant on the subject. Kayla tried not to read too much into it. Maybe she was overreacting. The past few days were certainly enough to make anyone a little paranoid.

When Kayla depressed the "end" button on the cordless receiver, she realized something else. In working together on Rainy's case, she and Alex had taken another tiny, tiny baby step closer to resolving the issue standing between them.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

* * * Wednesday afternoon Kayla parked her Jeep on the Athena grounds and headed toward the building where the medical facility was located. She'd already called Christine, so there was no need to stop by the principal's office in the main building. She still hadn't been able to reach Betsy Stone, but she had Christine's permission to enter the infirmary. The door would be unlocked and waiting for her.

The medical facility was located in the same building as the computer and science labs. The familiar sights and smells of the academy raked across Kayla's already raw emotions. Memories of Alex and Rainy, as well as the others, tripped one over the other through her thoughts. Why did it always take a tragedy to make a person realize how much they missed their friends? She had to stop letting life get in the way of living. Silly as that sounded, it made sense.

Then and there Kayla made a promise to herself that she would work on her "living" skills. Spend more time with her daughter and family. Keep in touch with the Cassandras…make things right with Alex. The hurtful words they'd hurled at each other all those years ago stung her now. Foolish, foolish. She hadn't been thinking. She'd been in love. She'd been a fool. Last night's call from Alex had reiterated that glaring fact.

But Kayla would never regret Jazz. Her daughter was worth the hurt she had suffered. That out-of-control time in her life should not have affected her relationship with Alex. He hadn't been worth that price. Thinking of Jazz's father reminded her of the fact that a woman couldn't trust a man…not really. Although Kayla's father and grandfather were exceptions, admittedly.

She pushed the thoughts of her pathetic love life from her mind.

But Detective Hadden popped right back in their place.

Instantly a flash of awareness rushed through her. Kayla hissed a curse under her breath. The very last thing she needed was any kind of attraction to that guy. He was going to be nothing but a pain in the ass. Hadn't he proven that already by sneaking up on her at Rainy's office? He'd be right behind her through every step of this investigation. She glanced around. Hell, he was probably following her now.

Oh, well. She'd deal with him when the time came.

She'd spent more than a decade making sure no man got to her again. Detective Hadden would be no exception. Not professionally and definitely not personally.

The infirmary was quiet as a tomb. The nurse's office proved just as deserted.

"Dammit." Kayla could only assume that Nurse Stone had not gotten her message or was avoiding her. But Christine had given Kayla permission to do whatever she needed to, so Betsy Stone's absence wouldn't slow her down. Yet, she wanted to question the woman. To see what she remembered.

Kayla wasted no time in locating Rainy's medical file. A stab of disappointment sliced through her when she read the entry regarding Rainy's emergency appendectomy. She'd hoped that maybe she and Alex had been mistaken about the incident but they weren't. It was here in black and white. Alex had said that the form Christine had emailed to her said as much, but Kayla had hoped something in the hard copies of the file would indicate otherwise.

She removed the file from the drawer and headed to the copy machine to make herself a duplicate. As the machine warmed up she considered what this evidence really meant. Could it be a simple medical error? Or was it more? The image of tiny eggs, Rainy's eggs, being removed from her ovaries formed in Kayla's head. She closed her eyes to stem the tears. Rainy had wanted a child so badly. She'd sought extraordinary measures…had somehow known something wasn't right. Had that fledgling assumption cost her life?

Kayla swayed. She reached for the copy machine. What the hell?

The room spun for an instant and then the floor was suddenly rushing up to greet her.

The world went black a split second before impact.

* * * "Kayla, are you all right?"

Her eyes came open and she stared up at Christine Evans's worried face.

"What…what…" Kayla suddenly remembered the dizziness and the tile floor rushing up to her face. She winced as the pain from the fall acted as emphasis for the memory.

"Lieutenant Ryan, is there someone we can call to come pick you up?"

Kayla's gaze shifted to the other form hovering over her. The stern expression of Nurse Betsy Stone greeted her. The sudden recollection of attempting to get out of class by feigning a fever and being caught by Nurse Stone flashed through her mind.

"I'll be fine," Kayla insisted. She scrambled to her feet, realizing she'd been moved onto a cot in the examining room. She staggered slightly and the other women instinctively reached out to her. "Really," she said sharply as she backed from their reach. "I'm fine."

Christine nodded, accustomed to adolescent lashing-out episodes. "Sorry," Kayla murmured. "I don't know what happened."

"You're overwrought," Nurse Stone said gently. "That's to be expected. You probably just need a good night's sleep."

Kayla met her gaze and the older woman held it for a moment before looking away. "Thanks. I appreciate your concern." She'd thought herself above lashing out at someone who only wanted to help. Apparently the stress of Rainy's death and being here at the academy had sent her spiraling back to her roller-coaster teenage behavior.

"Did you find what you needed?" Christine inquired.

Kayla glanced around the room. "I was about to make a copy of Rainy's medical file." Outside the examining room, the copy machine was running, its soft hum audible. She moved as quickly as she dared to search the area around the copy machine. The file was nowhere to be seen.

"I'll get it for you," Nurse Stone offered. "I picked it up and put it away before you came around."

Confusion still clouded Kayla's head. "I'd like to take a copy with me." She turned to Christine as Betsy went to get the folder. "She wasn't here when I came in." It came out pretty much like an accusation. That might not be entirely fair. Most of the girls at Athena Academy had considered Nurse Stone a bit of a hard-ass, but Kayla really had no evidence to accuse her of wrongdoing.

"I saw your car in the parking lot and thought I'd check to see if you'd found everything you needed," Christine explained. "When I came in, you were lying there on the floor." She gestured to the space in front of the copy machine. "I immediately called the staff lounge and asked Betsy to hurry over."

Kayla swung her attention to the nurse as she returned with the file. "I thought you weren't here. I called —"

"I tried calling you back at your house this morning," Stone put in quickly. "But you were gone already. I never could get through on your cell phone. I didn't even know you were here. I was having a late lunch."

"Betsy has been getting ready for the new term," Christine added.

The whole scene felt off somehow. Maybe it was the lingering fog of having fainted.

"I have to get back to my office," Christine said, "but I'm sure Betsy will be glad to assist you."

"Certainly," the nurse chimed in.

Kayla had absolutely no justification for accusing either of these women of anything, but she wanted to. She wanted to grill them until one of them admitted to having known that Rainy's appendectomy was a hoax or something of that order. But the rational side of her knew that alienating the school principal or the nurse would be a mistake. She had to know more before she pushed.

She couldn't take any chances at all about what would or would not make good evidence…what was or wasn't a possible lead. Fertility issues, egg mining, medical records, even affairs. It was all fair game. All involved had to be suspects. Kayla could not risk letting something seemingly insignificant fall through the cracks. This case was far too important.

She knew exactly what she had to do. She had to start right here with Athena Academy and fan outward, tracing every step of Rainy's life until she found the answer. She'd also have to find a way to work with or around Detective Peter Hadden and maintain access to any information he uncovered.

Nothing or no one could be allowed to get in her way.

She'd made a promise she intended to keep.

The End

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