Vendetta. Meredith Fletcher

even her patience wasn’t inexhaustible.

      “We’re talking about secrets.” Christine hesitated. “I think that one of those secrets has come back to haunt us.”

      “Which one?” For the life of her, Winter couldn’t imagine what it might be. Marion Gracelyn had always seemed so open and aboveboard.

      “Somewhere in Marion’s life, she made a very powerful enemy.” Christine pursed her lips. “Over the last few years, that enemy has made himself or herself known to us.”

      “Who’s the enemy?”

      “That’s part of the problem, you see. We don’t know.”

      Winter quivered inside. She loved mysteries. They were delectable little things that could encompass her every thought as she sorted them out. No matter what the secret was, it couldn’t remain hidden. There was always a trail. Normally that trail was marked by money or sex.

      “How did you find out about this enemy?” Winter asked.

      “That’s a long story.”

      Winter smiled at the older woman gently. “You brought me out here, to one of my favorite places, to tell me this much. Maybe we could go to your favorite place and you could tell me the rest of the story there.”

      Some of the sadness clinging to Christine lifted. She raised an eyebrow over her real eye. “Putting an interviewee at ease?”

      A mischievous grin pulled at Winter’s lips. “Perhaps. Is it working?”

      “I started being more at ease the moment you agreed to come.” Christine took a breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”

      As they strolled through the gardens the horticulture and chemistry classes maintained, Winter listened to Christine talk about the investigation several former students had put together into the “accidental” death of Lorraine Miller. Walking amid the bright spring tulips, lilies, amaryllis, daffodils and irises and talking about murder and illegal genetic experiments seemed incongruous.

      Hell, it is incongruous.

      Astonished, Winter listened to the story of Lab 33 and the genetically enhanced young women that were—essentially—Rainy Miller’s “children.” Christine didn’t reveal who those young women were, but she talked about the strange physical abilities they had.

      Winter couldn’t believe that only bits and pieces of the real story had ever surfaced in the media. There had been some flap over the story, but nothing had ever connected in the way Christine laid it out.

      Then, seated on one of the small stone benches placed through the gardens, Christine started explaining about how Rainy’s death might have been connected to Marion’s and the recent kidnapping of the three young Athena Academy students. The story was long and Christine took pains to be thorough.

      “You think the two girls that were taken were specifically chosen because they were created in Lab 33?” Winter asked.

      Christine stood at the island in the kitchen and prepared chicken breasts. After talking for hours, she’d suggested they get something to eat, then offered to make dinner.

      “Not in Lab 33. In a medical facility in Zuni.” Christine rolled a chicken breast in a liquid mixture and set it aside.

      “How do you know that?” Winter wielded a chopping knife on salad ingredients with a dexterity she’d learned at the academy. When she’d first realized she was going to have to take culinary classes as part of her curriculum, she had demanded to know why. Her steadfast refusal to participate in class had prompted a visit to Christine Evans’s office. Christine had explained in no uncertain terms that learning to cook for oneself was just as important as any of the other skills she would be learning at the academy. She still didn’t necessarily enjoy the process, but she knew how to do it.

      “We’ve managed to reconstruct some of Aldrich Peters’s notes from Lab 33,” Christine replied. “We’re still working on other pieces, but it’s getting harder.”

      “But the girls were egg babies?” The term was foreign to Winter, but she’d picked it up because Christine had used it. She’d often unconsciously picked up sentence structure and vocabulary from people she interviewed.

      “Yes. We knew they had special powers, but the method of their conception was a surprise.”

      “Whoever took them knew more about the students here than you did.”

      “We realized that later.” Christine cubed the chicken and scattered it across a hot pan. The meat sizzled and started browning at once.

      Winter pushed the chopped vegetables into a salad bowl and shook them. She washed her hands in the sink and gazed around the kitchen.

      Christine lived on-site at the school. Most of the faculty did. Of course there were a few teachers and specialists who were transitory and taught only as specific coursework was offered.

      The house showed military order and precision. Winter would have expected nothing less. But there was also a softness and a personality that she hadn’t been prepared for. When Winter was in attendance, every student at the academy knew Christine Evans as firm but fair and as an ex-military officer. They even knew a little bit about her family, but none of them had ever been invited to her home.

      “It’s good, in a way, that whoever was behind the kidnappings knows more than we do,” Christine said. “I feel more certain that it’s not someone here.”

      Retreating to the island, Winter rested a hip against it and picked up a carrot stick. Her mind spun and clicked through the variables.

      “Not necessarily,” Winter said.

      Christine looked at her.

      Winter counted off points on her fingers with her carrot stick. “Someone here could have decoded more of the DNA fragments you’re working with than anyone else has. Someone could have found more of the fragments than you know about. Or someone here might be working with this mysterious A person.”

      “I truly hope not. We’ve already had one betrayal. A recent hire helped lure the girls away from the school. With everything that’s gone on, I don’t know how another betrayal in our midst would affect us.”

      Winter quietly agreed. She crunched the carrot stick and thought some more. “What do you hope I can do?”

      “Find Marion’s enemy.”

      Oh? Is that all? Winter barely kept her sarcastic comment to herself. She pushed her breath out and tried to relax.

      “How am I supposed to do that?” Winter asked.

      “We’ve decided to give you free rein at the school. Through the records. Through Marion’s notes. Everything.”

      Winter choked down the carrot and couldn’t believe what she was being offered. “There are a lot of people connected to the Athena Academy. Important people. Politicians. Military leaders. Philanthropists.”

      “We know that.”

      “Big philanthropists. People who don’t like their names in the news.”

      “That’s right.”

      “Information like that isn’t just handed out to anyone.”

      “No,” Christine said, “it isn’t. That’s why I insisted on getting you.” She turned the chicken on the stove.

      “Why did you insist on me?” Winter sat at the round table in the breakfast nook a few minutes later. The view outside the French doors looked out over a small, elegant English garden.

      Christine offered chicken cubes to Winter. “Because you’re good at what you do.”

      Winter put the chicken over her salad. “How do you know?”

      “Because I’ve read your books.” Christine fixed