Breathless. Sharron McClellan
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Jess. A little.
However, Nikki had also known when Jess was homesick. Sad. Angry.
Known and been there.
Jess sighed. She could use Nikki’s counsel right now. Her support.
Before she hit the speed dial, another e-mail popped in with a familiar beep. Jess snapped the phone closed. No subject line, but the unique sound told her it was from Delphi—her contact at Oracle, the secret agency with a computer network that matched intel from all the U.S. agencies and assigned projects to people like her when needed.
The e-mail was dated prior to her accident.
Jess, a word of warning. We have reason to believe that you are being targeted by Arachne, an enemy of Athena Academy. We’re not sure what Arachne is planning but be watchful.
The chill she’d felt when Taylor told her about the limpet mine grew stronger with the solid confirmation that she’d been framed. Clicking the e-mail closed, Jess leaned back, gazing up at the ceiling and letting the reality sink in that if she had bothered to check her e-mail, the whole situation might have been prevented.
Charles might be alive.
She’d been in a hurry the day of the accident, and her computer had locked up. Instead of rebooting and checking messages, she’d turned it off and left.
Probably nothing but spam, she’d told herself.
“Not spam. A boy’s life.” She pressed her palms against her eyes, forcing herself not to cry. If she’d looked…if she’d taken the time… Her hands slid down to her mouth as she tried to come to grips with the news, her head telling her that it wasn’t her fault.
Her heart feeling otherwise.
The phone rang, jarring her. “Damn it.” Now wasn’t the time. She wiped her eyes, blew her breath out through tight lips and picked up the receiver.
“Good afternoon, Jess.” The voice was garbled, computer enhanced and changed. She couldn’t tell the gender of the caller but she knew who it was.
Delphi.
“Good afternoon,” she replied.
“Condolences on your loss,” Delphi said, the altered voice surprisingly warm.
“Thank you,” she replied. She always wondered what Delphi was. Male? Female? But it was comments like that, the moment of spoken compassion, that made her think Delphi was a woman.
“You read the previous e-mail?”
“Just now.”
Silence, but Jess waited.
“According to Oracle, you will be on leave for quite a while. Arachne is working to manipulate the outcome of the investigation.”
Always to the point. Jess swallowed, wondering how much more bad news she would have to endure. “Will I be court-martialed?”
“We will do what is needed to prevent your conviction.”
A typical quasi-evasive answer but still, Jess’s muscles relaxed a micron. If anyone could bring the saboteur, Chuck’s killer, to light, it was Delphi’s network of agents. Delphi continued, “In the meantime, we have an assignment for you.”
Jess perked up, grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil, relieved to focus on something besides images of Leavenworth. “I’m listening.”
“We have booked you a flight to Puerto Isla, an island located two hundred miles off the coast of Belize. Once there, we want you to rendezvous with Zach Holiday. He runs a salvage operation. A cocaine ship named Paradise Lost sank off the coast three years ago during the Puerto Isla Revolution, and we want you to locate it.”
Jess scribbled the information in her personal shorthand then stopped. “Three years?” She knew how the ocean worked, and three years was a long time. Objects moved. Or were buried by sand.
“We’ve collated the available data and have come up with a search grid,” Delphi said.
“Of course,” Jess said, knowing Delphi would think of everything. “How much does Zach know?”
“Minimal. That we’re looking for a specific ship but not why.”
“Didn’t he ask questions?” Jess asked.
“Yes, but I chose Zach and his crew because they have worked with the government before, and Zach is aware that he cannot be privy to all details.”
“What type of projects has he done?”
“Recovery of drug planes and cargo. Some data encryption. Even a recovery mission for the Marine Corps.”
Jess perked up at the information.
Delphi continued, “Still, I would prefer our information remain on a need-to-know basis. I’ll trust your judgment in that regard.”
“Thank you,” Jess replied.
Delphi continued. “We believe the ship contains equipment, a laptop that belonged to Arachne and data that might lead to her whereabouts.”
The hairs on Jess’s neck rose in response to the name. “The one who set me up? The one who killed Chuck?”
“Yes.”
She could have sworn she heard a smile in that singular, positive response. “Good.” Whoever this Arachne was, Jess wanted her dead.
“Jess, do not underestimate her,” Delphi warned. “Arachne’s vendetta against Athena Academy and her students goes back twenty-four years.”
“Twenty-four years?” The thought that a criminal had been around that long and had not been caught boggled Jess’s mind.
“Yes,” Delphi confirmed. “All the way back to Marion Gracelyn’s death.”
“She killed her?”
“Coordinated it, at least. Since that time, she’s threatened the Academy, tried to destroy it and now she’s showing an unusual interest in the special attendees.”
“Special? Like me?” Jess asked. She’d always wondered if there were others, girls with gifts. She and Nikki had discussed it before and had found they had something in common—they were both conceived using in vitro fertilization, IVF. Since that time, she’d met more than one IVF at the Academy and had watched her, looking for anything that made her different. She’d seen nothing but that didn’t stop her from watching and wondering.
“Yes, girls like you,” Delphi confirmed.
Interesting. Jess filed the information away for future reference then returned to the topic at hand. “Do you know why she wants us?” Jess asked.
“No. Perhaps breeding—”
Jess shuddered in disgust.
“—study, or just to hurt the Academy as much as possible. It’s hard to say. But she knows about your ability to breathe underwater and has obtained information on other women and girls conceived using IVF at one specific clinic in Zuni, New Mexico.”
Nikki.
“Don’t worry about your friends,” Delphi said, answering her unspoken worry.
Jess stared at the phone in surprise, unsettled that Delphi knew her so well.
Delphi continued, “We’ll make sure everyone else is safe. The best way for you to help is to obtain the laptop and anything else you deem useful,” Delphi said. “Delivery will be to Allison Gracelyn.”
Curiosity made Jess want to ask why Allison, but she held back her question. Allison Gracelyn was a member of the Athena Academy Board, and one did not question that kind of influence or importance. “When do I leave?”
“This afternoon. Check your e-mail. I have sent you directions for meeting with Zach, the