guys, I’ve got my special lemonade ready for you.” The camera panned toward her and she saw a young woman wearing shorts and a cut-off top, her curly red hair in a fat ponytail, flip-flops on her feet and pink toenails. The kids were running madly toward her and she hugged them both and turned to walk up the steps into a house, a kid on each side of her, talking nonstop.
She swallowed, aware he was looking at her, waiting. For her to suddenly remember everything?
“The little boy, that’s Sean?”
“Yes. He loves computer games, Captain Carr and his sidekick Orkett this week. Of course, he loves basketball, would do anything to meet Steph Curry, though he claims he’s going to be tougher and shoot more threes. He’s always running around with our Scottie, Astro. Sean’s smart, a kindhearted kid, and he likes to tell people Marty’s going to be his future wife. Well, one of them.”
Oddly, that sounded okay, sounded natural. “That woman, it’s me?”
“Yes. You make lemonade from our own Meyer lemon tree. You’re as kindhearted as Sean and you’re beautiful, as you saw. And smarter than you have a right to be.”
She remembered the large room. “Do I work?”
“You do more than work. You and I are both FBI special agents. We’re at the Hoover Building, in my unit, the CAU—the Criminal Apprehension Unit. I’ll tell you all about it later. I think that’s enough for now. Time for you to let your brain relax. Don’t worry too much, everything will come back. A little time, that’s all you’ll need.”
She was a cop? A federal cop? Did that mean she was tough, like he was? The large room with all the working men and women—that was where she worked? Probably so. The person she was before the accident knew all those people, but the person she was now had no clue. He didn’t want her to be too worried? Like that was possible.
“She—I—have red hair. Really curly?”
He lightly touched a curl hugging her cheek. “Yes, and lots of it, beautiful stuff. And summer-blue eyes. You’re a knockout, Sherlock. You saw that yourself on the video.”
“Are my toenails still pink?”
“You changed to coral last week, to end out the summer, you told me, to prepare your toes for the final leap to fall red.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. She wanted to cry. She whispered again, “I’m sorry.”
7
* * *
MORGANTOWN, VIRGINIA
REDEMPTION HOUSE
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
They called her Athena, at her own request. Of course they knew her real name, but no one called her by that name when they had to communicate or when they met here to work at Redemption House, their headquarters in rural Virginia. She said the code name was an added level of security, one she’d picked herself: Athena, goddess of war.
Nikki Bexholt, Athena, looked at the three people standing in front of her, every one of their faces grim. She’d selected each of them carefully, some for their expertise, some because of their unquestionable loyalty to her. Jasmine Palumbo, her team leader, a supervisor in Bexholt’s client security division, stood tall and straight, with her arm in a sling, guilt radiating off her in waves. Cricket Washburn, supervisor of campus security at Bexholt, managed only an occasional furtive glance toward her. And Dr. Craig Cook, her most precious asset, the shining star in Bexholt’s R&D division, a rare inventive talent, an electrical engineering genius. He was her brain trust with his bald head and his Fu Manchu mustache he hoped made him look less like a nerd, but didn’t. He’d actually been excited about snatching Cummings off the street, undoubtedly pictured himself as a debonair badass. Now he looked more scared and miserable than Jasmine or Cricket. Well, he wasn’t a trained operative, and he never would be. It had been her mistake to think otherwise, a mistake to think any of them were more than the rankest amateurs. But she realized what they needed now was reassurance, her word this was only a minor mishap. They needed some spine, something that seemed at the moment to be in short supply.
She said in her usual cool, clipped voice, “It wasn’t only you who failed, Jasmine. Our assessment of Cummings, and of the risks involved, was flawed. I thought with a quick injection, a forty-five-minute drive in Jasmine’s SUV, we could get Cummings here without a problem, and believe me, once we had him here, we’d have convinced him there was no choice but to