Flashback by Justine Davis (classic reads .txt) 📕

nurse who was still on duty, and was told Justin was, finally, sleeping. She disconnected and pulled out of the driveway, concentrating on her driving from here on.

She made it without incident. G.C. was indeed waiting. He greeted her with a hug that was a bit stronger, a bit longer than usual. She hugged him back, knowing that they were both saying so much without saying a word.

Then he led the way into his office, where Alex set up her laptop. Knowing her grandfather preferred to read hard copy, she turned on his wireless printer and, when she had her multiple-paged theory called up, sent it. A second later the printing began, and a couple minutes later she handed him the document, keeping only the last page for herself.

As he sat down behind his desk, Alex curled up in her favorite chair, the green leather wingback beside the fireplace. She thought about reading through everything again at the same time he was, but right now it seemed too much. She already knew it all by heart, anyway. There was only one thing to do, and that was wait for the opinion of the man who had made her the woman she was.

She’d left her conclusions out of it, wanting him to reach the same conclusion she had without any prompting from her. If he reached a different one, then she’d know she’d either misinterpreted something, or he knew something she didn’t, or she’d simply screwed up.

But if he did reach the same conclusion…

Desperate for something else to think about while he was reading, Alex turned her mind to the only thing powerful enough to take her mind off this mess.

Justin.

Like someone testing the waters of an unknown sea, she took out the memory of how she’d felt when she’d feared he was dead under the burning hulk of that bus. She remembered it vividly, because the only other time in her life when she’d felt such fear, such wrenching, gut-shaking fear, was when G.C. had been in the hospital for what they’d feared was a heart attack. It hadn’t been, but Alex would never forget the feeling, so intense it had spilled over from the mental to the physical, making her knees weak.

I guess that tells you something, she told herself. It was time to quit running. Time to face how she felt about him, time to give in and admit that she had fallen, and fallen hard.

She smiled inwardly as an image of her sister Cassandras came to her, of their expressions if she told them this. She could see so clearly the rolling eyes, the pitying head shakes. “Good grief, girl,” they would say, “do you think we don’t know that?”

Looking back, it was fairly clear, she supposed. It had only been her own muddled outlook on relationships, inspired by her mother’s efficiency at mucking them up, that had made her so resistant.

Thank goodness Justin was so patient.

Of course, the Dark Angel had learned patience the hard way. He—

“My God.”

G.C.’s quiet, shocked exclamation snapped her out of her reverie. She sat up straight and turned to meet her grandfather’s gaze. She’d rarely in her life seen him even taken aback, but now he looked stunned. And the name he muttered told her he’d reached that same conclusion. She didn’t know whether to be glad or saddened.

“Yeah.” She knew she sounded glum, but it was mostly weariness at the very idea of the task ahead.

“I won’t insult you by asking if you’re sure.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

She handed him that last page, the grid she’d set up with all the incidents from Marion’s murder forward down one side, and all the possible suspects across the top. Each square where a definite connection could be shown or inferred between suspect and incident was blacked out with a big X.

Only one name had a complete column of black Xs beneath it.

And then, with the energy that astounded others of his age, G.C. said briskly, “You’re going to need help. If this is going to happen, if we’re going to take him down, every last duck has to be in a row.”

“I know.” She rattled off the list of calls she had in mind. He nodded, and added a few of his own.

“When?” he asked.

“If circumstances don’t dictate otherwise, as soon as Justin is able. He deserves to be in on this.”

“Yes, he does.” He gave her a sideways look. “And I’ll say this now and then butt out. I wouldn’t mind having that boy in the family.”

Alex blushed but held her grandfather’s gaze steadily. “I don’t think I would, either,” she said. “We’re working on it.”

“Good.” G.C.’s tone was gruff but belied by his wide smile. He quickly became serious again as they turned back to the plan.

“I wish Josie were here,” Alex said, naming another fellow Cassandra, who designed planes in the U.S. Air Force. “I feel like we need an engineer to put this together.”

“We’ll manage,” G.C. said. Then with a shake of his head he added, “It has to be done.”

“Yes. It does.”

The briskness came back into his voice. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

She understood how he felt. He’d been a fixture in this town for thirty years, there wasn’t an elected official in D.C. who didn’t know and curry favor with Charles Forsythe. So it had to feel very strange to him, to be sitting here with his granddaughter, plotting against a part of that very establishment.

But she didn’t know anybody better able to pull it off. There would be justice for Marion Gracelyn at last, and the man who had once been half in love with her would do it.

With her newfound understanding of love, she thought it most fitting.

Alex smiled at the woman at the desk in the outer room of the senator’s office.

“I really appreciate him making time for me,” she said sweetly.

“He was more than happy to, Ms. Forsythe. Ah,” she added as a light on the desk phone went out. “There,