Without Mercy, Page 2

  Over the steady beat of rain, Jules heard the distinct sound of an engine sputtering to life. Hell! She was already running in the direction the woman had pointed as the engine caught and roared with the sound of acceleration.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Don’t let the dogs out!” the impossibly thin woman warned loudly as Jules, desperate to stave off the inevitable, dashed through the rain, over the uneven stones, and around the corner of the majestic house where rhododendrons shivered in the wind. She flipped up the hood of her sweatshirt, though cold rain was already dripping down the back of her neck.

  Not that she cared.

  She just wanted a minute with Shay.

  A tall wrought-iron gate stopped her for a second, but a key was in the lock, so she pulled the gate open and heard it clang shut behind her as she flew down a series of steps.

  The dogs—two black standard poodles—raced up to her. She barely gave them a second glance as she hurried to the dock and boathouse, where Edie stood under an umbrella that trembled in the wind. Beyond her, a seaplane skimmed along the top of the steely water, then made its ascent into the gray Seattle sky.

  “Great!” Jules’s stomach dropped. She was too late. Damn it all to hell. “You put her on the plane?”

  “I said I was going to. For the love of God, Julia, she’s just complying with a judge’s orders!” Edie Stillman, dressed in a blue silk jogging suit, turned to face her oldest daughter. Her expression said it all as she eyed Jules’s clothes with distaste. “Didn’t you have anything to wear?” she said, obviously embarrassed. “You look like some kind of thug.”

  Rain battered the hood of Jules’s sweatshirt, dripping down the bill of her baseball cap. “Just the look I was going for.”

  “I can’t even tell that you’re a woman, for God’s sake!”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Through her shaded lenses, Jules looked up to the sky and saw the seaplane vanish into the clouds. “Damn it, Mom, I said I’d take her in!”

  “And Shay said … let’s see, what was that darling little quote?” Edie touched the edge of her lips and pretended to think as raindrops peppered the decking and pimpled the lake. “Oh, now I remember. She said, ‘I’d rather puke up dead dogs than live with Jules!’ Wasn’t that just the sweetest way of saying, ‘No thanks’?”

  Jules bristled. “Okay. I know she wasn’t crazy about the idea, but, really, this place you’re sending her, it’s like a prison.”

  “A pretty nice ‘prison.’ It looks more like a camp or a retreat. Have you seen the brochures?”

  “Of course, I looked online, but they’ve got guards and fences and—”

  “Then maybe she’ll learn the value of freedom.” Edie was unmoved.

  “At what price?” Jules demanded as rain drizzled down her cheeks and stained the shoulders of her sweatshirt. The sound of the seaplane’s engine faded into nothing. She remembered the articles she’d pulled up on the Internet when she’d first learned of the plan to ship Shaylee off to Blue Rock Academy. “I’ve done some research, and they’ve had their share of trouble. The school’s gotten some bad press in the past year. A girl disappeared last fall, and there was something about a teacher being involved with a student and—”

  “As for teachers and students, it happens everywhere—not that I condone it, of course. At least he was found out.”

  “She,” Jules corrected. “The teacher was a woman.”

  “That seems to be the new crime du jour, doesn’t it?” Edie scowled. “As for that girl, Lauren Conrad—”

  “Her name was Conway.”

  “Whatever. She was a runaway,” Edie said, lines cracking her evenly applied makeup. Though in her early fifties, she worked hard at looking fifteen years younger than her age. Today, with the stress of sending her wayward child away, all her carefully applied makeup and semiannual injections of Botox weren’t doing their jobs.

  “No one knows what happened to Lauren Conway, Mom,” Jules objected. “I know because ever since you told me Shay was going there, I’ve done some research. Lauren still hasn’t turned up.”

  “I think she had a history of taking off and disappearing. Really, Jules, it is a school for delinquents.”

  “And that makes it okay for a student to go missing? Even if she did take off, isn’t the place supposed to be secure? Isn’t that the whole point of the school? To keep at-risk kids safe?”

  “Give it up.” Edie’s lips pulled tight, as if from invisible purse strings. “I can’t quote their mission statement, but trust me, this is what’s best for Shaylee and me. You know I’ve tried everything and nothing worked. I took her to counselors when she was depressed, got her into tae kwon do and even kickboxing to help her deal with her aggression. I gave her art, dance, and voice lessons to support her creative expression. Beading. Remember that? Beading, for the love of God! And how did she pay me back? Huh?”

  Edie’s temper was sizzling now. “I’ll tell you how. She got into drugs. She’s been picked up for theft and vandalism, not to mention being kicked out of three schools.” Edie held up a trio of shaking, bejeweled fingers, which she shook in front of Jules’s face. “Three!” she huffed. “With an IQ in the stratosphere and all the privileges I could afford, this is what she does? Goes out with a criminal named Dawg?”

  “She’s a kid. Maybe she just needed some special attention.”

  “Oh, give me a break. I lavished attention on her. More than I ever did with you!”

  Jules wasn’t sure that was necessarily true.

  “This isn’t about mother love or father love or the lack thereof, so cut that pseudopsychological garbage, Jules. It’s not working on me!”

  “Just calm down.”

  “No! You saw her latest tattoo, didn’t you? The bloody dagger on her forearm? What was she thinking?” Edie threw her arms up, nearly losing her umbrella. “I can’t count how many times Shay came home with a tattoo or a piercing or a stolen CD. And that mouth … full of filthy back talk …” She let her thoughts drift away.

  “Who cares about a few tats and nose rings? She didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Tattoos are self-mutilation, indicative of deeper problems!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Edie’s eyes blazed. “Then what about all her trouble with the law? I just can’t take it!”

  “Did you think about finding her a new psychiatrist?” Jules suggested.

  “She’s had half a dozen.”

  “Give her a break.” Jules hated that their mother was so hard on Shay. “She was there that day, remember? She was in the house when Dad was killed, for God’s sake.”

  Edie’s expression turned hard. “So were you.”

  “And look how it messed me up. Shay was only twelve, Mom!” Jules was close to hyperventilating now. “Twelve! Just a baby.”

  “I know, I know,” Edie said quietly, and some of her self-righteousness evaporated. “That was a bad time for all of us,” she admitted, adjusting her umbrella.

  For a fleeting second, Edie appeared sincerely sad, and Jules wondered if Rip Delaney had been the love of her mother’s life. She quickly cast that question aside, because she knew better; it was just her stupid fantasies, the dreams of a daughter who always thought her parents should have stayed together, who had been ecstatic at their reunion, only to have her dreams turn to dust. Rip and Edie should never have reunited; the mercurial moods and fights that had abated during the years they were separated started up again once they were in close proximity. Weeks after they said their vows, Edie burst into a jealous rage, certain Rip was seeing another woman. And it was true. Rip Delaney simply was not cut out for monogamy, though Jules had always hoped he would change.

  “I should never have married him,” Edie had admitted not long after the second marriage ceremony. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots, you know.”

  That image of her mother, eyes red and swollen with tears, had haunted Jules since long before her father’s death. If relat
ionship skills were passed down from parents to their children, Jules figured that she and Shay were doomed to lead some very lonely lives.

  Turning away from the lake, Edie tipped back her umbrella and sighed theatrically. “Sending her away isn’t punishment. It’s just the last straw. She needs help, Jules, help she wouldn’t allow you or me or any of her psychiatrists to give. Maybe they can help her at this academy. Lord, I hope so. Isn’t it worth a shot?” She glanced up at the sky, where dark clouds were being chased by the wind. “Oh, well, it’s over and done now. She’s someone else’s problem. Pray that this works!” Edie attacked the steps from the dock, a slim woman hell-bent in her convictions.

  “Wait a sec. Why was Shay picked up here, at this mansion? Doesn’t that seem a little off to you?” Jules followed right on her mother’s heels.

  “Not really, no.”

  “Really, Edie?” Jules couldn’t believe it. “You mean it’s not odd to you that you didn’t drive her down there or that … that she wasn’t flown by a commercial carrier to an airport nearby, like in Medford?”

  Edie didn’t break stride. “This is the way it’s done. This house is owned by the school.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I’m not. I think it’s used by the director, Reverend Lynch.”

  “Really?” Jules was floored. “A preacher lives here?”

  “Part-time, I think. When he’s not at the school.”

  Jules took in the expansive grounds with its trimmed lawns, sculpted shrubbery, and manicured paths that sloped down to the wide concrete dock and a stone boathouse. The estate was insulated from neighboring mansions by a high stone fence and was buffered with towering fir trees, long-needled pines, and white-barked birches devoid of leaves. The only other homes in view were distant, situated on their own acreage a mile across the flinty waters of the lake.

  To Jules, the reverend’s estate was truly spectacular. Not exactly pauper’s quarters.

  “I guess he doesn’t buy into the whole shedding-of-earthly-possessions thing.”

  “Well, maybe the school owns it and he just stays here; I’m not sure.”

  Jules whistled under her breath. “I take it Blue Rock Academy isn’t cheap.”

  Edie’s lips pursed. “You get what you pay for, Jules; you should know that. In the case of your sister, money’s not the issue. I’ve talked to Max. He’s agreed to help.” Max Stillman was Shaylee’s father, or at least the sperm donor and heir to the “Stillman Timber fortune” that Jules had heard about ever since her mother had met him nearly nineteen years ago. Theoretically, Shaylee was next in line for the money, except that Max had never been close to his daughter, and what little interest he’d had in Shaylee had waned since the birth of Max Junior, his son with his second and much younger wife, Hester. Max had come into the world about four years earlier, not long after the time Shaylee had become “a handful.” Shaylee’s title had morphed, of course, from “a handful” to “a problem.”

  Jules adjusted her cap against the heavy drizzle. “It just doesn’t feel right … Shay getting hauled off to the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m doing what the judge ordered,” Edie said, marching up the last few steps toward the main house, where one of the black poodles was pacing along the wide back porch. Its companion was busy sniffing a sodden azalea. “Let me remind you that Shay’s about out of options. It was this or a juvenile detention center, and that’s only because of her age. She’ll be eighteen in June, and then she won’t be eligible for any get-out-of-jail-free cards.” Edie shuddered. “I just did as the judge ordered: checked out the school, filed the paperwork, got Shay admitted. I even talked to your cousin Analise. She went there, you know. A junkie. Turned her life around and is in nursing school, so please don’t give me any grief about it, Jules. The school is legit.”

  “What about Lauren Conway?”

  “If she’s missing, well, then I’m sorry, but it sounds like a matter for the police.” Edie sent her a dark look. “You need to move on, Julia. It’s time you take charge of your own life and pray that your sister makes the most of this opportunity to turn her life around.” Edie touched Jules’s wet sleeve, and her expression softened. “I swear, sometimes you take on the whole world. You’re not even twenty-five; you’re at the point where you should be having the time of your life. Instead you act like you’re pushing forty, worrying about Shaylee, when it doesn’t do any good.”

  The wind kicked up, teasing at Edie’s hair. “I know it’s because of Rip, honey, and God, I wish you hadn’t been there that night….” Her voice lowered. “I wish none of us had been. Oh, damn.” She blinked rapidly, fighting tears. Turning quickly, Edie hurried up the remaining stairs, leaving Jules, stunned at her mother’s glimmer of understanding, alone on the patio.

  “Wow,” she whispered, clearing her throat.

  Suddenly she wondered what had happened to the dogs. She hadn’t seen them slip inside, but they were gone, the backyard feeling suddenly barren and lonely, brittle tree limbs rattling in the wind.

  Jules followed her mother through the side gate and along the path to the front of the house, where Edie was digging through her purse. She snagged the keys and, all motherly concern erased from her expression, gave Jules the once-over. “I thought you had a job interview this morning.”

  Jules tensed. God, it was hard to keep up with her mother’s shifting moods. “I called and canceled. I thought this was more important.”

  “That was foolish.” Edie scowled as she climbed into her vehicle. “And you can’t afford to throw away an opportunity like that, Julia. There aren’t a lot of job openings for teachers at this time of the year.” Edie spoke as if she were an employment expert when, in truth, she’d worked barely a day in her life.

  “I think they were hiring from somewhere within the district,” Jules said, stretching the truth a bit. “I have a friend who works at the school as a secretary, and she said someone was transferring in.”

  “Well for God’s sake, Jules, get the transferee’s job! Unless you just love being a waitress. And why can’t your ‘friend’ help you?” She made air quotes to indicate she thought Jules was lying.

  She was.

  “Can’t your friend put in a good word for you?” Edie persisted.

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Lord, Jules, I just don’t get you. You’re educated, you had a great husband—”

  “Who cheated on me. Not so great, Mom. Let’s not talk about Sebastian. Not now. Okay? We’ve got more pressing issues.”

  With a flip of her wrist, Edie turned on the ignition, then rolled down the window to continue the conversation. “I know you care about Shay, Julia. I do, too. But it’s time for each of us to take responsibility for our own actions. Not just Shay, but you, too.” With that, she shoved the Lexus into reverse, backed up, then rammed the big SUV into drive and roared off.

  Soaked to her skin, Jules flipped off the hood of her sweatshirt as she slid behind the wheel. The old sedan sparked to life on her first try. Like her mother, Jules headed away from the big house. But as she flicked a glance in the rearview mirror, she spied the fussy woman with the forced smile looking through the windowpanes surrounding the massive front doors.

  A shiver slid down Jules’s spine, and her teeth began to chatter.

  It had been a helluva day.

  And it wasn’t yet noon.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cooper Trent crossed the campus quickly, bowing his head against the sharp wind, heavy with the promise of yet more snow. The ground was still white from the last storm, an icy blanket that covered the dry grasses and clung tenaciously to the branches of nearby trees.

  Trent had only fifteen minutes between his classes, and he’d been summoned by his boss: Reverend Tobias Lynch. He knew what to expect; there had been talk of another student being accepted by the academy. He or she was on the way, though Trent hadn’t yet heard the details. No one had.

  That was the way this place worked—a
public face of earnestness, congeniality, kindness, and openness, but behind closed doors, Lynch ruled the place with an iron fist. Oh, in all the groups, there was always lots of talk about personal freedoms and open discussions and working through problems, but the truth of the matter was that here, at Blue Rock Academy, there were more closed-door meetings and secret agendas than anyone could guess.

  Hence, the rumor mill was always pumping out gossip, and there had been mention of a new student arriving midterm. As he passed the flagpole in front of the administration building, he guessed that his number was up. No doubt he’d been chosen as the group leader to catch the new pupil.

  Which was just as well. As the latest teacher hired, he needed more responsibility, more trust, and he wanted to blend in. He couldn’t risk that anyone would guess his true reasons for applying for the job at the academy. Though he had all the credentials he needed for the position of physical education teacher, he was really working undercover, a private investigator searching for clues in the disappearance of Lauren Conway. The local sheriff’s department had exhausted all their leads, according to Cheryl and Ted, parents of the missing girl.

  He hurried up two broad steps and through glass doors to the admin building, where warm air and the smell of some kind of cleaner greeted him.

  He winked at Charla King as he passed her desk and was rewarded with one of her frosty glares. Hell, she was uptight. Charla was school/church secretary and accountant, and she took her job seriously. All the time. In her fifties, with close-cropped hair, rimless glasses, and a tightly set, if sagging jaw, she believed it was her personal mission from God to balance the books to the penny and see that the academy was always in the black. Bean counter to the max.

  She turned her attention back to her computer and the grid of numbers on the screen as he made his way through the glassed-in cubicles where others were working diligently at their assigned tasks.