Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“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.