Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“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.

His boots, now wet with melted snow, rang up the short flight of stairs to Lynch’s business office, the place where he dealt with secular business. The director also kept a smaller, cozier office in a room within the chapel complex. That book-lined cranny was relegated for conversations about faith, personal problems, or spiritual matters. Dr. Lynch also used it to meditate about all things theological.

Or so the company line went.

Trent rapped on the half-open door with his knuckles, then stepped inside the pine-paneled room. Tobias was seated at his oversized desk.

“Trent!” Lynch said, smiling widely and waving at one of the visitor chairs. “Here, take a seat.”

Crossing toward the desk, Trent noted Adele Burdette, looking distracted as usual. The headmistress for the female students stood at the window, resting a hip on the sill as she stared at the roiling waters of Lake Superstition. In her midforties, Adele was trim and strong, a sour woman who never bothered with makeup. Her curly red hair was scraped back from her head in a perpetual ponytail that was starting to silver.

“We’ve just got a few minutes,” Lynch said, “but I thought I’d bring you up to speed about a new student.” A tall, thin man whose posture reminded Trent of a modern Abraham Lincoln, Lynch seemed to hunch over his desk. Behind his tinted glasses were eyes as dark as obsidian, eyes that, Trent guessed, didn’t miss much. “It’s short notice, I know, but sometimes that’s how things work around here.” He offered a brief smile, stretching his mustache and soul patch. Lynch fulfilled many roles at Blue Rock: religious leader, theology teacher, headmaster for the boys, and dean of faculty. “So, I just got all the paperwork this morning via fax. Her name is Shaylee Stillman, and she goes by ‘Shay.’”

Every muscle in Trent’s body tightened. No way. Not Jules’s sister. He must’ve heard wrong.

“She’s had her share of run-ins with the law, and her mother is worried that once she turns eighteen, things will only get worse.”

Burdette was nodding, agreeing. “The mother’s right; I read all the reports.”

“Where’s she from?” Trent forced himself to lean back in his chair, feigning nonchalance. If the new student was Shay Stillman, things were going to get a lot more complicated. A lot.

“Seattle,” Burdette supplied.

Son of a bitch!

“Your neck of the woods,” Lynch said.