Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

One of his eyebrows lifted a bit as he held her hand just a millisecond too long. Did his gaze slip a little, down her neck to her breasts?

A moment later, they were both facing the door, Jules wondering if she had imagined things.

She might have been mistaken.

The interview over, Lynch escorted her to the foyer. Dr. Williams and Burdette waited there with another man, whom Lynch introduced quickly as the pilot for the academy.

Kirk Spurrier shook her hand. Tall, with dark hair and eyes that matched, he was all business. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” she said.

He flashed a smile, then turned to Lynch. “If possible, I’d like to fly back in daylight,” he said.

The reverend nodded curtly. “I think we’re finished here.”

“Thanks for applying to Blue Rock,” Tyeesha Williams said, clasping Jules’s hand in both of hers. Her smile was wide and gleamed as brightly as the silver bracelets on her wrist.

Adele Burdette gave her a cursory nod, and Cora Sue ignored her altogether.

A disingenuous group, Jules thought as she drove off in the rental car she’d used as part of her ruse. She’d been concerned that Cora Sue, mistress of the biblically named poodles and seemingly unhappy wife of the reverend, might recognize her battered Volvo four-door.

Jules could be found out easily enough, of course, though any communication from her old address in Portland was currently forwarded to her in Seattle. If asked, she’d admit to moving up here but that she just hadn’t gotten around to all of the paperwork, and she could claim that her car was in the shop. She only hoped that it wouldn’t come to any darker deception. She didn’t really have a moral qualm against lying—not while trying to save her sister—but really, she wasn’t very good at it. Jules was a lousy liar, a novice in schemes and deceptions.

Then again, she was a quick study.

CHAPTER 12

Rhonda Hammersley just wanted to hire the woman and be done with it, but that, of course, wasn’t Reverend Lynch’s way. No, siree, Lynch prided himself on looking at “all sides of the issue.” Snap decisions were not his forte.

They were seated at the library table where Julia Farentino had been interviewed less than an hour earlier. A fire glowed in the corner where Cora Sue, knitting needles softly clacking, sat on a love seat, the poodles at her feet. The reverend’s petite wife never spoke in these meetings, but she listened. Oh, boy, did she listen. The woman gave Rhonda the creeps, but, of course, she never admitted as much. If the money from Cora Sue’s family had started Blue Rock’s endowment, then Rhonda could keep her mouth shut. Blue Rock was worth it to her.

Waiting impatiently in the doorway to the foyer, Kirk Spurrier shifted from foot to foot. The pilot was always in a hurry, always had an eye to the sky, edgy about the weather.

Hammersley could tell that Adele Burdette was satisfied with the interview and ready to move on. “Let’s hire her,” Burdette suggested as she flipped through the pages of Farentino’s résumé one last time. “At least until the end of the school year. If she doesn’t work out, we’ll terminate her contract.” She looked to Williams and Hammersley for support.

“Sounds good to me,” Hammersley offered. “She’s certainly qualified.”

Lynch lifted a staying hand. “We can’t be too hasty.”

“But we don’t have any other prospects,” Burdette argued. “And we can’t be too picky. Everyone else we approached either had trouble with our location or they’ve been scared off by the Lauren Conway business.”

Lynch actually winced, but Burdette wasn’t finished.

“It doesn’t help our credibility that she’s never been found.”

“She was a runaway. I can only assume that she met with some kind of accident or is in hiding.”

“Maybe. The truth is, we don’t know,” Burdette argued, “and that’s not good.”

“Of course it isn’t.” The reverend’s face collapsed into a mask of concern as he agreed, just as he had a hundred times before. “Unfortunate thing, that.” He looked away. “Tragic.”

Hammersley was nodding; she’d liked Lauren. So bright. So inquisitive. An athlete with keen intelligence and a sharp wit; Lauren Conway had been a natural addition to the college program in which the older students became teachers’ assistants in the high school classrooms. Lauren hadn’t been jaded or scarred, a refreshing change from some of the TAs at Blue Rock. It bothered her on a very basic level that the girl had gone missing, and she didn’t want to think too much about what might have happened to her. If Lauren truly had tried to run away, how far could she have gotten in the wilderness that surrounded the academy? And why run at all? That didn’t seem like Lauren.

Had she gone hiking and fallen? Come across a bear or a cougar? Or had she met some other deadly fate? Hammersley wouldn’t let her mind wander down that treacherous path again; she’d gone there before and every time had come up with no answers.

Burdette was still pressing her point. “Maris Howell was no accident, and no teacher wants to be associated with that scandal.”

Lynch scowled, as if he’d bitten into a lemon.