I thought it would be fun. A thrill. I believed in him, the girl had also said.
Believed in who?
Lynch? Or someone else?
What would be fun?
Something dangerous, some kind of web where, once they were caught in it, the willing participants couldn’t break free.
He slowed for a sharp corner, downshifting, and tried to put it all together. The Jeep’s gears strained on the winding road, the four-wheel drive fully engaged. At an altitude of nearly fifty-two hundred feet, the campus was nearly a thousand feet higher than the gatehouse, this access road steep in even the best of conditions.
How did the grisly scene in the stable tie into Lauren Conway’s disappearance?
Don’t you mean her death?
Face it, Trent, you don’t believe she’s alive.
He told himself that he wasn’t certain what had happened to her, but he knew in his soul that her parents wouldn’t see her alive again. He had a gut feeling that Lauren was dead, as was Nona Vickers.
And now you have to worry about Jules.
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered, angry at the world. The last thing he needed was Jules damned Delaney messing up things. He didn’t need to be worrying about her on top of everything else.
But, then, he would bet a year’s salary she wouldn’t be any happier to see him than he was to see her.
He couldn’t imagine being near her again, didn’t want to think about the last time they’d been together.
Hell, had it been five years?
He felt a moment’s regret, then shoved it aside, irritated as hell that his years of not seeing Jules Delaney—no, make that Julia Farentino—were about to end.
* * *
As she turned up the fan on the defroster, Jules worked to find the narrow road beneath the mask of white that covered the earth. Talk about wishing the miles away.
She urged her car up the slippery hills, slowing as the road turned treacherously, her fingers gripping the steering wheel. As the car climbed, the thermometer for the outside temperature showed thirty degrees and the defroster struggled to keep the windows clear and the inside temperature comfortable.
Dusk hung heavy in the snowy landscape when the beams of her headlights splashed over a sign with BLUE ROCK ACADEMY in bold letters. An arrow indicated she should turn onto a private lane guarded by tall fencing that was partially masked by snowy stands of heavy-boughed fir, pine, and madrona trees.
“Here we go,” she whispered, just as the phone jangled in the empty cup holder. Expecting to hear Rhonda Hammersley’s voice again, she picked up without checking the number. “Hello?”
“Jules!” Shay’s panic whispered over the faulty connection. “You have to get me out of here! This place is a frickin’ horror movie!”
Jules felt immediate relief. “Shay!” Her sister was alive and well, not fighting for her life in a hospital. “Thank God you’re okay!” Tears of relief burned behind her eyelids. “I was worried. I thought … I mean, Dr. Hammersley called. I know there’s been an accident.”
“Accident? Are you out of your mind? It wasn’t an accident. No way!” Shay was talking fast, her voice anxious. “If she told you it was an accident, then she lied!”
“Lied about what? What are you talking—”
“Oh, I get it. They’re whitewashing it for the families. Right. Claiming some sort of accident so that the parents don’t go nuts. Crap! Edie probably believes it, too.”
“Wait a minute. Slow down,” Jules said, trying to concentrate on driving and the conversation. “What’s going on?”
Shay’s voice was small. “Oh, God, Jules, the cops have been here all day, and did you know it was my roommate? My roommat
e, Nona, was killed in the stable.”
“Killed?” Jules nearly drove off the road. Her heart was pounding, a million questions screaming through her mind. “Wait a minute. No one said anything about anyone dying. And it was a boy. I thought he was going to pull through—”