Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“Did you believe the girl’s story? That she’d gone to the gazebo for meditation?” Takasumi asked.

“Don’t know. She’s disturbed.”

“Weird if you ask me, but then aren’t they all? Talk about a fantasy world. I mean, out in the gazebo in the middle of a damned blizzard, clicking that rubber band at her wrist. It just doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.”

“Maeve has issues; let’s just leave it at that.”

Oh, yeah, ever the good therapist. What was Wade thinking, discussing a student, his client, with Takasumi?

Jules eased into the bathroom just as the door to it clicked loudly.

“This one locked, too? It’s not supposed to be, right?” Takasumi asked.

Jules’s knees went weak. How could she explain herself being in the office, carrying a load of half-burnt papers? How many laws was she breaking?

“It’s the only way his office is secure, really, so Lynch locks it. Come on. She probably got done with her prayers and went back home.”

The “she,” no doubt, meant Jules.

Dear Lord, she hoped they didn’t check at Stanton House.

Tense, ears straining, Jules waited. Footsteps retreated. Finally, far off, a door closed. She didn’t know which direction they’d gone, out the front or the back of the chapel, so she waited longer, giving them a head start, the seconds slowly stretching to minutes.

When she could stand it no longer, she opened the door. The hallway was empty, nearly dark, the only illumination coming from night-lights in the chapel. Fearing she’d be accosted at any instant, Jules quickly hauled the carrier with its stack of smoldering papers down the short corridor.

At the back door, she sent up a quick prayer.

Then she let herself out and stepped into the night.

CHAPTER 33

“I told you she was trouble,” his right-hand man said as he flipped a cell phone through the air, the slim instrument glistening under the lamplight as it arced in the snowfall.

The Leader caught the phone on the fly and jammed it into the pocket of his ski jacket. “I unlocked the security code. Piece of cake.”

Cocky son of a bitch. “I’ll check it out.”

“Just give me the word,” his minion insisted, teeth flashing. “I’m ready. We’re ready. Whatever you want.”

That was better. “Soon.” They had a plan, but it might have to change if Julia Farentino became a serious problem. And his right-hand man was correct—things were spinning out of control. “You’re not going rogue on me?”

“Never,” the kid said, but there was an undertone to his words, and if one of those he trusted ever struck out on his own, started taking matters into his own hands …

“Trust me.” Another flash of white and the kid took off, disappearing into the thick veil of snow. Was he lying? A master at deception? If not he, then who? Someone was definitely playing by his own rules.

The Leader just had to find out who was deceiving him.

There was restlessness in the night, the precursor to what was to come, what he would decide. He felt a thrill at the prospect, a sizzle in his bloodstream, but there were worries as well.

Like the snow spinning fast and wild as it fell, the winds of change were swirling, winds that he needed to control. Was his right-hand man correct? Did the problems begin and end with Julia Farentino, or did they run deeper?

Darker?

Was she more dangerous than he imagined? All of his fantasies about her and the Stillman girl, the two women who resembled each other, would have to be tamped down until he was certain about

her.

Clutching the phone, welcoming the sharp slap of the wind on his face, he made his way across the snow-covered lawns, the blizzard nearly a whiteout, the lights on campus barely discernible until you were nearly upon them, but he had no trouble navigating, not here, not in the one place on earth he thought of as home.