Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“You’re lucky,” she said. “Just missed the brachial artery.”

“Lucky,” Trent repeated, not exactly feeling as if the Fates were shining on him. “What about Spurrier?”

She shook her head. “Doubt if he’ll make it.” Grumpy and efficient as ever, she frowned under the bright fluorescent lights as she worked, swathing his upper arm and shoulder in bandages.

“Keep him alive,” Trent told her. “Whatever you do, don’t let him die.”

“I’ll mention it to God,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “Next time He asks.”

Trent could barely manage a smile. His body ached; he was bruised and battered, but he could deal with the physical pain; none of it much worse than what he’d suffered during his days in the rodeo. What troubled him was far deeper, a dark pain deep in his soul: Jules was missing. He’d heard the news from Deputy Meeker who had checked.

Her missing wasn’

t good.

Not with the maniacs who followed Spurrier on the loose. If only she’d stayed put … no, strike that, if only he’d stayed with her, protected her. Guilt, so often his companion, had found him again.

But he wouldn’t lie idle. Somehow, by God, he was going to find her. Save her. He wasn’t going to lose her again. Nuh-uh. No way in friggin’ hell!

They’d learned from a near-dead, pain-wracked Spurrier that he had thought he would take over the school, that Tobias Lynch was a fraud, misinterpreting God’s will. Though Lynch liked a challenge and willingly took the most mentally troubled students to Blue Rock, encouraging and rewarding them, he was failing. Spurrier had known about Lynch’s private records, had read them himself when Tobias was in Seattle with the wife that Spurrier had once coveted. Cora Sue and he had been lovers, even after Lynch’s marriage to her. She, Trent gleaned, had always regretted marrying Lynch, but she’d followed her father’s suggestion, fearing that Radnor Stanton would cut her out of his will should she disobey and hook up with the more radical, younger man.

In the ensuing years, Kirk Spurrier had vowed to show Stanton and Cora Sue that she’d made a mistake of monstrous proportions. Lynch had even hired him, trusting that forgiveness, not bitterness, was the right path.

His error.

Trent, testing his shoulder, couldn’t believe that one man could be so delusional. But Spurrier was. Worse yet, he’d convinced a small army of brilliant, if sick, young people to follow him. While Lynch had wanted to help those who were the most ill, Spurrier had used them to his advantage.

Now, Meeker, with help from Bert Flannagan and Wade Taggert, supposedly had the campus on lockdown. The students were locked in their dorms, staff members guarding the lobbies. The fire at Trent’s house still smoldered and the cabin next door, DeMarco’s, singed. DeMarco, it seemed, could sleep through Armageddon and had been found in his house, head under the covers, totally unaware of the chaos ensuing around him.

Some of the TAs were missing—the usual suspects, it seemed, all of whom had already been named by Bernsen who was giving up information grudgingly, trying like hell to work a deal to save his own pathetic hide.

Frantic, knowing he was going down in flames, Bernsen swore he had nothing to do with the deaths on campus. Then again, he was a lying son of a bitch.

Meeker was with him now, reading him his rights, explaining how this was Zachary Bernsen’s last chance to do the right thing and possibly work some kind of a deal with the DA, though Meeker was making no promises.

Worried sick, Trent couldn’t stand being cooped up. He’d agreed to have his shoulder worked on, but he was anxious about those who were still missing, eager to find them and flush out the other members of Spurrier’s grossly delusional band. Not only was there no trace of Jules, but Nell Cousineau and Shaylee Stillman hadn’t been found.

For a second Trent closed his eyes, fear consuming him. To be this close, to make love to Jules for hours … only to have her stripped away. His fist clenched. He wouldn’t let this happen; not while there was a breath of life in his body.

If those bastards killed Jules, then they would pay. Each and every one of those twisted sickos. Trent had no sympathy. “Troubled teens” were one thing, psychopaths another.

The door to the detox room holding Bernsen opened. Meeker stepped into the hallway, then locked the door behind him.

“Where are they?” Trent demanded.

Meeker, looking tired as hell, shook his head. “Don’t know. Yet.” Meeker’s tired gaze met Trent’s. “Bernsen won’t budge. He’ll only talk, he says, if he gets to walk away scot free. No prison time.”

“Then he needs to be convinced.”

“Won’t be.”

Trent felt his lips twist. “Let me talk to him.” Then to Ayres he said, “We’re done here, right?”

“I’ve given it my best shot,” she said, smoothing tape over his bandage.

“Good.” He climbed off the table and walked across the polished tile floor to the locked detox center.

Meeker apparently read the set of Trent’s jaw, the narrowing of his eyes. “You think this is a good idea?”