Just your paranoia talking.
Still… she couldn’t help wondering who was manning the cameras situated in all the dorm rooms and communal areas of the school. Who was behind the lens, viewing each and every student twenty-four seven? She wondered if the guy got off watching them all in various states of undress. It–-filming the students without their consent — had to be illegal, didn’t it? Or had the over-zealous and worried parents signed away all privacy rights on the sheaf of admission forms to this exclusive institution?
It was sick.
Sick, sick, sick!
And she was going to expose Blue Rock for the fraud that it was.
If she didn’t get caught first.
Tightening the laces of her shoes, she grabbed her jacket. As for the jump-drive with all the damning information on it, she had to leave it in the room for the time being. She only hoped to high heaven no one discovered it while she was at the stupid prayer meeting.
Zipping the jacket to her throat, she looked one last time around her room, then picked up her dog-eared prayer book and headed out. She locked the door to her dorm room for whatever good it would do, then jogged to the stairs, joining a flock of other girls who were filing down the concrete steps of the dorm.
On the first floor, she caught up with Nell. A sixteen-year-old from a small town in Marin County, north of San Francisco somewhere. Nell had been blessed with a sharp wit and extremely wicked tongue. She was a couple of years younger than Lauren, but about her size, with equally long, wavy hair. She was always getting into trouble and she was one of the few people Lauren trusted. If anyone could draw fire, it was Nell.
Lauren and Nell usually hung out with Joanne Harris, the guitar player who went by “Banjo” and Lucy Yang, the chemistry- scholar-turned-meth-addict who was now on the road to recovery. Banjo, Lucy and Nell were part of Lauren’s block, or pod, of students who shared classroom and recreational time together. They were encouraged to be each others’ best friends.
All in all, they got along, helped each other with homework, dished on the school, and were forced into the same therapy group where they offered up private feelings and secrets. Lauren hated that hour of the day most of all. She’d never been one to bare her soul and she certainly wasn’t going to start here.
It seemed most of the students had each others’ back. At least Lauren hoped they did. Now talking between themselves, they all hurried down the staircase where girls from other floors merged into the ever-lengthening stream of students winding toward ground level.
Missy Albright was near the front of the pack, her platinum blond hair as bright as a beacon in the night. She glanced over her shoulder once, as if to see if everyone were following, but her gaze flicked to Lauren before she reached the side door and stepped outside.
Lauren’s heart went cold.
She nearly missed a step, then caught herself.
She wasn’t singling you out!
“God, I hate her.” Lucy muttered, following Lauren’s gaze. “Missy’s a piece of work.”
“More than one,” Nell said, cupping her hands in the air over her own breasts. “Just ask her plastic surgeon.”
Swallowing a grin, Banjo shook her head a she adjusted the strap of her guitar. “Not nice.”
Lucy snorted. “Who the hell cares?” She held the door as the others, bringing up the rear of the pack, hurried outside to the coming darkness.
The temperature was below freezing as they walked along a curving, snow-shoveled path that wound through the frozen lawns and shrubbery of the campus. Blue Effin’ Rock Academy! What a joke! Set deep in the Siskiyou Mountains near the California border, the school had been built along the shores of a lake that now was choppy and dark, white caps stirring on the charcoal-hued waters. A seaplane, one of the few means in and out of this school-cum-prison, was tied to the dock, its pontoons undulating with the roll of the rough water.
As she kept up with the others, Lauren remembered her first glimpse of the school from the air. She’d been inside the noisy plane as it had flown over the rugged spires of the Siskiyou mountains, then circled to land upon the lake’s surface. In September, the deep water had been smooth as glass, reflecting the cerulean sky. Tucked along the lake’s rocky shoreline and guarded by stately long-needled pines, madrona and oak trees just beginning to turn russet with the change of seasons, the academy had been bustling with activity. Lauren had caught glimpses of students on horseback, others in kayaks on the lake, still others talking and laughing as they walked or shared a bench near the dock. Backdropped by rocky mountain ridges, the cedar and glass buildings of the academy hadn’t appeared the least bit sinister and the rumors that had brought her here, whispers of fraud and deception and even death, had seemed far-fetched, the paranoid delusions of a fractured mind.
But now, she knew differently.
Now, she had facts.
Facts that someone would do anything to keep hidden.
Shivering inwardly she walked with her friends along the lit pathways while the frigid air stung her cheeks. The sky was already dark with threatening clouds, dusk only an hour away. Winter had come early this year, a snowstorm knocking out any warmth of Indian Summer in one fell swoop.
While Banjo hummed and Lucy and Nell shared a joke, Lauren surveyed her surroundings. Tonight, tiny lights were winking in the gazebo and surrounding fir trees, decorated all year long for the outdoor vigils and prayer meetings that were held despite the season. Minuscule bulbs reflected on the snow; everything so outwardly peaceful.
A cleanup crew had just finished in the brightly-lit dining hall, and those students, too, were leaving the cafeteria to join the group hurrying through the gathering darkness to the large rec hall.
Like lemmings to the edge of the cliff, Lauren thought as she followed the pack up two wide wooden steps, then through a set of glass doors to the living area. Hardwood floors gleamed under the dimmed lights and reflected the flickering illumination of candles situated on tables and on windowsills. A chandelier of antlers hung low over the wide, carpeted conversation pit where throw pillow were tucked on the bench seats in front of a massive river rock fireplace. Classical music wafted softly from hidden speakers. Mozart, she thought, but couldn’t name the piece.
Tonight’s prayer service was standard procedure for a Wednesday night. Teachers, counselors and other staff members stood shoulder-to-shoulder with students as they huddled around the conversation pit. The Teacher’s Assistants, graduates of the program who had been asked to stay on, were scattered within the regular students, yet they stood out like sore thumbs. Missy Albright was one, along with Eric Rolfe who, Lauren thought, could be the poster boy for