“Your leader is a murderer,” Jules said.
“Hey, don’t!” Nell shook her head, afraid to make any waves. Eyes round with terror, she said, “I’m sure … I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
Shay let out a huff of disbelief, and Jules couldn’t take the naive, desperate girl’s rationale. “A great guy? Get real. Three people are dead. Probably a fourth if you count Lauren. The one thing he isn’t is ‘a great guy.’”
“There are always sacrifices,” Missy said blithely as if the people who had died
were meaningless.
“Four people dead?” Nell repeated, swallowing hard, her voice a frantic squeak. “But I thought just Drew and Nona …”
“And Maeve,” Jules said, “We found her mutilated body in the stable tonight.”
“Maeve, too?” Nell cried, horrified, shaking, a fresh spate of tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“Who cares who’s dead?” Missy really wasn’t interested. “We just do what he tells us to.”
“No questions asked? Even murder?” Jules tried to get through to these kids. “Taking innocent lives?”
“God’s will,” Missy insisted. “And I don’t know about any murders.”
“There’s gonna be more,” Eric predicted. His smile was wide, an evil grin meant to remind them that they were in his control. He could do anything he damned well pleased with them, and there would be no consequences.
Nell whimpered.
Eric loved intimidating the poor girl. “If you ask me,” he said slyly, “we’re already a few shy.”
Missy shot him a look, warning him to be quiet.
Eric, however, was on a roll. “But I think we’ll make up for it tonight.”
“Shut up,” Missy advised.
Eric scoffed at her. “They want to know, so let’s tell them.” To Jules, he said, “I told him he should have taken out Howell, too, but he went soft on her.”
Maris Howell, the teacher Jules replaced?
“She was nosing around, like Lauren, and he let her go. Stupid.” Eric’s nostrils flared and his fingers tightened over his handgun. “I would have taken her out. Got rid of the problem once and for all.”
“Maris Howell?” Jules said. “Because of her affair with Ethan Slade?”
Again Missy and Eric exchanged glances, their smiles telling all. “What affair?” Eric finally said, and laughed brutally, the horrid sound intensified by the small, confined space. Missy, too, giggled in her tiny voice as they shared a private little joke.
“She was caught with Ethan Slade,” Jules pressed, trying to understand.
“A setup.” Rolfe was enjoying himself now, thinking he was smarter than everyone. “Because she was spying, the Leader came up with a story to get her out of the school. Ethan really played it up, crying on her shoulder, convincing her that he needed special attention.” Eric pulled a tragic face, rubbing at an imaginary tear in his eye. “Boohoo. She bought it. Comforted him. Embraced him.” Rolfe was nodding, enjoying bragging about how smart they all were. “We took pictures and Ethan worked it so that when she showed up to talk to him, he was half naked. With a little cutting, pasting, and editing, it looked like she was seducing him—at least to Ethan’s parents.”
“Poor darling,” Missy added.
“Sick darling,” Shay corrected.
Nell whispered, “Don’t! Shay, for the love of God!”
“That’s why we’re here,” Eric said. “For the love of God.”
“I don’t think so,” Jules said, sickened at the depths of their depravity, of how easily they twisted other people’s lives, of how ruthlessly they killed. All in the name of God.
Eric shrugged, and Jules doubted that he cared one iota about God or Christianity or even the Leader. Eric Rolfe was all about Eric Rolfe. “So, we all backed Ethan, she got the boot, Slade is now in a college program. A win-win.”