Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“It’s Nona’s cell. I don’t know how she got it, maybe from some black market thing that goes on here. It’s not all that great … one of those prepaid things and … I swiped it last night.”

“You did what?” Jules’s mind was racing. Things were getting worse and worse by the second. The cell phone connection was disintegrating again as the canyon walls rose higher, the private road following the course of a frozen river far below.

“I saw her stash it in her jacket pocket. When she wasn’t looking, I took it so I could call.”

“Oh, God, Shay, you have to give it back. Give it to the police so they can check the records and find out who she talked to.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to blow your cover. Your number will come up on the screen, you know, since I called you. And then where will you be? Not exactly up for Teacher of the Month.”

“No reason to be sarcastic.”

“I don’t have time to worry about the damned phone,” Shay reminded her. “Look, I gotta go!” Her voice was fading, the connection worsening. “I can’t hear you anyway. The detectives are talking with some of the other teachers and kids, but they’ll be back. You just have to get me outta here.” Shay sounded beyond desperate, more than scared out of her mind.

Shay was freaked. Of course. Her roommate had been killed.

“Just hear me out. You know my ultimate goal is to get you out of there, but I need a little time, and you need to be a model student, got it?”

“Like I ever was.”

“If I can find out what’s happening, prove this school is negligent or criminal or whatever, you have a better shot of leaving there for good and not going to jail. So don’t make any trouble while I figure out what’s going on down here.”

“Make trouble? I’m already in trouble. And now I’m locked up with a psycho killer on the loose.”

“Shay, I’m doing everything I can. Just hold tight, okay?”

“Hold tight. My roommate is dead, and I’m supposed to hang out and wait for you to do something? Thanks but no thanks. I’ll be waiting till I’m ninety.”

“Right now, Shay, I don’t think we have any choice. So, when you see me, be cool, okay? Pretend that we never met.”

“Like that’s going to help anything. Oh, crap! I think … someone’s coming!”

The faulty connection was instantly severed.

With a groan of frustration, Jules dropped the phone into her purse, gripped the steering wheel, and pressed on into the blowing storm.

God only knew what she’d find when she finally made it to the academy.

CHAPTER 17

Jules was coming here? To Blue Rock? As a teacher? What good was that? Shaylee stashed Nona’s phone in her book bag and sauntered into the rec area. The deputies had taken most of the students’ statements, and kids were collecting in groups throughout the large hall. All were talking excitedly, all speculating on what had happened to Nona.

“I think she killed herself,” Maeve Mancuso said smugly. With eyes as wide as pathetic dolls, Lucy and Nell listened intently, as if Maeve actually knew what had happened. The three girls stood in a circle away from the conversation pit, in a more private corner filled with overstuffed chairs and end tables with lamps. One wall was windows, the other lined with bookcases.

“And I think Drew tried to kill himself, too.” Maeve stared off dreamily as she snapped the bracelet on her wrist. Always snapping at the band there, that one. What a freak. “It was a double suicide,” Maeve went on. “Kind of like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Really?” Nell was eating this up, like it was some great romantic tragedy. She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and leaned closer to Maeve. “That’s just sooo—”

“Awful!” Shay cut in; she couldn’t help it. These ninnies were getting it all wrong. “It’s not romantic, or cool, or anyt

hing but sick!”

Maeve’s little face crumpled, and she glared at Shay as if she were Satan incarnate. “Of course it’s really, really, really sad about Nona. She was my friend. But I know for a fact that she and Drew were in love.”

“You mean really, really, really in love?” Shay mocked. Maeve was acting like an idiot!

“Who knows how it went down?” Eric Rolfe, a major tool in Shay’s estimation, sauntered over. Zach and Ethan were hanging with him. “Or who went down on whom?” he added with a nasty grin, thinking he was clever. “Could be that Nona fucked him, then tried to off him. Then, once she realized what she’d done, she took a flying leap.” Eric crooked his neck at a weird angle and stuck out his tongue with an ugly expression as he held his fist over his head as if he were hanging from an imaginary rope.

“Gross!” Maeve recoiled, waving her hands spastically. “She’s dead, Eric! God!”