Without Mercy (Mercy 1)

“Would you?”

“Probably not. I’m not in what I think of as the inner circle.”

“Which is?”

“Reverend Lynch and his cohorts, the school deans. They’re all pretty tight—Hammersley, Williams, Burdette—and they’re all women. The second tier is Flannagan, Taggert, and DeMarco, all men, by the way; they don’t seem to be as tied in to the administration.”

“Where do you fit in?”

“That’s the trouble, I don’t.”

“I still can’t see you teaching girls how to shoot hoops.”

“It’s a challenge,” he admitted, “but, at the time, the PE job was the only one I was qualified for. I would have preferred working with the horses, but Bert Flannagan beat me to it. He’s a piece of work; haven’t figured him out yet. Retired military. DeMarco and Taggert seem to like him. I think they’re attracted to Lynch’s iron-fisted, by-the-rules policy.”

“And the women?”

“Burdette and Williams are definitely drinking the reverend’s Kool-Aid, but I can’t get a bead on Rhonda Hammersley; she doesn’t fawn all over Lynch like the others, but she seems earnest.”

Jules was listening. “You’re sure about the cameras? Shaylee seemed convinced that everything that happens at the school is filmed.”

“Well, there are some security cameras, of course. They’re mounted on the building entrances and on some of the paths, all pretty visible, but I think the cameras in the rooms might just be part of an urban legend.”

“Really? A rumor started by someone who wants to keep the kids in line?”

“Or a student who gets off scaring others.” He glanced into the rearview mirror and frowned. “Someone’s coming.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know, but there have been cops going up and down this road all day.” He didn’t have to say that neither of them would want to explain why they hadn’t driven directly back to the school. He shoved the Jeep into gear, the tires sliding a little as the tires spun over the crusted piles of ice and snow that had been pushed to the side of the road by a plow.

They hadn’t driven a mile when the headlights that were bearing down on them closed in, casting the interior of the Jeep in a harsh, white glow. “More police?” Jules asked, glancing over her shoulder at the low beams of the vehicle behind.

Trent squinted at the mirror. “Can’t tell, but probably. If they wanted to pass, they’d turn on their emergency lights.”

“Is it much farther?”

“We’re almost there.”

Jules’s stomach twisted. She’d passed the first unexpected hurdle with Trent, and they’d come to an uneasy truce. The past, a nasty demon, still haunted them, but at least for the moment it hid in the shadows.

Jules didn’t kid herself. Issues still hung in the air between them. This man beside her had abandoned her at the most painful time in her life.

But you threw him away, remember? You told him you never wanted to see him again. He just respected your decision.

Her right hand curled into a fist, gloved fingers scraping her thigh. That was her problem—always expecting too much of those she loved. Hadn’t she wanted her father to adore her, to remarry her mother and create a perfect little family, an idyllic existence? And what had happened there? Sheer disaster!

No, there were no happy endings. Parents did not remarry and suddenly parent their children. A man like Cooper Trent did not come charging back on his white horse, pledging his love, fighting for his woman against all odds.

No, Trent had simply followed her orders and left her.

For good.

Leaving her wounded, scarred from her father’s murder, lost in misery and pain.

She’d been nineteen at the time; she should have known better. She glanced at Trent and felt a pang of regret. She had loved him. With the foolhardy, crazy, enthusiasm of a teenager, she had loved him. She had thought him capable of transforming her life, when he only had the power to walk out of it.

The story of her life.