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Who was to say that Shaylee, with her rock-solid bad attitude, was the goddess of knowledge of all things at Blue Rock Academy? First off, Shay hadn’t lived on campus long enough to learn the school’s inner workings. The rumor was just some teenaged gossip, campus mythology.
Jules tapped a pencil against her planner, wondering if Trent knew anything about the alleged cult.
He just might.
She glanced out the window to the coming night.
Maybe it was time for a teachers’ conference.
CHAPTER 30
The invisible cloud of cigarette smoke hit Trent before he saw Meeker walk into the gym. From his perch atop a ladder where he was reattaching a basketball net, Trent knew the officer was on a mission.
Frank Meeker looked like hell. His uniform was wrinkled, the bags beneath his eyes heavy, his jawline in serious need of a razor. He’d camped out at the school for three days, taking a small room on the main floor of Stanton House, which he’d used as his office and bunk. Trent figured that Meeker was making good use of the time, considering he was trapped at the school until the plows could get through.
They were alone in the cavernous gym, but the sound of weights clicking regularly indicated someone was pumping iron in the room up a half flight of stairs.
“Got a minute?” Meeker asked grimly.
“Yeah. Just a sec.” He finished hooking up the net, climbed down, and snapped the ladder shut, then locked it in one of the equipment closets. “We can talk in here.” He motioned toward his office.
Meeker nodded, and Trent knew it was bad news. He could see it in Meeker’s body language. Trent closed the door behind Meeker, then waved him into a side chair. “What’s up?”
“The Prescott boy didn’t make it.”
“Hell.” Trent’s stomach turned to stone. All along he’d expected Drew, a young, strapping boy, to pull through.
“Just took the call. The sheriff wanted me to tell you. He’s phoning Lynch now.” He sighed heavily and licked his cracked lips. “And he was doing so well after surgery. Woke up, talked to people. Remembered everything that went down in the barn. Then he goes back to sleep and it’s over.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Shit.” He rubbed his jaw with a fleshy hand and looked at the floor. “I got a kid about that age. Goes to the community college. Plays football. If anything like this happened to him …” His voice trailed off, and the only sound was the regular click of weights being lifted and dropped in the next room.
“It’s hard. I didn’t know Drew well, but it never seems right when a kid dies.” Trent went quiet, recalling the sight of the young man, crumpled on the floor of the horse barn. And Nona, dead as she dangled from a rope in the loft. “Hard to take.”
Meeker looked up quickly, meeting Trent’s gaze. He swore and rubbed his knuckles. “Poor damned son of a bitch.” He placed his hands on his knees and stood. “Baines got it all on tape, and the kid seemed fine. And suddenly, couple of days later, his heart just stops beating.” He squared his hat on his head. “Couldn’t be revived. Flatlined.”
The weights had stopped clanking, and now Trent’s office was as silent as a tomb. “Makes you want to nail the son of a bitch who would take down two kids,” Trent said grimly, a dark fury sweeping through him. He met Meeker’s tired eyes. “No way can we let that bastard get away with it.”
“You’re right about that.” Meeker rubbed a hand around his unshaven jaw. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Meeker said as the lights flickered eerily. “Let’s catch that son of a bitch.”
Still working at her desk, Jules reconsidered her sister’s wild accusations
.
Shay wasn’t exactly the barometer for reality.
How had her father summed up Shay when he and Edie had remarried? If Jules thought hard enough, she could almost hear Rip Delaney’s deep baritone voice as he’d told Edie, “You know, hon, if there was an emotional tidal pool anywhere in a three-state radius, Shaylee would find the deep end, jump in feetfirst, then call for help.”
Edie hadn’t been amused.
Rip Delaney’s attitude about his stepdaughter had been a sticking point in an already unhappy union.
So, Jules advised herself, don’t take everything Shay says at face value. Unfortunately, Jules hadn’t been here long enough to evaluate any of the teachers’ assistants’ motives or actions. Nor had she gained their trust to the point that they would confide in her.
She was the outsider. As was Shay, who hadn’t been here much longer than Jules.
For now, Jules decided, she’d follow that particular point of law that considered all suspects innocent until proven guilty. Even the malevolent TAs. Good God, Shay could be such a drama queen.
The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, she thought, and made a mental note to give Edie another call. Even if the teachers’ aides were innocent, there was still something very wrong here. One student dead, another missing, and a third—who happened to be a TA—seriously injured, all within five months.
Nona Vickers had been a student for almost a year, and Lauren Conway had been on campus only a few months. She wasn’t sure of Andrew’s tenure, though he would have been at Blue Rock for a while before being promoted to the level of graduate student and TA. There was also Ethan Slade, the boy who had been supposedly sexually molested by Maris Howell. Ethan was still on campus, his parents settling, his education here at Blue Rock Academy oddly ensured.
