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Because he’d lured her there with his note. Remember? The piece of paper with OMEN scrawled upon it?
She glanced at her reflection one more time, and confirmation parked in her mirrored gaze.
There was only one reason Maeve would go out in the middle of the night: to meet Ethan Slade. Hadn’t she said as much to Trent earlier?
Snapping off the bathroom light on the fly, Jules walked into the living area and stopped at her desk. She rifled through a few papers stacked haphazardly in the corner near her computer and found the schedule for the security patrols. Her eyes skimmed down the list of assignments, stopping when she came to the guards listed for the time span when she assumed Maeve had been killed.
“You guys are toast,” she said aloud, reading that Ethan Slade and Roberto Ortega, under the guidance of Salvatore DeMarco, had been on security duty early in the night.
Jules didn’t doubt for a second that Ethan made plans to meet up with Maeve after his shift ended.
She checked further, running her finger down the security detail. After Ethan and Roberto, Missy Albright and Eric Rolfe were up. Bert Flannagan was supposed to have been their supervisor. Except Flannagan was alone when he’d appeared at the stables. He’d gotten caught up in dealing with the aftermath of the fire and Maeve’s murder.
Which conveniently left Missy and Eric to their own devices …
Was it possible? Had he been covering for them? Or had they given him the slip earlier to do their horrific deed? Or, more likely, had he been the killer and had only returned to the scene of the crime to make it appear that he knew nothing about it? Could he be that good of an actor? His reaction to Maeve’s body had seemed legit.
Jules’s skin crinkled at the thought of that particular security team, the mercenary guiding smart but secretive Missy and hothead Eric. Hadn’t Flannagan appeared in the stables carrying a rifle? For protection on the security detail or to lead a group of TAs on a murderous rampage? Ice collected in her soul.
Nothing was making sense, all the pieces of this horrific jigsaw puzzle not quite fitting, the edges and corners close together but refusing to snap together. What was she missing?
Think, think, think! You’re running out of time. Again, she swept her gaze over the security roster. After Missy and Eric, Zach Bernsen and Kaci Donahue were on patrol with Kirk Spurrier as their guide. What had Lynch mentioned about Spurrier in his files? That he’d been in the Air Force and was passive-aggressive? Again, a man who was in his element around weaponry. Just the kind of guy you wanted teaching the kids a few theology classes. Bernsen, Donahue, and Spurrier. Another suspect group, if there ever was one. Zach Bernsen was a know-it-all to the nth degree and Kaci seemed to be a follower, with little mind of her own. Then there was Spurrier, a handsome, athletic man who didn’t say much, who held his cards close to his vest.
And he wasn’t the only one who was suspected.
Everyone in the damned school seemed to possess a serious psychological dysfunction. As if Lynch had chosen them for their flaws, rather than their attributes.
And it’s worse than just a case of dysfunction; at least one of them is homicidal.
Too bad there hadn’t been a file on Lynch himself, she thought. No doubt he was the headmaster of death and destruction in what so many people believed was an idyllic institution of rehabilitation, education, and hope.
“Such BS.” Jules muttered, frustrated. “A total load of bull.”
Feeling as if sand was slipping far too quickly through the hourglass, she walked to the window and peered outside to the calm night. In the center of Lake Superstition, the waters were dark as obsidian. Closer to the shoreline, the edges of the lake were glazed with ice and snow. The seaplane was still moored, cast in ice. She remembered spying Spurrier on the dock earlier in the day. God, it seemed a lifetime ago when she’d last cast a glance in his direction and watched as he, along with help from some of the students, had brushed and shoveled snow from the wings, fuselage, and floats. Several of the TAs had been called into duty: Tim Takasumi, Ethan Slade, and Zach Bernsen had been the last crew she’d witnessed working on the plane. Now it sat unmoving, shackled in the ice.
She looked to the center of the lake again and wondered if the weapon that had killed Drew Prescott was lying deep in its dark waters.
Worse yet, was it possible Lauren Conway’s body was hidden deep in those still, dark waters? Reduced to bones, weighed down by anchors or cement blocks or any damned thing, was her corpse lying upon the lake’s bottom?
God only knew.
Jules rubbed at her temples, forcing the headache back as she squinted into the night. With the main source of power out, the campus was darker than usual, but the snow, cast silver by moon glow, helped illuminate the grounds.
Where was Trent?
Her heart twisted at the thought he might be in danger, outside alone, looking for a killer. “Be s
afe,” she whispered and tried to convince herself he would be careful, that he had police training, that he would be all right. And then there was Shay. At least Shaylee was secure in her dorm room.
Right?
Something felt wrong about that.
If only Jules could get in touch with her, confirm that she was okay. The damned cells were out, but there had to be a way to find out that Shay was safe.
Of course the sane thing to do was to wait it out, until dawn when the sun chased away the shadows and the doors on the campus were unlocked.
The less sane thing to do was to chance it; go outside, cross the expansive, snow-covered lawn that separated the buildings and pound on the door of Shay’s dorm until someone let her inside. Or, Jules supposed, she could chase down Adele Burdette, headmistress for the girls. Surely Burdette would allow Jules to see Shay, but if so, she’d have to tip her hand, admit that they were sisters.
