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Oh, yeah, Trent thought, still staring at the girl. He’d found something all right. And it looked like the work of the devil.
CHAPTER 15
“I don’t know anything!” Shay insisted, her eyes round with fear.
Watching her, Trent felt bad that the girl had been rousted from her bed and hauled into Reverend Lynch’s office in the middle of the night.
Trent stood near the window, watching the road, listening. He didn’t like what was happening here; it seemed more like an inquisition than a casual questioning, but the stakes were high. Someone had killed Nona Vickers, and until that person was caught, fear and terror would haunt everyone on this campus.
Adele Burdette leaned against the door as if to block it, just in case Shaylee decided to bolt.
And run where? Trent wondered.
“What’s going on?” Shay asked. “Where’s Nona?”
Lynch was calm, his voice even. At least he was trying to keep things under control. “You and Nona share a room. When did she leave?”
“I didn’t know she did!” Shay’s skin was sickly white against her black hair. “She was still up when I fell asleep. And … and the next thing I know, she”—Shay hooked a thumb at Burdette—“bursts through the door like there’s a police raid and orders me to get dressed.” Outraged, Shay turned furious eyes on the dean of women. “Then she waited in the room while I put some clothes on. What are you? Some kind of lesbo perv?”
Burdette’s jaw tightened as she folded her arms over her chest, but she didn’t rise to the bait.
“Let’s not resort to name-calling,” Lynch said, but his own equanimity was obviously rattled.
“What happened?” Shay asked. “I saw the helicopter. Someone was airlifted out of here. Is that what happened? Is Nona hurt?” Her eyes were round and wide. Scared. “Look, she was my roommate. I deserve to know.”
Trent agreed.
“I’ll be making a statement shortly,” Reverend Lynch said.
“A statement about what?” Shaylee demanded.
Trent had heard enough. It was time they quit beating around the bush. “Nona’s dead.”
“What?” Shaylee nearly jumped out of her chair. “Dead? No. Dead? Oh, God … no. You’re wrong. She was there in the room last night and … and …” She turned horrified eyes to Trent. “They wouldn’t take her body out in a helicopter. She has to be alive. She has to!”
“That was Drew Prescott.” Trent walked closer to her, resting a hip against the desk, leaning closer.
“What? Drew?” Shay squinted. “I don’t get it.”
“We found him in the stable, along with Nona. She was dead; he’s in critical condition.”
Shaylee shrank into her chair. “Jesus Christ. How? I mean, where … Oh, God, she said she had a boyfriend, but I didn’t believe her.” She drew her legs up on the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees. “They snuck out and there was an accident?” She shook her head in disbelief.
“Did she tell you she was sneaking out?”
“No.”
“But she told you about Drew.”
“Just that she had a boyfriend … that was all; she wouldn’t tell me his name. It was like some big secret or something.”
“So the last time you saw her was—”
“In our room. She was there when I went to bed, and next thing I knew, there was all this pounding on the door, and here I am.”
“Your baseball cap was near her body.”
“What?” Shaylee’s head snapped up, and she clamped two hands atop her head as if to locate the hat in question. “No, it wasn’t.” She was shaking her head again, as if in so doing she could change everything that was happening.
