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She didn’t have a GPS, so she was using a map she’d pulled off the Internet. So far, the trip had been easy: Drive onto I-5 and head south for over four hundred miles. But now things were getting a little dicier, as snow was beginning to fall, fat flakes skittering over her windshield and gathering along the edges of the highway.
Great, just great.
She slowed down, though fifty felt like a crawl. With relief, she saw the sign to exit the interstate. She turned off the expressway onto a county highway, a narrow road that traveled a serpentine path through steep canyons. Her knuckles ached from gripping the steering wheel. The small towns wedged into the hills were little more than four-way stops in the road. Such a deserted, lonely stretch of road, now white with snow.
Her cell beeped from its spot in the unused cup holder. She answered but kept one wary eye on the road. “Hello?”
“Ms. Farentino?” a vaguely familiar voice asked. “This is Dr. Hammersley of Blue Rock Academy.”
Jules’s heart sank. The school had figured out that she was a fraud, and the dean was calling to say they would not be hiring her.
Hammersley went on. “I’m afraid I have some disturbing news.”
Oh, God. As the windshield wipers slapped the snow away, Jules looked for a place to pull over, but the road was too narrow, no wide spots or driveways allowing her a space to park. “What is it?”
“There’s been an accident.”
Shay! Her heart stopped. You’re too late! Something horrible has happened to your sister!
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Hammersley went on.
Too late!
“But I was afraid you might hear it on the news, so I wanted to tell you that one of our students has died, and another is in critical condition at a nearby hospital.”
Jules let out a little squeak of protest.
“The doctors are not certain that he’ll make it.”
Not certain that he will make it, Hammersley had said, meaning a boy. Not Shaylee.
Hammersley cleared her throat as Jules’s mind raced with scenarios of horrid accidents befalling her sister and a friend. Boating, horseback riding, wilderness hikes, rock climbing—all dangerous. All potentially deadly.
“Who?” Jules forced the words out as she noticed a turnout for a logging road and pulled the car onto the frozen shoulder. Her tires slid to a stop, and she pushed the gearshift into park.
“I really can’t give out the information until next of kin has been notified. School policy.”
“But I’m on the staff,” Jules said, panic blooming in her chest, her heart thudding out of control. Not Shay, oh, please God, not Shay!
“Don’t worry, you’ll hear everything when you get here. You’re on your way?”
“Yes, not far … maybe twenty or thirty miles, but it just started snowing.”
“Yes, there’s a storm hanging over the mountains. Take it slow. Did you bring chains?”
“They’re in the back.” But Jules had never used them. She wasn’t even sure how to chain up.
“You’ll need to park in the lot near the gatehouse,” Hammersley said. “There’s an area marked for all staff vehicles. I’ll have someone meet you at the gate, get your name on the clearance list, and make sure you get in without any trouble.”
“Thank you,” Jules said weakly. She hung up and let her shoulders sag as she drew in several deep, calming breaths. The windows of the Volvo had fogged during the short conversation, the white hills closing in. Half an inch of snow already coated the hood of her car. Apprehension and isolation tugged at her, and she tasted fear, so bitter on the back of her tongue. Even if Shay wasn’t hurt, one student was dead, one was hurt; two families would be as frightened as she was now.
As frightened as Shay was to be shipped off to the academy?
With trembling hands, Jules pushed the gearshift lever into drive and pulled onto the road again, her tires sliding just a bit. What, she wondered, had she gotten herself into?
Rhonda Hammersley walked into the rec hall where the students had been asked to assemble. The detectives from the sheriff’s office wanted to talk to each of them, and while deputies did the first round of interviews, separating the wheat from the chaff, the rest waited.
The room was somber and ghastly quiet. No one cracked jokes. No one strummed a guitar. All the students sat with books open, though the dean suspected that no one was studying.
