Without Mercy (47 page)

What an inane rationale.

Sleeping with him would help nothing. Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she fought them back. “You’re a fool, Cooper Trent.”

“At the very least.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He kissed her then, his lips claiming hers, and she felt as if she’d finally come home. She felt the heat of his body, the pounding of his heart, the sheer strength of him.

“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered. “I blamed you for something that didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“No, it’s not. I think what scared me the most back then was how much I depended on you, how much I loved you.”

“Tell ya what,” he suggested, and she almost felt him smile in the darkness. “Let’s give it another go.”

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know how that will work.”

“As my father used to say, we’ll make it work. He was a firm believer in positive thinking. So am I.” He squeezed her and kissed her forehead again, and for a second in the darkness, she trusted that things would be all right, that they actually had a chance to overcome this nightmare they were living in.

“Listen.”

She did, and over the pounding of her heart, she heard nothing. Not even the rumble of a furnace.

“The power’s out,” he said, and she was finally awake enough to realize how dark the room was. There was no glowing digital readout on a clock, just total, pitch blackness, and the room was getting colder by the minute. “And the wind’s died down.” Trent reached over to the nightstand, and a moment later she saw the flash of his cell phone as he tried to make a call. “Out of luck.”

Jules huddled back under the quilt, shivering.

“Hey. Come on.” Trent was already swinging out of bed. “You’ll freeze in here. Wrap up,” he instructed, coiling a quilt around her as she tried to wake up, to think clearly.

She couldn’t stay here all night. Not with everything that was happening. Still half-asleep, she let him guide her out to the living room, close to the fire.

Naked, he poked and prodded the fire, his muscular silhouette in stark relief against the bloodred coals. He added several chunks of oak and fir, and as the mossy wood caught fire, he returned to the bedroom, then dragged his mattress and a pair of jeans to the living room. He dropped the mattress onto the floor and stepped into his jeans. “I have to go and check on the animals, make certain there’s heat in the stable, but stay here. I’ll bring the pillows out and you can sleep by the fire.”

“What? No!” She didn’t want to be left alone. Not tonight.
Why? Come on, Jules, don’t be one of those men-dependent women you hate.

“Seriously. You’ll be safe here.” But there was a hint of trepidation in his voice. “Look, I’ll be gone less than twenty minutes, and I’ll leave the pistol with you.”

“You think the killer is after me?” she asked, and felt another sliver of fear.

“I don’t know who he’s after, or even if he’s still hunting, but I want to know that you’re safe.”

“Well, hey, me, too. I think that’s a great idea, but what about Shay?”

“She’s in the dorm with a buddy; she’ll be fine,” he reminded.

“We don’t know that. We don’t know if anyone here is ‘fine.’ It would be comforting to think that the murderer is finished with his work, that Nona and Drew were his only targets, that the murders were personal. But then there’s Lauren Conway.”

“Okay, point taken.”

“And you were going to leave me with the gun. For safety. Because in your heart of hearts, you have a feeling this killer isn’t done. And we could be targets, right?”

“Right.”

“I just need to know that Shay’s safe. That’s the reason I’m down here, you know. To take her home.” She was already unwrapping the quilt. “But there have been a few obstacles in my way,” she said, tossing the quilt aside. She snagged a flashlight from a side table, flicked it on, and started toward the bedroom. What had she been thinking? With everything else going on, she had no business sleeping with Trent. No business at all.

And all his words about sticking around, about trying again, these were empty phrases until they were out of the trap that was Blue Rock.

Crossing the bedroom, she tripped on her boots and stubbed her toe. Swearing under her breath, she located her damned panties and bra where they’d been flung into a corner. Her jeans and sweater were on the other side of the room, testament to how fast and anxiously they’d been stripped from her body.

Refusing to consider how foolish she’d been, she got dressed as quickly as possible.

“For the record,” Trent said, “I think this is a bad idea.”

She looked up and found Trent in the doorway, adjusting the waistband of his jeans.

“Well, lately I haven’t had a lot of great ones,” she muttered, wondering why he’d returned to the bedroom. “What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Buttoning his jeans in the thin, watery light from the flashlight, he grinned. She tried not to notice how low his faded Levi’s hung on his hips. “I’ve decided we should stick together. We’ll check on the animals, make sure they’ve got heat, then head to the dorms.”

She hated the rush of relief that swept over her. “Sounds like a plan.”

“A bad one,” he said, “but all we’ve got.”

In the living room, by the glowing embers of the fire, they slipped into their snow gear and boots. Trent was still shrugging on his sheepskin coat as he locked the door behind them.

The snowscape was eerie and still. After days of the wind screeching through the hills, the night was deathly quiet, a half-moon glowing bright and casting everything in a silvery glow.

“That’s odd,” Trent said, eyeing the campus. “The generators should be on, but there are no lights.”

He was right: no security lighting in the buildings, no twinkling Christmas lights in the gazebo, no lampposts illuminating the paths.

Their flashlights were the only swaths of illumination visible in the night.

It was too quiet. Too still.

Fear prickled the back of Jules’s neck.

“Cut off the flashlight,” he whispered abruptly, clicking his off. As if he felt the great unlikely quietness, too. “We don’t want to be sitting ducks.”

“Where are the security patrols?” she asked.

“Good question.”

Her heart turned to ice. “I don’t like this.”

He pulled the pistol from the holster inside his jacket. “Neither do I.” He took her hand in his free one, gloved fingers linking with hers, his sidearm pointed ahead.

Wary, Jules kept her eyes on the shadows, the drifting piles of snow, the darkened corners as they trudged past several dark outbuildings, their roofs laden with snow, their windows like a myriad of ghostly reflective eyes.

Jules clung to Trent’s hand as they turned onto the path leading to the stable. Though there was no wind, the temperature
was below freezing, the air frigid as she dragged it into her lungs. The frozen air had a burnt odor, as if someone has just doused a campfire.

“Do you smell that?” she said. “Is it just wood smoke?”

“Maybe.” His voice was hard.

The stable was as dark as the other buildings, but the main door was open slightly, hanging ajar. “Hell,” Trent whispered, and waved her to stand behind him as he walked inside, flicking the light switch.

Click.

No flash of lights followed.

“Something was burning in here,” he said under his breath.

The hairs on the back of her arms raised as Trent stepped inside, sweeping the arc of his flashlight over the stalls where horses were stomping nervously and the heavy smell of smoke lingered.

What had gone on in here?

A horse neighed loudly.

“What the hell?” Trent turned the flashlight to the far wall, where a huge black horse was pacing, his coat lathered, his eyes wild.

Trent lowered the light. “Hey, boy, it’s all right. Shhh.” He kept the flashlight directed toward the floor, and Jules followed, the scent of smoke and something else, something metallic …

“Trent—” she whispered.

“Holy shit!” The beam of his flashlight swept over the body of Maeve Mancuso. He was on his knees in an instant, Jules one step behind. “What the hell?” He handed Jules his gun. “Just in case,” he said. “Keep an eye out.” He propped his flashlight on the floor, training its beam on the poor girl.

Maeve was propped up against a post, blood pooled
around her on the dusty cement floor. He touched her neck and shook his head. “Hell.” Still, he listened for the sound of the faintest breath whispering through her lungs, but shook his head. “She’s gone,” he said, almost inaudibly, and Jules felt something break deep inside her as she stared at the girl’s pale, lifeless face.

CHAPTER 39

“I
t’s been staged to look like she committed suicide,” Jules said, not fooled for an instant despite the long, thin slash marks visible inside Maeve’s wrists. The bloody knife lay on the floor beneath the fingertips of her left hand, her dark hair singed. “But there was a fire in here … doused. God, what happened?”

“That son of a bitch got her. That’s what happened.” Trent was still beside the girl, shining the beam of his flashlight over the surrounding area.

Angry, he rocked back on his heels. “Look at this.” He shined his flashlight over the death scene to a small puddle of blood not far from the wide dark pools coagulating beneath Maeve’s open palms. The puddle had been scuffed and smeared, just like the one Jules had seen close to the spot where Drew Prescott had been left for dead. Not twenty feet from this very spot. Without thinking, she glanced to the area under the ladder to the hayloft.

Two smeared stains … apart from the bodies. So much alike. Snake-like, but blurred. A chill slid down her spine. “Was anything like this found near Nona? Up in the loft?” she asked.

He shook his head, then stopped. “I don’t know. If it was, I suppose, it could have been on the sleeping bag, but I never saw it as it was taken to the lab. But it sure wasn’t anywhere else in the hayloft; I looked over the place myself.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.” Jules stared at the spot near Maeve and felt as if it should mean something, an idea forming that couldn’t quite gel. What was it?

From the far end of the aisle, the big horse snorted and pawed the ground, instinctively staying away from the scent of death. Jules didn’t blame him. She, too, wanted to step away from reality, away from the killing, away from this horrible school with all its dark secrets.

She coughed. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air and horses in surrounding stalls shuffled and whinnied. Jules shined the beam of her flashlight over the floor of the stable where the cement was marred by blackened straw and bloodstains. The big black horse that had gotten loose was still trembling at the far end of the aisle. What in God’s name had happened here? What kind of evil?

Trent slowly guided his flashlight’s beam down Maeve’s body, pausing on her torso and legs. “Jesus. Even with her snow gear on you can tell she was worked over. She’s got other wounds.” He glanced up at Jules and when they connected, she felt sure they had the same soul-numbing thought.

The killer could still be here.

Inside.

Waiting.

Jules’s insides quivered. Dear God, even now, the beast who had attacked Maeve could be watching their every move. Silently Trent touched Jules’s shoulder gently, and she, understanding, released the gun to him, an “ace” marksman according to Reverend Lynch’s records.

Jules’s heart was knocking so wildly it echoed in her brain, pounded against her skull. Who had done this to Maeve? And why? Oh, God, why? Swallowing back her fear, she stared deep into the darkest corners of the stable. Anyone could be hiding in the weird, unearthly shapes of the equipment and tools tucked against the walls and hanging from the rafters. The killer could be crouched low. Waiting. Observing. He could be in one of the stalls, or in the shadowy feed bins or above, in the hayloft …

She glanced upward, imagining the crime scene, seeing, in her mind’s eye, the very space where Nona Vickers had been so viciously and cruelly hung from the rafters, her naked body displayed almost as if the killer were mocking them. She shuddered, spying Trent who was already on the ladder, pistol in his hand.

Jules cringed as he climbed to the next rung. If the murderer had a gun, they were easy targets with their bobbing flashlights. She took a step toward him, but he shook his head, silently urging her to stay put.

She froze as he reached the top and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Jules, nerves stretched to the breaking point, to listen to his footsteps moving across the old floorboards above her head.

She started to follow.

The black horse snorted loudly and she froze. She saw his muscles quiver and instantly turned, searching for a sign of anyone else in the stable. The other animals, too, were anxious, pawing and whinnying, nervous in their stalls.

She took a step toward the ladder again.

“No one up here,” Trent said, then dropped to the floor, landing on the spot where Drew Prescott had been left for dead.

Jules let out the breath she’d been holding and rubbed her shoulders.

The big horse began to pace, steely hooves scraping the concrete of the stable floor near the far wall.

“He’s not happy,” Jules said, forcing a joke that fell flat.

“None of us are. Stay here.” Trent started for the horse. An easy target. Jules’s stomach was in knots. At any second she expected a shot to ring out and Trent to fall to the floor. “I’ll take care of him,” he said without raising his voice. To the gelding, he added, “Take it easy, big guy. It’s okay. Sure it is.”

Like hell, Jules thought but held her tongue as Trent reached the frightened animal and ran experienced hands over the black horse’s quivering hide.

“It’s all right,” Trent said in a low tone to the horse, lying through his teeth again. It wasn’t all right; nothing was. Nothing would ever be.

“That’s it … everything’s okay, Omen.”

Omen?
Hearing the gelding’s name triggered the memory of the note she’d seen in Maeve’s purse earlier in the day when the girl had been so distraught over Ethan Slade. Could the note have been about the horse? She glanced at the girl’s dead body again and felt cold as death.