Without Mercy (51 page)

First things first; she’d connect with Trent, no matter how pissed he was that she hadn’t sat still. Lord, he should have known her better than that! If she and her sister had anything in common, it was that they never sat idly by.

She started for his cabin, took two steps, then stopped as if yanked by invisible reins.

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. In that split second, she realized she wasn’t alone in the darkness. She slid backward, into the shadows, her gaze fastened on the knot of people heading in the opposite direction. Huddled
against the cold, their faces in shadow, their breaths mingling in the arctic air, they trudged through the snow to the chapel.

Not a word was spoken.

The silence was like an unheard knell of death.

Her fingers tightened over the pistol. Was this a security patrol?

She didn’t think so.

There were too many of them. Five? No, four! All walking as rapidly as they could, as if they were bound by a single purpose. Which was what? Murder?

Her heart stone cold, she inched forward. For a second, she thought she recognized Shay in the group. One of the members was the right size, and moved in the same manner Shay did … but that was impossible. Right? Two of the others were taller, dressed in thick, dark clothes, pressed shoulder to shoulder, the smaller ones in front. The fourth member of the group was different, though. She was walking in front of the larger ones and appeared to be a girl, her long hair visible, her figure slim, not bulked up by thick clothing. Bareheaded and vulnerable, she stumbled forward, her shoulders shaking. From the cold? Or was she sobbing?

She, and the person who resembled Shaylee, were being prodded forward, urged onward. The bareheaded girl tripped.

Jules stepped forward, opening her mouth to yell out, when one of the taller ones yanked the girl to her feet as they passed under one of the few lights that glowed in the darkness. A glint of silver flashed in the bigger person’s hand, the man behind the girl who looked like Shay.

Jules’s heart nearly stopped as she recognized a pistol.

Of course, for the security detail. But …

The bareheaded girl, stumbling but on her feet again, her arm now held firmly by the tall, thin member, turned and
looked over her shoulder. Her face was pale, her eyes round with panic.

Oh, God, it was Nell Cousineau!

The girl who had left Jules the note.

The student who had pleaded for her help.

In that moment, Jules realized that the two larger people were not members of the security patrol, but killers. She didn’t doubt for a second that the larger, stronger people were marching these girls to their ultimate doom.

In the bluish light, she caught a glimpse of the girl with the gun pressed against her back.

Jules felt sick inside as she recognized her sister.

Her worst nightmare had come true: The killers had Shay!

Crackkkkk!

Somewhere glass shattered.

Trent froze in his tracks. He turned, straining to listen, trying to figure out from which direction the sound of cracking glass had come.

He’d been running back to the stable to meet with Lynch and Meeker when he’d heard the distinctive sound of glass breaking, the sound echoing through the stillness.

“What the devil?” he whispered under his breath.

Of course, it was quiet again. Deathly quiet. Not a noise to break the silence.

Even with Maeve’s murder, there was a deceptive serenity and calm over the white-blanketed buildings of Blue Rock Academy.

That was changing, of course. Though Lynch had decided to withhold information from the students until the morning, hoping to contact Maeve’s family first, the word was getting out.

Some of it came from the staff, most of whom Lynch and
Flannagan had contacted while Meeker guarded Maeve’s grisly death scene. Then there were the patrols of students who also knew what was going on. Trent had noticed lights in dorm rooms flickering to life. Yeah, the word was getting around that the killer had struck again.

And so why the sound of shattering glass?

Thud!

He spun, turning quickly toward the direction of the sound. And his house. Running now, he was certain that the noise emanated from the direction of the row of cottages.

Who would be breaking windows in the middle of the damned night? In a second, he flashed on the table in his house and Lynch’s private files, spread out and open.

If someone stole them …

“Hell!”

Speeding through the thick snow, he cut across the back of the admin building and along a thicket of pines to the alley behind the row of cabins where darkness prevailed, still no backup power reaching this string of old cottages.

All the houses were dark, no signs of life visible.

All except his.

Through the drawn shades of his cabin he saw firelight shifting, brightness illuminating the interior.

His insides clenched. The fire he’d left smoldering in the grate should have died by now, and all the lanterns had been turned down. His house, too, should appear nearly dark but now offered up an eerie orange glow behind the shades.

Silently, he reached for his pistol before remembering he’d given his weapon to Jules.

He rounded to the back of the house without making a sound. Sure enough, the window in the back door was broken, jagged shards of glass visible in its frame, the door itself hanging ajar, the smell of burning oil escaping with a thick cloud of smoke.

Damn it!

Through the broken glass, he spied a wall of flames. Hot and wild, crackling hungrily, they ran through his home. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, flicking on his walkie-talkie as he climbed the short flight of stairs to the back porch.

“Yeah?” Bert Flannagan said.

“It’s Trent.” He kept his voice low but firm. “I need backup. ASAP. I’ve got a fire in my cabin. You hear me, ASAP!” Trent clicked off, wondering if he’d just alerted the enemy. Not really giving a damn, he picked up a piece of oak from the back porch, the only weapon at hand.

It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why his cabin had been broken into: Someone was dead set on destroying Lynch’s damning files.

Who?

Had Tobias Lynch figured out the files hadn’t been burned the first time?

So much for being the man of God and faith.

He burst through the door to the kitchen.

A wave of heat assaulted him. Black smoke stung his nostrils as he crossed the kitchen floor.

Bang!

Through the archway to the living room, he witnessed a shower of flame exploding as another window shattered. Sparks rained. Heat billowed.

No damned way would he let this happen!

Through the kitchen he propelled himself, expecting someone to leap out at him and knock him flat. His gloved fingers dug into the chunk of oak, his makeshift weapon.

No assailant sprang from the shadows.

No dark figure pointed a gun at him.

Without thinking twice, he yanked the fire extinguisher from the wall in the hallway.

Still no assailant.

Maybe he’d gotten lucky.

Trent dropped the chunk of wood to free his right hand.
Deftly, he engaged the extinguisher, setting off a fume of CO
₂
throughout the hallway and living area.

As black smoke billowed and coiled around him, dancing crazily and searing his lungs, he headed farther into the shambles that had been his house. Fire was crawling along the living room floor, catching in the upholstery. Eagerly, the flames ate through a blanket that had been spread from the fireplace to the mattress he’d left in the middle of the floor. Clearly someone had worked to make it look as if the fire were a careless accident.

Heat swelled and shimmered as he sprayed the fire.

Another window popped, glass spraying.

The dining room table was a pyre. Already blackened pages were turned to ash, once legible files burning wildly. A broken kerosene lantern, the source of the blaze, lay in the middle, shards of glass glinting bloodred.

It was all destroyed. All of Lynch’s damning notes. All the proof Jules had risked her life procuring. All up in smoke!

“Goddamned son of a bitch!” Trent muttered as he kept extinguishing the flames, fighting the ever-encroaching fire. He trained the nozzle on the table, a hissing spray of CO
₂
clouding the air.

He coughed and tasted smoke. His eyes watered. Still he sprayed, forcing the flames down, killing the fire, trying to salvage something, anything from Lynch’s damning notes.

Something moved in his burning, peripheral vision.

He blinked, disbelieving, but there it was again, just out of focus, caught by the corner of his eye. Spinning, he pointed the nozzle warily. What had he seen? Was someone inside? Had Flannagan arrived?

“Hey!” he called out.

Crunch.
Glass splintered as if someone had stepped on it.

Oh, crap!

Bam!

Pain exploded in the back of his skull.

His knees buckled.

Trent fell to the floor, his head slamming against the floorboards. The fire extinguisher clanged as it banged against the floor beside him and rolled away. Flames and smoke rose before his eyes and a deep, searing blackness threatened to pull him under.

Stay awake! Don’t pass out! For God’s sake, Trent, hang the hell on!

His eyes swam. He blinked as the fire swept closer, shimmering, slithering waves of flame.

He tried to get up, to roll over and get his knees beneath him, to gut it out and stand, but his body wouldn’t move an inch.

Still fire crept closer. Teasing. Toying. While he lay motionless.

Get up! Get up! For the love of God … Move!

But he couldn’t. His brain couldn’t connect with his muscles and in a last instant of clarity, Cooper Trent knew he was a dead man.

CHAPTER 42

Jules, hiding in the shadows of the frigid night, watching Nell and Shaylee being marched into the chapel, took off after them. Too many kids had died already, been murdered, and now her sister was being marched to her death, a gun pressed to Shay’s back. No way could she let this happen.

Fingers clenched over the pistol Trent had given her, Jules kept the small group in sight following at a distance. Shay was walking strangely, her hands behind her back, the person with the pistol shoving her, steering her.

Maybe she should shoot into the air to alert someone—anyone!—but she couldn’t. Shaylee’s captor could lose control, fire and kill her sister in an instant. The same horrible ending would happen if she tried to bluff her way and aim her pistol at the man pushing Shaylee forward. The way Jules saw it, she had no choice but to follow them into the chapel.

God help me. Oh, please, and be with her.

Prodding Shaylee, the biggest of them, a tall man or boy, herded the group inside. He was confident, knew his way around, didn’t bother with any lights.

Jules was only a few steps behind. She moved swiftly
and silently, managing to catch the door before it slammed shut. Quickly, she slid into the shadowed warmth of the interior, the door clicking, uninterrupted behind her. She caught her breath as she got her bearings, then softly she crept through the nave. She heard footsteps ahead of her, the sound of feet shuffling along the hallway, then onto the staircase, muted by the carpet. She reached the landing, and thought the footsteps were heading down to the basement rather than up to the loft.

What was down there?

A dead end. Be careful.

Pistol clenched in her fingers, Jules started down the stairs, keeping a short distance between the group of four and herself. At the bottom of the stairs, someone clicked on a flashlight and she stopped midway down, barely daring to breathe. If the light were shined upward, she would be caught in its thin, hard beam.

“Let’s go! Move it!” a gruff voice ordered and the flashlight’s beam turned away from the stairs, bobbing along the hallway as the group navigated through the dark, tangled corridors.

Heart in her throat, Jules inched along the hallway behind them. What were they planning to do to Shay? Flashes of Maeve’s dead body cut through her brain, and she vowed nothing so vile would happen to her sister, the girl she’d loved and protected, despite all of Shay’s flaws. Jules wouldn’t allow a fate as brutal and macabre as Nona’s or Maeve’s to happen to her sister. Or anyone else. She had to stop the obscene killing spree and stop it now.

Nervous sweat collected on her spine as she inched forward, pressed against the wall, trailing behind as they proceeded through the warren of offices and halls.

Farther and farther into the darkness.

Her gaze fixed on that bobbing, weaving light ahead.

She swallowed back her fear and cast aside worries that
she would stumble or in some way alert the attackers that she was on their heels.

Keep your cool, just be steady,
she told herself, but was reminded of her nightmare, of walking through a darkened house, slowly following the sound of dripping water until, at last, she came across her father’s dead body.

In the dream she held a knife.

Tonight she had a pistol, and damn it all to hell, she’d use it if it meant saving Shaylee.

Just as she would have used the knife to save her father.

No way was she going to replay the same scene with its new cast of characters. Jules wasn’t about to come across her sister’s dead body. Not tonight.

She noticed the light disappear, as if it had turned a corner, outlining the wall in a faint, eerie glow. It’s now or never! Heart racing, dread propelling her, her gloved fingers trailing against the wall until she touched nothing, she followed.

At the corner she turned.

Took one step.

A bright, glaring light flashed in front of her eyes.

She gasped. Lashing out with the gun, she struck the flashlight down.

“Bitch!” a deep voice snarled.
Eric Rolfe.