Wade Taggert resided in one. Kirk Spurrier, when he was on campus, lived in another, and Salvatore DeMarco in
a third. Bert Flannagan had his own quarters in a loft of the tack room near the stable. Charla King, too, had her own place while most of the other members of the staff lived in suites at Stanton House.
As snowflakes stung her face, she thought of those who had elected to become a part of Blue Rock Academy. Teachers, counselors, and administrators who had supposedly been recruited by Reverend Lynch for their leadership and scholarly capabilities.
Or for other unknown reasons?
Then there was the group of teachers’ assistants, kids who had elected to stay on and be a part of the Blue Rock Academy college program, smart students who Shaylee was certain were part of some kind of dark, secret cult. Their faces flashed before her eyes. Missy Albright, Zach Bernsen, and Kaci Donahue, members of a deadly secret society? What about Eric Rolfe? Ethan Slade? Half a dozen others? Who among them possessed the qualities of a coldblooded killer?
What about the students who were trapped here? Could one of them be the murderer, a sociopath? Every one of the students at the academy had psychological problems, some worse than others, some with streaks of violence.
Maybe the answer lay in the files she’d rescued from being incinerated. Maybe not.
Who?
Why?
She shuddered as Trent guided her along the back side of the houses, along what could loosely have been called an alley. Lights glowed in the windows of several homes. Others, unoccupied and in various states of disrepair, were dark, windows boarded over, snow and ice accumulating over rusted spouts and porches.
Trent’s cottage was the last in the row, a single-level
bungalow that looked as if it had been constructed in the thirties or forties and was in serious need of renovation. The back steps were atilt, and the roof sagged in spots.
“Welcome to the Ritz,” he muttered under his breath as he unlocked the door. Once they were inside, he threw the bolt behind them and snapped on a few lights. Even though the temperature inside the cabin couldn’t have been much more than sixty-five degrees, the air felt warm, a distinct difference from the frigid outdoors.
“You okay?” he asked, and set the carrier on the short bench in the enclosed porch.
“Just great,” she said sarcastically. “Couldn’t be better. Cut off from the world in the worst snowstorm of the decade, maybe the century, and trapped with a homicidal maniac on the loose. Seriously, could things get any worse?”
“I’m here,” he reminded her.
“My point exactly,” she shot back, then caught his slow-spreading smile. “This has to be as bad as it gets.”
“Is that right?”
“Absolutely!” She tossed him a don’t-mess-with-me look. “So don’t you dare think of yourself as some kind of Western-type hero, okay? You can peddle, but I’m definitely not buying.”
He grinned, a devilish twinkle in his eye. “Aw, shucks, ma’am, and here I was givin’ it my best damned shot.”
“Not good enough, Cowboy.” But she couldn’t help smiling, some of the tension broken. He was right, she thought as they both kicked off their boots, leaving them under the bench on the porch; she felt safer with him, somehow sensing she could trust him—despite the fact that she’d sworn years ago to never see him again.
Fool. You knew better. Even when you married Sebastian.
Inwardly cringing, she watched as Trent hung his hat on a peg, then peeled off his coat.
A pistol was tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
“Wait a second,” she said. “You’re carrying a gun?”
He hooked his jacket over a free peg. “I figured it might be a good idea.”
“I guess, considering.”
“Yeah. It’s legal. Meeker and O’Donnell know. They’re okay with it.”
“And Lynch?”
He snorted. “Trust me, Jules, there are enough weapons locked in gun closets around this campus to arm a small country.”
“Really?” she said. “So much for peace, love, dove.”
“Not the motto of Blue Rock,” he said. “Flannagan’s team alone could take a stand at the Alamo.”
“His ‘team’?”
“Almost like special-ops, only no one ever says anything like that, of course. However, Flannagan’s team could be construed as an elite force; you’ll remember they were the first that Lynch asked to help tighten up security around here.”
“I guess I didn’t catch that,” she said. “So they work as internal vigilantes?”
“Sometimes.” He eyed her jacket. “You keeping that on?”
“For now, yeah.” Though the temperature was warmer in the cottage, Jules was still cold to the bone, her toes tingling as they warmed deep in her socks.
“Let’s see what I can do about that.” He retrieved the carrier from the mudroom, and she followed him into the attached kitchen, little more than a nook with a sink, a tiny refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a few cupboards that had seen better days. The floor was cracked linoleum and stopped at the edge of an archway that opened to the dining room and living area to be replaced by scuffed hardwood. He paused for a second at the thermostat and cranked it up.
“So who gets to play with guns?” she asked as he set down the carrier on the counter. She reached into the charred remnants of the files, the first of which had lost its tab. She flipped open the seared manila folder and saw the first document with the name
Slade, Ethan
visible in bold type.
“All the usual suspects are legal, have permits. You know, Eric Rolfe and Missy Albright, Ethan Slade, Zach Bernsen.”
He drew the shades throughout the house, then went through the motions of making coffee, tossing old grounds into a trash can under the sink, then filling the pot with water.
“All TAs?”
“Nah. Mostly, though, I suppose.” He paused as he measured coffee into a new filter. “I think Drew Prescott was being considered.”
“Really?”
“Only Flannagan knows for sure.”
She leaned against the short bank of cabinets. Ideas were gelling in her mind as she thought of everything she’d learned recently. “You know, Shay told me she thought that there was a secret cult among the TAs. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Really? A secret cult that does what?”
“I don’t know, but Shay thinks they might be tied to the murders of Nona and Drew.”
His eyebrows knitted as he hit the
ON
switch, and the Mr. Coffee machine gurgled to life. “She’s sure?”
“Sure enough to mention it to me.”
“Far-fetched.” He shook his head, but she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, considering Shay’s theory. He lifted the wood carrier and its charred contents, carrying it into the nearby dining area. “So let’s see what you risked your life to retrieve. You know, Lynch is gonna be
pissed as hell when he walks into his office tomorrow and sees that the ash has been disturbed. He’s gonna know by the color, content, and amount of debris in the fireplace that something’s up.”
“And the carrier’s gone. I’ll worry about that later.”
“Takasumi and Taggert saw you. There’s gonna be hell to pay.”
“I said later.”
For once he didn’t argue and led her through an archway that branched in two directions, one to bedrooms and a bath, the other to the living area where a square oak table surrounded by mismatched chairs occupied a space near the windows. Nearer to the front door, a faded love seat and beat-up leather recliner were grouped around a blue rock fireplace flanked with bookcases. Within the grate, a fire was banked, red embers visible through a thick layer of ash.
Trent kicked out a chair and placed the carrier on it, allowing Jules to sort through the charred remnants of Lynch’s private documents.
“Cozy,” she remarked as he double-checked that all the shades were drawn.
“That’s one word to describe it.” He almost smiled, relaxing a bit as he fiddled with the thermostat again while Jules willed the warmer air to heat the chill in the marrow of her bones. Slowly she started to thaw.
As Trent worked on the fire, Jules tackled the files. Her jacket was bulky, so she stripped it off and tossed it over the back of one of the dining chairs. Warm air was humming through the air vents, chasing away the cold.
She began working by separating out the pages that weren’t totally destroyed, placing them in some kind of order. The files that were intact were easy. Other loose pages were singed and blackened, some falling to pieces when she touched them. That part of the job was tedious, those fragile pages taking much longer to sort.
“Find anything?” he asked, looking over his shoulder as he knelt at the fireplace.
“Don’t know yet.”
He tossed thick lengths of oak from a stack that filled a metal carrier, which was identical to the one she’d stolen from Lynch’s office—apparently standard issue here at Blue Rock. The wood caught quickly, the fire beginning to pop and crackle against the mossy oak. Soon the smell of wood smoke mingled with the tantalizing aroma of hot coffee.
Trent brought her a steaming mug as she sorted the pages, but she was suddenly not interested in the coffee, not when she was starting to see a pattern emerge.
At first she wasn’t certain.
Surely not …
But as she worked, she became more and more certain she was right, and if she was, then evil truly reigned at Blue Rock Academy.
All of the Leader’s worst fears were confirmed.
He stood in the shadows outside Cooper Trent’s cabin and knew that he and Julia Farentino were inside. He’d caught them together, Trent chasing her down, Julia running as she carried what looked like a heavy basket. Only metal. It had glinted a bit, catching in the light of a lamppost she’d tried to avoid. But he’d seen it, that little metallic flash.
What was it?
And why was she carrying it to Trent’s bungalow?
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. Wasn’t planned.
Worry tangled his insides.
The Leader had observed the way Trent had taken the crook of her elbow in a proprietorial fashion, shepherding her toward his cottage. He’d noticed how they huddled
close, as if they’d known each other a long time, even though she’d been at the academy only a few days.
But Trent had called her cell phone, had her private number.
The Leader had listened to his message.
It had been curt and professional, just a quick, “This is Cooper Trent, Ms. Farentino. Would you please call me as soon as possible?” Trent had left his number, as if Julia didn’t already have it in her memory, and certainly it wasn’t an entry on the contact list of her cell.
The message had bothered the Leader, like an itch under his skin that he couldn’t quite scratch. He’d told himself not to think too much about it. He had bigger things to worry about.
Now, of course, he’d changed his mind.
From his hiding spot in a copse of redwood and madrone, he observed the snug little cottage. There hadn’t been much to witness, just Trent squinting into the darkness as he’d drawn the shades and the smell of wood smoke from a fire. Lights glowed from within. Shadows played upon the shades, fuzzy silhouettes that moved but offered him little in the way of knowing what was going on within the walls of the cabin.
Whatever it was, he had to stop it.
Tonight.
CHAPTER 35
Jules couldn’t believe her eyes.
Was it possible?
Was Reverend Lynch—a man of God who always portrayed himself to be the benevolent guardian of troubled youth, a paragon of faith—a fraud? Worse than that, could he really be a twisted, cruel madman, a duplicitous pious Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
What was it his wife had said the night that Jules had listened at the preacher’s door?
You seem to gain some perverse pleasure in persecuting and torturing me.
Now Jules understood.
Insides quivering, she scanned the burned pages quickly, gently swiping away ash, reading what she could, stacking the information in piles. Despite the papers singed in the fire, there were enough legible documents to paint a sick, almost diabolical picture of Blue Rock Academy.
“This is a little scary,” she whispered to Trent, who was tossing another log onto the fire as she looked at a file that proved even more disturbing. “I think I’m beginning to understand what’s going on around here.”
He stood and dusted his hands, the fire burning even brighter. “So show me what you’ve got, Nancy Drew.”
“Very funny.”
“I know, but humor me.” He stood behind her, reading over her shoulder.
She reached for her coffee, and cradling the mug in her fingers, she said, “You’re not going to like it.”
“I figured that much.”
She took a sip, turning her attention to the information in front of her, and summed up what she’d found. “From what I can decipher, Lynch kept a file for each student and teacher, separate from the administrative files Charla King locks away in a file cabinet in her office at the admin building.” She motioned to the blackened documents in front of her. “These files, or dossiers or whatever you want to call them, are separate and hold very different information such as personal material, arrest records, and psychological data that’s been collected on the kids. These”—she tapped a finger on a blackened page with the name
Bernsen, Zachary
typed across the top—“are not your standard personnel files. That’s why they were locked away.”
He was listening, his brow furrowed as he scanned the documents. “There’s no crime in keeping a second set of more detailed files.”
She nodded, ignoring a gust of wind that rattled the windows and caused the fire to dance. “No crime in that, right, but here’s the kicker: These files contain information deliberately excluded from Charla King’s computerized files. For example, if you look here”—she indicated a few pages that, aside from singed corners, were intact—“we have a psychological profile for Eric Rolfe. Right?”
“Yeah?”
“Here are his test scores and grades, all neatly computerized and printed out. There’s even some sketchy information
about his family and a quick assessment of his social problems.”