It was unthinkable, really, Jules thought now as she took a swallow of tepid coffee. She’d been blown away to learn that Kirk Spurrier, the pilot and sometimes teacher, had put into action a plan to take over the school. In his deluded vision of the world, he’d seen his control of Blue Rock Academy as the ultimate revenge against Reverend Tobias Lynch and his mouse of a wife, Cora Sue. Spurrier’s plans had been more far-reaching, though, according to some of the TAs who were talking. The academy was just a stepping stone for a far bigger area of influence that included other schools where he would gather his flock of fanatics. He’d seen himself as a true crusader, one who would eventually lead a huge congregation as a televangelist with political influence.
Jules reached for the pot of coffee on the table and refilled her cup. Trent was looking through the windows, his good arm draped over her shoulder. He, too, seemed lost in thought, his coffee forgotten.
Jules lifted the pot and he nodded, so she topped off his cup and thought of the TAs who had become Spurrier’s followers. The police were still sifting through all the members of the program, talking to Lynch and those they knew about, trying to determine how deep was Spurrier’s influence.
His inner circle of Rolfe, Bernsen, Albright, and Ortega had been told most of his plans. Bernsen and Albright, the remaining inner-circle members who were still conscious, had reluctantly told of Spurrier’s mission, though they’d vehemently denied any part of the killings of Drew Prescott, Nona Vickers, and Maeve Mancuso.
They wouldn’t budge on that issue—their beloved leader was not a killer! However, they did claim that Spurrier had worried that there was a “rogue” in their midst. Missy was convinced that Eric Rolfe was the killer as he was always pulling at the bit, anxious for bloodshed, pushing Spurrier to become more violent.
Who knew?
Spurrier was nearly dead, Rolfe already gone to meet his maker.
Meanwhile, a couple of the investigators were going over the stable, hoping to find some bit of forensic evidence to connect Rolfe with the killings. Fortunately, cell phone service, though spotty, had been restored.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready to leave this place,” Trent finally said. He twisted his neck, stretching tight muscles.
“The sooner the better. I just want to wait so that I can take Shay with me.”
“That might be a while.” Trent’s gaze skated over the group of students at tables near the far wall. They were all quiet, their faces pale. The survivors. Jules wondered how much each of them had known, how many had suspected the evil that had been a part of Blue Rock.
An outside door opened and Father Jake found his way into the cafeteria. Spying Jules and Trent, he wended his way through some empty tables. “Long night,” he said, and kicked back a chair. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all,” Jules said.
The preacher was somber as he upended one of the unused
cups on the table and poured himself a thin stream of coffee. “Since you two were so involved in this mess, I thought I should explain myself, why I’m really here.”
Trent snorted. “Even you have a secret agenda?”
“Don’t we all?” The preacher managed a half smile and leaned back in his chair.
All true. Jules had lied to help spring Shaylee from the academy and Trent was really undercover trying to determine what had happened to Lauren Conway. They both had fessed up and now, it seemed, it was Father Jake’s turn.
“So, here’s the deal,” he said and launched into his story. He explained that he’d been hired by Blue Rock Academy’s board of directors to double-check on Lynch. After Lauren Conway’s disappearance, the members of the board, unsatisfied with the reverend’s explanations, had wanted another viewpoint on the school.”
“Yours,” Trent guessed. “So what did you conclude?” Trent asked.
“Obviously, I think that Lynch should step down.” Jake McAllister smiled. “And don’t look at me. I know my limits as a clergyman, and I don’t belong here. But Lynch has been convinced that he should resign. It should happen this afternoon. I told the board that I’ll stay on until they find a more suitable replacement.”
Jules was having trouble taking it all in. “Do you think Blue Rock will shut down?” she asked, her coffee forgotten.
McAllister lifted a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe. But, under the right direction, I think it could work. I hope it can.” He offered up a thin smile. “There’s always a need for troubled kids.”
Jules knew it. Shay was a perfect example. God only knew if, after this terrifying experience, she would ever return to that happy little girl she remembered.
The doors opened again and a few more students, after
being interviewed, were filing into the cafeteria where Martha Pruitt had put together a long buffet of sandwiches and cold drinks. They were sober and pale, not the excited, eager group she’d first met … Dear Lord, had it only been a few days earlier?
Several of her students caught her eye and she held up her hand, waving to them as they found trays and silverware. Ollie Gage looked at her with owlish eyes, and Keesha Bell offered up her free hand, the other linked tightly with her boyfriend’s. Even Crystal Ricci gave her a nod. As in any tragedy, people were drawing together. With minimal conversation, they filed through the line and congregated at the tables at the far side of the room. A few counselors were interspersed with them, but today, for once, there were no assigned tables; no strict rules and most of the students seemed content to hang together in a large group.
A few seconds later the door flew open and Shay walked in. She took a quick look around the cafeteria, spied Jules and made a beeline to the table.
“I thought you were being counseled,” Jules said as her sister approached.
“I was. But I’m okay.” Shay was nodding, agreeing with herself. “I think we can leave now.”
“Just like that?” Jules asked, dubious. “You’re ‘okay’ and the school is releasing you? Now?”
“They think I’ve been through enough.” Shay was actually smiling for the first time in a long, long while. It wasn’t the infectious, eager grin from her youth, but it was a smile just the same.
“Wow. I’m surprised, but I guess that it’s all good,” Jules said, though Shay’s release, considering everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours, seemed a little premature.
As if reading her thoughts, Shay added, “Dr. Hammersley
wants me to see someone, a counselor up in Seattle, maybe do some outpatient stuff and, of course, I’ll have to deal with the judge.” She was talking fast now. Excited. Ready to finally get out of the school she considered a prison. “I figure Edie will straighten all that out, you know, because of everything I’ve gone through. Being a hostage, seeing people killed.” She shuddered and Jules noted both Trent and Father Jake were watching her sister, as if trying to understand Shay. Which, of course, was impossible.
“I’m sure Edie will try. I’ve talked to her, explained that I was coming to get you, but I haven’t admitted to working here yet. I thought that would best be said face to face.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Shay wasn’t really listening, too keyed up. “If Edie has to, she can talk to Max. There has to be a way to convince the judge to let me go home.”
“You’ll need a counselor’s recommendation, I would think, and a letter from someone here at the school as well as a good attorney,” Father Jake said.
Shay shrugged. “Then it should be no problem.”
“We’ll work on it.” Jules said, still not wholly convinced. That was the problem with Shay; she thought if she believed something strongly enough, she could make it happen by the sheer force of her will. “Why don’t you get something to eat until all the paperwork’s ready?” When she saw Shay about to argue, Jules said, “You know the drill.
Everything
takes time.”
“Fine.” Shay rolled her eyes. “But I’m not hungry. I’ll just get something to drink and take it back to the dorm. I really want to pack and get out of here.”
“Wait a sec. Are there any special forms that need to be signed, so that you can leave with me? Since I’m not your mother.”
“Hammersley said you have to go prove who you are. That you’re my sister, or something like that. She said that the secretary, Ms. King, has all the release forms.” She
turned her eyes on Father Jake. “And then someone in authority has to sign them.”
“We’ll see,” Father Jake said.
“Without a judge’s release, or your parents’ say so?” Jules asked. “The school will let you out of here?” Boy, Shay was pushing it!
“Of course not, but we’ll get that, right? Since the phones are working, we can call Edie and Max and the attorney can find the judge and convince him. Right? I asked Detective Baines during my interview.”
Jules glanced at Father Jake.
He nodded, though he didn’t crack a smile. “That’s basically how it works and everything’s amped up because families are clamoring to get their kids out of Blue Rock.”
Jules wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know, Shay, you’ve been through a lot and—”
“And I’m fine!” Shay rolled her eyes as if Jules were thick-headed and couldn’t see the obvious. “Really. Everything’s okay!”
Jules still had trouble with the concept that everything could easily be forgotten and swept under the rug, but maybe this was Shay’s way of dealing with trauma. She was also dead tired and didn’t want to argue. “All right. But whatever Dr. Hammersley advises and whatever the judge orders, you’ll do, right? Promise.”
“Scout’s honor!” Shay said, “Yeah, okay, ‘I promise.’”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Jules wasn’t going to be buffaloed.
Shay was smiling. “I know, I know. Okay?”
Jules gave in. “Then I’ll meet you in your room in a little bit and we’ll wade through the paperwork together,” she said.
“Just hurry. I am soooo outta here,” Shay said, then was off to snag a can of Coke from the cooler before heading outside.
As if nothing had happened.
Weird.
But that was Shay. Unpredictable.
Jules turned to Father Jake. “Does this really sound legit to you? It seems all too easy somehow.” She glanced at Trent whose gaze was fastened to Shaylee as the doors shut behind her.
Father Jake said, “It’s a little fast but we’re not exactly on real time, not after everything that’s happened. Everyone on staff knows that a lot of kids will be leaving as soon as the Sheriff’s Department gives its okay. There’ll be a mass exodus, I assume, because of the murders.” His eyes clouded a bit. “Parents and judges alike won’t make the kids stay here. It’s too traumatic, would do more harm than good. Lawyers are probably already making noise to get the students released to other, safer institutions and I can’t say as I blame them.” He looked at the group of students gathered at tables, some somber, a few others talking and joking loudly, as if nothing had happened.
They, like Shay, seemed to have developed a thick shell, a guard against letting any of the horror of the last few days touch them.
Trent asked, “What’s the update on Spurrier?”
“In a coma.” Father Jake rolled his lips in on themselves. “Life flight’s on its way, but no one thinks he’ll pull through.”
“Hell is too good for him,” Trent said.
“Agreed.” Father Jake nodded.
“What about Roberto Ortega?” Trent was still looking at the door, then turned his attention to the preacher.
“He has a chance, but it’s slim. A pity about the kids.” Father Jake looked at his watch, sighed, then rapped on the table with his knuckles. “Thanks for everything. Without the two of you, I’m not sure Spurrier would have been flushed out. Duty calls. I’d better attend to it.” He stood abruptly, kicking his chair back, then moving swiftly through the surrounding
tables, his footsteps taking him out the very door through which Shay had exited only minutes before.
A few kids watched him leave.
The rest didn’t appear to notice.
But Trent had. His eyebrows slammed together thoughtfully, he stared at the preacher. “What do you think of Father Jake?”
Jules glanced over her shoulder. “That he’s too good looking to be a minister.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “But maybe not quite as handsome as a certain bull rider I know.”
“Has-been bull rider. Remember?”
“That’s what I meant.” She grinned and he squeezed her hand, but his eyes remained on the door as it slammed behind the preacher.
Things were changing, and fast, Jules thought. Her unexpected relationship with Trent was one thing; a positive force, and now her mission, to rescue her sister, to spirit Shaylee away from whatever dark presence was lurking here, was about to be fulfilled.
As for the school, now that Spurrier and his twisted followers had been ferreted out, Blue Rock Academy would likely fail. Another example of the unexpected outcome of the best laid plans gone so far awry.
“Okay, I guess I’d better pack my things, too, and resign,” she said, pulling her fingers from his as she scooted back her chair. “You know, this might be the shortest tenure of a teacher at the school.”
Trent laughed. “I’ll be right on your heels. I’m resigning as soon as I get through to Lauren Conway’s parents. You heard that Meeker found a flash drive in Spurrier’s pocket, right?”
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
“We’re not sure yet, but we think the drive might hold information Lauren gathered—Rhonda Hammersley put it into one of the computers in the clinic—and though it was partially burned, some of the info seemed intact; the Sheriff’s Department will get their lab to try and retrieve it.”
“In lieu of Lynch’s files.”
“In addition to whatever wasn’t destroyed in the fire. Deputies are already searching through the rubble of my house.”
“What about Lauren’s body?”
“Bernsen thinks he knows, but he’s holding out. Wants immunity.”
“Great. Just what we need, Zach Bernsen, a free man.” She rotated her half-drunk cup on the table, then realized she was fiddling and let it be. “So what about you, Cowboy?” she asked. “Once you’re out of here, what then?” she asked.
“You have to ask?”
She arched a brow. “With you? I think so.”