Without Mercy

by Lisa Jackson

  “I’m good.” But she followed Analise into the small kitchen, where a glass pot was warming in a coffee machine. Outside, the day was gray, twilight gathering through the bare branches of a lilac bush just starting to bud. Rain spattered the glass, the chill of March seeping through the panes that had been installed sometime in the late forties.

  “Why are you so freaked out about Shaylee?” Analise poured herself a cup of coffee, then held up the pot as a second offering. “Sure?”

  “Uh-uh.” Jules shook her head. “It just feels wrong.”

  “Why?” Analise asked, then lifted a hand to cut off any explanation. “Look, despite the advertisements to the contrary, Blue Rock is far from perfect, but I was a mess when my dad shipped me down there. Into weed and boys and even dabbling in meth and E. My grades were in the toilet, so I ended up at the academy, alone, with no friends. It was hell at first. I won’t kid you. There’s definitely a pecking order there, just like at any school, but I had to fend for myself and … and I made it.” She was heading back to the living room where Chloe had the dog cornered behind the couch.

  “Doggy!” she cried happily, apple cheeks red, her tiny teeth showing as she grinned. “Bent-ley!”

  “Give Bentley a break. Come here, you.” Analise set her cup down, then swept her child off her feet and lifted her into the air until Chloe giggled uproariously. The dog hurried from the back of the couch and lay in his bed, where he peered worriedly at the child. “They’re best of friends, really. Bentley adores Chloe, here, but he’s eleven and not as spry as he used to be.” She sat in the rocker, daughter in her lap. Leaving her coffee untouched, Analise grabbed a blanket and a favorite book of Bible stories. She kept talking with Jules while she flipped through the pages. Surprisingly, Chloe didn’t scramble to get down.

  “That’s where you found God, right? At Blue Rock.”

  “It was the turning point, yeah.”

  “Is it optional? The religion thing?”

  “Uh-uh. It’s required. And not just God-as-any-supreme-power, but the real Christian God.”

  “Well, real if you’re a Christian.”

  “You can knock it if you want, Jules, but for a lot of kids, moi included, we find God and listen to his word and teachings. It helps us with our addictions. With our lives.”

  And it was true, Jules guessed. Analise seemed happy, at peace.

  “Substituting one obsession with another. Trading drugs for religion.”

  “Only the truly jaded would look at it that way.” For the first time, she seemed a bit nervous. Agitated. “Look, Jules, I don’t know why you’re so dead set against the school. It helped me; it might just be the answer for Shaylee. Lord knows she needs it. As I did. I might be dead now if I hadn’t gone to Blue Rock, and I never would have found Eli.”

  “Baby Jesus!” Chloe cried, pointing at a page.

  “That’s right; there’s Jesus,” Analise said.

  “So do you know anything about Lauren Conway?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “The girl who disappeared a couple of months ago. From Blue Rock. I’ve searched the Internet and all the newspapers. As far as I can see, she’s never been located.”

  Analise’s smooth forehead puckered. “I don’t know anything about it. While I was there, a boy tried to leave, but one of the TAs convinced him to return.”

  “TAs?”

  “They’re like grad students who stay on and work at the academy. Each ‘pod’—that’s the group you’re assigned to when you enroll—has a teacher for a leader and at least one TA to help the teacher and kind of, oh, you know, connect with the members of the pod. Bridge the generation gap, I guess. TAs are people you can talk to, people who have endured what you’ve gone through and are a lot closer to your age, so it’s easier to confide in them.”

  “And they report back to the teachers.”

  “No … not really. Eli was my TA and look, I ended up marrying him.” She smiled proudly.

  Jules didn’t share her enthusiasm. In her opinion, Eli Blackwood was a sanctimonious know-it-all who seemed to quietly control his wife. There was something snaky about him, something that bothered her. Analise seemed to adore him; he seemed to quietly bully her. But she wasn’t going to bring it up now. Instead she asked, “Wasn’t getting involved with your TA frowned upon?”

  “Oh, yeah. We didn’t actually get together, well, not openly, until I got back here and he finished his term.”

  “How did that go over?”

  For the first time, Analise looked away and appeared more than a little anxious. “Not great,” she admitted. “Since Eli was, well, ‘chosen,’ for lack of a better word, to be one of the special TAs, it was expected that he’d stay there until he was out of college.”

  “Special?”

  Analise shrugged. “Students showing the most promise, I guess, are pulled into an elite program. The school has an online program they worked out with a local university in southern Oregon. Eli actually fulfilled that requirement, but he decided to do his graduate work here, in Seattle.” She bit at the corner of her mouth. “That didn’t fly so well,” she admitted. She was fingering Chloe’s gold curls as she spoke, but she seemed far away, in another world.

  Jules asked, “So what were the ramifications of his leaving?”

  “Nothing. We got married as soon as I finished nursing school, and we adopted Bentley from a bulldog rescue shelter, bought this house, and had Chloe.”

  “And you have nothing bad to say about Blue Rock.”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. Almost too quickly. Then she added, “Do you think maybe you’re tilting at windmills, Jules? I know you and Shaylee were tight when she was growing up, but you’ve both changed, and Shay might not be the sweet little innocent she once was.”

  “I don’t think she’s innocent or naive,” Jules admitted. “Not anymore. But it’s tough out there for kids.”

  “I know, and you’ve always felt that it was kind of you and her against the world.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And, come on, you and I aren’t that old; it was tough for us, too.”

  Chloe squirmed on Analise’s lap. “Uh-oh, someone’s getting sleepy,” she said, and though the kid looked anything but ready to go down for a nap, Jules got the hint.

  “I’d better go anyway.” She stood, then grabbed her coat and scarf from the hall tree by the front door. “Oh, wait. Was there a teacher named Maris Howell on the staff when you were there?”

  Analise was hauling Chloe to her feet. “I don’t think so.”

  “She taught social studies, I think.”

  Analise shook her head. “I was there eight years ago, Jules, but the name isn’t familiar. Why?”

  “She was let go. Some scandal with a student.”

  “Really?” Analise pulled a face. “Was she fired?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Teachers and students—taboo at Blue Rock.”

  “Taboo anywhere, but sometimes it still happens.”

  Jules slung her scarf around her neck. “I thought you might know what happened, who the student was.”

  But her cousin was shaking her head as she opened the door. “Neither Eli nor I have had much contact with the academy since he left.”

  “Bye-bye!” Chloe said, as if to push Jules out of the house.

  “Bye, Chloe. Analise, thanks.”

  “Not at all. See ya later.” Analise stood on the porch for a few seconds as Jules hurried down the steps to her car, parked on the street. Her Volvo was wedged between a Chevy Suburban and a minivan, but she was able to pull away. In her rearview mirror, she watched as Analise carried her daughter inside.

  Analise was a fan of Blue Rock. And truthfully, the academy had really helped turn Analise around. Jules should have felt better about the school after her visit with her cousin.

  Instead she felt worse.

  CHAPTER 5

  Shaylee glanced around the living area where she was being h
eld. Scattered comfy chairs, a few tables and lamps, even an aquarium. And all securely locked.

  Only a moron would stay here, she thought, and one thing was certain: According to every IQ test she’d ever taken, Shaylee Stillman was no moron.

  She didn’t know how that was possible, considering her gene pool, but, hey, she was fine having more brain power than her mother and father put together. Edie and Max—could anyone have a worse combination for parents? Shay didn’t think so. Well, maybe Jules. Rip Delaney had been the lowest of the low. Shay had spent way too much time thinking of her loser parents as she bided her time in the initiation area of this screwed-up school. One day and night at Blue Rock Academy was all she needed to know that the place was a friggin’ nightmare. No cell phones, no e-mail, no television except as a group for four hours on Sunday. No iPods, no Facebook, no MySpace. No friggin’ destressors. She wasn’t supposed to contact anyone, couldn’t, in fact, even make a phone call unless it was an emergency and supervised by one of the brainwashed staff of this neo-concentration camp.

  She’d been given a schedule of her classes and the names of her instructors—something to look forward to. Getting physical in phys ed with hottie Cooper Trent. This G.I. Joe Hispanic guy named DeMarco taught chemistry and trig. Perky Dean Hammersley for the cheerful side of English and world history. Psycho Wade Taggert taught psychology, and, of course, she’d be studying all the reasons she’d be going to hell with the oh-so-reverend Lynch. Too bad she didn’t get to have sessions with the youth minister she’d met on the dock. He was interesting, his blue eyes warm, his smile sincere. But of course not. Her counseling sessions were scheduled with Reverend Lynch and Dr. Tyeesha Williams, who was hardly a soul sister. And something called outdoor activities with a drill sergeant named Flannagan. Oh, yeah, Mister Flannagan. All in all, her days were filled with classes, then chores with her “pod.”

  It was all such a disaster. What had Edie been thinking?

  Shay ran fingers through her hair and knew she had to get out. Find a way to go home. It wouldn’t be easy, though. This place really was the edge of the earth.

  If you didn’t get out by seaplane, the only other route was a narrow, winding one-lane access road that sliced through the mountains. She’d seen it from the air on the day she arrived. A steep road that hugged the cliffs. Scary but passable. Of course, there was a massive gate and guardhouse about a mile or so from the heart of the campus. Good luck getting past that. But still, if there was a way for supplies and the staff to enter, surely someone with any brains at all could escape.

  Pacing across the wood floor, Shay scratched absently at her arm where a bandage covered the needle marks from the tests. Nurse Ayres had punctured her and filled a syringe big enough for an elephant.

  But Ayres was just doing her job. Carrying out the judge’s orders and buying Edie her freedom. Anger burned hot at the thought of Edie’s decision to send Shay here. Shay was supposed to have had a choice in the matter—the judge had allowed them to pick an institution—but Edie had taken Shay’s rights away.

  Leave it to Edie to jump at the first school she found, just to get rid of the problem. Pain knifed through Shaylee’s heart, the same old pain of rejection that she’d always felt with her parents. Max and Edie Stillman, a short-lived union that had ended in divorce and her father walking away. The hard part was, he’d never really looked back. As if he never thought about Shay. She always said she hated him, but deep down, she wished he’d show he cared. Just once. That was all.

  Maybe his rejection of his only daughter was because of Edie. Shay hoped so. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to realize that Edie was a mess. The fact that she had married Rip Delaney twice was proof enough that she always had to have a man in her life—no matter what.

  Again, Shay thought of her father. Rich, affable, quick with a joke, and “as handsome as the devil,” Edie had often said, though Shay now suspected her mother’s fascination with Max was probably due to the Stillman Timber fortune that Shay had heard about all of her life.

  Shay pushed Max’s image from her head and blinked against the heat behind her eyelids.

  She couldn’t let herself give in to tears.

  No matter how miserable she was.

  Her throat was thick, though, and she had to clear it.

  Her family. If you could call it that. She only hoped she never, ever turned out like her mother.

  She’s been married only three times, two times to the same guy. Is that so bad?

  Maybe not, but if Edie had her way, dear old Mom would be adding Grant Sykes, her young golf-enthusiast fiancé to the list. Again, she felt that pain deep inside, and again, she tamped it down and hoped some stupid hidden camera didn’t see her wipe her eye carefully so that she didn’t ruin her mascara.

  Shaylee had just about had it with the small living room behind the locked doors of the nurse’s station, and she knew her only hope to get out of the place was Jules. Her half sister would see this school for the sham it was—little more than a prison. First, though, she had to find a way to communicate with the outside world, to contact Jules, and that would prove tricky.

  And then there was Dawg. His real name was Jensen Wolfe, and they’d been dating a while. At twenty-three, he was just so much more mature than boys her age. And now, because of that stunt they’d pulled of robbing a convenience store, he was on his way to prison. She wished she could talk to him. Dawg might be the only person on earth who really “got” her.

  She sighed and sat on the arm of a small love seat. Less than twenty-four hours here and she was still stuck in quasiisolation pending her drug tests, which would come back—gasp!—clean. She’d only smoked a little weed this year and had had one hit of cocaine, but that was months ago. Despite what Mommie Dearest thought, Shaylee wasn’t a druggie. But then, Edie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. You had only to look at her choice in men to figure that one out.

  But she couldn’t worry too much about her mother right now. Not while she was in this hellhole. Detox, Burdette had called it. Ha!

  Where would they send her next? Her counselor, the tall, black woman named Dr. Williams, had said she would be moved to semipermanent quarters with a roommate so that she could “socialize” and “feel comfortable” before being allocated a private room of her own. Translation: until we can trust you and don’t have to have someone spy on you twenty-four/seven. It was lame, lame, lame. To the max.

  But she was stuck, at least for the moment, and the roommate, a girl she was introduced to at dinner, seemed about as interesting as one of those foreign films Edie was forever going on about. The roommate’s name was Nona Vickers, from somewhere in the Midwest.

  Shaylee hadn’t gotten to talk to Nona yet, but already she suspected it was going to be a stiff, uncomfortable pairing. She’d been the new kid in school enough times to know what the drill was. At first she’d be isolated, looked upon with curiosity, and a few do-gooders might try to take her under their wings, but she would have to prove herself if she wanted to have any real friends, which she wasn’t sure she did. Not yet. Not until she’d scoped out this place.

  If she was here that long.

  She crossed her fingers. Hopefully, somehow, someway, Jules would get her out of here.

  Shay got to her feet and yanked the bandage from her inner elbow, where that moose of a nurse had stuck in the syringe to take her blood. Walking around the perimeter of the room, she ignored the reading material scattered about. All that God stuff and self-help garbage that she had no use for had been fanned neatly on the coffee table.

  Under a shelf holding books like The Answer or With Jesus in My Life an aquarium bubbled, its brightly colored fish swimming around fake rocks and grass. Shay had spent an hour watching a shy, tiny eel hide in its little cave near a clump of coral. Every once in a while, it would dare to stick its head out, only to retract it quickly.

  “I know how you feel,” she’d confided to the timid fish.

  At the
sound of her own voice, she looked over her shoulder, certain someone was watching her, listening to her, noting her every move. From the moment she’d stepped onto the seaplane, she’d felt hidden eyes observing her, eyes that were as malicious as they were curious.

  Paranoid, Shay, you’re sounding paranoid. Any more of this and you’ll end up like Jules, fractured to the point of emotional paralysis. Oh, yeah, like you could ever live with her! Jules is a wreck.

  And yet Shay knew, deep down, her sister was her only chance of salvation. The one person who would help her get out of this creepy institution.

  No one she’d met here was going to be much help. The first person she’d come into contact with was the pilot, Spurrier. Around forty or so, with dark hair and eyes that forever scanned the horizon as he’d steered the plane. At least he’d been quiet, his headset in place, only making a little bit of small talk every now and then. From their brief conversation, she’d found out that he not only flew the seaplane but also was part of the teaching staff.

  She’d also seen some of what she thought of as “the inmates” looking out windows as she’d passed through the campus. Then there were two guys in the clinic, around twenty years old, who had special privileges. One was Asian, the other Hispanic, and they seemed to work here. Through the glass wall separating the reception area from her “lockdown,” she’d observed the Asian guy working at a laptop, all business. His friend wasn’t quite as focused on work. He’d caught her eye a couple of times, even smiled slightly, but that look was quickly hidden whenever anyone else showed up. Nurse Ayres, the bruiser, was definitely the authority of the clinic.

  Shay picked at the tiny scab on her arm and wondered if she could enlist the Hispanic boy’s help. He’d definitely been interested in her. She needed an ally, and he was the first potential friend she’d seen.

  She considered the others she’d met here, mostly members of the staff, but cast them all aside until she remembered the guy who was going to be her “pod” leader, whatever that meant.