Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [106]
Detective Baines had informed him that Nona didn’t have defensive wounds, though the coroner had found skin cells under her nails. They were waiting to see if the cells matched Andrew Prescott’s DNA—a possibility, since the two were naked and entangled. But that analysis would take some time. There was still trace evidence being studied, fingerprints to be matched, but nothing firm yet.
And meanwhile, this whole community was trapped here, trapped and scared.
He took a final swallow from his cup, then tossed the remainder down the sink. Now that he was a damned deputy, he’d better get to work and find out what really happened in the hayloft.
For once, Jules awoke from a dreamless sleep. Thankfully she’d been exhausted enough to keep the nightmares at bay, and her headache had receded, no longer pounding.
“Clean living,” she whispered to herself before taking a quick, hot shower, then changing into thermal underwear, jeans, a sweater, and a thick, insulated parka.
She was reaching for the handle of her door when she caught sight of a small piece of white paper near the threshold, a page that hadn’t been there earlier.
She picked up the single sheet and turned it over.
HELP ME!
The frantic message was scrawled at an angle in black ink.
She nearly dropped the page.
“What the devil?” Was this some kind of a joke? A prank the kids pulled on the new teacher? Or something else? Hadn’t she felt as if someone had been in her room the other night? Possibly standing over her and watching her as she slept.
Her skin crawled as she threw open the door and stepped into the outer hallway.
Empty.
The two other doors on the floor shut tight. Who had left the desperate plea?
Shay.
Of course.
But it wasn’t her sister’s style to be so coy.
Tucking the bit of notebook paper into her pocket, she hurried down the flight of stairs, looking for anyone who might have slipped the page under the door. So you got a note, so what? She tried to make light of the situation, but because of the murder, she couldn’t.
She climbed down the stairs and came across no one.
At this hour, Stanton House was quiet.
She checked the main level, where a few couches, tables, and lamps created a seating area, but again, she was alone, the only sounds in the house the soft purr of a hidden furnace forcing warm air through the building and the quiet tick of an old clock mounted on the wall.
For now, there was no telling who had left the note or whether it was a serious plea or some kind of prank.
Get over yourself!
Yanking on her gloves, Jules made her way outside, where the night wind howled as it battered the campus, dumping snow, churning the dark waters of Lake Superstition.
Pulling her hood of her jacket tight against her face, she muttered, “Just another day in paradise,” and trudged through a new layer of snow to the stable. The pathway was covered with six inches of the white stuff, and the drive, where some of the school’s vehicles were parked, hadn’t yet been plowed.
So much for the Arcadian, sun-dappled shoreline and serene Alpine vista that she’d seen on the Web site. Even the winter photographs had been of kids sledding or snowshoeing in a wintry but sunny forest. There had been shots of the interior of the rec center, the panes of glass frosted, students gathered around a cozy fire burning in the grate. Another photograph had showed a twenty-foot Christmas tree glowing with hundreds of tiny lights as students in stocking caps gathered, hymnals in hand.
Like angels…Oh, sure.
Jules shivered.
There were no warm and fuzzy photo ops today, not with the windchill factor driving the temperature into the teens and the pall of a student’s gruesome death hanging over the school.
Wind whistled around the door as she stepped into the stable. The interior was warm with incandescent lighting and the smells of horses and fresh straw, a haven from the outside world.
Curious, the horses peered over the gates to their stalls. With dark, liquid eyes, flickering ears,