Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [118]
Still working at her desk, Jules reconsidered her sister’s wild accusations.
Shay wasn’t exactly the barometer for reality.
How had her father summed up Shay when he and Edie had remarried? If Jules thought hard enough, she could almost hear Rip Delaney’s deep baritone voice as he’d told Edie, “You know, hon, if there was an emotional tidal pool anywhere in a three-state radius, Shaylee would find the deep end, jump in feetfirst, then call for help.”
Edie hadn’t been amused.
Rip Delaney’s attitude about his stepdaughter had been a sticking point in an already unhappy union.
So, Jules advised herself, don’t take everything Shay says at face value. Unfortunately, Jules hadn’t been here long enough to evaluate any of the teachers’ assistants’ motives or actions. Nor had she gained their trust to the point that they would confide in her.
She was the outsider. As was Shay, who hadn’t been here much longer than Jules.
For now, Jules decided, she’d follow that particular point of law that considered all suspects innocent until proven guilty. Even the malevolent TAs. Good God, Shay could be such a drama queen.
The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, she thought, and made a mental note to give Edie another call. Even if the teachers’ aides were innocent, there was still something very wrong here. One student dead, another missing, and a third—who happened to be a TA—seriously injured, all within five months.
Nona Vickers had been a student for almost a year, and Lauren Conway had been on campus only a few months. She wasn’t sure of Andrew’s tenure, though he would have been at Blue Rock for a while before being promoted to the level of graduate student and TA. There was also Ethan Slade, the boy who had been supposedly sexually molested by Maris Howell. Ethan was still on campus, his parents settling, his education here at Blue Rock Academy oddly ensured.
She clicked her pen nervously. Her attempts at getting information from other staff and students had been unsuccessful. It took a while for people to warm up here, staff and students alike.
So what did that leave?
The student and faculty files.
Glancing out the window, she saw the corner of the admin building where all the records were kept. Not all, she reminded herself, and replaced her pen in the drawer. Some of the records were kept in Reverend Lynch’s office, the one in the chapel.
Could she do it?
Break into the file drawers or the computers, then, if she were caught, drum up some excuse?
The bottom line was she had to.
Before someone else was hurt.
She just had to come up with a plan.
Her mind still half on her mission, she spent another half hour trying to focus on the next day’s lesson plans.
Finally, she gave it up for the night. She could do more prep after dinner. Once she was settled into her pajamas at home, she might even come up with a way to get a peek at the student and faculty files. She gathered up her notes, books, and a couple of computer disks, then shoved them into her Blue Rock Academy book bag and zipped it closed.
Hitching the strap of her bag over her shoulder, Jules made her way to the door of this fishbowl of a classroom. Darkness had already settled over the mountains, snow still falling hard. As she snapped off the lights, she wondered when the storm would break, when this school wouldn’t be so isolated. As it was now, not only the police and supplies weren’t able to get through the passes, but also families of the students, rescue workers, and the police were blockaded by the blizzard. It was as if the fates were conspiring against them, the whistling wind nearly laughing as everyone at Blue Rock dug in.
Don’t be ridiculous, she silently chastised herself, but couldn’t stop a little drizzle of dread from dripping down her spine.
She closed the door behind her.
Drained of students, the hallway was eerily quiet. Jules’s boots rang on the tile floors, echoing in her