Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [37]
And what about Salvatore DeMarco, the math and science teacher, who was as quick with a knife as he was with a smile? Trent had seen DeMarco gut a fish in seconds, snap a rabbit’s neck, and take down a buck with a bow and arrow. DeMarco was an ex-Marine who’d served in Afghanistan. With a master’s in chemistry, he taught science and math, but also gave lessons in self-defense and survival.
Adele Burdette, headmistress for the girls, was an enigma; Trent hadn’t learned much about her, but she rubbed him the wrong way.
Bert Flannagan was another curiosity. True, Flannagan had a way with the animals, but Trent suspected the man had a cruel streak. In his midfifties with a military haircut and eyes that were often slitted in suspicion, the guy was leather-tough and well-read, more fit than most thirty-year-olds.
Trent had overheard Spurrier and Flannagan talking once, and there was mention of Flannagan once being a mercenary. The truth? A joke? A lie to impress? Trent was betting there was at least a kernel of truth to it; the guy just had that look about him. Trent had never seen him mistreat an animal, though Flannagan reprimanded students all the time. Most recently, Trent had seen him rip into Drew Prescott and Zach Bernsen, two of the TAs, who had tried to pawn off the chore of cooling their mounts to underlings. The boys had deserved the dressing down they received.
As the latest teacher hired—the new kid on the block—Trent wasn’t yet privy to a lot of the inner workings of the school, but he’d done his homework before he applied for the position, and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that some of the counselors and teachers here weren’t on the up-and-up.
Like you?
He felt his mouth twist in self-deprecation. He, too, was a phony, getting this job on a trumped-up résumé. But he didn’t feel bad about the lies on his application, the deception he was perpetrating. It was necessary if he was ever going to find out what the hell had happened to Lauren Conway. The sheriff’s department in this county was stretched thin. A handful of deputies struggled to cover hundreds of miles of deep forest; rocky, mountainous terrain; and long stretches of curving, dangerous highways. Power outages occurred regularly, hikers or campers got lost, and the snaking roads winding through the rugged Siskiyous presented ample opportunity for accidents.
On top of all that, Blaine O’Donnell, recently elected to the position of sheriff in Rogue County, wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. As far as Trent knew, the guy wasn’t really crooked, just lazy and inept.
So what had happened to Lauren Conway?
Trent wasn’t certain.
Yet.
But he had a feeling her disappearance wasn’t the act of a runaway, as the school administration purported. And the sheriff’s department seemed to have written it off with little investigation. Trent couldn’t help but wonder who from the school had lined O’Donnell’s pockets and campaign war chest in the last election.
Lauren Conway’s disappearance was the reason he’d taken the position at Blue Rock, though, of course, the administration didn’t suspect that he had a hidden agenda, that he was working undercover hoping to discover the truth. He had the feeling that someone here knew more than they’d admitted; he was working on finding out what that something was.
And he was making inroads as the staff and student body began to trust him.
He hoped to keep it that way.
So far, in the past few months, he didn’t think he’d raised much suspicion, but that could change on a dime. Especially if Shaylee Stillman decided to open her mouth and make some noise.
As he passed the interlocking corrals near the stable, he slowed, his gaze scraping the darkened landscape for anything out of the ordinary. Rustic wooden fences, slats gray in the moonlight, bisected fields of glistening snow. Peaceful. Serene.