Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [5]
“I should never have married him,” Edie had admitted not long after the second marriage ceremony. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots, you know.”
That image of her mother, eyes red and swollen with tears, had haunted Jules since long before her father’s death. If relationship skills were passed down from parents to their children, Jules figured that she and Shay were doomed to lead some very lonely lives.
Turning away from the lake, Edie tipped back her umbrella and sighed theatrically. “Sending her away isn’t punishment. It’s just the last straw. She needs help, Jules, help she wouldn’t allow you or me or any of her psychiatrists to give. Maybe they can help her at this academy. Lord, I hope so. Isn’t it worth a shot?” She glanced up at the sky, where dark clouds were being chased by the wind. “Oh, well, it’s over and done now. She’s someone else’s problem. Pray that this works!” Edie attacked the steps from the dock, a slim woman hell-bent in her convictions.
“Wait a sec. Why was Shay picked up here, at this mansion? Doesn’t that seem a little off to you?” Jules followed right on her mother’s heels.
“Not really, no.”
“Really, Edie?” Jules couldn’t believe it. “You mean it’s not odd to you that you didn’t drive her down there or that…that she wasn’t flown by a commercial carrier to an airport nearby, like in Medford?”
Edie didn’t break stride. “This is the way it’s done. This house is owned by the school.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not. I think it’s used by the director, Reverend Lynch.”
“Really?” Jules was floored. “A preacher lives here?”
“Part-time, I think. When he’s not at the school.”
Jules took in the expansive grounds with its trimmed lawns, sculpted shrubbery, and manicured paths that sloped down to the wide concrete dock and a stone boathouse. The estate was insulated from neighboring mansions by a high stone fence and was buffered with towering fir trees, long-needled pines, and white-barked birches devoid of leaves. The only other homes in view were distant, situated on their own acreage a mile across the flinty waters of the lake.
To Jules, the reverend’s estate was truly spectacular. Not exactly pauper’s quarters.
“I guess he doesn’t buy into the whole shedding-of-earthly-possessions thing.”
“Well, maybe the school owns it and he just stays here; I’m not sure.”
Jules whistled under her breath. “I take it Blue Rock Academy isn’t cheap.”
Edie’s lips pursed. “You get what you pay for, Jules; you should know that. In the case of your sister, money’s not the issue. I’ve talked to Max. He’s agreed to help.” Max Stillman was Shaylee’s father, or at least the sperm donor and heir to the “Stillman Timber fortune” that Jules had heard about ever since her mother had met him nearly nineteen years ago. Theoretically, Shaylee was next in line for the money, except that Max had never been close to his daughter, and what little interest he’d had in Shaylee had waned since the birth of Max Junior, his son with his second and much younger wife, Hester. Max had come into the world about four years earlier, not long after the time Shaylee had become “a handful.” Shaylee’s title had morphed, of course, from “a handful” to “a problem.”
Jules adjusted her cap against the heavy drizzle. “It just doesn’t feel right…Shay getting hauled off to the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m doing what the judge ordered,” Edie said, marching up the last few steps toward the main house, where one of the black poodles was pacing along the wide back porch. Its companion was busy sniffing a sodden azalea. “Let me remind you that Shay