Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [73]
What’s yours?”
“I want to get Shaylee out of here.”
“So yank her.”
“Can’t. Nor can Mom. Judge’s order.”
He swore under his breath, but she had a feeling she wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. “Isn’t her father rich?
Can’t he hire some hotshot attorney to spring her?”
“Max seems to think being at the academy will be good for her,”
Jules admitted, all the tension of the day seeping into her bones. “For once Edie agrees.”
“But you don’t.”
“I’ve done some research. Things here aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and all this pseudo-Christian rhetoric doesn’t ring true. I’ve seen the mansion on Lake Washington. Someone’s making big bucks off of messed-up kids. It all seems about as real as Disneyland.”
“And then there’s Lauren.”
“You got it,” she agreed. “The girl no one seems to want to find.” She thought of her phone conversations with Cheryl Conway. “Except for her mother.”
He grimaced. “You’ve talked to Cheryl?”
“Yeah. Have you? Wait a second,” she said, putting some of the ill-fitting pieces of the puzzle together. She’d read that he’d once worked for a sheriff’s department in Montana. “Is that why you’re here? You’re trying to find her, right? Come on. Your turn, PE teacher. What brings you to the Blue Rock Academy locker room?”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
“Why not? I was straight with you; I expect the same.” Really she didn’t. Hadn’t he proved what a jerk and liar he was once before? Why should she trust him now?
Because you don’t have much of a choice. You’re committed now, backed into a pretty tight corner. On top of all that, now Cooper Trent knows you’re lying. You have to trust him, Jules. You’d better get him to keep your secret!
“Damn,” she swore. If she’d thought things were bad before, she now knew how much worse they could get.
He stared straight ahead. “I’m being as straight with you as I can.”
“Sure.” She glanced out the window, wondering at the mountains she’d seen in the brochure, invisible tonight. Snow fell fast and hard, piling on the windshield before the wipers brushed it away.
“I can’t tell you anything else,” he said. “Really.”
“Then maybe I can help you fill in the gaps. I read about you working for some sheriff’s department in Montana.” Her eyes narrowed as she remembered Cheryl Conway indicating that sometimes it wasn’t enough to rely on the police to do their jobs; sometimes a person had “to do more.” Meaning what? “So are you working undercover? Is that it?”
“As far as you’re concerned, I’m a teacher here,” he said slowly as he cranked on the steering wheel. The Jeep rounded a sharp corner, tires shimmying on ruts from the winter’s storms. “And it would make what I’m trying to accomplish here so much better if you’d refuse your position.”
“What?”
“Tell Hammersley and Lynch you changed your mind. No one would blame you.”
“I’m not backing down now!” she said.
“It’s dangerous.” A tic was working near his eye as he tried to hang on to the threads of his temper. She remembered that telltale sign from the past.
“So I should just abandon my sister?”
“You’re not abandoning her.”
“Damned straight. So don’t waste your breath trying to talk me out of it!” She was seething now, her blood pressure climbing. “Until Shaylee is out of this place, I’m on staff!”
His lips drew into a blade-thin line. “You always were stubborn.”
“So don’t try to talk me out of it, okay? It won’t work.”
“I don’t want you getting in my way.”
“Fine!” she said, years of anger roiling deep inside. “Then you stay the hell out of mine!”
“Jules…”
Her heart cracked a little at the sound of his voice saying her name, but she wasn’t going to let some long-forgotten, stupid, and oh-so-childish romantic fantasy deter her.
“I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Didn’t I just say I’d keep my distance?”
He winced a little at her harsh words, but she had to make him see she was serious and strong, not the weak, fragmented girl he’d known five years ago. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You got that right, Cowboy,” she vowed. No one had ever had the ability to wound