Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [98]
Jules’s toes wiggled in her boots as she looked down at the form. This one would be a problem, but what the hell?
Charla smiled as Jules read the short document quickly, then scribbled her name in the appropriate box.
“Perfect.” Charla scooped up all the pages, tapped them on the top of her desk to straighten them, then carefully placed them in a file and locked the slim folder inside one of a bank of file cabinets.
“Okay, then.” Charla dropped the key in her purse, then reached for her wool coat and scarf. “Let me take you on a quick introductory tour, though the campus is going to be quiet today. All this snow, and our students will be kept inside for the most part. Everyone’s still worried about what happened to those two kids.”
Somehow, Charla’s tone minimized the severity of the situation. Jules shrugged her coat on, grabbed her hat, and followed the woman out into the cold wind.
Animated, the tip of her nose and cheeks turning red, Charla pointed out buildings, paths, and shortcuts, most of which Jules had seen on the map in her room.
“Reverend Lynch runs a tight ship and helps hundreds of troubled kids every year,” Charla said, her breath fogging in the air, as if powered by her faith in the man who was, in her mind, the backbone of Blue Rock Academy.
Jules followed her on the shoveled path, which was quickly being covered by new snow. With more force than had been predicted, the arctic storm was ripping down from Canada, tearing through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and even parts of Northern California. News reports indicated that parts of I-5, the lifeline of the western states, were closed. Jules was glad to have made it here yesterday before the blizzard set in.
Jules stared at the edges of the frozen Lake Superstition, where the seaplane was tethered in ice. In this weather, there really was no way in or out of here.
Charla followed her gaze. “I’ve never seen that much ice on Lake Superstition, though we get our fair share of snow. This area of the Siskiyou Mountains is always inundated.”
“You don’t mind the isolation?” Jules asked, feeling the spit of tiny crystals of ice against her face.
“I can honestly say it’s cozy in the winter. Blue Rock Academy might be geographically challenged, but we’re prepared for anything. We could probably even survive a nuclear attack.”
Prepared for anything except missing students and murder, Jules wanted to say. The woman seemed ridiculously smug about Blue Rock’s resilience.
“I even think at one point there was a fallout shelter on campus, though I’ve never seen it.” Charla laughed and explained that the campus was self-contained, with stores of food, two generators, extensive tanks of propane, and gasoline. There was a radio/communications station as well as a clinic. Though there was no doctor on staff, Jordan Ayres was soon to become a nurse practitioner, and Kirk Spurrier, the pilot, had once been an EMT.
Glasses fogging, Charla seemed to think that the school’s medical bases were covered. Jules didn’t agree, but she held her tongue, nodding in all the appropriate conversation lapses while holding the hood of her ski jacket tight at her chin. Even in her boots, with her warm socks, her toes were starting to feel numb.
As they made a circuit of the campus, Jules asked, “How long have you been here?”
“Eighteen years in April,” the woman said proudly. “I was the first person Reverend Lynch brought on board. I helped him organize and hire the teaching staff. Back then, when the school was new, there were only a few of us.”
“And before that?”
“Oh, the property was in disrepair.” She waved a gloved hand toward the buildings. “Horribly so. It had been donated to a church in the late forties to be used for family retreats and counseling, but the facilities were neglected and run-down. I think the reverend’s father came here as a child, then later brought Reverend