by Lisa Jackson
Creeeaaaak. The noise was soft and low, unnatural.
And there was a smell that didn’t belong here.
Over the powerful, warm scent of horses and the acrid odor of urine was another, underlying smell of something darker. Blood?
Trent scraped his gaze over the interior, past the sacks and barrels of grain and the walls where bridles, halters, and pitchforks hung. Nothing was out of place. And yet … He started toward the ladder leading to the hayloft, then broke into a run.
“Shit!”
Just beneath the opening to the upper floor was the crumpled, naked body of a man. Trent hurried around the body to examine the face. Prescott. One of the TAs, Andrew Prescott. Blood had pooled around his head, and he wasn’t moving.
“No. Ah, Jesus!” Bending on one knee, Trent felt for a pulse and found the faintest of beats at the kid’s neck. He was breathing, his heart beating, but he was in bad shape, the gash on the back of his head gaping, one arm bent at an impossible angle from his fall. “Hang in there, kid,” Trent said, and scooped up the wireless phone cradled near the stalls. He punched in 911 and hoped to God help would arrive in time to save the boy’s life.
“Come on, come on,” he said, praying the connection would go through.
“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“Send an ambulance!” he ordered. “Better yet, life flight. I’ve got an injured student at Blue Rock Academy, and I’d say it’s critical. We need to airlift him to the hospital. He’s unconscious, a lot of blood, maybe bleeding internally.” He rattled off the address of the school, gave the operator his name and position, then barked out, “Tell them to hurry!”
“Sir, stay on the line and—”
“I can’t. Just get a medical team to the school, fast!” He hung up and punched the number of the clinic, and the call was forwarded to a groggy Nurse Ayres. “It’s Trent. Get to the stables ASAP. Drew Prescott’s been injured, bad.”
“Have you called Reverend Lynch?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Hell, no! I’ve called nine-one-one and now you, so haul ass with your medical supplies over here, now. He’s fading fast.”
Trent hung up before she had time to argue, then hovered over the boy. He knew first aid and CPR and various emergency procedures, but he also recognized death when he saw it coming, and Prescott was damned close.
“Hang in there,” Trent said to the injured kid as he found a saddle blanket to cover him. “You just hang the hell in there. Come on, Drew. You can do it. I know you can.”
But he was lying.
The kid was slipping away. Fast.
Within minutes, Ayres arrived, toting a hefty first-aid kit. She was on her knees at Drew’s side in an instant. “Did you find a pulse?” she asked Trent.
“Very slight, but it’s there.” Trent watched as she gloved up and set to work examining the student.
A moment later, Lynch’s long strides carried him into the stable. His clothes still looked pressed, his damned hair combed, though his beard shadow gave his usually neat soul patch a ragged appearance. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, seemingly outraged at the sight of the injured student.
Trent shook his head. “I wish I knew.”
“Why in the world is this boy out here? And where are his clothes?” Lynch turned his face away from the unconscious student, his gaze scraping the interior of the stable. “What’s this?”
“What?” Trent looked up from Drew Prescott’s bloodless face to see the spot where Lynch was looking, a smear of blood mixed with straw. In his concern for the boy, he hadn’t noticed the stain that was separate from the wide puddle of blood beneath Drew’s head. “Don’t touch it,” he said to the director, who was bending low over the stain. “Leave it for the police.”
“I could use some help here!” Ayres said. Kneeling beside the boy, she was lifting Drew’s arm from under the saddle blanket to take his blood pressure. Trent took the corner of the blanket while Lynch, worry lining his brow, closed his eyes and, lips moving silently, appeared to pray.
“What happened here?” Ayres asked.
“I found him when I came to check on the horses.” Trent gave her a quick rundown of what he’d discovered.
“Why were you out here so early?” the director asked as he opened his eyes again, his prayer finished. Silent accusations hung in the musty air.
Hell! Trent didn’t have time for this, not now. “Look, our first priority is to take care of this guy, get him the medical attention he needs.” Trent wasn’t afraid of being a scapegoat. Let the reverend, so quick to point blame, think what he wanted.
“He’s breathing at least.” Nurse Ayres talked through her inventory. “ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. Wound seems to be clotting, but he needs oxygen. More blankets. Hydration. I need the neck brace in case there’s spinal injury, and the backboard. We can’t move him anywhere until his cervical spine is immobilized.”
The stable door banged open.
Bert Flannagan, all five feet ten inches of suppressed fury, swept inside with a rush of wintry air. Rifle in hand, he marched down the aisle between the stalls. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked. “I saw the lights—” His breath whistled between his teeth as he caught sight of Drew Prescott’s motionless body. “For the love of Saint Jude, what happened here?”
“We don’t know,” Trent said.
Flannagan’s hard expression didn’t alter. “Is he alive?”
“Barely.” Ayres was all business as she carefully applied pressure to the patient’s open wound.
Trent’s jaw tightened. Time was of the essence. “Life flight is on its way.”
Lynch’s head snapped up. “You phoned for help?”
“That’s right. Couldn’t stay on the line, though.”
“Call them again!” Ayres ordered, her voice urgent.
The reverend’s cool facade cracked. “You should have spoken to me first; this wasn’t your call—”
“Shut up, Tobias!” Ayres’s eyes flashed angrily. “Trent did the right thing. This boy needs to get to a hospital, fast.”
Lynch argued, “But there’s a protocol.”
“Screw protocol!” The nurse’s face was beet red with fury. “This kid’s got a broken ulna and radius, a helluva head injury, and God only knows what else inside!” She shook her head in disgust. “Let’s not have a student die on us if we can help it. Especially while we’re discussing protocol.”
Lynch cupped his chin in one hand and closed his eyes in surrender. “Fine.”
Disgusted, Ayres turned to Trent. “We need to get him warmed up and stabilized until the medevac copter gets here. We need a backboard and oxygen from the clinic. Yes, it would be easier on him to bring those things here. Oh, and I can start an IV line.”
“We could drive him to the nearest hospital,” Lynch suggested, beginning to understand the severity of the situation.
“Two hours away? With a head wound?” Again she pinned Trent in her stare. “You’re sure they’re sending a helicopter?”
“I told them it was necessary. No other quick way in here.”
“Those flights get grounded in foul weather, and there’s already some snow falling, a storm predicted.” Flannagan strode to the windows where the first streaks of gray light penetrated the night sky.
Ayres took charge. “Then phone again.” She sent a killing glare up at Lynch. “Better yet, since you’re the director, you handle it. You call nine-one-one.” She reached into her first-aid kit as Lynch, no longer arguing, found the phone. “If they’re on their way, we’ll get him on a board and stretcher and wheel him over to the helipad.” She pointed to Flannagan. “What the hell are you waiting for? I need that backboard, blankets, and oxygen. STAT!”
“You got ‘em!” Flannagan was out the door as fast as he’d swept in.
Lynch was already dialing 911. Within seconds he was connected. “This is Reverend Tobias Lynch,” he said solemnly. “I’m
calling to check on the status of a life flight to Blue Rock Academy.”
The reverend sounded cooler than he looked, Trent thought as he watched Ayres place a tourniquet around Drew’s arm and swab it, searching for a vein to start an IV line. At least Ayres seemed to know her job.
“Yes, I’ll hold,” Lynch said as the door opened again.
This time Jacob McAllister strode in. His face was set and hard, all the boyish charm he usually radiated cut off.
“What happened?” he said, dropping to a knee at Prescott’s side.
“They’re on their way?” Ayres asked without looking up from the procedure, not giving the young preacher an answer.
“The dispatcher says it’s in progress.” Lynch cringed when he dared to look down at the boy, who was still hanging on, his skin pallid.
“How did this happen?” McAllister demanded.
“We don’t know,” Trent said.
Lynch was shaking his head. “Why would he be here alone? And naked?”
Trent scowled as he thought. “Was he alone? I wouldn’t bet on it.” He met the questions in McAllister’s eyes.
“Oh, dear God, there could be others,” Lynch whispered, running a shaking hand over his neatly combed hair, mussing it, no doubt his thoughts on the reputation of the school.
Creeeaaak!
The unworldly sound again. Like a ghost moaning.
Trent felt a whisper of dread crawl up his spine.
“What’s that?” Lynch stepped back, squinting up toward the opening to the hayloft.
A knot in his gut, Trent was already on the first rung of the ladder.
Was someone else in the loft?
Injured?
Oh, hell.
He climbed, his boots ringing through the stable, one of the horses letting out a worried neigh. The minute he hoisted himself into the upper story, he knew something was wrong. He looked down. Yeah, obviously Drew had fallen through the opening around the ladder; blood showed on the rough edge of the board where the kid had hit his head when falling through. And there was more—evidence of someone being dragged through the scattered straw.
What the hell had gone on here?
Who had Drew met? Or had the kid walked in on something he wasn’t supposed to see?
He stepped closer to the stacked bales, noticing a dark stain in the thinly strewn hay at his feet, hearing someone following him up the ladder.
A trail of blood.
Drew’s?
Creeeaaaaak!
The sound was louder, gave him the willies. He looked up to the darkened rafters, then jumped backward, nearly falling through the hole in the floor himself.
“Jesus!” he whispered as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness.
He thought he might be sick.
A young woman’s naked body swung gently from a rope tied to a crossbeam. White and ashen, her eyes bulging, she twisted slightly as a breeze blew through the open window.
“Goddamn it!” He couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him as he stared at the details of her face, puffy and pale.
Nona Vickers was hanging from the rafters, her bare skin blue in the half-light.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath, questions cutting through his brain.
“For the love of the father.” McAllister was standing next to Trent, staring up at the dangling corpse, his hand to his mouth as if he might be sick. “Saints be with us.”
Who had done this? Trent wondered.
Why?
Drew?
Had he, after stringing Nona up, fallen through the opening by mistake?
No, no. It didn’t make any sense.
Two pinpoints of light in the dark rafters startled him … the eyes of an owl, roosting above the girl’s body.
“What is it? Did you find something?” Reverend Lynch’s voice boomed upward, through the opening to the floor below.
Oh, yeah, Trent thought, still staring at the girl. He’d found something all right. And it looked like the work of the devil.
CHAPTER 15
“I don’t know anything!” Shay insisted, her eyes round with fear.
Watching her, Trent felt bad that the girl had been rousted from her bed and hauled into Reverend Lynch’s office in the middle of the night.
Trent stood near the window, watching the road, listening. He didn’t like what was happening here; it seemed more like an inquisition than a casual questioning, but the stakes were high. Someone had killed Nona Vickers, and until that person was caught, fear and terror would haunt everyone on this campus.
Adele Burdette leaned against the door as if to block it, just in case Shaylee decided to bolt.
And run where? Trent wondered.
“What’s going on?” Shay asked. “Where’s Nona?”
Lynch was calm, his voice even. At least he was trying to keep things under control. “You and Nona share a room. When did she leave?”
“I didn’t know she did!” Shay’s skin was sickly white against her black hair. “She was still up when I fell asleep. And … and the next thing I know, she”—Shay hooked a thumb at Burdette—“bursts through the door like there’s a police raid and orders me to get dressed.” Outraged, Shay turned furious eyes on the dean of women. “Then she waited in the room while I put some clothes on. What are you? Some kind of lesbo perv?”
Burdette’s jaw tightened as she folded her arms over her chest, but she didn’t rise to the bait.
“Let’s not resort to name-calling,” Lynch said, but his own equanimity was obviously rattled.
“What happened?” Shay asked. “I saw the helicopter. Someone was airlifted out of here. Is that what happened? Is Nona hurt?” Her eyes were round and wide. Scared. “Look, she was my roommate. I deserve to know.”
Trent agreed.
“I’ll be making a statement shortly,” Reverend Lynch said.
“A statement about what?” Shaylee demanded.
Trent had heard enough. It was time they quit beating around the bush. “Nona’s dead.”
“What?” Shaylee nearly jumped out of her chair. “Dead? No. Dead? Oh, God … no. You’re wrong. She was there in the room last night and … and …” She turned horrified eyes to Trent. “They wouldn’t take her body out in a helicopter. She has to be alive. She has to!”
“That was Drew Prescott.” Trent walked closer to her, resting a hip against the desk, leaning closer.
“What? Drew?” Shay squinted. “I don’t get it.”
“We found him in the stable, along with Nona. She was dead; he’s in critical condition.”
Shaylee shrank into her chair. “Jesus Christ. How? I mean, where … Oh, God, she said she had a boyfriend, but I didn’t believe her.” She drew her legs up on the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees. “They snuck out and there was an accident?” She shook her head in disbelief.
“Did she tell you she was sneaking out?”
“No.”
“But she told you about Drew.”
“Just that she had a boyfriend … that was all; she wouldn’t tell me his name. It was like some big secret or something.”
“So the last time you saw her was—”
“In our room. She was there when I went to bed, and next thing I knew, there was all this pounding on the door, and here I am.”
“Your baseball cap was near her body.”
“What?” Shaylee’s head snapped up, and she clamped two hands atop her head as if to locate the hat in question. “No, it wasn’t.” She was shaking her head again, as if in so doing she could change everything that was happening.
Trent nodded. “In a pile with her clothes.”
“She … she wasn’t wearing her clothes?” Shay whispered, and bit her lip. “Why not?”
“Why was your hat there?”
“I don’t know! The last time I saw it, it was on the hook by the door in our room. That’s where I put it. How it got … wherever she was.” She looked at Trent. “Where was she? In Dre
w’s room?”
“In the stable.”
“That’s enough,” Lynch said. “We’d better wait for Sheriff O’Donnell before we question her further. He promised to come out personally, with the detectives.”
“The sheriff? Detectives? This was an accident, right? They got themselves trampled or fell or …” Shay’s eyes were huge, dark with fear.
Trent felt for her. “They always look into accidents.” He didn’t want to panic the girl, but it seemed too late.
“Police officers, yeah. Accident-reconstruction people … but that’s not what he’s saying.” Shaylee sank down in the chair.
Trent said, “Detectives are called when someone dies.”
But Shaylee would not be reassured. “Wait a minute, you don’t think that someone …” She swallowed hard, blinking back tears. “Wait a friggin’ second. Do you think that I …?” She looked from Lynch to Trent, and some of the color returned to her face. “The talk about my hat—you think I’m responsible for whatever happened to Nona and Drew? Do I need a lawyer or something?” She was more than scared now. Terrified. “What the hell happened to Nona?”
“A lawyer?” Burdette repeated, her eyebrows rising as if she were truly surprised. “Shaylee, you’ve been watching too much TV.”
“This is over,” Trent said. “When the sheriff gets here, he’s going to want to talk to a lot of us, so for now, let’s just wait.”
But Shaylee lowered her head into her hands, a gesture of surrender. “Don’t you have cameras everywhere around campus? In the dorm rooms? In the hallways? Even in the stable?” She turned accusing eyes at Reverend Lynch, who blanched visibly. “Then everything’s on tape, right? So why the hell am I here being treated like some kind of criminal? Look at your sicko—probably illegal—tapes and let me go.” Finding Trent as her only ally in the room, she turned big, pleading eyes up at him. “And I don’t mean back to the dorm. I want out of here. Someone call my mother. Tell her what happened, that kids are dying, okay? I want to go home. And I want to go now!”
Jules was hungry and tired, and her butt was starting to ache like crazy from hours of sitting behind the wheel of the car.