The Life and Death of Lauren Conway: A Companion to Without Mercy (2 page)

The poem had been her favorite as a child, but now in the dark, coming out of nowhere as it had, its tempo emphasized by the unfamiliar sound ringing in her ears, the hushed weeping whispering through the house, the stairs below seeming to drop into nothingness, the words sounded creepy and watery and weird. Professor Kenyon and his keen interest in the macabre origination of nursery rhymes had probably brought this one to mind.

Professor Kenyon! And the test! What’re you doing, Jules! You should be studying. You’re going to flunk English Lit and you’ll be thrown out of college. What then?

She kept descending.

One creaking step at a time.

Never had the staircase seemed so steep or long…

On the first floor, the plop of drips was louder, more distinct, the crying soft and weak. She eased through the foyer where moonlight cast drab shadows through the stained glass flanking the front door. Her mother’s grandfather clock, positioned near the base of the stairs, ticked loudly, the second hand clicking as it moved, not quite drowning out the worrisome mewls emanating from the back of the house.

What is this?

Who’s crying?

What’s that horrid incessant noise?

Why was Cooper outside?

Head thundering Jules inched down the hallway toward the den. Passing the archway to the kitchen, she caught sight of the knife block on the counter by the stove.

She slid her mother’s favorite carving knife from the block and wrapped her fingers around the hilt.

Three Blind Mice. Three blind mice.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

She cut off their tails with a carving knife…

Her heart thundered, but she wrapped her fingers around the knife’s cold hilt. Across the worn kitchen tiles and down two steps to the short hallway that led to the den, she walked, her frozen footsteps inaudible.

The sounds were getting louder.

Crying.

Dripping.

Sobbing.

The rapid thud of her heart.

Was there a blue light barely visible through the covered French doors? Was the television on? Did she hear music? A familiar beat?

This is your home. There is no reason to be afraid.

But that was a lie. The bone-cold fear spreading through her was testament to the fact that something wrong was going on here tonight… something dark and evil, something that kept her from calling out, something that made her fingers hold the knife in a death grip.

Every muscle tight, she slowly opened the door to the den and peered inside. An L-shaped couch poised next to a recliner, all bathed in weird, flickering light from a television that had been left on, the sound muted, while the scenes of a home movie flickered on the screen and Michael Jackson’s voice whispered from the speakers.

“Billie Jean is not my lover…”

For a second she was caught in the shaky images flashing upon the television screen.

She saw her own face, smiling, laughing as she ran away from whoever was holding the camera. Sunlight filtered through trees along a creek. But she wasn’t alone.

Cooper Trent came into view. Tall. Athletic. His body was lean and tanned, corded muscles in his shoulders and arms and thighs, a ropey scar running down his back. She, beside him, was running and laughing, splashing through the water. Her skin was almost luminescent it was so white, her dark hair unwinding from a scarlet ribbon that fluttered and caught in the breeze, her breasts visible, full and firm, dark nipples erect.

“Billie Jean is not my…”

Who had taken this video?

She didn’t remember…

Drip. Drip. Drip.

So loud.

Like rolling thunder in her aching head.

Liquid warmth splashed on the tops of her bare feet and she looked down quickly. Her eyes rounded as she saw the blood dripping from the long blade of knife in her hand, the red stain spreading into a pool.

What?

No!

She tried to scream but couldn’t and as she looked toward the open french doors, she saw her father lying on the floor near the coffee table. He stared up at her, eyes unblinking, a jagged gash on his forehead, a spreading stain on the front of his rumpled white shirt.

Gasping, blood gurgling from the corner of his mouth, he stared up at her, then, struggling whispered in a wet rasp, “Why?”

Transfixed, her hand now sticky with blood, she started to scream—

¤   ¤   ¤

Jules awoke with a jerk. Heart pounding, head splitting, she sat bolt upright in bed. It was freezing in the bedroom of her condo, the sliding doors open wide, wind rushing inside.

The rain beat a quick-paced tattoo against her deck. She threw on her robe, disturbing her cat in the process. Curled into a ball, Diablo mewed in protest as he lifted his head.

“Sorry,” she said as she yanked the door closed and snapped the lock, then looked at the clock. “Seven forty-three? Really? Holy crap!” She was late. Because of the damned nightmare, the recurring dream that came in times of stress, which, lately seemed just about every day.

Although usually Cooper Trent wasn’t in the shattered montage of frightening scenes that filled her fitful sleep. “Great. One more piece to the great unsolved puzzle of my psyche.” The less she thought of the son of a bitch, the better. “Get out of my life, off of my cloud, out of my way and all of the above,” she muttered, angry that her subconscious had dredged him up to make him a player in her own personal nightmare.

She didn’t have time for a shower, much less a jog. Instead, she threw water over her face, tossed down a couple of extra strength Excedrin, washing them down by tilting her head under the sink. After yanking on her jeans and tossing an oversized sweatshirt over her head, she found an old Trailblazers cap, then searched for her keys, scrounging in her purse and in the pockets of the jacket she’d worn the day before.

Her cell phone rang and she found it on the floor, uncharged.

She flipped it open and saw Shay’s face on the small LED screen along with her sister’s phone number. “Hi!” she said.

“Where are you?” Shay demanded.

“I’m on my way.”

“It’s too late. We’re almost there!”

“Now?” Again she glanced at the clock. “I thought you were leaving at nine.”

“The pilot called. There’s a storm or something. I don’t know. He has to fly out earlier.”

“Damn!”

“She’s really doing it, Jules,” Shay said and some of the toughness in her voice disappeared. “She’s getting rid of me.”

That was a little overly dramatic. But it was Shay. Through and through.

“Tell her to wait,” Jules said.

“You tell her,” Shay snapped, and a second later Jules heard her mother’s voice, say, “Look, Julia, there’s no reason to argue with me. I told Shaylee that there’s no turning back and she has to go when the pilot can fly her in. He wants to go earlier because of the storm, so that’s that.”

“No, Mom, wait. You can’t just send her to—”

“I damned well can. She’s underage. I’m her guardian. We’ve had this conversation. It’s over!”

“But—”

“It’s either this or juvenile detention again. This is her last chance, Julia! The judge ordered her to make a choice and she, smart as she is, took the school. It was also
her
choice to hang out with that criminal and be part of his crime. Her boyfriend’s not so lucky; doesn’t have a rich father to get him a lawyer. Wolf will be going to prison for a long time, so count your sister lucky. The plane’s landing within the hour. I’ve got to go,” Edie said, then, as if second guessing herself, added, “If you want to say goodbye, show up at the private dock on Lake Washington. You have the address.”

The phone clicked off and Jules stood in the middle of her messy bedroom. She couldn’t believe her mother was actually shipping Shaylee off to some damned isolated school for troubled teens, one that was in the middle of no-damned-where, practically inaccessible except for sea plane. Didn’t Edie know that beneath its pristine reputation Blue Rock had its own share of secrets? For the love of God, didn’t she know about Lauren Conway?

Maybe not.

Ever since yesterday, when their small family had met for lunch and Shay’s fate had been decided, Jules had been doing her research about Blue Rock Academy, but Edie probably hadn’t. Stubbornly, and in truth, because Shay was a pain in the ass, Edie had decided to turn a blind eye to any black marks against isolated school, preferring it to seeing her daughter sent to the adolescent’s equivalent of jail.

Jules jammed her hat over head, then glanced at her computer, a laptop lying open on the desk. It was still connected to the Internet and the stories she’d dug up about the academy. There had been a couple of reports of a teacher being fired and the rumors were than she’d been involved with a student, though Jules was still searching for more information about what had really happened. But the story that worried her most was about a student, a coed by the name of Lauren Conway, who had disappeared from Blue Rock Academy six month’s earlier. Was the beautiful eighteen-year-old alive? In hiding? Or dead?

As far as Jules could tell, no one really knew.

Only Lauren…

T
HE
L
IFE AND
D
EATH OF
L
AUREN
C
ONWAY

by Lisa Jackson

Chapter One

Blue Rock Academy
October

Someone was searching through her bag.

Even over the rush of hot water from the shower, Lauren Conway heard some unknown person just outside the shower curtain and that someone was pawing through her belongings in the school-issued plastic bath tote she’d hung on a hook near the door.

Great. Just effin’ great!

Was there any privacy in this place?

The answer, of course, was “no!” Make that a big fat “no!”

But then, nothing at Blue Rock Academy was as it seemed and for a split second the shower scene in
Psycho
, where Marion Crane was brutally attacked, flashed through Lauren’s brain. In her mind’s eye she caught the image of dark blood spattering on the shower walls and swirling down the drain.

Don’t go there! For the love of God, don’t give into the terror! It was a movie. Nothing more.

Lauren drew in a breath, turned off the water, shoved aside the opaque plastic sheet and heard the curtain clips scrape over the metal rod as she stepped into changing room.

“Hey!” she started to yell, but the tiled room with its built-in benches and foggy mirrors was empty.

No one else was in the area.

The wide handicapped-access door was shut firmly, not the least bit ajar. The empty wash room was quiet, only the sound of water slowly dripping from the showerhead to the tiled floor disturbing the silence.

But someone had been here. She knew it.
Felt
it.

For the past few weeks, since the term began in September, she had witnessed the depravity of Blue Rock Academy, been privy to the cancerous and ever-growing degeneracy that oozed beneath the facade of propriety and benevolence and kindness.

She snagged her towel from its hook and noticed that her plastic bag was swaying just a tiny bit, more than could be accounted for by the air being forced into the changing room through the heat vents. Lauren swore under her breath. Someone
had
been spying.

So what else was new?

It wasn’t as if her bag hadn’t been searched in the past.

Quickly, her hair still dripping, she wound a white towel emblazoned with the Navy blue logo for Blue Rock Academy around her slim body.

The fact that someone was watching her convinced Lauren that she was almost out of time! She had to move fast and leave this nightmare of a school.

Before she got caught with the evidence she’d been amassing against the academy.

The door swung open just as she leaned over the sink to wring the excess water from her hair.

Missy Albright, the resident assistant for the floor, popped her too-blonde head inside. She was all smiles, apple cheeks and doe eyes. “Hey! Evening prayer meeting in ten minutes.”

“I know.” Lauren couldn’t mask her irritation.

“You should really get ready.” Missy had one of those tiny little voices Lauren found as nerve-grating as fingernails dragged down a chalkboard, and a perky, isn’t-life-just-soooo-great, attitude that was downright nauseating. Missy Goody Two-Shoes. Except that Missy would never have been enrolled in Blue Rock Academy unless she was in big trouble and her family couldn’t handle her. Missy, Lauren decided, was as fake as her size thirty-eight C tits.

“I’ll be there,” she assured the R.A.

Missy’s white teeth flashed in a well-practiced grin. “Dr. Burdette won’t be happy if you’re late.”

Lauren thought of the professor with sharp, unkind features and frizzy red hair starting to gray. In her early forties, Adele Burdette had the body of a woman ten years younger and the face of a much older woman. But then that’s the way she was, harsh one second, kind the next. An enigma. Yin and Yang all rolled into one tightly-wound personality.