The Life and Death of Lauren Conway: A Companion to Without Mercy (5 page)

She spread the blinds apart with her fingers again.

Don’t buy into it, Lauren, that’s exactly what he wants. What he expects. Be strong!
She set her jaw to keep her lips from quivering as she squinted into the darkness.
You’ve got a plan; a way to get out of here. You just have to put it into action a little earlier than you’d hoped. You can do it.

You have to!

She snapped off the desk lamp to ensure that she wasn’t backlit as she eyed the sprawling campus again. The rustic-looking buildings, built of cedar, stone and glass, were illuminated by the half moon as it rose behind the mountains and bathed the snow-covered grounds in its hazy, ethereal glow.

A perfect night for escape.

Her pulse pounded, almost in counterpoint to the winking shrubbery lights. Panic drummed through her and she tried like crazy to calm down. She just needed a couple of hours, that was all, and then she could get away.

Or was it already too late?

She gazed again across the quad to the chapel. Behind a soaring wall of glass, the watery sheen of security lights partially illuminated the altar and magnificent cross that ascended four stories to the cathedral ceiling.

Her gaze scoured the grounds.

Somewhere he was out there.

Hiding.

Waiting.

Wanting.

Her lungs were so tight she could barely breathe. Her heartbeat thundered through her brain and the certainty of danger swept like a demon’s breath over her skin, causing it to pimple in fear.

Craning her neck, she tried to look past the cluster of classrooms, admin buildings and dorms, to catch a glimpse of the barns, stables and outbuildings. But it was impossible. Only in her mind’s eye could she visualize the interlocking corrals surrounding the stable, beyond which the looming Stygian forest began. Though a thick stands of timber, hidden deep in the woods was an even darker spot, a secret meeting place. Where
he
reigned.

Her head pounded with the knowledge that even now he could be convening his disciples, those of his close, inner group who met weekly within the decrepit walls of the forgotten church. There, she knew, he would decide her fate.

She’d been a part of that secret sect.

She knew how they reacted to traitors.

Sweat beaded on her brow. She had to execute the emergency plan she’d conceived weeks ago.

Then, if she were lucky, she could leave this evil place forever, and expose it and everyone in it for the pathetic, malevolent frauds they all were.

You have to bring him down, too.

She steeled herself. Her stupid heart ached and she mentally chastised herself for being the worst kind of fool, for thinking for even a second that he really cared for her.

Idiot.

He used you.

Just like you used him.

Trouble was, you fell in love with him, didn’t you?

“Half,” she told herself, her fingers twisting in the cord for the blinds. “Only half in love.”

But it was a lie.

Chapter Three

Lauren had to be sacrificed.

There was no other option.

The leader rode through the wintry forest, his mount’s hooves muffled by the snow, the bitter wind slapping his face. He’d considered all alternatives and had come up with only one answer: Lauren had to die.

Tonight.

He thought of her laughing eyes, sultry smile and quick wit, none of which he had anticipated.

You know what you have to do.

His own damned edict ricocheted through his brain. Pounded through his blood. Mocked him as he pulled up on the reins and dismounted, his boots crunching through a thin layer of frozen snow and ice.

All traitors must pay with their lives.

How many times had he said those words aloud? To the group? To her?

He swept away a low-hanging limb and stood at the canyon’s rim. From this ridge he heard the rush of the river as it snaked through the surrounding hills. Even a hundred feet above the tumbling white water, he smelled the cold fresh scent of it, knew that the swift current would pull her down. With dizzying speed the rush of frigid water would drag her body under, smash her bones against submerged boulders and logs as it rushed her downstream.

The river would become her grave.

No one would find her until the spring thaw, if then. There was always a chance that the animals that inhabited these rugged hills would get to her first. Wolves, coyotes, bears and cougars to start with, then the smaller beasts, raccoon, lynx, even vultures would take their turn with her remains.

His jaw clenched at the thought and for the first time he second-guessed himself, then stopped that line of thinking. He had to remember his mission; his destiny. He couldn’t be distracted. Through the steep canyon a hundred yards to the north came the soft hoot of an owl.

An omen?

He checked his watch.

Eleven fourteen.

Plenty of time.

You can back out. It’s in your power. You don’t have to do this…

He kicked at a pebble with the toe of his boot and sent it sailing into the dark abyss. Never before had he felt self-doubt and he didn’t like it.

As he had dozens of times before, he wrapped the leather reins around his hands and urged the his horse up a path to the back of the decrepit building. With only a pale wash of light from a half moon and the thin beam of his flashlight illuminating the deer trail, he rode through a copse of oak and madrona.

God, he’d been a fool. A damned fool.

For a woman.

A classic mistake.

And stupid.

A student of history, he’d known better than to trust any female completely. Cleopatra, Mata Hari, Wallis Windsor. Prime examples of seductresses who changed the course of the world. And yet, he had let down his guard.

Not that she was any woman, Lauren Conway. Oh, no.

She was a beautiful girl just on the threshold of womanhood, or so he’d thought. But, of course, he’d been wrong. Her treachery had been so disguised in innocence he’d come to trust her. Completely.

Madly.

Stupidly.

He’d allowed her into his inner circle.

For all the wrong reasons.

Mainly because of his ego.

And his dick. His damned dick.

Just like all those screw-ups in history who’d lost wars, given up thrones, changed the course of civilization: all for a woman.

She is Eve with the apple.

Delilah with her shears.

Jezebel with her idolatry and witchcraft!

Pushing aside an ice-laden branch, he felt the cadence of betrayal burn through his blood. If he could, he’d wring her perfect, long neck.

Pull yourself together.

You have work to do.

Yes, there is the woman to deal with.

And a very big mistake to fix.

Another one. And the school can’t afford any more scandal.

No time for recriminations. Just do what you have to do.

Urging his horse forward, he rode through the undergrowth to a rusted metal gate. He dismounted, unlocked the gate, then led his gelding deeper into the stands of old growth timber and thick scrub oak.

How had he been so stupid? So gullible?

He, the wise one, the leader with all the answers. The gloom surrounded him and the moonlight faded beneath the canopy of branches.

In his mind’s eye, he saw her face. Tanned skin, eyes as blue and seductive as a mountain lake, sculpted cheekbones and a small, pouty mouth that promised the most intimate of favors. Her hair was brown, but thick and dark, almost black, as it curled and feathered around her face.

Jezebel.

With that hot, supple body.

He’d trusted her.

She’d betrayed him.

And now she would pay.

It was just that simple.

Near the graveyard, he wrapped the reins of his horse’s bridle to a pine tree’s low-hanging branch then took off at a quick jog.

Sacrifice purges.

Sacrifice teaches.

Sacrifice is necessary.

His own words echoed through his brain as he cut through the cemetery, his swift strides taking him past familiar, graying headstones that were nearly illegible, their names and dates and flowery scriptures slowly erased by time and now glazed with snow.

A few he remembered:

Abigail Monroe, Beloved Wife and Mother

Nathaniel Robbins, forever with The Lord

Pearl Edwina Jefferson, Darling Daughter

Lily Carver, In Loving Memory

There were others, of course. Sixteen graves still marked. People buried a hundred and fifty years earlier and long forgotten other than as notations in family Bibles or filled-in blanks on genealogy family trees.

No one had placed a flower on the unkempt graves in nearly a hundred years, no one visited the tiny chapel since the pandemic had swept across the globe and the “Spanish Flu” had wiped out the preacher and his small flock in 1918.

This decrepit church, hidden three miles from the campus, was a perfect cover.

He slipped his key into the back entrance, then shoved on the old door and stepped into a room that was little more than a closet. Six-by-ten, it backed up to the main body of this small church. He used the rear room for storage as well as his own private entrance. Dark and drafty it offered little protection from the storm that was brewing. Graying timbers, boards planed by hand, and a roof of heavy shingles that was finally giving way to the forces of Mother Nature were all that was left. The steeple had collapsed years before and the church bell, rusted, its clapper long missing, was half-buried near the broken fence of the cemetery where it had become home to a family of ground squirrels. Brambles and berry vines covered most of the walls, snaking up to the church and offering thorny protection while helping to keep the hand-hewn boards upright.

You have to give the order. You’re the leader. They all look up to you, depend upon you.

That familiar, icy current of deception slid through his veins again as he remembered seeing something Lauren had written on her computer, what he’d thought was a paper about obedience. However as he’d passed her work station, she’d quickly changed her laptop’s screen. Later, when he’d gone back to her desk and coded in a password to check, she’d not only erased the document, but somehow wiped it clean from the hard drive in the buried files he knew how to access.

What was she hiding?

Unfortunately, he knew.

And it burned him to his soul.

Chapter Four

She surreptitiously slipped the flash-drive into her bra and glanced at her computer. It killed her to destroy everything as she’d spent weeks collecting all the information that she’d masked so carefully behind the essays and reports and research information she’d used for her classes, but there was no other way to ensure her safety and the safety of the information she’d gathered. She had to erase the hard drive again.

She glanced at the clock and wondered if she had enough time to execute her escape before he came for her.

Eleven twenty-nine.

Dear God in heaven! Even now, he was making plans; she was sure of it.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

¤   ¤   ¤

Mentally berating himself, he yanked his cloak from a peg and tossed it over his head. He adjusted his hood as the deadbolt on the front doors clicked open.

They were here.

But no one said a word; the only noise was the shuffle of booted feet on the worn floorboards as they entered this private sanctuary in the middle of the night.

Within seconds he glimpsed a bit of flickering light under the doorway. The signal that everyone had arrived. One coughed, another sneezed, but no one dared whisper a “God bless you,” or “
Gesundheit
.”