Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5

by Lisa Phillips

  “You think that might be what they did?” Dan asked. “I didn’t even know people thought like that. It’s… vindictive.”

  Mei stared at him like an alien just grew out of his head. “Are you for real?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I didn’t even know there were people like you still left in the world.”

  Dan shrugged. “Maybe Sanctuary could be a good thing for both of us.”

  Gemma took a step back and lifted her chin. She was holding her arm funny. “What if it wasn’t good for any of us so we just checked out and left?”

  She wanted to do that? Dan said, “That’s what John said Antonia was planning to do. She was working for him, undercover with the mayor. The mayor and his friends must have figured out she wasn’t for real and killed her because she knew something she wasn’t supposed to.” He turned to face Gemma. He could ask about her arm later. “Did she ever ask you about Hal?”

  “No, I don’t think—”

  “Whoa there, Nancy Drew.” Mei chuckled. She shook her head at Dan like he was a cute little kid. “The Sanctuary Sheriff’s Department doesn’t need your help solving the murder of Antonia Hernandez, but thanks for helping me brainstorm.”

  Gemma cocked her head to one side. “You’ve read Nancy Drew?”

  “Movie trailer. I got the reference right, didn’t I?” When Gemma nodded, Mei said, “Good. Not everything translates right.”

  “What language?”

  Mei’s eyebrows lifted. “You think I’m going to give you personal information so that you can figure out who I am and then use it against me? No way.”

  Dan watched the interplay between the two women, hardly knowing when to remind them it was the middle of the night, someone was dead, and they still had to figure out if Gemma was sleeping here alone or not.

  Gemma said, “Wow, you’re really paranoid.”

  “Actually it’s just being ‘smart,’” Mei told her. “The opposite of which, is ‘dead.’”

  “Huh.”

  “Okay, ladies.” Dan clapped his hands. “Mei, if you could take Gemma’s statement about what happened with Terrence, I’m going inside to check all the doors and windows and make sure it’s secure for Gemma to go to bed. Right now we all need some sleep.”

  Mei shot him a dirty look. “Don’t think I don’t remember you confessed to a murder earlier. But since it’s looking less likely that you did it, I’ll just slide you over to the list of possible suspects along with Gemma here. Okay?”

  “Uh, sure. That’d be great.”

  “But I’m still watching you.” She turned to Gemma and her grimace morphed into a smile. “Let’s go talk, yeah?”

  Gemma chuckled. “Living room.”

  They went inside, and Dan discretely checked all the windows. He spent extra time outside, walking around the yard and the back. Gemma needed space to say what she wanted to say, and he took the time to stare up at the stars and pray for her that this wouldn’t linger. That she wouldn’t suffer nightmares the way he did.

  When he caught himself falling asleep on his feet, Dan knocked on the front door.

  **

  John ran his hands through his hair and paced the barn. He’d closed up the sheriff’s office for lunch because Dan asked him to, but he had a murder investigation to get back to soon. Especially since he also needed to oversee Mei’s search for Terrence. She hadn’t called in to say she’d located him yet, which better mean she was still out looking.

  Now he knew why Dan called him and Matthias out to the farm. And it wasn’t for a sandwich.

  Matthias blew out a breath, his gaze on the pastor. “Brother…” His voice cracked and died. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  Dan wiped his face, and his gaze met John’s. He nodded to his pastor, his friend. “Thank you for telling us.”

  “It was time.” Dan paused, head high in the middle of the barn where they’d first met. Dan had seemed almost intimidating that first Battle Night right after John arrived in Sanctuary. Now he only looked broken. “The time to talk about this was probably a while back. But I didn’t know how you’d react, so I didn’t say anything.”

  “What made you tell us now?”

  “Just something Gemma said.” Before he’d walked back in to the house and found Mei putting Band-Aid’s on the inside of her upper arm. Injured because Terrence had burned her with cigarettes. Dan knew exactly what that felt like.

  Matthias’s eyebrows lifted. “Gemma, huh? Guess that explains a few things about why y’all were so tight in school.” Matthias shook his head. “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t married her by now.”

  Dan’s face screwed up. “We can’t get married.”

  John knew why, even though Matthias argued otherwise. It was the same reason Andra had waited, tested the waters, and told him about her faith. “They’d be unequally yoked.”

  Though John figured that Dan was in love with her, and if he had to guess he’d say Gemma felt the exact same way.

  “Is that even a thing anymore? Unequally yoked.” Matthias lifted his hands.

  “If you want less reasons divorce is going to cross the table, yes,” John said. “The idea is to have the best situation possible, so that you minimize the issues. And if you’ll listen, the Bible will tell you what those issues are so you can avoid them. It’s called wisdom.”

  “Huh,” Matthias said, a smile only in his eyes. “Guess I missed that one.”

  John decided he was just playing dense to inject some humor into the situation, so John said, “I feel sorry for Frannie.”

  “You see my wife around town. Does she look like she’s having a hard time to you?”

  Every time John saw her, the woman was all smiles. But he wasn’t going to give his friend that credit. “I guess she’s coping just fine.”

  Dan stood. “There’s one more thing.”

  John said, “Tell us.”

  “Actually it’s more of a showing thing.” Dan walked to a closed door at the end, not the storage room but a door to the right.

  “What is this?”

  John followed him inside. At first he thought it was Dan’s office, then he saw the bed.

  “This is where I live.”

  “Wait,” Matthias said. “What about the house?”

  Several things clicked into place for John. “He hasn’t been in there in years.”

  Dan nodded. “First it was because he didn’t want me there. Then after the old man died I didn’t want to go in there. I still haven’t.”

  “So it’s just going to sit untouched?”

  Dan shrugged at Matthias’s question.

  They didn’t stay much longer. Dan looked worn out. John drove Matthias back into town and dropped him off at the bakery before he unlocked the back door of the sheriff’s office.

  Andra was at his desk, the computer on. “Bye.” She spun in his chair and smiled. “Your mom says ‘hi.’”

  “Hi.” He leaned down for a kiss and didn’t pass up the chance to place his hand on her belly and feel their son kick. “How are the two of you?”

  “We’re fine, but I don’t want to talk about us.” She waved away his concern. “How is Dan?”

  John gave her the highlights of Dan’s childhood.

  Andra looked like she was going to cry. “If he wasn’t dead, I’d kill the man myself.” When he gave her a look, she added, “If I did that kind of thing anymore.”

  “Uh-huh.” He folded his arms. “Now get out of my chair.”

  Andra held out her hands. He helped her up and swatted her behind as she passed him. “Fine, fine. I’m going to take a nap. Pat and Aaron went to the park to play catch.”

  John looked up Dan and his father in the town’s files. It was all paper, and he’d barely started entering the backlog into his computer system. Arnold Walden’s death had been labeled natural causes. No autopsy had been done. And there was no mention of Bill Jones anywhere. The previous sheriff’s report was spotty
, but basically the man had collapsed in the sun onto his lettuce, and no one had been able to revive him.

  Had anyone actually tried? John wasn’t sure he’d have expended much effort, though he’d have done his duty.

  That duty would have included pulling the child, Dan Walden, from the house years before that day. Years before his mother had disappeared and been assumed dead. He might even have relocated them out of Sanctuary. Or he’d have sent Arnold to solitary confinement in a secret prison somewhere. Ben had to know of one.

  John blew out a breath. Hindsight was a beautiful thing, but he couldn’t change Dan’s tragic past. It was possible his father had been poisoned. There were substances—even natural ones—that could mimic a heart attack. The old man hadn’t been tested for them. If someone did kill him, John figured they’d done the world a favor. Or at least one little boy.

  He pulled up the file on Dan’s mother, Emilia Walden, next. The sheriff had labeled it a disappearance. Like it was possible for someone to simply up and vanish in a town with no way in or out. Back then there was no communication with the outside world but by snail mail. If she’d been killed, her body had never been found. Who knew what story she would tell, even in death? Probably one similar to Dan’s.

  John couldn’t let go of the pain he felt for his friend. He bowed his head and prayed for peace to fill Dan’s heart. The man might be his pastor, but John needed to pray for him.

  So many people looked to Dan to help them fix their problems, and they had no idea Dan had so many of his own. The man had been hurt over and over again, the mental and physical scars still with him to this day. John couldn’t help but wonder over the fact Dan had it as together as he did.

  “Sheriff, come in.”

  John grabbed his radio. “Yeah, Mei. What is it?”

  “I’m at Terrence’s house. You should get over here.”

  Two minutes later he pulled his Jeep up and parked outside the house. This section of the street, the houses had been divided into upstairs and downstairs apartments. Gemma’s was a downstairs apartment, right across the street from Terrence’s second floor place.

  John took the stairs two at a time and knocked on the frame at the same time he pushed the door open. “Mei?”

  “Bedroom!”

  John crossed the living room, resisting the temptation to hold his nose. Evidently Andra had humanized him, because this place had a distinctly “bachelor” smell to it. Or that was just the dirty clothes on the floor and the dishes in the sink.

  He stopped at the door. “What is it?”

  Mei pulled back a pillow on the rumpled bed. On the grimy sheet was a 9mm revolver.

  “For a town where there aren’t actually supposed to be any weapons, there seem to be an awful lot of guns around.” John sighed. It wouldn’t be registered to Terrence, or anyone else in town. That would be a violation of WITSEC rules. Who knew where on earth this had come from? Unless they got a print or a confession, it would be a pain to find out who it belonged to.

  “Want to bet this is the gun that killed Antonia Hernandez?”

  “We can certainly get it tested and find out.”

  “Twenty dollars, or fifty?”

  “I’m not betting on a murder weapon, Mei.” He blew out a breath. “A woman is dead.”

  She almost reminded him of… no. There was no way.

  Mei had come here like everyone else, yet her qualifications—if you could call a finesse for weapons and a bad attitude that—were clear.

  She wasn’t some kind of plant sent here to help him. He was mostly sure. Though if she was, would he be mad exactly? Maybe initially. Then after Andra had the baby, fine, he might be a little grateful for the help. He might actually be able to take a day off.

  Still, there would be a point of contention if she had been sent there by his brother. Mei was exactly the kind of person Ben would hire for his business of private investigators, or security experts or whatever it was they did. And she was Chinese. Ben had spent a lot of time in China, but John was pretty sure that his brother’s interest in that culture went way back to this tiny girl in high school. Dang, he hadn’t thought about her in years. Never did know what happened to her, why she left. Ben was never the same after that.

  Did Mei remind him of his old flame? Ben was old enough to be her father, but John knew for a fact he had a soft spot. He just managed to hide it really, really well.

  She cocked her head to the side. “Why are you looking at me like you just figured something out?”

  John pulled an evidence bag from his pocket he’d stashed there just in case she found something. “Drop that in here, but don’t get your prints on it.”

  “As if.” She took the bag from him, slid one side of the open edge under the gun and scooped it up. “Now what?”

  “Any luck finding Terrence?”

  Mei shook her head. “He’s proving…elusive. I don’t like it at all. No one should be this hard to find in such a tiny town. I stopped by the library this morning and gave Gemma some pepper spray.”

  “Good. Let’s get this back to the office.”

  The doorbell rang downstairs. Mei wandered to the front window. “Great. Terrence’s parents are here.”

  “Yoo-hoo, Sheriff!”

  John groaned. Your son is a crazy psycho who burned a woman with a cigarette last night, and how are you?

  Chapter 11

  Gemma pulled a new stack of files from the first cabinet. She was barely halfway down the drawers. Plenty to do, and it was better than sitting at home pretending to watch TV while her arm hurt, her mind raced, and she wondered who was going to come at her next. She was beyond exhausted, up half the night, and dreaming monstrous images the rest of the time. There was no way she would try and sleep now.

  The ice cold terror of what happened had thawed and left her with the knowledge that she’d frozen. Again. Not completely, but enough that it bothered her. Just like the other time she’d been confronted—years ago now—Terrence had hurt her, and she’d done not one thing to fight him off. Was she weak? Maybe retreating into her head and not giving everything she had to get away from the situation from the first second meant she didn’t have enough strength. Perhaps she had nothing to draw on when someone came at her like that.

  But if that was true, it meant Dan was weak for doing the same thing to survive his father. She’d read about coping mechanisms before and knew the mind could splinter under extreme stress. A child might not remember something which happened to them, when in any other situation they’d know exactly what went on. But she’d been far away, deep in her memories, while Terrence could have touched her all he wanted.

  She needed to write another book and put in a character, who by all accounts should be strong, and make them face a situation where they were unable to defend themselves. Just so she could figure it out, wrestle with what had happened and the fact she’d done nothing. Gemma let out a growl of frustration.

  The paper.

  She set down the file pages and tried to smooth out the crumples she’d just made. She needed this. Needed to focus on something that didn’t involve her at all.

  This stack was nothing but more mission logs. It seemed like they were carried out by a single man team, instead of a group. Hal? Bill Jones, maybe. From the little she’d gathered, mostly from Hal’s tattoos, he’d been in Vietnam. Had the man run solo missions back then? But why, and what on earth was he doing in the jungle alone? The text made it seem so benign, she didn’t understand any of it.

  These papers didn’t even say which part of Vietnam he’d been in, just a bunch of numbers. She’d have to look on the library computers tomorrow, see if they were latitude and longitude references or what. But all this was forty-plus years ago now, and most of the people who took part in it were older. A lot of them would be dead now. It was all a history most people only wanted to forget, or they wanted to remember it with some kind of rose-colored sense of honor while current affairs were only history repeating itse
lf, and everyone claimed it was some kind of “new problem” instead of people being selfish just like every bad thing that had ever happened all through history.

  Gemma loved to read about history. She couldn’t imagine being called to give so much—maybe even everything—as some politician’s pawn in a global chess match that could never be won. She’d always been a pacifist, raised by her mother. An earth child.

  But it was easy for the both of them to spout litany about peace from behind a wall of mountains that protected them from nearly every threat in the world.

  If she was outside of Sanctuary, things would be different. It was why she couldn’t be as vocal on her stance as others were online. Gemma didn’t know what it was like to live in the real world, and the people she knew who had… well, the real world hadn’t done them any favors, had it? If she’d grown up in Kabul or New York City, she’d probably have a different stance, but she’d grown up here.

  Mostly Gemma figured nowhere on this earth was perfect. If there was she’d sure like to live there, but maybe they didn’t let people like her in. There had to be some kind of standard, otherwise it wouldn’t be perfect anymore. People would just mess it up, like they had over and over again, all through history.

  Marched eight miles to location. No one left alive. Target still unaccounted for.

  This was a little more serious. But she wasn’t going to know what it referred to if she didn’t know who the players were. Someone had died. Someone was being hunted. Gemma sighed. Was she going to read anything at all in this mess that made sense?

  At least she could figure out whether the words that had filled out the boxes on the form were Hal’s handwriting or not. Gemma wandered out to the radio room and rummaged around. Bingo. A sticky note with Hal’s writing on it. A pang of something that made no sense hit her. She hadn’t really known the man who wrote this, only as an acquaintance in passing.

  Was that her destiny also, to die alone and unknown? Dan’s face filled her mind. She’d never be unknown. But the alone part was entirely too familiar to be comfortable. She’d always been at ease by herself. It was simpler than explaining to people who didn’t understand why she was the way she was.