Chapter 13
John jumped out of bed and stepped into the hallway before he answered the phone. “Ignore my calls much?”
A car horn in the background obliterated whatever Ben had been about to say. Why return a phone call if Ben was somewhere he wouldn’t be able to hear?
John said, “What was that?”
He went into the living room and downstairs so he didn’t disturb anyone. He’d rather be within earshot of Andra this close to her due date, but he also had to figure out this mystery.
“—little busy here, brother.”
“Where is here?” The caller ID on his satellite phone had given him numbers, and he wasn’t all the way studied up on his country codes.
“Doesn’t matter, John. What do you need that my secretary couldn’t answer?”
“Sanctuary.”
“What about it?”
“Everything there is to know, you know it, Ben. So you tell me. What secret was Hal Leonard keeping?”
Back when Hal had died, Grant had discovered Hal’s handler had been killed under mysterious circumstances. The police still hadn’t figured out who did it or why. A plan was unfolding, and it had reached Sanctuary, once again putting their entire town in jeopardy.
A woman he’d been responsible for was dead. Gemma and Dan were involved in something they didn’t understand that might get them more hurt than simply being incapacitated. He couldn’t be certain, but John could feel it. Something was happening. Again.
“I can find out,” Ben said. “Give me a little time, though.”
“How will you find out?”
“Don’t ask me how, John. I can find out. Leave it at that.”
Probably he was going to call some CIA contact he had. John was pretty sure Ben had never been a spy, but then Ben would move, and it looked military. Either way, he had to have contacts. Ben also had Remy on his payroll, and the world-class hacker could probably dig up the answer to John’s question.
So John probably could leave the “how” alone. As long as Ben came up with answers and no one else died. He had to accept that Antonia’s death was his fault. She’d been gathering information for him. Unless he knew for sure otherwise, he had to assume that was what had gotten her killed.
John gripped the phone. “You know what I’m not going to leave alone? Mei.”
“What about Mei?”
Did he really want to ask this? John took a breath. God, don’t let this push him farther away. He’d been praying for his brother since John had first become a believer. If anyone needed hope, love, life, it was his brother, Ben. John hadn’t figured out a good way to broach the subject yet. Maybe soon his brother could come to town when they actually had time to spend with each other. Ben’s last visit had been in and out.
“Ask me now, John. Before I hang up.”
John took a breath and then said, “Is Mei my niece?”
**
Mei walked two steps behind Gemma through town. She glanced back at the deputy who had spent the night on her couch and made sure no one bothered her.
“Do you need your gun out?” Surely she didn’t intend on shooting anyone. Not really. Terrence, maybe. But no one else needed to be shot, unless Mei had figured out a way to tell who had taken the papers.
Gemma shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
Mei’s eyes moved continually as she scanned the street. “Not much to get. No one messes with you, and I’ll shoot them if they try. That’s it.”
“Um…”
“Don’t ask. It’s better if you leave it alone.”
“Oookay.” Gemma wasn’t going to argue with a woman who was armed. “What if you get called out for sheriffly duties?”
“This town? It’s usually only neighbors arguing over who took whose plastic flamingo from their yard. No one’s going to mind if you’re there with me. Might diffuse the tension.”
“Mr. Carten and Mr. Norris.”
“Once a week.” Mei sniffed. “So I TiVo my shows and watch them later, when I can fast forward through commercials. It’s not a bad life, and it’s a lot less dangerous than some of the places I’ve lived.”
Gemma said, “Bad things happen everywhere. Humans aren’t different, no matter where they live.” There was more to say, but they were at her mom’s house. Painted yellow. Same white trim. The flowerbed was where it came alive, though. Janice was a regular at the nursery.
Maybe she would answer the door this time.
What was parked out front caught Gemma’s attention. “That’s the mayor’s golf cart.” One of the mayor’s friends stood by the cart, arms folded. He scowled as they walked up. At her, or at Mei?
“Is that one of them?” Gemma whispered.
“I think I’d need a warrant to pull his sleeves up and find out,” Mei said. “But the judge doesn’t like me, because I told him his grandbaby wasn’t cute.”
Gemma pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. It wasn’t a lie, but Gemma knew you weren’t supposed to say that.
She pushed open the gate that led to the front door. Gemma didn’t bother knocking; her mom never locked the door anyway. Her mom decorated in hippie chic, and Gemma didn’t understand any of it. She might have grown up in this house, but she’d decorated her own in “books” and hand-painted her favorite Emily Dickenson poem on her living room wall. Gemma’s tastes were simpler because there was no reason to want more in a town like this. She didn’t even take a salary from the library, because what she made off her books was enough to live on.
Gemma motioned to Mei that they should be quiet, to which Mei gave her a look and then moved through the hall to the living room. What was the mayor doing here?
“You’ll have so much sway over this town, Janice. You can make it a better place to live. Being the mayor has meant everything to me, and I’m proud of the job I’ve done. Now I’m ready to pass the mantle, as it were, to someone else—someone of your caliber. A woman who has faithfully worked in this town for years, raised a child to be a success, and continued the legacy that is Sanctuary.”
He’d still never once asked her if she wanted the mayor’s job. He must see her as a child and nothing more, even knowing about her books. She could hardly believe he was offering it to her mom. Weeks after Hal’s death. One day after Antonia’s. At Shelby’s wedding the mayor had told her that he knew who he wanted to be his successor. Her mom was his choice?
The mayor didn’t miss a beat. “Say you’ll think about it, Janice. Promise me you’ll give it all the consideration you can. The people of Sanctuary deserve the best in leadership, and I just don’t think the committee is doing a good job keeping people safe. Antonia was murdered, for goodness sake! When will it stop? So what do you say Janice? Are you ready to usher this town into a new era?”
She could almost see her mom in the role, though Janice would be way lower key about it than Collins was. Plenty of people in town liked Gemma’s mom, even looked up to her.
Gemma waited for the answer.
“I’m a retired gardener, Samuel. I hardly think that qualifies me to run a town. Besides, the committee oversees everything now. A mayor and a town council would be redundant at this point. I’m sorry to say, perhaps there isn’t as much of a need for a mayor as you may have previously thought. I think Sanctuary has evolved beyond the need for that kind of government.”
“The people need a voice.” He sounded agitated almost.
Gemma stepped into the room, Mei behind her, still out of sight. “I think she gave you her answer, Samuel.” Collins blanched, and her mom’s eyes widened. Gemma knew she didn’t look good. She’d fallen in a hole, been stuck with a cigarette, stunned, and had her hand trodden on.
He motioned to Gemma but said to Janice, “That’s why we need leadership, so that incidents like this don’t occur. Ever since the sheriff showed up, things have grown steadily worse and worse. From my wife’s death, all the way to the town being blown up.” He spat the words. “When will it stop?”
<
br /> Her mom stood up. The tray of tea on the table hadn’t even been touched. Collins hadn’t been here long. “I believe it’s time for you to leave, Samuel.”
Gemma held up one finger. “Actually, I have a question for you.”
Collins motioned for her to ask it, though it was clear he didn’t care what the question was.
“Are you planning on speaking at Antonia’s service? I understand the two of you were close. I could speak to Olympia if you want me to.”
“Close? Where did you get this idea?”
Probably from Shelby’s story about seeing Antonia at his house, and the mayor looking disheveled right after. As though they’d been intimate. But maybe it wasn’t about the mayor having real feelings for Antonia. Gemma shrugged. “I guess I was wrong.”
He turned to her mom. “Thank you for your offer of herbal tea. I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
Collins moved so fast it ruffled her hair. When she turned to see Mei’s reaction, the deputy wasn’t there.
“Gem?”
She was staring at the open door. Where had Mei disappeared to? Gemma shut the door and went into the living room. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Did the doctor release you? How are you feeling?”
Her mom had dropped off a book with Shelby the day before. Gemma had finished it. “I checked myself out, I’m okay. It’s just a couple of bruises.”
“Added to the bruises you already had from falling through the ground.” Her mom waved her hand, and her bracelets clacked together. When she sat, her long floral skirt flared out around her. “What is going on in this town? I feel like I’m going crazy.”
The edge of grief was still present, but her mom was more like her old self than she’d been since the bomb blew up the ranch. Since Hal had died.
Gemma sat in a wicker chair across from her. “Can I ask you some stuff?”
Her mom’s brow crinkled. “You write all those books, and you’re so eloquent, and then you say ‘stuff’? I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. But this has to do with the bruises.”
“And falling in the hole?”
“No, not that.” Gemma squeezed the arms of the chair. “It’s about what was in the radio station.”
Janice shifted.
“I need to know about Hal.” Before her mom thought this was going to be another conversation about how they never told her he was her father, Gemma said, “He had a secret room full of papers in the radio station. Maybe you’ve heard about that because someone broke in and stole everything.”
Janice pressed her lips together. “I’m not talking about your father. That is private.”
“Not from me. It’s my life. Don’t I have a right to know about the man I came from?”
“It’s none of…”
“None of my business?”
Janice shook her head. “It was supposed to be private. That was the only way it could happen, the only way I could have him.”
“By denying me a father?”
“It was dangerous,” Janice hissed. “I was not going to put your life in jeopardy just for some juvenile dream I had of happy families. That is not the way the world works.”
“And even after Dan’s father died, things were really still the same?” Gemma couldn’t understand what was so huge that, even when Hal and Arnold Walden were both dead, her mom still wasn’t able to say it. What on earth could be that huge?
“I need you to tell me. If you know, I need you to tell me why someone took all the papers.” Gemma decided to play on her mother’s instincts. She pointed to her face. “Why someone would do this to me.”
Janice paled. “That was never supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to be involved. I can’t believe Hal left you that radio station in his will. He had to know you’d ask questions, that you’d go in there and read it all. He probably figured he was dead, what did he care? And you know what? I’m glad you didn’t get to read it all. I’m sorry it’s out there now, but some truths cannot be stopped. At least you’re safe from it now.”
**
Dan hauled the wheelbarrow in from the fields. He stopped outside the barn and looked up at the stars. The knot in his chest eased. Time to sleep.
The Jeep pulled up. The engine shut off, and Mei got out the driver’s side. Dan turned to her as she rounded the hood of the vehicle, cutting through the beam of the headlights that lit up his parents’ house, and stood in front of him. “Doing okay?”
Dan said, “You care now?” He’d heard her in the sheriff’s office, telling John she didn’t get involved.
Mei shrugged, but he didn’t buy her nonchalance, as she glanced at the house. “Has to be hard for you, coming home to this place every day. Waking up here. Working here. I don’t know how you do it.”
“It’s my home.”
“But this is where all that history of pain lives. It’s in the ground. The walls.” She glanced around. “Don’t you feel like it’s screaming at you?”
He studied her face, the twitch of her fingers by her side. This wasn’t why she was here. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
She shook off whatever she’d been thinking. “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead now, and I won’t ever go back to that time in my life. My life is mine. I do what I want.” She glanced up, caught his gaze, and narrowed her eyes. “What about you? Doesn’t look like you’ve moved on.”
He couldn’t deny that part of him was still back there. And yes, maybe living here didn’t help the memory to fade, but he had worked hard to build good memories to replace those bad ones. “Maybe moving on looks different for different people.”
“I’d like to show you something, if you’re up for it.” She motioned toward the house.
Dan froze.
“I’m aware you haven’t stepped one foot in that house in years.”
“Since my mom—” Dan stopped himself.
“Did he kill her?”
“She disappeared. Didn’t you read the police report?”
“Please. It was like the plot of a bad soap opera, and I didn’t believe one word of it.” Mei held out her hand for him to lead the way. “This is important.”
Dan shut off his thoughts as he walked. He breathed the first few lines of his favorite psalm and touched the door handle.
“Don’t think about it, just keep moving.”
“Says the expert in revisiting the places that hurt the most.”
Mei touched his sleeve. It surprised him enough his thoughts jerked out of the past. “Humor is a very good sign. Or so I’m told. I’m not that good at making jokes.” She covered his hand with hers, and they opened the door together.
Dan stood on the threshold, while Mei squeezed past him into the darkness of the house. “I’ll turn my flashlight on when we hit the basement stairs. That way you won’t have to look at anything in here.”
She didn’t want to go to the living room? Dan didn’t understand. Why were they here if she didn’t want to see where it had happened? She didn’t want to ask him about his mother, about those things he’d buried so deep he could barely process that they were real. He had to leave them tucked away, or they would destroy him.
Mei reached the door to the basement. It was already open. She clicked on the flashlight and shone it on those wood steps.
“Can’t go down there.”
“What?”
He couldn’t move. “Not supposed to go down there. Ever.”
Mei touched his arm again. What was with her and touching? It was gentle, benign even, but something about it kept him anchored to the moment. “We are going down there.”
Dan said, “Why are you doing this? There’s nothing good down there.”
“What is down there?”
“You know the answer to that. Otherwise you’d just go down there. You wouldn’t be asking me just so you can see my reaction.” Dan didn’t move. “I’ve never been down there.”
“He’s not here. He can’t do anything to you, tell you where you c
an’t go or what you can’t do. This is your life, Dan.”
How did she know that? Dan wanted to pour her a cup of coffee and sit somewhere she could talk to him about it. He’d tell her about the peace he had found in the Lord. She’d survived something using pure will, which increased his respect for her tenfold. She’d had to find the strength in herself, and that was a hard thing. Dan had his relationship with God to lean back on. Mei had no safety net.
“Would you like to go downstairs, Dan?”
He appreciated the choice. He didn’t need to trade one authority figure for another. Even John had become… softer with him. Gentleness wasn’t either of their strong suit, but he appreciated the effort they were putting into easing him.
Dan stopped at the bottom of the stairs. When Mei joined him she shone the flashlight around. “Where is… where is, ah-ha.” She pulled a chord, and the light came on.
“What—” He could hardly process what he was seeing. “It looks like a jungle of weeds down here.” Chest-height tables covered with plastic bins six inches deep. Soil. Green leafy plants that had withered and died. It smelled musty, earthy. Lights hung in rows above the tables.
“You don’t know what this is, do you?”
Dan shook his head.
“Your dad was growing marijuana in your basement. That’s probably the real reason why you were never allowed to come down here. You’d have seen it. You’d have told someone.” She snorted. “Not that it’s even illegal now in a bunch of places.”
“I wouldn’t have known what it was,” Dan said. “We are in Idaho, though. It’s illegal here.”
Mei said, “He still didn’t need you blabbing about the basement full of plants your dad was growing.” She walked down a row. “Especially considering you’d eventually have seen this.”
Dan stared at the hole in the wall. The track. The cart. “The tunnel. The one Gemma fell into led to my house?”
Mei nodded. “He transported the weed out by cart.”
“Out of Sanctuary?” When she said nothing, Dan shook his head. “You can’t get out of this town, that’s not possible. Where does this even lead?”
Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5 Page 15