Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5

by Lisa Phillips

  The sheriff lifted his chin as they approached. “Sam is in a coma.”

  In the end, Gemma spent the night in the medical center with Shelby, who insisted she used a spare bed to sleep. When there was no change in Sam’s condition in the morning, she walked home. It was just after eight, and a Sunday. No one was out and about.

  Gemma stopped abruptly and spun on the street.

  No one was there. She was turning herself inside and out in knots. Terrence wasn’t waiting in the shadows to accost her again.

  Gemma showered as fast as she could and dressed in one of her more demure outfits. These jeans only had a rip in the knee, not up her thighs like some of them. Her boots had heels, and she added some jewelry.

  What did people wear to church anyway?

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what anyone is going to say, or what they’ll think. This is about you and Dan, not anyone else.

  Her people didn’t go to church. But if anyone could break the cycle it was her, and Dan. They had to walk free of the past if it was going to lose its grip on them. She wasn’t going to pretend to be something she wasn’t, but she’d spent all night thinking about it. Church was a huge part of Dan’s life, so why shouldn’t she get to know him in that context?

  Gemma ignored the surprised look and took the folded paper the person gave her. She stepped inside the Meeting House and saw a lot of the town was there. The volume of talking in the room dropped, but didn’t go to dead silence. Because that would have been embarrassing. Still, Gemma felt her cheeks flame, ducked her head, and made for the back row. She stopped at the middle seat and slumped into it.

  The sheriff’s son said, “Excuse me.” Gemma shifted her knees and let him pass. The sheriff followed him, and they sat on the end of her row. Andra came along a second later, her pregnant belly protruding in front of her. That looked uncomfortable. Could she even breathe?

  Andra sat on the seat right beside Gemma.

  She turned to say “hi” to the sheriff’s wife but only got as far as opening her mouth before someone sat in the seat on the other side of her.

  “Morning.” It was Nadia Marie.

  “Uh, morning.” Gemma had been ambushed. Though they probably thought they were being supportive. Bolton, Nadia Marie’s fiancé, came over in his wheelchair. A gangly teenage boy moved a chair from the end of the row and walked off with it. Bolton maneuvered into the space and took Nadia’s hand. Frannie and Matthias, both of whom had been at the school for a time when Dan and Gemma were there, made their way down the row in front of her. Matthias had one of those baby carriers, which held their daughter.

  Frannie sat and glanced back over her shoulder. “Hi, Gemma.”

  “Uh, hi.” Yeah this was super awkward, but they’d boxed her in. There was no escape now, even if she wanted to run out in front of everyone. “How are you, Frannie?”

  The baker made a puking motion and then pointed at her stomach.

  Gemma didn’t even know what to say, while beside her Nadia Marie chuckled.

  They all stood. Gemma jumped out of her seat so she didn’t look like she had no idea what was happening. Dan was at the mic, a guitar around his neck. He started to sing about a lion and a lamb; she didn’t know what that meant but he seemed to think it was important. She didn’t think it was about that lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, but that was the only lion she knew. She’d heard him sing before, but his voice had grown. It was deeper now.

  Everyone sang along, which was also awkward. Gemma didn’t know the words, so all she could do was stand there. His singing voice didn’t help. Probably church wasn’t the place to think this, but it was kind of…sexy. A low rumble. He didn’t do it like it was a show, but clearly he meant every word he sang. He believed it, and she knew that was true because he lived it.

  He stepped away from the mic, saw her, and his eyes widened as he walked to the front row and sat.

  Another guy got up and prayed. She didn’t know the man too well, but he was older. Then everyone was told to stand up and say “hi” to someone around them. It was torturous. The girls smirked but hugged her, even while they laughed at her discomfort.

  “Jerks.”

  Nadia burst out laughing. “Worth it, though. He saw you.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. Beside her she heard a low groan. When she looked, Andra had leaned forward, one hand on the back of the seat in front of her. “Wow.”

  Gemma moved closer. “You okay?”

  “I thought it was just these uncomfortable plastic chairs.”

  John turned from talking to someone. “Andra?”

  “I think I’m okay.” She straightened, then let out another moan.

  “Mom?” Pat, Andra’s step-son, looked worried.

  Andra turned to him. “Might be time to meet your brother.”

  His smile was something Gemma wouldn’t have said she needed to see. He was so happy it was blinding. This wasn’t really her business. But when she did, it was something she would never have wanted to miss for the world.

  Dan walked up to the podium this time. Not a grand piece of furniture, it was actually a simple mic and a music stand. He smiled at the room. “If you’ll sit, we’re going to get in the Word.”

  John said, “Andra?”

  “I’m okay.” She waved him off. “Let’s sit for a bit. You know these things take time.”

  John didn’t look convinced, but he sat. Dan shot them all a questioning look. Gemma motioned at Andra. Dan nodded. He prayed, adding a prayer for Andra and the baby, and then started to preach.

  She’d heard him call it that before, but she’d never heard him speak like this. He captivated her. Gemma watched his face light with it. He lost years of pain and hardship in that moment as his arms waved and he explained a passage about talents. She didn’t know what that was, and he didn’t dumb it down for her for which she was grateful. She got the gist of it—God wanted her. Not what she could do, but who she was. And not part of it, all of her. All that she was willing to give Him. Though Dan called it “surrender.”

  Beside her Andra hissed, one hand low on her belly.

  Could Gemma do that? Could she give God her life just because He wanted it? She couldn’t deny that the Being who had done so much for Dan would deserve that—and probably more—from her.

  Andra stood up. Her hand flailed and landed on Matthias’s shoulder. Her knuckles went white, and John shot up. “Andra!”

  Matthias turned back. Andra cried out and a puddle of wet hit the floor right by Gemma’s Converse.

  Chapter 17

  Dan stood beside her in the medical center’s waiting area. How she got here was anyone’s guess. Gemma had tried to gently extricate herself from the press of people rushing Andra to the sheriff’s office and then around back where he parked his Jeep. She’d stepped away from the group several times, only to have someone grab her hand and pull her back. There had been nowhere to go, and she just got swept along with them because the alternative was elbowing people out of the way and making a scene.

  “Pretty exciting church service, don’t you think?” He grinned and squeezed her hand, which he hadn’t let go of. “It’s not like that all the time.”

  Gemma couldn’t help but smile back. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Come on, we can check on Sam while we wait for word about Andra.”

  And apparently she was going with everyone to the medical center. Gemma didn’t know that she really needed to wait for “word” about Andra and the baby. She’d hear around town, wouldn’t she? But being part of Dan’s life meant she was part of that kind of thing. Part of these people and their lives.

  “So what did you—”

  “Do you know what—”

  Dan grinned. “Go ahead. Mine can wait.”

  Gemma shrugged. “I guess I just don’t really know what’s going on. I mean, the papers were taken from the radio station days ago. Why haven’t they shown up like your truck did?”

  “It�
�s hardly a truck now,” he said. “More like the stripped-down shell of what’s going to be a nice planter.”

  “Okay, but… I’d think whoever took them at least had an idea what they might be. So why haven’t we heard about it? No one has made a move or said anything.”

  “They’d incriminate themselves if they did.”

  “But whoever it was had to have known it was there, or why else take it like that?” She didn’t want to think about being stunned by that flash grenade, but it had happened. She wasn’t going to sweep it under the rug. “They had to want those papers badly enough they couldn’t wait until after we left.”

  “I don’t know why it’s like they’ve disappeared. And why did Antonia have to die?” It was just so senseless. “What if someone else is killed?” Okay, so she was talking about herself, but Dan probably didn’t need to know that. She could barely go home without thinking someone might be waiting to kill her. Those papers had belonged to her. Terrence—even if only because he was a sicko—had targeted her, and the mayor had interjected himself into her life. Gemma couldn’t help thinking she was a part of this.

  What if Terrence came back and hurt her when she could do nothing to stop him? Sam was hurt, and the same might happen to Dan. What would she do if he was in a coma, lying in the medical center where there was nothing she could do to help him?

  “Gemma.” His voice was soft now.

  Her breath hitched. “What?”

  “You’re crying.”

  She swiped the tears from her cheeks. Why did she not know when she was crying?

  “Why are you so sad?”

  “I’m not, I’m scared. I’m scared to death that something is going to happen, and I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.” She sucked in a breath. “Hal left me that room, and why? It wasn’t a gift, it was a curse. Which is pretty much what your father left you. Nothing but evil. More hurt, more pain. And I didn’t need more of any of that. I didn’t. I don’t.”

  Dan’s hands slid across her cheeks, and he cupped her face in his palm. “I’m right here.” He touched his lips to hers.

  People passed them on the street. Someone gasped.

  “People—”

  “Don’t worry about them.” His lips were so close she felt the words as he spoke them. “Just focus on me right now.”

  “Okay.” She sucked in a breath and tried to get enough air.

  “I need you here with me.”

  She blinked. “You need me?”

  “Gemma.” Dan’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You didn’t know that?”

  “I think I might have.” Still, she hadn’t relied on it when she was overwhelmed and couldn’t see a way out. God knew what was going to happen, and she had to trust Him to hold them together.

  Dan touched his smile to hers. “I’ll find a way to make sure you’re safe. I can’t stay at your house without… okay, we still need to talk about that whole thing. But maybe there’s someone else you can stay with or someone who can sleep on your couch, to make sure you’re safe when I can’t be around. But I’m not going to leave you alone, okay?”

  Because he would fall apart without her. Gemma bit her lip, then made the decision to just say it without worrying about the consequences. “That’s why I never left.”

  His face softened. “Tell me.”

  “I wanted to.” She shook her head. “I wanted to leave so many times. I even went to Sheriff Chandler about it and got the paperwork started. It never went anywhere. He said the senate committee didn’t have time to discuss my case. Then I guess I just put it aside and went back to work. To life here.”

  Dan circled her loosely with his arms. “Gemma, did he offer you the option of moving away when you turned eighteen?”

  “No, did he do that with you?”

  Dan shook his head. “I’ve heard John talk about it, that anyone who lives here should have the option to go or stay when they turn eighteen. We should have been able to choose.”

  “He didn’t tell me that. Chandler, I mean. He never said that was an option for me.”

  “Me either.”

  Gemma shook her head. Everything in Sanctuary was upside down. She thought she knew how it worked, and she didn’t like the way she’d grown up with so many lies, but she’d been working on accepting it. Learning how to be happy in spite of everything.

  “Someone wanted to keep us here?”

  Dan nodded. “The question is whether they needed us to be here, or whether they just needed us to not be anywhere else.”

  “Loose in the world.” Gemma had never even thought about it. “It was about controlling where we went and who we spoke to. The sheriff.” She breathed. “I always knew there was something between him and your dad. He could have stopped your dad so many times, but he didn’t. And when I went to him, he sent your father.”

  Dan didn’t speak.

  The sheriff and his father had tried to destroy her, but it hadn’t worked. They’d tried to contain her, but she’d gotten her books out. Part of her roamed free in the world every time someone read one of the novels she’d written.

  Dan’s brow crinkled. “What are you thinking now?”

  “I need to go write something. I’m having another book idea.”

  “Medical center first.” He grabbed her hand and tugged her along. “I’ll find you a pen and some paper. You can work on it while we wait.”

  “I can work on it at the library on my computer.”

  “You can find out how Sam is doing at the medical center.”

  Gemma sighed. “Fine. Hopefully Mei is there. I want to talk to her.” Mei had to explain why she’d ditched Gemma at her mom’s house when the mayor had been there.

  “I actually had something I wanted to ask you.”

  Mei hadn’t found Terrence yet. He was still out there. Terrorizing her, if only in her head. Antonia’s killer was roaming free as well. Even if it was Terrence who’d done it, two people or one didn’t make much difference. Sanctuary was under siege, because someone else was dead, and it was like everyone had something better to do than look for them.

  Dan continued, “What did you think of my serm—”

  What Mei had found was Dan’s mother. She gasped. “Do you want to have a service for your mother and bury her properly?”

  Dan’s face softened. “That would be really nice, Gemma. Will you help me figure it out?”

  “Of course. I have no idea how to do it, but I’ll find out, and I’ll get people to help. She deserves to be placed at rest, finally.”

  “Thank you for thinking of it, Gemma. I didn’t know what I was going to do.” Dan squeezed her hand. “But I want to talk about church. What did you think of my sermon this morning?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Fine?” Dan’s question was tentative. “That’s it?”

  Gemma shrugged. “There’s so much going on now. I guess we could talk more about it later, if we need to.” He didn’t look happy. “What? What did you want me to say?”

  “It was just… You know what, never mind. Don’t worry about it.”

  Gemma blinked. “We can talk about it more. Later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  It wasn’t. She could see that much. It mattered to Dan that she tell him what she thought of his sermon, and she needed to remember that for next time. And there would be a next time.

  Dan pushed open the door to the medical center. The crush of people was enough to make her want to pull her hand out of his and run away, but she straightened her shoulders and walked in hand-in-hand with Dan Walden. The rebel and the town’s pastor. People could think what they wanted.

  She was here to stay.

  **

  Two hours and no word. The crowd in the medical center’s waiting area had thinned. Dan sat with Matthias, Bolton, and their women. Pat and Aaron were there, playing a board game on the floor with Olympia’s grandsons. Gemma had made a run to the library and grabbed a stack of books for people to read. Olympia and her
daughter Maria, and the elderly twins, as well as the sheriff’s dispatcher, had jumped on the stack. Now Gemma was sitting with them, talking about some book they were all reading.

  The mayor had shown up as well, and he hung back not really mingling with the crowd. Dan didn’t like the way he eyed Gemma over the top of his fishing magazine. Why was Collins here, anyway? He didn’t care about John or Andra. He didn’t care about the baby, or finding out that John’s newest son was healthy.

  Matthias elbowed him.

  Dan glanced over.

  Matthias had looked up from his book, a beat-up Peter Leavell novel Gemma had given him. Dan didn’t like cliffhangers.

  “You don’t actually have lasers in your eyes, you know.”

  Dan stared at him.

  “It isn’t actually possible for you to set him on fire with your eyes, even though it looks like you’re trying.”

  Dan rolled his eyes.

  Bolton chimed in. “You got a beef with the mayor?”

  “Nothing concrete I can put my finger on.”

  “Do you think he was behind the theft of those papers and Antonia’s death?”

  “Like I said, nothing concrete.”

  “So go smoke him out,” Bolton said. “If he’s guilty, then sooner or later he’ll mess up. Then you’ll know for sure.”

  “And if I ask the wrong question I’ll end up dead just like Antonia.”

  “You know John feels bad about that,” Matthias said. “He’s been asking around, but he’s getting nowhere. He thinks it’s a group, and he has some names Antonia gave him but he can’t just go ask them straight out. You all reported it was multiple men in the radio station. John is working on the problem.”

  “A group.” Dan glanced between them. “Doing what?”

  “John doesn’t know, and he can’t penetrate the group. They all know he’s the sheriff. But it could be about anything, and no one’s talking. They’re all shut down tight, waiting for something. Whatever plan they have in place, Antonia was a casualty of it.”