John nearly choked on his coffee. “He’s dead?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Ben snorted. “How’s your charge?”
John had nearly two hundred, but he knew who Ben was talking about. The less they said over phone lines, the better. A simple slip could mean a serious breach of security.
“She’s feeling better, but she made her detail, and she figured out why Hal occupied her last night. Beth called me this morning to razz me about needing protection. I told her it was a precaution. I’ll let Sam tell her everything when he gets here.” John had been on the receiving end of a severe ear-bashing. The woman should have gone into politics instead of ballet.
“And our usurper?”
“She had a quiet night at home, nothing unusual.”
“Keep a lock on that.”
As if John needed to be told? He was taking care of his people, and Ben didn’t need to comment on it. He’d been the first to check out Sam’s mother, but every picture on file in every database was the woman in his town who called herself Abigail Myerson. It hadn’t sat well with him, though. He’d known something was off from the moment she got there, but so much had been going on with Matthias and Frannie and the arrival of Dauntless.
The military working dog belonged to Shadrach Carleigh, a Force Recon soldier with the Marines. The dog had come to Sanctuary because the soldier was missing-in-action, and the only person willing to take care of the animal was Carleigh’s twin sister. Nadia Marie was doing a great job helping the high-spirited animal settle into town life.
“Anything new on George Bush?”
John cracked a smile, wondering how anyone would react to the former president looking through their dresser drawers. “The guys will be out around town today asking questions, trying to get a lead on who it might’ve been. And also following the mother-in-law to see if she meets with anyone.”
“Risky, leaving her loose around town.”
“She’s not loose, Ben. She’s under tight surveillance, and I know you’re only spouting an argument to make me think.”
“Job like this, you’ve got to cover yourself.”
“Grant isn’t going to fire me.”
“If he’s asked to retire, which is looking likely from what I’m seeing, who do you think will go next?”
John’s breath caught in his throat. “It’s going that way?”
“Someone has to be blamed for what happened. He’s the logical choice.”
Which would mean John would be given his walking papers from Sanctuary. His wife, who had chosen to stay in Sanctuary voluntarily, would have to leave her home. His son, only recently settled in, would be ousted as well.
The thought of Sanctuary’s residents having to adjust to someone new as their sheriff again only sprouted a dozen additional problems in his head.
Ben cut through the silence. “I’m working on a contingency plan. Don’t worry about it, okay? Focus on what’s right in front of you.”
They rang off, and John went to find Beth. If Sam was almost there then he’d better get moving and get Beth to the ranch where Sam would be landing the plane.
John spotted Michael and Louis, both retired mafia who’d escaped with their lives by testifying against both their bosses and a rival boss. Michael glanced up but quickly went back to pretending to read his newspaper. Louis ignored him. John got out of his Jeep—one of two cars in Sanctuary—and walked up the front path.
Beth answered the door, stepped outside, and closed it behind her. “He’s here?”
John’s eyes widened. Her rich blue dress was demure but hugged her slender body. He could see a slight bump as the only evidence of her pregnancy. He wondered what it would have been like to have had a sister. Probably a lot different than three older brothers.
Her face fell. “What?” She glanced down, smoothing her hands over her skirt. “What’s wrong?”
John cleared his throat. “As a happily married man, I can honestly say that Olympia did a wonderful job with your dress.” He gave her a minute to absorb the complement and then held out his elbow. “Ready to go?”
Beth nodded and pulled the door shut. She slipped a coat over her dress and took his arm.
John spoke low as they walked. “Where’s Abigail?”
“Reading a novel.” Beth breathed. “I didn’t tell her Sam is almost here. I told her I was just wearing the dress for church. Is that horrible of me? I know she’s his mother, but can’t I have a minute with him to myself?”
John stopped her at the car, facing away from the house in case Abigail was looking out the window. John didn’t want their first hours together to be clouded by what was happening, so Sam was going to have to forgive him for telling her at least part of what was going on.
“She’s not your mother-in-law.”
“What?”
John explained what Ben’s man had found.
Beth’s brows drew together, and her mouth dropped open. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I suspected something was off. I just didn’t think…”
“What?”
“It was Sam. Not my husband. But Sam Tura.”
The old boxer? “What about him?”
“I’d never met him, but I knew all the stories about the Bear and my husband’s father being such good friends. So I—gosh, this is going to sound horrible—I tested her. I took her to the diner. Tura acted so weirdly, and Abigail acted like she didn’t even know him.”
“I’ll talk to Tura.” Mostly about the fact he hadn’t mentioned anything to John about Abigail not being Abigail. “You have to keep up the ruse until Sam and I figure out what to do. Can you do that for me?”
“You want me to lie? To pretend nothing is wrong when it couldn’t be farther from the truth?”
He waited.
One eyebrow rose. “My father was the president. I’m well versed in putting on a public face. How do you think I kept my marriage a secret for years? Through the whole campaign, and no one ever found out…”
“I know.”
“I’ll be okay.” Her face fell. “Don’t feel sorry for me, John. My life is what it is.”
John shut his mouth. He drove them to the ranch, where the helipad was across the street from the ranch house. Since Sam would be landing on the road, he parked on the square spot of tarmac marked with a circle.
He couldn’t imagine what Beth and Sam’s life had been like—the restrictions that had been placed on them at such a young age. He didn’t know if he’d have been able to hold together a relationship in the midst of the demands of parents in the public eye.
Sam and Beth had walked a hard road, and it would only get worse before this ended.
**
Beth held it together while the plane landed. She stood completely straight, a knot in her stomach until he climbed out of the plane. When he shut the door, he walked past the bags he’d tossed on the ground and came straight to her.
John waited by the Jeep. Beth strode over. Her coat flapped around her as she half-walked/half-ran to her husband. His face was a mess of cuts and bruises, and the limp in his stride was pronounced. How was he standing upright? He looked like he’d been run through a meat grinder.
She froze, nearly tripping before she stopped. Surely he didn’t need more on his plate than what Tommy had put there. Sam looked like he needed down-time, not even more danger.
He stopped in front of her, surveying her face for a long moment.
Hot tears burned her eyes as she gazed up at him. Emotion she’d buried for weeks, knowing if she succumbed to it she’d collapse, now boiled to the surface. All the pain and longing she’d pushed aside so that she could dance. The horror of her parents’ deaths—suddenly taken from her. Being alone again.
Now he was here and not because their life together was about love and happiness. Only because someone was trying to kill them both.
“Say something.” His voice was rough with emotion.
Beth launched herself at him and burrowed into his chest as
she gripped his T-shirt against her face with both hands.
After a minute his arms came around her. As he held her tight, a sob worked its way up. It hitched in her throat, and she bucked against him with the force of her tears. His hold on her tightened.
When she leaned back, his arms moved. She readied herself to step away, but Sam held her face in his hands and kissed her.
It went on long enough she felt heat creep into her cheeks. She pulled back to speak. “John can see us.”
Sam’s eyes lifted for a second. “He’s not watching.” When he looked back down at her, his eyes gleamed. He was quiet for a moment and then said, “Hi.”
She tried to smile, but it wobbled. Tears tracked down her cheeks. Beth ducked her head and hid her face against his chest again.
His head dipped, and he spoke quietly into her ear. “You don’t have to carry this yourself. Not anymore. We can do this together.” His hand drifted to the bump in her lower stomach. “All of this.”
Beth nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. “We don’t have that much time before church.”
He smiled. But it wasn’t denial, not when she knew she’d break if she talked about it out loud. Now that Sam was here they could deconstruct the problem and work through solutions. She wouldn’t have to carry this weight. At least not all of it. Sam would insist on helping her, and she would let him. She couldn’t keep pushing it away any longer. She needed the time and the space to grieve, where everyone in town didn’t have one eye on her, waiting to see if she would fall apart.
“You go to church?”
“It’s what they do here.” She smiled. “Welcome to middle America.”
He laughed. “Darlin’, I was born in middle America.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“The city girl speaks.” He kissed her again, short and sweet this time. “I’ve missed you, princess.”
She groaned. The lightness of their banter gave her a second to relax before everything hit her again. “I keep telling you not to call me that.”
“Hey, if the glass slipper fits.”
Beth shoved at his shoulder, but he caught her hand. Sam slipped his ring off her thumb and onto his ring finger, and then took her ring off his pinkie. Beth held out her hand and watched while he slid it past the knuckle on her finger. She felt the smile curl her lips. “That never gets old.”
Sam lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “We’re together for real now. I don’t know what the next few weeks will look like. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a SEAL again or where we’ll end up, but whatever happens we’ll face it together.”
Tears spilled from her eyes, and he wiped them from her cheeks.
Her voice was a whisper when she spoke. “Everything is wrong.”
He whispered back, “I’m going to fix it.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure, princess.” He hugged her again, surrounding her with strength and warmth. “Now let’s go see my mom.”
“Uh…”
“I know she’s not my mom. We don’t know who she is right now—”
“We?”
“The Mason brothers.”
She traced his face with her gaze. “What is it?”
“The people behind all this have my mom. They abducted her.”
And he was here with her instead of out finding his mom and getting her back safely? “Sam—”
He cut her off. “You think we can trust them?” The question was in his eyes. He was walking into this whole situation with caution, a fact Beth had always appreciated. She was a jump first kind of person, while Sam took his time. But when he made a choice, it was the right one.
He was counting on the Mason brothers to get his mom back.
“For now, I think we can trust them.”
“Okay.”
Beth wanted to pray his mom would be found safely. Would God listen to her? She hoped when Sam found out what was going on here, he’d let her finish this. The way her parents would have wanted.
**
The town was completely surrounded by mountains. Sam couldn’t escape the feeling of being hemmed-in. As they drove into town, he studied the quaint buildings all smashed together. How did these people manage to breathe? Where was the water? A lake, a river. Something.
John drove them onto Main Street, which looked like an old pedestrian-only downtown in a small town from days gone by. John parked in front of a big building with old wooden double-doors. Above the eaves of the first floor, big letters spelled out MEETING HOUSE.
“This place is unreal.” He glanced around. “It’s like a western.”
Beth chuckled, a more subdued sound than he was used to. She’d never laughed all that much, but lately it wasn’t forced. It just lacked the energy she’d given to humor before. “It really is.”
Men and women, old and young. Families. Children. “All these people are in witness protection?” Evidently they all went to church, too, given the way they filed into the Meeting House.
“People with special skills.” John turned to the back seat where Sam held Beth’s hand. “People whose faces are too recognizable to send them to a major city, and they’d stick out in a small town. People who would never function in regular society.”
Sam nodded. “How’s Daire?”
“Ben said his plane exploded, but he didn’t seem too concerned about the possibility of Daire being dead. Again.” John frowned, shook his head.
Sam smiled. “Guess he doesn’t tell you much either. He did give me a phone he said was like yours, and a manual four inches thick on how it works. Plus he gave me a tablet.”
“Perks of the deputy sheriff job,” John said. “Or at least, they are now.” John hesitated, clearly wanting to say more.
But instead Sam offered, “What more could there possibly be that I don’t already know?”
Beth shifted in her seat. She shared a look with John and then nodded. “There’s someone you’ll be interested to know is here. He won’t be at church, but he’ll be at the diner later.” She turned to him. “Sam Tura lives here.”
Sam’s gaze locked on hers. “Seriously?”
She nodded, a slight smile on her face. She knew how important it had been for him to find his father’s best friend.
“Wow.”
John grinned.
“Why does this feel like a bizarre vacation?” He couldn’t lose focus. Sam needed to follow up on Tommy’s movements ASAP if he was going to figure out what the man was up to now. He’d never have believed any SEAL could betray his brothers like that, even when pushed to the edge. Guilt had to be eating Tommy up.
But Sam was alive and no longer being held. Sam needed to set up here in Sanctuary, to heal, and get strong again. That way, when Tommy came, he would be ready.
“Why do I not like the look on your face?” John’s eyes had narrowed.
Sam looked at the clock. 10:23.
What kind of church didn’t start at nine on Sunday morning? He stared at the door. “Is she going to be there?”
John regarded him. “The woman pretending to be your mother?”
Sam nodded. “I can see how she wouldn’t be able to escape. But there are plenty of places she could run to.”
“We’d find her fast. Or Dauntless would.” When Sam sent him a look, John added, “He’s a military working dog recovering from an injury. There’s no way Abigail would escape. How would she get out?”
“She has to be able to communicate with whoever got her here.”
“Maybe. It could be deep undercover.” The sheriff’s eyes darkened. “No contact with anyone who knows her real identity. But I’m banking on her covering her behind with a way to get in touch with them. I think she has insurance.”
“So we sit on her and pray you’re right?”
“It’s worked before.” John cracked his door and climbed out.
Sam turned to Beth, touching the softness of her cheek with his rough palm. She didn’t even care. “I’d rather
go to your place and be alone for a while.”
“She would be there, too.” Beth leaned her head into his palm. “I have a better place in mind. And since you’re already packed, it works out great.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded, and then leaned in and kissed him, lingering with her nose touching his. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
She pressed her lips together and then said, “Thank you.”
Sam scooted to the door and got out, holding Beth’s hand while she did the same. When she straightened, he saw the bump in her tummy again, and put his hand there.
Beth laid hers over his. “It’s a boy.”
Sam stuck his head in her neck, wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted her. When he spun in a circle she squealed. Sam laughed, not caring that people stared at them. His leg hurt, so he put his wife down and held her hand as they walked into church side-by-side.
Being here with her felt good—in church, actively doing something to help ensnare the woman pretending to be his mom. Sam squeezed her hand and felt her squeeze his back. He could relax some while he was here and give it time for his leg to get better.
Eventually there would be a reckoning. Tommy had ensured that when he’d killed Swish, Wash, and Peace. Sam would have to find out what Beth had come here for, and unravel that whole mess. This Defaeco thing needed solving. But he had a team again, of sorts. The Mason brothers would help, that was for sure. They seemed invested in Sanctuary, determined to maintain the integrity of this secret. Sam couldn’t ask for more than that.
Here in this town he could have a facsimile of a normal life. A job. A wife. A baby on the way. While he could, he’d hold it all together and pretend that one day soon it wasn’t all going to implode.
Chairs were set up in rows. The whole room smelled like coffee, and tables had been set up on one side. Hopefully they would have donuts or something. Sam was starving. At the front of the room was a podium and a mic. A thirty-something man in a chambray shirt was tuning a guitar.
“Samuel.”
Sanctuary Breached WITSEC Town Series Book 3 Page 8