She turned around and walked backwards for a few steps. “Home, Bolton. Like I said, I’m going home.” She moved her gaze to Ben. “Find Will’s family.”
Ben nodded.
Bolton didn’t even know what to say or do. She was leaving? Just like that, making her own way back to Sanctuary. She’d probably have to call for assistance for the final leg of the journey, but she walked with supreme confidence.
Like she didn’t have a care in the world. Like she wasn’t striding away, taking his heart with her. It was more painful than any of his wounds, watching her leave. He could almost hear the rip of her walking away with his heart in her hands.
“Ready to go?” Ben asked.
Bolton turned away. Was he ready?
Chapter 26
The unmarked silver car had been parked at the side of the road. Ben pulled over behind it and Will climbed out of the SUV without a word.
Night was coming fast, and the light would evaporate with the day. They’d be blind without flashlights to announce their presence to anyone who cared to look.
Ben left the keys in the ignition, shut the driver’s door, and crept to the car. No one inside. The hood was still warm. “They aren’t far ahead of us.”
The most he could figure was that the men who’d had Will’s wife and child hadn’t heard from Dante. He’d kept them going with texts from Dante’s phone, but they’d grown suspicious.
How the DEA expected to completely cover up the truth was anyone’s guess. Ben would’ve leaked the whole thing to the media if he cared enough to meddle. But exposing lies wasn’t worth the energy it took to pull all the evidence together. Injustice was everywhere. Liars filled every sector of society. Changing policy or fighting the roaring juggernaut of government, or some organization with their oversight, wasn’t nearly the same as meeting someone in need, face-to-face, and saving their life.
Besides, Ben hardly needed another target on his back, and neither did Bolton. The DEA would eventually figure out what he had been doing and come calling…to put a bullet in his brain. He had enough enemies.
He followed Will down the path. His voice echoed back to Ben. No waiting, Will had charged in. The sight of his family too much to bear thirty seconds of waiting.
Bang.
The first man went down. Will’s gun pointed at him, smoked in the chilled air. The second aimed at Will, but Will hadn’t noticed yet.
Ben fired one shot, and he went down.
Will jumped and spun around.
Ben didn’t come out of the shadows.
“Daddy!”
“Will!”
They slammed into him. Will went to his knees and hugged his family to his chest. Sobs echoed from them.
Ben stared at the family. Little girl arms tight around her daddy’s waist. Will’s fingers on his wife’s face as they shared a desperate kiss of two people who hadn’t known if they’d ever see each other again.
The feel of her breath on his face as he pulled her close. The way the world melted away, and nothing else seemed to matter about that. Right then and there. Him, and her. It was like there was no one else in the world.
Ben slid the phone from his pocket as he walked back to the car. Typed in her number. His thumb hovered over the button, so close to dialing.
Ben flipped the phone over and pulled out the sim card. The minute he hit blacktop Ben dropped it on the ground and destroyed it with the heel of his boot. He threw the rest of the phone across the street, into the trees.
Alan turned the corner and pulled up.
Ben got in, and they drove away.
**
Bolton pushed on the wheels and huffed until the wheelchair was at the top of the long ramp. Disabled access. Back then he never would have dreamed he’d even need it one day, let alone that he’d actually be here. The button stood on a post, that disabled sign jeering at him. The surgery had been pointless, he might as well have not spent the money.
A little girl slammed her palm on the button and hopped from one foot to the other while the door to the Payton County Library slid open. The minute the crack was big enough she could fit through, the little girl darted inside.
Pennsylvania. Maybe while he was here he could find someone to talk to about this whole “God” thing that wasn’t letting up. Sure, he’d talked to the big man in the heat of the moment when he’d been sure he was going to die, but did it have to be a constant now he was free to live his life? It almost felt like God didn’t want to let go of him.
“So this is where you hid it.”
Bolton couldn’t turn around. He glanced over his shoulder, and Ben came to stand beside him. Aside from his neck, he could barely move at all. Remy had said that he’d be able to bend and twist when everything finally healed—as much as it would heal—but he would probably never be able to walk.
He should have stolen a horse instead of using this chair. Then he’d have been looking down on Ben, not the other way around. Though, that might draw unwanted attention.
Bolton wheeled through the entrance. He’d hidden the stash here a long time ago, under the cover that he’d been on a binge weekend. Instead, he’d used a fake ID to travel halfway across the country to a tiny town with an even smaller library where he’d stashed the metal cash box.
“I gotta use the bathroom.” He didn’t look aside at Ben.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Because we’re girls, so you gotta go with me?”
Ben didn’t laugh. What was his problem anyway? The man had a serious humor deficiency.
“I know you’re only here to get the flash drive.”
Ben held the bathroom door open. “You know that’s not all of it.”
“Don’t try to convince me letting Nadia go was the wrong thing.” He didn’t need Ben to say anything about that. After weeks and weeks of having her there with him, and before that living in a town where neither of them could leave, now she was gone. Bolton didn’t know if he would ever get used to it.
“What about the boy?”
Bolton didn’t know what he was supposed to think about Javier, either. “He isn’t my kid. Thea said he was Dante’s.”
“He’s dead, she’s dead. You’re the closest thing that boy has to family left on this planet.”
“Except his grandfather.” Not to mention the kid had tried to kill him. Bolton’s heart was so mixed up about the kid, he didn’t know what to think about Javier.
“He tried to shoot Grant. He’s currently incarcerated.” Ben shot him a look. “You really think Thea’s father is the answer?”
A suited man at the sink pulled two paper towels and wiped his hands. He blinked at the sight of Bolton and then scurried out.
Yeah, so he looked like he’d been in a warzone. What else was new? “Anything else you haven’t told me?”
“I’ve barely gotten started.”
Bolton turned the chair so he could face Ben. “I used to think we were friends.”
Ben made a face. “You think I have friends?”
“When they suit your purposes.” Ben reacted, but Bolton didn’t let that bother him. “You’re so good at lying I wonder if you even know what the truth is anymore.”
Ben motioned to the bathroom. “Just get the stash.”
Bolton folded his arms. “Maybe I really did need to take a leak.” He wheeled into the larger stall at the end and slid the lock home. “You know there are plenty of people in Sanctuary who would love to take an orphaned boy under their wing. I could spend ten minutes listing off names.”
Bolton pulled the chisel from his backpack and counted tiles.
“And you’d be smug the whole time. Because you’ve convinced yourself that means Javier doesn’t need you for anything.”
“When he’d only try and shoot me again?”
“That was a different set of circumstances.”
“So you want me to go back to Sanctuary to be a father to a kid who already tried to kill me, and probably is the child of my greatest enemy.” B
olton shook his head and worked the chisel behind the tile. “Sounds like a win-win.”
The tile fell to the floor and smashed.
It was almost tempting to go back there and pretend like everything hadn’t changed now that Nadia knew who he was and what he’d done. Not to mention how he felt. At least about almost everything—he hadn’t ever told her how he really felt about her.
Maybe he should have. Maybe then she’d have come with him, left everyone she knew and everything she loved to live a life of anonymity with him.
Even now he had to stay under the radar, wear a disguise. He’d be condemning her to always looking over her shoulder unless he lived in Sanctuary, where they would both always be safe. At least that was the idea. It had been a haven for him, more than just a place he could lick his wounds and plan his next move. Nadia’s presence there had made it a home.
The hole for an old ventilation system sat behind the tiles. Bolton reached in and grasped the cash box. There was no key, there never had been. It was why he’d picked this one.
He let himself out of the stall, the box on his lap. “We’ll have to cut it open.”
Ben pulled a pouch from his pocket. “Set it on the counter.” He picked the lock on the cash box. “You do the honors.”
Inside was a passport, a clean pistol, fifty thousand dollars, and the flash drive.
“Seems kind of anticlimactic, given all the fuss.”
Bolton shook his head and lifted out the flash drive. “That’s because you don’t know what’s on this.” He handed it over. “It’s in your hands now. I know you’ll do what’s right with it.”
Ben nodded.
Bolton pocketed the rest of the stuff. “Guess this is my cue to leave.”
“What’s your plan?” Ben looked like he wanted to sigh. “Where are you going to go?”
“I’m going to find myself a new home.” He grinned but didn’t feel it. “Do they have disabled accessible beaches?”
Ben was silent for a minute. Disapproval flooded from him in waves. “I know of a home that might be good for you. It blew up a couple of months ago, but maybe your friends rebuilt it.”
“I told Matthias to wait.”
“Then you get to redesign it yourself. Maybe with room for a wife and a son.”
Bolton set his hands over his pockets, the contents of which had always been his ticket to a new life. He’d been so focused on finding the stash and securing his future that he hadn’t had time for other dreams. “You want me to be confined to one town for the rest of my life?”
“Only when everything you’ve ever wanted but were too scared to dream of is right there in Sanctuary.”
I’m not scared.
Ben was already gone, the door swished shut, and Bolton was left in the library bathroom by himself.
It wasn’t fear. That wasn’t it. He wasn’t afraid of Sanctuary or afraid of being happy. Thea had cured him forever of the need to trust someone else with his future, his peace and happiness being so dependent on everything they said and did.
He didn’t want that life.
Bolton wheeled to the front door. He hit the button and left the library.
Outside the sky was bright, too bright to look at. The air crisp and cold, made his aches and pains hurt all the more. He would find somewhere to live; he’d be happy.
He just didn’t know where to start looking.
**
Nadia saw her mom outside her brother’s hospital room, and her steps faltered. Her mom looked up.
No going back now.
Nadia strode forward. “I came to say goodbye to Shadrach, I won’t be staying long.” She turned to the door.
“Nadia.” Her mom sounded almost…nervous.
She looked back.
“Remy explained a few things to me.”
Nadia wasn’t sure if she even wanted to know what Remy had told her mom.
“I didn’t mean to blame you.” She hesitated. “Okay, I did mean it. I wanted to blame you. But not because of anything you’d done. It was just easier than acknowledging that my life wasn’t what I thought it should be. You were so talented and so wild. Shadrach was the only person that calmed you. I couldn’t even do that. Your own mother.”
Nadia sighed. “Mom—”
“Then all that danger, and you disappeared. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive until Shadrach filled me in.” She paused. “Witness protection…” She breathed the words like they were both fantastic and terrible. “And I still blamed you. Because it was easier.”
“And now?” She had someone special in her life. She’d survived a terrible threat of her own and come through victorious.
“You should count your blessings that you survived so much, considering you were determined to destroy yourself.”
“I do count them. Every day. Even more than you’ll ever know.”
Her mom almost smiled. “It was nice to see you, Nadia.”
She let herself into Shadrach’s room, wondering if she could say the same. The past few weeks had been so chaotic Nadia didn’t know when she’d feel like things had gone back to normal.
Normal would feel really good right about now.
Shadrach looked so bad she nearly said a word she wasn’t supposed to. But that wouldn’t help anything, and it would hardly make her feel better. Though the struggle with her tongue was about as close to normal as she could have gotten right then. Thank You, Lord. He’d given her what she’d asked for by reminding her of that constant struggle against her flesh. His Spirit in her would see her through this, not her frail human reactions.
So help me with the Bolton thing, too. God would, she knew that. He wasn’t the kind of father who up and left one day because he was tired. God was going to support her, and even though things hadn’t gone the way she had thought, Nadia would still find her strength in trusting Him.
“Hey.”
She smiled at the slur in her brother’s voice. When she opened her mouth to speak, a sob was the only thing she could give him. Shadrach flicked his fingers toward himself. Nadia held her brother as well as she could without hurting him, and cried.
Two days later Nadia sat in a helicopter as the mountains of Idaho rushed under them like a river in spring. They flew over the farm, over Main Street, and the rows of houses that flanked it. Her salon. The bakery, and the sheriff’s office. The medical center that had been rebuilt. At the far end was the ranch, cows dotting the landscape beside a lake. The town sat like a bowl within a ring of mountains designated as a no-fly-zone except for authorized aircraft—like the one Grant had arranged for her.
No longer a federally owned and operated town, Nadia had essentially bought her way back in. She’d gladly transferred a portion of her money to a charity that provided assistance for veterans, and the rest she’d used to secure her place as a board member of the private entity who now owned the town. She’d have a say in its upkeep and help decide who got to live here from the referrals they were given by the US marshals. People who desperately needed Sanctuary.
“So this is it, huh?”
She glanced at Javier and spoke through her headset. “Not quite Hawaii, but I like it.”
He gave her a tentative smile. “I’m sure it’ll grow on me.”
She laughed. Since she’d met up with him in Seattle for the trip to Sanctuary, he’d started to come out of his shell. Colt had to stay in Washington State for longer, so his paperwork could be processed. He would be joining them in a week or so.
Nadia prayed both of them would settle well and find safety here.
The helicopter set down on the blacktop, the road that should have led to the ranch house. Instead there was little more than a hole in the ground now full of water. A dock.
The house and all its debris had been cleared away. The barn still stood, like a bomb hadn’t exploded under the mountain and cracked the ground open in places.
Hal had died here. Now that Bolton wasn’t coming back, would it ever get rebuilt?
“Thanks for the lift.”
“No problem, ma’am.”
Nadia removed the headset and climbed out. A Jeep marked with the emblem SHERIFF drove toward her. Then it blurred in a wash of salty tears. She’d hardly dared to believe she’d make it back home.
The door flung open before it even stopped, and her very pregnant friend jumped out. How someone that huge could be so agile was a mystery. Nadia laughed. “Andra!”
John got out the driver’s side. “Andra!”
She waved him off, her black hair flying behind her. Except for the roots, which were not black.
Nadia laughed again. “Looks like your hair needs some work.” She had a job to get back to, along with her life and her new position on the board.
Andra didn’t say anything. She simply collided with Nadia and wrapped her arms around Nadia to squeeze the breath out of her. Then she groaned and leaned back to put two hands on her beach-ball sized tummy. “I can’t do anything with this thing sticking out of me. Halfway through this pregnancy and I’m already huge.”
Nadia didn’t know which question to ask first.
“It’s a girl. We’re going to call her Marie.” Andra groaned again. “You’re going to cry more now.”
Nadia nodded while the tears streamed down her face.
Andra sighed and pulled her in again.
“I’m so happy for you.”
When she leaned back, John caught them both in a hug. “You look like you needed another.”
Nadia nodded.
His brow crinkled. “Where’s Bolton? I was surprised to hear he wasn’t coming with you.”
Nadia shrugged. She really didn’t want to cry again. She was done crying about Bolton. She glanced at where his house had stood.
“Was he really a criminal?” John said. “I’m having trouble with that one.”
Nadia shrugged. “He…” Her voice broke. Where did she even start?
“Tell us later,” Andra said. “When you’re ready.”
Nadia glanced aside at her.
“What? I’m pregnant. Apparently hormones make you sympathetic. Go figure.”
Sanctuary Deceived WITSEC Town Series Book 4 Page 28