Sanctuary Forever WITSEC Town Series Book 5

by Lisa Phillips

“If John is on it, though, I’m not going to get in the way. Isn’t that what happened to Antonia?”

  Bolton shrugged with his mouth. He’d lost weight over the last few months but looked happier and more open than he had in any of the years Dan had known him.

  Nadia stood. “More coffee, guys?”

  Dan grabbed the mugs from her. “I’ll get it.” He strode to the carafe Olympia had brought over from church. It was running low, but they should be able to get a few more cups out of it.

  “Daniel.”

  Just the sound of his name made him nearly drop the mug. Dan gripped it so hard it could’ve cracked in his hand. “Collins.”

  The mayor poured his own coffee, but all Dan saw was Antonia’s body. He did not want to end up another casualty of whatever was happening in town under the cover of secrets and lies. And murder. Help us get past this death. Help John find the truth without anyone else getting killed.

  “Such an inspiring sermon this morning.”

  “I’d love to have coffee with you and talk about it some more. If you’d like to discuss it and pray about it.” It was so much easier to do that with the men in this town. If it was a lady he usually hooked them up with Olympia, but the woman was grieving. He needed to ask her how Sofia was doing at the nursery after her sister’s death.

  “That’s not necessary,” the mayor said. “I don’t want to take up more of your precious time. You’re a busy man.”

  “Right.”

  He just wanted to compliment Dan on being eloquent, but the mayor had no intention of actually surrendering anything in his life to God. Mostly Dan figured there was a swatch of people in his church simply because they were bored and wanted to get out and socialize on a Sunday. They had no intention of seeing his words as more than happy sentiments that might get them a better life. Dan had prayed about it a lot but figured if someone wasn’t willing to listen to the Lord, there wasn’t much he could do except keep talking.

  He filled the last cup.

  “I would like to bug you about something right now, though.”

  “I’ll just deliver these over there.” Dan motioned to the group with one of the cups. As he walked, he caught Gemma’s gaze. She sent him a questioning look, which he responded to with an, I don’t know motion of his mouth. Dan wandered back to the table and got his own mug. The mayor motioned him to a far corner of the waiting room and they sat.

  “I was wondering if you’d given any thought to the possibility of being the next mayor. I can understand things have been interesting for you these past couple of weeks, but you did promise to give it some consideration. To pray about it.”

  Like that was just something Dan said, not a real part of his life.

  Dan nodded and sipped his cup. “It has been interesting, as you said. I still have the bruises and lingering aches from the radio station attack, and I know Gemma is feeling it. Antonia’s death has hit the church hard. It’s going to be a rough time over the next few weeks as the town re-orients itself when one of their number is missing.”

  His face had frozen for a second when Dan mentioned the bruises, but the mayor shook it off. “And who better to lead them at this time than their pastor?”

  “I’m just not sure that job is for me. Though I thank you for thinking of me.”

  “That’s a real shame, Daniel.” The mayor sighed, like Dan had genuinely disappointed him. “This town is going to you-know-where in a handbasket. There are those who will fight it and those who will watch the show. It’s sad to know you’ll be on the side of ones who will do nothing to ensure the future of this town.”

  “And passing the title of mayor to another person is your endeavor to safeguard Sanctuary?”

  “I do my part.” The mayor shifted on his chair. “The mayor position is just one portion of my activities.”

  Now what did that mean?

  Over the mayor’s shoulder, Dan watched Gemma move from her spot and head to the back hall, where the rooms were. He didn’t blame her wanting to go sit with Sam Tura—unless she just had to use the bathroom. “I suppose I’m not as altruistic as you,” Dan said. “The people are what I care about. More than the town.”

  “And you’ll watch this town sink for the sake of holding some hands?”

  Dan shrugged. “Why would it sink?”

  “This town is circling the drain. Things are in motion. And when it’s done, likely there won’t be a Sanctuary left.”

  “Antonia’s death?”

  “She was a casualty of war.”

  Gemma didn’t come back. Good. Dan didn’t want her anywhere near the mayor. “Did you kill her?”

  The mayor barked a laugh. “Of course not. Terrence took it upon himself to end her life. It was not any of my business.”

  So Collins had waited until John was otherwise occupied to share that with Dan? Whether Terrence actually killed her, was ordered to, or it was simply being pinned on him, remained to be seen. Dan didn’t trust the mayor farther than he could throw him.

  “Why share that with me?”

  “You’re part of it,” the mayor said. “Gemma is part of it. Hal left her that secret in the radio station for a reason.”

  “Was that Terrence as well?”

  The mayor shrugged, all innocence. “Who knows?”

  “How do you know about the radio station?”

  “It’s all over town. Papers missing. Everyone figures it had to be a big secret, and most have gone to see the hidden room for themselves.”

  No one had told Dan that. “Do you know who took the papers?”

  The mayor said nothing.

  “Some secrets should never be brought into the daylight. This town doesn’t need to know that it was originally a prison to keep my father in.” He wanted to see the mayor’s face. He wanted to watch when he said the words, to see what Samuel Collins did. Dan studied him, waiting for a reaction.

  There was none.

  Which meant it wasn’t a surprise. “My father grew marijuana in the basement of my house for years. As far as I can tell, he got it out of town somehow.”

  “Through the mine.” The mayor still didn’t react. “He grew it in the woods also. Cornered the market in the Northwest, across the border into Canada, and all the way down to Colorado. Why do you think these are some of the states that are the biggest proponents of smoking pot? He got in the business early and set up an empire, a culture. Your father did that.”

  If he had, then he had to have made a bunch of money. Yet it hadn’t saved him, and he’d never spent it. Dan’s dad’s heart had given up. That shriveled up, black member in his chest had simply quit. He’d fallen in the romaine instead of enjoying his ill-gotten gains.

  “If you agree to become the next mayor, I will personally ensure that no one in town ever finds out that you are descended from a murderer and a drug dealer.”

  Dan stared into the mayor’s eyes and tried to pray. Tried to think what the sheriff would tell him to do. He trusted John. The mayor was drawing him into a plan, and Dan had no idea what it was about. Collins wanted to blackmail him into the mayor’s job? Why?

  Collins also seemed to know all about his father’s activities—as Sheriff Chandler would have. Who else in town had been involved?

  A loud scream erupted from down the hall.

  Gemma.

  Dan ran to the open door, Sam Tura’s room. She stood in the doorway, her face pale and one hand on her chest. “I just went to the bathroom. I was going to sit with Sam for a while. He—”

  Xander stood over the body, dressed in his uniform, Sam Tura on the bed. The big security guard backed up. “He ran past me, down the hall. Nearly knocked me over.” Xander blinked. “Terrence tried to kill Sam, but I stopped him.”

  Dan turned back to the waiting area beyond the crowd of people who now filled the hall.

  The mayor was gone.

  Chapter 18

  It didn’t matter how long they banged on the door or how many times Dan called out to her through
the window. How many times the phone rang. Gemma sat on the library floor in the dark with her back to the check-in desk and didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t cry.

  All she could see when she shut her eyes was Xander standing over the bed. Sam Tura’s face so pale, she didn’t know someone with dark skin could look that pale. She’d thought Sam was dead, and she’d thought it was Xander who’d done it, but someone else? Gemma hadn’t seen anyone running away. Could it really have been Terrence?

  She gripped the sides of her head and breathed. Sam was in critical condition now. Terrence hadn’t been there for her.

  Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. She forayed into fictional worlds to get excitement. Reading and writing. Both had plenty of drama for her, especially since Dan’s father had died and it seemed like life had finally calmed down and had a rhythm to it. But now everything was upside down again. Secrets. Lies. Pain. Death. People were being sucked in, left and right. When was it going to end?

  And what was she supposed to do?

  Papa. She didn’t even know where to start. I—

  Creak.

  Gemma’s head shot up. “Is someone here?”

  A door handle clicked and then creaked open. Gemma got up, grabbed the closest thing—a stapler—and held it high above her head. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Gemma?”

  She dropped the stapler. “Sheriff?”

  John clicked on a flashlight and crossed between the shelves. “There you are.” His smile was soft.

  “Shouldn’t you be at the medical center?” Andra was having a baby, and he was here?

  “It’s a boy.” His smiled widened. “I mean we knew that, but still. Six pounds nine ounces. They’re both fine, sleeping. Olympia is with them.”

  “Oh.”

  “And Mei took Xander to the sheriff’s office. She’s talking to him.”

  “Okay.”

  His smile wasn’t so excited now. It was the smile of a man inherently happy but forced to face things that weren’t. Back to reality.

  “Wait a minute.” She held up one hand. “How did you get in?” She walked to the bookshelves where he’d emerged from. “Where did you come from?” John shone the flashlight over her shoulder. Gemma flipped the nearest light switch and said, “There’s nothing there, just a wall.”

  John tapped the outside of her arm with the back of his hand. Gemma winced when the burns Terrence had given her smarted. She moved aside, and he touched the wall. Just like the radio station, the wall revealed a secret room. “Seriously?” She could hardly process it. “In my library? Please tell me this one is not full of classified documents, because if it is, then I don’t even want to go in there.”

  “It does have to do with Hal,” John said. “But not in the same way.”

  Gemma took a step back. “This was in my library the whole time?” When John didn’t answer, she said, “How many more secrets are there in this town? Because I’m not sure I even want to know. I barely want to go in there. Hal couldn’t have mentioned this in his will? He gave me the radio station, and I got attacked there. Why not tell me about the secret room in my own library? That’s not important enough that I know about it?”

  John sighed. “This isn’t about Hal, Gemma. It’s just another entrance, and it leads through the basement.”

  She could tell he wanted her to quit freaking out. Gemma took a big breath and let it out slowly. “What is down there?”

  “Let me show you.”

  Gemma didn’t move. “Would you ever have told me if you hadn’t needed to get in this way tonight?”

  “No, but I’m about as done with secrets in this town as you are. So you might as well know, that’s all. And it’s not bad, but it might be part of what’s going on.”

  John led the way. Gemma stopped at the bottom of the stairs and sat on the bottom step. The room was full of computer screens. A bank of servers, like she’d seen in a movie. “Is this what connects us to the internet?”

  “From the satellite, to here, then to your computers upstairs.”

  “But that’s not it, is it?”

  John shook his head. “Hal was in charge of oversight of town surveillance. He logged every phone call on the town’s internal system, and flagged anything that might be suspicious. He was the point person for the military’s surveillance of our mail.”

  “I already know they opened everything going out of and coming into the town. It’s part of security.”

  “Now that’s done by a private company that mainly employs former TSA agents.”

  “That makes me feel super secure.”

  John gave her a small smile. “After we got internet and satellite TV, Hal’s part was done by computer, though he still oversaw everything. It was his job from the beginning.”

  “Because he had to report back to Congress about Bill Jones. Not that it did any good, since Bill was supplying pot to the Pacific Northwest out of his basement.”

  John’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Dan told me before I came over here. He’s worried what the mayor is into, and I’m worried which one of us is going to be the next Antonia.”

  “That’s a valid concern.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It pays to be smart,” John said. “There is nothing wrong with awareness that leads to caution. It could keep you alive.”

  Gemma blew out a breath. “And all this was below my library the whole time?”

  John nodded.

  “Because town security means we all have to sacrifice a little of our privacy,” she said, her voice completely sardonic. “Except it’s not a little. It’s a whole lot, because a dead man who was a bad man made it that way, and the culture of this town hasn’t changed one bit in the forty years since the first person set foot here.”

  “It’s kept a lot of people alive.”

  “And now you’re just going to tell me? What about all your friends? Don’t Nadia, Frannie, Bolton, and Matthias deserve to know they live in a fishbowl?”

  “Some of them know, some don’t.”

  “And they’re fine with it?”

  “This isn’t a discussion about invasion of privacy, Gemma. You deserve to not be in the dark about this, as it’s your library, and this whole thing has been hard for you. Hal put a lot on your shoulders, but what I’m trying to get across is that it’s been for the best. He helped me save a lot of people when this town was under attack.”

  “It got him killed.”

  “No, his love for this town, and the people who live here, got him killed.”

  “He was in the ranch house, protecting Beth and everyone over there.”

  “Yes, he was. Because you were safe under the Meeting House with everyone else.” John sat on the edge of the desk. “That’s the man who was your father. A man who gave everything he had to give in order to make sure the people he cared about were safe.”

  His gaze was so intense that Gemma had to look away. She’d rather be mad at Hal, because being mad meant she didn’t miss what she had never learned about him while he was alive, and it meant she didn’t grieve not getting to know him now.

  Gemma made her way back upstairs and sat in the first chair she came to. John pulled another chair over and sat so their knees were almost touching. She leaned her head in her hand. Her body still held the bruises from falling through the ground. The headache was only just starting to diminish. She felt like she weighed an extra hundred pounds, or like she’d aged thirty years.

  “Tell me what you saw in the medical center.”

  Gemma didn’t open her eyes, or look up. “Xander. No one else. He stepped back with his hands still stretched out. Both, like he’d had them around Sam’s neck. I guess he could have been checking for his pulse, but at first glance I thought he—” Her voice broke.

  John asked her what Xander had said, so she told him. Then Gemma added, “I don’t know what to believe.” It was like a million-piece puzzle, and she didn’t know what the final pictur
e was supposed to be. “I hope you guys can find out what really happened, because it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Murder, even attempted murder, almost never does make sense. Even when you know the reason.” John stepped closer. “It’s often senseless and horrible, but you have to set that aside and think about what you have in front of you. Alive. The people who care about you. The good parts of your life.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  John nodded. “I have to.”

  “How do you do this? How do you be the sheriff in a town like this, where it never shuts off? There’s always something happening, and lately it’s been so much worse. I can’t wrap my head around it, but it almost feels like something is brewing.”

  “I compartmentalize as much as I can, but it never completely works. Hal was better at that than I am, though he did it with lies. Thankfully, Andra understands that the town needs their sheriff almost as much as she needs me at home as her husband. And I don’t keep anything from her.”

  It would be that way with Dan. If he married—when he married—his wife would have to deal with the demands put on him as pastor. Gemma hoped she’d have enough grace to deal with it like Andra did, but she didn’t know. She’d probably just get mad and then kill-off someone from town, in a book. But John was right. Truth was better than what Hal did, even when it hurt.

  “This is too much.” Her head was so full of thoughts she didn’t even know where to begin. She couldn’t take any more of this.

  “Let Dan in the door. Talk to him about it and stay safe. Be careful, and I don’t want you to be alone, okay?”

  Gemma nodded. “I know you need to get back to the medical center.”

  “Thanks for being cool about that, Gemma.”

  The alternative was being a jerk, so she just nodded. “Why don’t you go out the front and let him in?”

  John patted her shoulder. “I can do that.”

  She’d had enough secret doors to last her a lifetime.

  **

  Mei folded her arms. She’d rather roll this desk chair off a cliff than listen to this guy cry for one more second. Tears make you weak, and weakness will get you killed. Just the memory of his voice made her shiver.