Dangerous Sanctuary

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Wealthy?”

  “Yes. But not vulnerable. Although...”

  “What?”

  “Like I said, she broke up with her fiancé right before the wedding. She’d found out he was cheating.”

  “Seems like that would make someone vulnerable.”

  “I should have realized that.” And she regretted how easily she’d allowed herself to excuse the distance that had been growing between them, how eager she’d been to believe there was nothing wrong.

  “It’s not your fault,” Radley said as if he could read her mind.

  She didn’t respond. She was tired, her hands throbbing, her legs heavy. She didn’t have the energy for explanation or debate.

  “How long do we walk before deciding the road is in some other direction?” she asked instead.

  “You’re tired.”

  “I’m worried about getting lost out here. If we’re going the wrong direction, we’re walking into hundreds of miles of wilderness.”

  “You’re not putting much faith in my navigational abilities.”

  “Because I know nothing about them. Statistically speaking—”

  “How about we don’t?”

  “What?”

  “Talk statistics. Math was never my strong suit.”

  “What was?”

  “Survival,” he replied.

  If he’d been any other guy she’d ever spent time with, she’d have laughed. But then, the guys she’d spent time with outside of work preferred the inside of computer labs to the great outdoors.

  “I’m glad one of us has those skills.”

  He stopped, gave her time to move up beside him. “See that?”

  He pointed through the trees.

  For a moment, she thought she was seeing the moon again—a shiny ball low in the sky. Then she saw another of the same. And another.

  “Lights,” she breathed, stepping forward.

  “Wait.” He snagged her pack, pulling her to a stop. “Those are the gate lights.”

  “Gates?”

  “To the compound? You remember arriving, right?”

  “I arrived during the day. The lights were off,” she responded. “The parking lot is right across from the gate.”

  “Right. Both our vehicles are there. I parked next to your Explorer.”

  “My Explorer isn’t going to do either of us any good without keys.”

  “I have a spare key attached to the chassis of my truck.”

  “I’m surprised you’d keep a spare key in an easily accessible location. You don’t seem like the kind of person who takes chances.”

  “I’m not, but for this trip, I decided an extra key might be a good thing.”

  She wasn’t surprised.

  She’d seen the way Radley prepared for work, the way he tackled cases, the way he pushed himself. She knew he didn’t go into anything unprepared. And, going into a place like Sunrise Spiritual Sanctuary would make most law enforcement personnel worry.

  A compound in the middle of nowhere.

  Very little information about it.

  Word of mouth bringing in clients.

  Endless potential for things to go wrong.

  Honor had known before she’d arrived that there was something more to Sunrise Spiritual Sanctuary than what was listed on their webpage. Instead of doing more research, maybe visiting the area and asking some questions, she’d contacted The Sanctuary and pushed ahead in her effort to find Mary Alice. She’d brushed aside her gut instincts. She’d brushed aside Wren’s concerns. She’d even brushed aside Dotty’s disappointment that they would miss their weekends together.

  “Sometimes, my stubborn determination is a detriment to my well-being,” she muttered.

  “We can talk about that during the debriefing,” Radley responded, and she thought she heard amusement in his voice. “Let’s get to the truck and get out of here.”

  “Good idea,” she agreed quickly.

  She stepped forward. He pulled her back.

  “Hold on.”

  “Why?”

  “Listen.”

  The way he said it made her hair stand on end.

  “What am I listening for?” she whispered.

  “The silence.”

  Now that he mentioned it, things had gone quiet. No branches breaking. No muffled voices. No crickets chirping or animals rustling. No sign that they weren’t the only two living beings in the vicinity.

  Absalom’s men had changed tactics. She didn’t need to be a specialized field agent to realize that.

  “They’re probably heading to the parking lot,” she whispered, her head bent close to his, the words barely carrying through the darkness.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I know part of the compound is fenced. I was able to do some reconnaissance before I checked in, but I don’t know how far the fence line stretches. Do you?”

  “No. But, I know it stretches at least two miles. I walked that far several times, trying to find its end. All I found was more fence.”

  “They’ve lost our trail, but they know we’re going to try to escape the compound. They’ll be expecting us to make a run for the gate or the parking lot. We’ll take another route.” He started walking, tugging her with him.

  “You know the fence is seven feet, right?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I can barely climb a five-foot one.”

  “You can do anything you put your mind to,” he replied.

  “The idea of mind over matter? It’s vastly overrated.”

  “How about we have that debate after we get out of here?”

  “Is that your way of telling me to be quiet?”

  “It’s my way of telling you that you need to conserve energy. We have a seven-foot fence to climb.”

  No way was she going to be able to do that.

  Not with her hands burned and blistered, her body weak, a backpack filled with clothes on her back.

  But pointing that out wasn’t going to do any good, so she kept her mouth shut and let him lead her back into the woods.

  * * *

  It took money to build a seven-foot fence. It took a lot of it to build one that stretched as far as The Sanctuary’s seemed to. Radley eyed the smooth wooden planks. Climbing them would be easy enough. He was six-foot-three and had climbed taller structures during military training. Even with help, though, Honor might struggle. She was a foot shorter than he was, weakened from illness and fever, hands blistered and raw. The surface of the fence was smooth. Free of hand or footholds.

  An odd design. No crossbeams on the inside, so they had to be exterior. Not a good idea if the goal was to keep outsiders from climbing in.

  But maybe the goal was to keep insiders from climbing out.

  For Honor’s sake, he’d have followed the length of the fence, looking for another exit or an end to the fencing, but they didn’t have time. If Absalom’s men had brains in their heads, they’d be guarding the gate and patrolling the fence line. Better to have her hands hurt a little more than to have her shot.

  “We’ll climb over here,” he said, leading her from the thick woods and onto a three-foot-wide cleared swath of grass. None of the trees were close enough to the fence to be used as ladders or as leverage. He had to believe that was planned.

  He wanted to know what was going on in The Sanctuary, what dark secrets Absalom was hiding. First, though, he wanted to get Honor to safety.

  “The fence is taller than I remembered,” she murmured.

  “Not so tall we can’t get over it,” he responded, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, his nerves alive with warning.

  They were standing between the fence and the trees, exposed to anyone who might be looking for them, and he knew plenty of people were.

  “Cu
rrently, anything would be too tall.” Her teeth were chattering as if her fever were returning. “As a matter of fact, I’d say that fence is an impossible task.”

  “Nothing is impossible, Honor,” he replied, reaching into his duffel and pulling out the handgun she’d told him was there.

  “Diving to the deepest part of the ocean is,” she responded, her voice barely a whisper in the darkness. “Digging a hole from North America to the other side of the globe is. Skating on thin ice, walking in wet grass while wearing stiletto heels.”

  “I get your point, but I’m not asking you to do any of those things.” He didn’t have a holster, so he checked the gun’s safety and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.

  “Radley, we both know I’m slowing you down. You can get over that fence and get to help before I manage to take three steps.”

  “I never thought of you as the kind of person who’d exaggerate,” he said.

  “What kind of person did you think I was?”

  “The kind of person who enjoys being accurate, logical and factual.”

  “I am.”

  “Good, then you know that’s it’s not going to take long for either of us to get over the fence.” He eased the backpack from her shoulders and shrugged into it. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Radley, I want you to go ahead. We both have a better chance of survival if you do.”

  “I’d have a better chance. You wouldn’t. That wouldn’t work for Wren. It doesn’t work for me, and I’m sure it won’t work for you.”

  “What works for me is both of us getting out of here alive, so that I can find Mary Alice. That’s not going to happen if we’re standing here bickering while armed men are searching for us.”

  “Bickering?”

  “Fighting. Arguing. Disagreeing.”

  “I know what it means, I’m just surprised to hear you use such an old-fashioned word.”

  “Old-fashioned? Dotty would take offense at that.” She was watching him, her eyes gleaming in the darkness, her face a pale oval, her clothes nearly glowing in the darkness. A beacon drawing the eye of anyone searching for them.

  “She says it a lot, huh?”

  “She did. When I was young and arguing with my uncle about curfews and grades.”

  “Did she also use the words grit, gutsy, daring? Because that’s what you’re about to be. Let’s go. Over the fence.”

  A dog howled, the sound ringing through the forest, and his pulse jumped, his heart racing. He knew the sound of a hunting dog. This one was close.

  “Are there dogs here?” he asked.

  “Yes. A couple of guard dogs that patrol the meeting hall at night and some hunting dogs that are used by the residents of the community.” She nodded, her eyes wide, the pulse in the hollow of her throat jumping frantically.

  “I wonder how good those dogs are at tracking escapees?” he muttered.

  “We may be the first people who’ve have the need to escape, but the hunting dogs are bloodhounds. They have great noses.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Come on. Let’s go.” He lifted her. She was slighter than he’d expected, her back narrow, her body light. He’d always thought of her as athletic and strong. She had a presence that demanded attention and seemed to fill every room she entered. Chatty, quick with smiles and compliments, she was the opposite of Radley. Except in her need for justice, her determination, her dogged focus when it came to solving a case or finding a criminal.

  Now she seemed determined to pull herself over the fence. She’d grabbed the top and was struggling to drag her body over. He gave her legs a boost, holding on until she managed to scramble up and drop one leg over the top.

  Behind him, the hound was crashing through trees, baying wildly.

  Radley slung the duffel strap over his shoulder, grabbed the top of the fence and pulled himself up beside Honor. He’d climbed fences dozens of times. He’d run from danger even more times than that. He knew how to move quickly and quietly. But Honor was still perched on the fence like she was riding a horse. One leg to one side. One to the other. Hands clutching the wood. Backlit by the setting moon, pale skin, light hair, light-colored clothes. She was a sitting duck, an easy target.

  “It’s okay,” he said, because he thought she was frozen in fear.

  “I know, but I wasn’t going to jump until you were out of there. Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “You needed help,” she replied, and then she threw her second leg over the fence and dropped to the ground.

  FOUR

  Honor dropped hard and fast, stumbling forward. Falling. She landed on her hands and knees, pain shooting through her palms and up her arms. She felt it in her shoulders, her jaw, her head.

  If she’d had time, she’d have dropped to her stomach, lain in the cold grass, trying to catch her breath and get her bearings. But Radley dropped down beside her, reaching for her arm and dragging her to her feet without a word. Running full out, the dog yowling and scrabbling against the fence behind them.

  And she’d never been so scared, so terrified.

  She’d never been so certain that she was about to die.

  Dotty would be devastated. Bennett would be...

  She didn’t know how her uncle would feel. It wasn’t that they weren’t close. It was more that he wasn’t invested. Not the way Dotty was. A high-powered defense attorney, he had a large clientele and a very busy life. Even before she’d reached legal maturity, she’d been more of an afterthought to him than a concern.

  Radley had her by the wrist and was nearly dragging her as he sprinted across a wide expanse of grass. Odd that out here in the deep woods there were cleared areas and a tall fence. Not something she’d have expected of a serene getaway from civilization.

  But then, most of what she’d discovered at the Sanctuary hadn’t been what she’d expected. Not that she’d been looking for it to be anything other than the haven Mary Alice had run to.

  Radley led her back into a dense forest. She tripped, but he didn’t slow his stride. Just tightened his grip on her forearm and kept going. He must have felt what Honor did—danger breathing down their necks, death knocking on their doors.

  That definitely sounded like something Dotty would have said when Honor was a young teenager and a college student. Filled with energy and wisdom and funny turns of phrase. Dotty had changed a lot in the past few years. A bout of pneumonia had sent her to the hospital for nearly a month. She’d aged then, returning to the farm but struggling to care for the animals and the property. Since then, Honor had been driving out to the farm after work on Friday and returning to her apartment late Sunday night.

  It was exhausting, but Honor hadn’t had the heart to suggest that it was time for Dotty to move away from the house she’d lived in for fifty years. Dotty had raised two sons there, nursed her husband through cancer twice, had spent countless hours in the kitchen making meals for her family and for other families in the community.

  Thinking about her having to give that up made Honor’s chest tight and her eyes burn.

  She pushed the thoughts away, focusing on the moment. On the throbbing pain in her hands, the dull ache in her head. Her lungs ached, too, every breath labored as she struggled to keep the wild pace.

  She could still hear the dog, his baying muffled by thick trees and the slushing pulse of blood in her ears. Her legs were shaky, her arms weak. If she’d still been carrying the backpack, she’d have been done by now. She glanced at Radley. He was carrying his duffel, wearing the pack and running like he could go all night.

  “You’re doing great,” he said.

  “Do you have any idea where we’re headed?” she panted, the breath hot and sharp at the back of her throat.

  “Right now? We’re just putting some distance between us and them.”

  “And then
what?”

  “We move forward with our plan.”

  “They’ll be waiting at the truck. You know that, right?”

  “I know that we don’t have another option, and with the pistol you got your hands on, I’ll have a good chance at getting what I’m going in for.”

  “You’ll have a good chance? It seems to me there are two of us here.”

  “And only one of us has a gun.”

  “I took it from Absalom, so claiming rights are mine,” she pointed out. Not that having the gun would do her any good. Her hands were as close to useless as they could be, and she wouldn’t be able to fire the weapon easily.

  “You make disarming a man sound easy,” he said.

  “It was. I shot Absalom full of a sedative he was trying to inject me with. He was out cold in seconds.”

  “Did you keep the syringe?”

  “I was more interested in getting away than in collecting evidence.”

  “Not for evidence. I’m curious about the contents. You were out cold when I arrived. I was sitting with you for nearly an hour before you did more than twitch a finger. I thought you were unconscious from the fever. Now I’m wondering if you were drugged.”

  “I’ve been wondering the same. I’m just not sure what he had to gain from keeping me here.”

  “Money? Does Mary Alice have a lot of it?”

  “She’s a biochemist and works for a pharmaceutical company. She makes great money, and her parents are both doctors. They live in as close to a mansion as a house can get without being one.”

  “Does she live with them?”

  “No. She works in Boston and has a nice house in Saugus. It’s not far from where her parents live, and very close to the house where I grew up. The elementary school we attended is right around the corner. That’s where we met.”

  “Mary Alice is your connection to Absalom. I have to believe you being drugged and kept here has something to do with him not wanting you to find her and talk her out of joining his group.” He was still moving swiftly, pulling back branches and holding them so that she wouldn’t get slapped in the face.

  “Mary Alice isn’t stupid enough to join a cult.”