He looked up at her. Frannie smiled and put her head back against the outside of his upper arm. Matthias shifted, and she felt the warmth of his lips against her forehead for just a second as she listened to Father Wilson talking about the purpose of prayer.
The father had them all stand, and Matthias held Frannie’s hand as they bowed their heads with everyone else.
She needed to talk to Andra and Nadia Marie about what happened next. Dan had told her about reading her Bible every day, and praying as much as she could so her decision really sank in. Maybe the girls could show her how to do that.
As soon as they said, “Amen,” Matthias squeezed her hand. “I’m going to go talk with Dan for a second. Will you be okay?”
Frannie nodded and watched him make a bee-line for the farmer while Nadia Marie spoke from behind her. “Well, well, well. You two looked pretty cozy.”
Frannie turned, using all her strength to stay standing. She put her hands on her hips. “What’s it to you?”
Nadia Marie’s eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong?” She glanced at Matthias for a second. “It didn’t look like there was.”
“There isn’t, thank you. That’s why I don’t appreciate you offering to kiss Matthias in the play instead of my mom.”
Nadia Marie frowned for a split-second, and then burst out laughing. “You think…” She cackled. “You’re mad…because you think I’m going to…”
Frannie glared at her. Then she had to sit down. Then she glared some more.
Nadia Marie pointed at her, even though it was rude. “You’re jealous.”
“I am not.”
Nadia Marie wiped a tear from under her eye. “You so are. It’s the cutest thing.”
“And if Bolton agreed to kiss someone else, you wouldn’t have something to say about that?”
Nadia Marie sobered. “I wasn’t going to kiss Matthias. We could have worked it out and avoided that. Why would you assume I wanted to?”
Now she felt foolish. “I—”
Nadia Marie moved closer and whispered, “I don’t want to kiss Matthias. Trust me. He’s like my brother.” She touched the sides of Frannie’s face for a second before she let her hands drop back to her sides. “Understanding what God has done for you and being so thankful you can barely breathe because He saved you is an amazing thing. I’m so happy you made that decision.”
“Me too.”
“But you’re still you. God isn’t surprised when your fears surface. He wants to make you more like Him, but you start from here. From who you are now. We become Christians because we aren’t content with this, with who we are. We want more, and God is the only one who can do that. But even more, He wants to give us even greater things than we can imagine. Not just victory over the sins we don’t even think about committing because we’re so used to them being part of our lives. But amazing gifts only He can give.”
“How do I not mess that up?”
Nadia Marie smiled. “Pray. Read your Bible every day. Church. Andra and I are going to start a Bible study. Come with us.”
“What about my mom? I don’t know if I want to totally sever the tie, but what choice do I have? She doesn’t care about me at all. She only cares about herself.”
“It’ll be messy, that’s for sure.” Nadia Marie worked her jaw from one side to the other. “Have you talked to Stan? If you sold the house and moved in with me, they’d have to either buy it or go find somewhere else to live.”
Frannie had to sit. “I can move some of my furniture into the apartment above the bakery, but they would be homeless.”
“Serves them right.”
“Aren’t Christians supposed to be compassionate?”
Nadia Marie said, “Not to the point we get walked all over. Jesus wasn’t a doormat when He allowed them to crucify Him. And your family isn’t allowed to treat you like one, either.”
Frannie looked at Matthias, who stood across the room with Dan. The farmer had his hand on Tias’s shoulder, talking low, and they both had their eyes shut.
She looked back at Nadia Marie. “I can’t move any furniture right now.”
“That’s what your friends are for. You want to move into the bakery, give me your keys. I’ll get your stuff over there, so when you’re released from the medical center after tomorrow’s medicine delivery you can go straight there.”
“You would really do that for me?”
“Just don’t ask me to make you any meals. You wouldn’t need poison at that point.”
Frannie laughed. “Good to know.”
“I’ll talk to Olympia about getting you set up for meals.” Nadia Marie sat and squeezed Frannie’s hand. “Don’t worry about your mom. She’s going to make it difficult, but at least it’ll be done. Worse would be having her in your home for decades.”
“Maybe I should just give her my part in the play.” Frannie shrugged. “It’s not like I can stand long enough to say all my lines. I can barely manage ten minutes right now.”
“So you missed a couple of rehearsals.” Nadia Marie waved away her concern. “We worked around that. After tomorrow, when you get the antidote, you’ll be good as new.”
“Francine.” She turned and found Father Wilson beside her. He held out his hand. “So glad you decided to join us this morning.”
“Thanks, Father.” She squeezed his cold hand and let go. The question in the back of her mind slid up to the forefront. “I know this probably isn’t a normal sort of question, and maybe there’s some kind of privacy thing, but… The man I saw about to kill Stella has been sending me letters.” He nodded, though he looked confused, so she continued, “I was just wondering if he’s approached you at all?”
“Right,” Nadia Marie said. “Like maybe to talk about what he’s doing, or something he did in the past?”
Frannie said, “He indicated he has faith and that’s why he’s doing this. I just wondered if you had any clues as to who it was.”
Father Wilson coughed, his hand to the front of his shirt. “Well, it is true that a great many people come to me to confess, or simply to talk. But I can’t say this killer person has revealed himself to me. How very distasteful.”
Frannie frowned. Didn’t this man understand the worst things in people? They came to share their sins with him?
“I’d rather like to know if you have any questions about my sermon. Anything you’d like to know, or ask me about?”
“Uh…not that I can think of.” He wanted to talk about that? “Beth might need to talk with you, though. She’s still in the medical center.”
Father Wilson continued like she hadn’t even said anything. “It is crucially important that each person submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives before it’s too late.”
“I’m getting medicine tomorrow, I’ll be fine after that. Beth needs more than I do right now, but she’s not sick or anything.”
“Not to mention Frannie became a Christian last night.”
Father Wilson looked from Frannie to Nadia Marie, and back. “How wonderful.” He smiled, but it was more like a grimace. Was his craggy face even capable of looking happy?
“Thank you.” She didn’t mean it to come out as a question, but the inflection was there. “I should find Tias and head back to the medical center now.”
“Of course.” Father Wilson laid his hand on her shoulder. “You feel better soon, Francine.”
Chapter 17
Monday morning Frannie sat on the side of Stella’s bed and wiped away a tear. Matthias squeezed her shoulder. “You can come back and see her later.”
Frannie nodded, her gaze still fixed on Stella’s closed eyelids. She’d worsened during the night, to the point she’d slipped into unconsciousness. The likelihood was Stella would only last long enough for Sanctuary residents to say goodbye. Her dream of hanging on long enough to see her son one last time was coming to an end.
“He must have done something.” Frannie fisted her hand on her leg and looked at Matthias. “
He must have come in here last night and done this to Stella.”
“You were here. Did you see anyone?”
“I was asleep. He could have done something to me, too, but he didn’t. Maybe he really does only kill those who are dying or who told him they want to die. But that doesn’t give me a good reason why he’s been trying to hurt me.”
He drew her up then, and they walked to her bed. Matthias sat with her, holding her hand. “The delivery will be here in a couple of hours. You’ll get your medicine, and then you won’t have to worry about being dosed with that poison again.”
“Stella—”
“She’s ready, Frannie. You know that.” He squeezed her hand. “The doctor recommended waiting until the medicine has had time to work before you leave. You’re not supposed to be agitated right now.”
Commotion outside the room brought both of their attention to the door. Matthias got up and strode into the hall. Frannie settled herself into the wheelchair at the end of her bed and followed, even though he was going to be upset about it. Maybe he needed a minute away from her and it wasn’t just that he’d gone to see what was going on. She wasn’t some fragile flower he had to protect. Frannie had been shot by her own father. Getting agitated was kind of relative after that.
The wheelchair was hard to maneuver, but she got into the hall and headed for the front of the building. Aaron paced in the waiting area, wringing his hands. He usually didn’t get this agitated delivering mail. Matthias stood at the counter with Doctor Fenton who was using a knife to open a taped-up cardboard box.
Aaron saw her, and Frannie smiled at him. He didn’t exactly acknowledge her—she never really knew what penetrated and what didn’t—but he obviously cared or he wouldn’t be upset. He did like her cupcakes.
The doctor lifted the flaps and rummaged. Stilled. And then rummaged again. He looked up at Matthias. “It’s not here. They sent something similar, but it won’t work.” He swore. “I told them she was allergic to codeine.”
Doctor Fenton shoved the box away. “They’re going to have to special delivery the right medicine.” He snapped up the phone. “I’ll have the sheriff call director Mason.” Before he dialed, Fenton said, “You absolutely cannot tell Frannie that Susan was killed until she gets that medication.”
Frannie gasped. “Seriously?”
Matthias and Fenton both whipped around. “Frannie.” Matthias started toward her.
She didn’t even move. Her arms wouldn’t function. “I already know. Dan told me.”
That was right, wasn’t it?
Why did it hurt so bad? Her head was pounding, the voice of her father loud in her ears.
She glanced at the doctor. “You weren’t going to tell me?” Her voice was high and shrill, even to her own ears. “You weren’t going to tell me Susan is dead?”
Matthias crouched in front of her, his hands covering where hers lay in her lap. “Take a breath and let it out slowly. Until you get that medication you can’t get upset.”
“Can’t… I’m…” She tried to pull her hands out from under his. “Did you agree with him?”
“You knew Beth was brought in. You told me she was pregnant.” Matthias shook his head. “I’m fine with the fact Dan told you. I wasn’t going to keep it from you.”
Frannie tried to remember telling him about Beth’s baby, but she couldn’t. “I can’t even think, Tias.” Finally she managed to get her hands free. She gripped the wheels and moved herself backwards. “You didn’t want to tell me?”
Matthias took a step toward her. “It was Fenton’s recommendation that—”
“No!”
“Fran—”
“Both of you would have kept this from me?”
He looked aside, his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear what he said. It was like the world was underwater.
The chair she was in spun, making her lightheaded. Someone yelled. Frannie opened her eyes and saw her father again, his gun pointed at her.
“You killed Uncle Benny and now you’re going to kill me.”
Hot tears tracked down her face. Warmth surrounded her—strong arms and the smell of pine and molasses cookies, but Frannie didn’t want to go. She struggled, but he didn’t let her loose. She wanted to stay here with Tias where she’d finally found what she’d always been looking for.
God, help me. I don’t want to leave him. Don’t let me die.
She gripped the sides of her face. Her head felt like it was splitting open.
**
You killed Uncle Benny and now you’re going to kill me. The wrenching words rang in Matthias’s ears as he watched Doctor Fenton adjust the IV feeding medicine into Frannie’s arm.
“What will that do?”
“Buy us time. That’s all.”
Matthias stared down at her, laid on the bed she wasn’t supposed to be sleeping in any more. She should have gone home today.
Fenton said, “I’ve had to induce a type of coma, which will effectively shut down brain functions to help her body rest and heal at least some until we can get the antidote delivered.” He hesitated. “I really didn’t want to have to do this, but it will slow the effects of the drug she previously inhaled while giving her the chance to heal and us the time to get the medicine here.”
Matthias folded his arms. If the doctor hadn’t wanted to induce a coma in Frannie, he shouldn’t have said so bluntly that Susan and the president were dead. She’d known, but hearing it aloud like that had clearly shaken her fresh with the news.
Matthias touched her hand, needing the sensation of contact with the warmth of her soft skin.
“I’ll take care of her.”
“You’d better.” He said it before he could stop the thought from emerging.
“Excuse me?” Doctor Fenton’s face registered extreme consternation that Matthias might question him. “I understand you care for this woman, but I am her doctor.”
“You’re everyone’s doctor. None of us can go get a second opinion, even if we wanted to.”
“Now you’re questioning not just my methods, but my entire practice?”
“I don’t think you’re a bad doctor. I just don’t want anything to happen to Frannie.”
“A nurse will be monitoring her the whole time. She’s safer right now than she was when you took her to church.”
Matthias’s stomach clenched. “We only have a problem because you so callously blurted out the fact Susan was killed.”
Matthias was still having trouble believing it’d really happened. She’d been a genuinely nice woman, and the president seemed like a good man as much as you could tell those things.
“I refuse to argue with you in front of a patient.” Fenton strode on his shiny black shoes out into the hall. He looked like a fancy high-roller doctor from TV, not a small town no one even knew existed.
“Frannie will be protected. That has been the case since we brought her in.” The light in the hallway was different than in Frannie and Stella’s room. Now Matthias saw the doctor’s eyes were surrounded by dark circles. It probably wasn’t easy being the sole doctor of an entire town. Especially considering he also did the job of a paramedic.
But that didn’t mean Matthias was going to let his suspicions go.
He folded his arms. “It’s awfully convenient, now I think about it. Your job is tough, so why not bump off a few people who you think might be better off dead.”
“Ah, so not only are you accusing me of violating my oath, I am also now a murderer?”
If the expensive Italian leather shoe fits.
“I see,” the doctor said. “Sooner or later someone was going to accuse me of harming people. After all, that’s what we do in this town. Because my wife can’t possibly have overdosed and taken her own life. No, she has to have been killed by someone who believes murder is mercy.” His impassive face was red, and the only way Matthias could tell he felt anything about Harriet. “Even though she’s dead, that woman is still ruining my life.”
&nbs
p; “I’m not like that mob who thought Andra was a killer.”
“No?” Fenton’s head jerked. “But you feel it’s necessary to point out the fact I have both the knowledge and the opportunity to have committed these crimes.”
“If you didn’t do it, then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Matthias—” The booming voice came from behind him. Bolton was coming this way.
Fenton glanced over Matthias’s shoulder and smirked. “Oops, Daddy’s here.”
Matthias’s fist flew through the air, but didn’t get that far. Bolton grabbed his wrist and yanked it back. Matthias spun, his other fist clenched. When he saw Bolton’s face, reason stepped in. Nothing good would happen if he clocked his boss.
Matthias dropped his hand, panting hard when Fenton yelled, “I want him arrested for assault.”
Bolton grasped both of Matthias’s hands and pulled his wrists behind his back. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Tell the sheriff! I want to press charges!”
“I didn’t even touch you.” Matthias yelled back as he was walked away. Bolton gave him a shove.
Fenton yelled, “You would have if he hadn’t stopped you.”
Bolton marched Matthias through the waiting room, past gaping residents waiting for their appointments, all the way to his truck. He shoved Matthias in the passenger side and slammed the door.
When he got in the driver’s seat, Matthias turned to him. “I—”
Bolton held up his hand, palm out. “Don’t say anything at all.”
Matthias clenched his fists. He’d almost punched someone. Again. His stomach roiled. First Diego, and now he’d been about to hit Fenton. What was his problem that the minute someone mentioned his father, Matthias lost his cool? Sure, his dad’s verbal and occasionally physical abuse had left its mark on him. Of course it had. He wasn’t naïve enough to think otherwise. Sheriff Chandler—John’s predecessor—had looked the other way.
Was what had been wrong with his father wrong with him, too?
Bolton slammed the door again. Matthias let himself out of the truck outside the sheriff’s office.
Sanctuary Buried WITSEC Town Series Book 2 Page 20
