Sanctuary Lost WITSEC Town Series Book 1 (13 page)

Aaron didn’t blink. “January fifth.
Hand-written letter addressed to Elizabeth Chandler of Rhode
Island. Registration number 0105-7552.”

Thought so.
John smiled at him.
“Sounds like you’re just the right man for the job.”

Aaron puffed out his chest again.
“Cataloguing, recording, delivering. Checks and balances. Ones and
zeroes. All Aaron.”

“All Aaron.”

John got a smile out of the guy. He pulled
the evidence bags from the safe and Aaron took a step back. John
glanced between the young man and the paper bags containing Betty’s
bloody clothes and shoes. “Aaron, if I fill out the form will you
make sure I did it right?”

Aaron pulled a spiral-bound notebook from the
file cabinet and got a stubby pencil from his pocket. Two pieces of
paper and a quarter fell to the floor. He bent and grasped them,
shoving them back in. Aaron shuffled to the waiting area and sat
right next to Pat, who was playing a game on his iPad. Aaron
flipped the notebook open and started making notations while John
filled out the form.

John understood the need for secrecy, but
clearly someone in charge had decided putting every resident under
permanent scrutiny was the way to achieve that. Other than the
allowance each townsperson got for internet usage at the library,
mail was their only form of contact with the outside world since
their phones only dialed internally. John had heard several
people—like Hal, who ran the radio station—sold their internet time
to others since they didn’t use it.

The door opened to a young woman holding a
taped-up box. “Good morning.”

Aaron scribbled on his paper.

“One package to go and I’ve got my form all
filled out.” The woman was beautiful and all curves. But
young—probably mid-twenties, not much older than Aaron. She set the
box down and handed Aaron the paper. He took it but didn’t look at
her.

John stood. “Sheriff John Mason.”

She strode over with her hand out, her smile
wide. “Francine Peters. Nice to meet you.” Her blond hair was thick
and fell past her shoulders, and her blue eyes eclipsed her
face.

“I’m Pat.”

She shook hands with him, too. “Frannie. I
run the bakery on the west end of Main Street, two doors past the
spa and salon. It’s called Sweet Times. So if y’all need a cupcake
later, you should come see me.”

“Awesome!” Pat was clearly sold on the
idea.

John laughed. “We might have to take you up
on that.”

She smiled. “You too, Aaron. I hope to see
you later.”

“Cataloguing, recording, delivering. Checks
and balances. Ones and zeroes. All Aaron.”

“Well, it can’t take you all day. Can it?
When your work is done you should come by for a break, okay?”

“Break okay.” Aaron continued writing.

Francine shot John a smile. “Later, guys.
Nice to meet you, Pat.”

Aaron stood. “Mail pick-up.”

Pat set his iPad aside. “There’s a
mailbox?”

“Main Street west and Main Street east.”

Pat looked at John. “Can I go, Dad?
Please.”

“Sure bud. I’ll see you in a bit. Hey, maybe
Uncle Grant will send your bike today.”

“That would be awesome!”

John watched them go. The sun was up and he’d
had a good night’s sleep where he wasn’t woken up by Pat’s shifting
around every five seconds. So long as Andra continued to keep to
herself while he found Betty’s murderer, things would be fine. The
clock ticked past eight forty-five. Where was Deputy Palmer?

The bell clanged and the door opened to admit
a matron with a perm who dressed like a Sunday school teacher. And
smiled like one too. “Good morning, good morning.”

He’d seen her the day before at church but
hadn’t gotten a chance to introduce himself. “I take it you’re
Dotty.”

Her eyes gleamed. “No doubt my reputation for
being notorious has preceded me.”

John laughed although she might not have been
joking. He’d have to be careful with these people. Who knew what
kind of person she’d been in her old life?

She grinned. “I’m Dotty Bennett...as in
Elizabeth and Jane?”

“Uh, sure.” He had no clue.

“Pride and Prejudice, dear.” She settled at
the tiny table in the corner and plugged headphones into the radio,
keyed the mic and did a sound check. She came through loud and
clear on John’s radio. Then she pulled the stack of papers from her
inbox and within a minute had her computer on and was typing so
fast the click of the keys broke the sound barrier.

Time to work, then.

**

Pat looked up and down the street as they
walked, turning in circles. He’d lived in D.C. his whole life. This
place looked more like Main Street at Disneyland since all the
buildings were mushed together.

Aaron didn’t say much, but he was smiling.
Pat thought it might be because he was there to help. They pushed
the cart all the way to the mailbox at the end of the street where
Aaron pulled a key from his pocket. The mail was mostly letters,
but there were some big orangey-brown envelopes like he’d seen at
his dad’s house. Maybe some people here had gotten divorced,
too.

That had to be weird when they lived in the
same town still. Like two Christmases wasn’t complicated
enough.

Still, there wouldn’t be two Christmases now.
Not if they stayed here. But Pat didn’t want to think about his mom
if she wasn’t even thinking about him. Would she know why he
couldn’t come and see her?

He missed his friends too, but he’d emailed
Bobby. Too bad there were a bunch of rules about what he could and
couldn’t say about Sanctuary. It was pretty cool here and Bobby
would be really jealous. Except Bobby’s mom and dad were still
married, so maybe he didn’t have much to be jealous about.

When the mailbox was empty, Aaron said, “Main
Street west!”

They walked all the way back, so Pat got to
wave at his dad through the window and they did the same thing with
the mailbox at that end. If Aaron had to catalog and record all
this mail it was going to take forever.

They passed Sweet Times on the way back.

“Are Fannie’s cupcakes good?”

“Double chocolate, fudge pieces. Sprinkles on
top.”

Pat’s mouth watered. “Do you have a bike? I
might get mine later, maybe we could bike ride.”

“Cataloguing, recording, delivering. Break
okay. Bike ride.”

“How about cataloguing, recording,
delivering. Lunch. Bike ride. Break okay.”

“Okay.” Aaron grinned.

He was an adult but he didn’t talk like it.
He sounded like Bobby after he got hit in the head by the ball from
T-ball. The throwing up had been pretty bad, but Bobby got two
weeks off school and he didn’t have to do his homework.

Matthias’s nephews were cool and all, but
they were little kids. Pat figured he could be friends with Aaron.
Maybe they played softball here. But football would be okay too; he
liked playing catch with his dad. Sometimes Pat even pretended he
was Uncle Nate.

“Good morning, Aaron.” A nice lady smiled and
then looked at Pat. “And who are you, young man?”

“Are you the teacher?”

She laughed. It was a nice sound. “As a
matter of fact, I am. Mrs. Pepper.”

“I’m Patrick Garrett Mason. I’m eight and I’m
in third grade.”

“Well, now. That’s practically all grown up.”
She ruffled his hair. “My how tall you are.” She glanced at Aaron
and then back at Pat. “Looks like you’re on important business. But
it is Monday, Pat, so I’ll expect you in school at three-thirty. I
need to see where you’re at. Your dad is busy with this…new case.
So I doubt he needs you underfoot when he has work to do.”

“Yeah because someone got—”

Her eyes went all big and she shook her head.
Aaron was making a sort of whining noise, but with his mouth
closed. “Three-thirty okay, Pat?”

“Yes, Mrs. Pepper.”

“You and I are going to get along just fine.”
She strode away.

Pat glanced up at Aaron, who didn’t look
happy anymore. It was all Pat’s fault. What was he supposed to do?
What was it Aaron had said? “Checks and balances.”

“Cataloguing, recording and delivering.”
Aaron burst forward, shoving the cart in front of him. “All
Aaron.”

Pat grinned and trotted after him.

Waiting while Aaron recorded all the mail in
the notebook he called his “ledger” was pretty boring, but Pat went
upstairs and made a stack of turkey and mayonnaise sandwiches.
Dotty didn’t want one. She had a salad and a white plastic fork.
But everyone else had two sandwiches, except his dad who ate three
and said they were the best sandwiches ever. He was probably
lying—they didn’t even have lettuce because Pat wasn’t allowed to
use a big knife to cut it—but Pat didn’t care.

Then it was one o’clock and Pat heard the
helicopter. The three of them loaded all the mail on the cart into
the back of his dad’s sheriff car and Pat got to ride up front.

“That helicopter is huge! It’s even bigger
than the one that brought us here.” Pat couldn’t stop staring at
it. “My bike has
got
to be on there!”

Soldiers climbed out holding big guns, but
Pat wasn’t scared. “Awesome!”

His dad grinned. “Stay here for a second
okay?” He glanced at the backseat. “Aaron, you with me?”

“All Aaron.”

They climbed out and Pat watched them load
the mail. What came off was one bulky bag probably full of more
packages and letters…and Pat’s bike. Soon enough they’d get to go
have one of Frannie’s cupcakes.

Aaron got back in the Jeep but his dad stayed
by the helicopter. Pat saw Matthias driving the ranch truck with
something in the back. He swallowed. It looked like one of those
bags they put a dead person in on that TV show he wasn’t supposed
to watch. Was that Mrs. Collins?

Back at the sheriff’s office Aaron had to
enter all the incoming mail in his ledger. Pat got to read the
numbers off each envelope, so they’d know they got every bit of
it.

“This one’s for Andra.” Pat turned the white
envelope over in his hands.

“Si, Senor.”

Pat didn’t get that, so he looked at his
dad.

“Andra speaks Spanish.”

“Like Matthias?”

His dad nodded. “And their whole family. I
guess their dad was from Puerto Rico but Olympia is actually
Greek.”

Pat got to go with Aaron to deliver it all.
They used a golf cart that said “Sanctuary Mail”, but someone had
written it in marker. Aaron drove all around town while Pat put the
letters in people’s mailboxes. Everyone waved and said hi to them.
He’d even put his bike on the back, so everyone got to see that,
too. His Grandma had given it to him for Christmas, even though
she’d said it was from his dad. They didn’t know his mom said he
couldn’t get a bike because his step-dad thought Pat was already
outside too much and he should study more. But what did Stefan know
about being a kid?

The golf cart jerked to the side, just past a
huge house that didn’t look like it belonged there. Aaron stopped
at the base of a path which wound up between trees into the
mountains. The trees wrapped around the whole town like a ring
donut, stretching up so far he couldn’t imagine going that high.
Who lived up there?

Pat checked the bag. The last envelope was
for Andra. “Ms. Andra lives up there?”

“Si, Senor.”

**

Andra stirred the lemonade, though she didn’t
know for sure whether Aaron would have anything for her this week.
It still felt nice to anticipate company, even if she wound up
enjoying the drink on the rocker on her porch watching the
sunset.

She set the pitcher in the ancient yellow
refrigerator. The minute the door shut, the thing rumbled to life
with the whirring sound it made when it was cooling. Eventually it
was going to go caput, but for now she’d thank God every day it
still worked. Heaven only knew how she’d get a new one all the way
up here.

Andra crossed the wood planks of her kitchen
and living room floor, both of which matched the color of the logs
on the wall and the rafters bracing the roof up. From the front
door to the rear wall of the bedroom and then the kitchen window to
the fireplace, her home was precisely square and the size of a
studio apartment.

Up here the only noise was the rustle of
birds and the back and forth motion of tree branches when the wind
blew. She’d lived in Barcelona for years, in London, Vienna and
Moscow. Crowded, grimy places that liked to think they were great.
But the constant press of people all trying to get whatever it was
they wanted did not make her feel at home. Andra had left that life
behind, getting out of the business she’d fallen into even after
she was pressed into going legit. But all that was years ago.

This life was nothing like it; the analogy of
being reborn wasn’t lost on her. New creation and all that. It was
true, but in the early hours when she woke up sweating and couldn’t
get back to sleep because of the crowd of faces in her head it was
still hard to shake the past. She may have received all the
mercy—for the price of her knowledge—that the government could
grant, as well as the heights of mercy God chose to give her. But
she still had to live with the memory of what she’d done.

Aaron stepped into the clearing along with
Pat Mason. Andra opened the screen door she’d built out of wood
scraps and tulle and installed herself, and smiled as they ambled
over. “Hola.”

Pat looked confused, so she said, “Hi,
Pat.”

His face lit up and he presented her with her
letter. “We brought your mail!”

“I see that. You boys look thirsty.
Lemonade?”

Aaron sat on the porch step, which she took
as a yes. Andra poured two glasses and took them out to the boys.
Well, Aaron was technically an adult, but there was nearly fifteen
years between them so he seemed like a youth to her.