Sanctuary Lost WITSEC Town Series Book 1 (24 page)

“Done. Anything else?”

John worked his jaw back and forth. “I need
to know who I can trust, who I can call on for help.”

Palmer’s allegiance was up for debate as were
his abilities as a deputy when he was required to do something
other than provide a presence around town for the sheriff’s
department.

Grant didn’t take any time to think about it.
“You need anything, call Bolton Farrera.”

“He’s solid?”

“He’s ex-DEA. Undercover until things got
seriously hot and he blew the lid off internal corruption that was
spread wide.”

That explained how he got to bring his truck.
Testimony like that would have given Bolton a great deal of pull
with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

“I offered him the sheriff’s position first.
He turned it down in favor of his cows. Can you believe that?”

John pressed his lips together.

“Not that I didn’t want you. You were the
clear choice.”

“After Bolton.”

“I didn’t expect him to accept, anyway. It
was more of a courtesy thing.”

“And me being the second choice?”

Grant sighed. “Untwist your panties for a
second. You were made for this job. Who else can uphold the law and
be a peacemaker at the same time?” He laughed. “Do you remember
that time you told Dad that Ben and I got black eyes because we
both fell, when we were really fighting over who got to put the
frog in Sally Fisher’s lunchbox? Then you did it yourself and
blamed it on that redheaded kid—I forget his name—and no one
thought it was us at all. I can still remember you telling dad it
was such a horrible thing, and how could he even think we were
capable of something like that. Dude, you should have been a
mediator or something.”

John smiled. “Yeah, but then I’d have to
listen to people argue all day.”

“Which is different from this job how,
exactly?”

Shoot. “So we’re done here?”

“Actually, there was a reason I kept you on
the line a while longer. I was waiting for word and I just got
it.”

“What’s going on?”

Grant blew out a breath. “Did you read the
newspaper about what happened at the White House?”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, it was an assassination attempt. Just
not on the President. The First Lady was nearly killed in a
coordinated attack on Camp David three days ago. Their daughter was
with her at the time. The whole thing was unreal. The attack on the
White House was the second attempt.”

“Are you serious?”

“It gets worse. The whole thing was
masterminded by a Secret Service agent who it’s looking like has
ties to an eco-terrorist group. They’re mad at the First Lady for
supporting oil drilling. It’s a colossal mess in Washington right
now but they’ve kept a pretty tight lid on it so far. Everyone is
scrambling and people are starting to figure out something huge is
happening.

“The President has to stay and keep at his
post. But they want the First Lady out of there. Somewhere no one
will know, only the Secret Service. They have no idea who else
might have been compromised. The only people who will know where
they’ll be are me, the President and the FBI pilot I hired. And now
you.”

Of course.

“Oh and she’s bringing her daughter.”

“Elizabeth Sheraton is in her thirties,
right? It’s not like she’s a dependent. And isn’t she married?”

Grant sighed. “She was there and Elizabeth is
directly named in the death threats. There’s just one snag.”

“All this and you see only one snag?”

“You’re right. Elizabeth Sheraton is
apparently now Mrs. Elizabeth Myerson.”

John blew out a breath. “Is
the husband coming too?”

“We can’t reach him. He
left a week ago. He’s a lieutenant with the Navy SEALs currently
OUTCONUS on a mission. He could be unreachable for
weeks.”

John figured Outside of the
Continental U.S. was a bad acronym for being in the line of fire,
but there it was. “And you’re sending them to—” John caught himself
before he said the town name. “—here?”

“Special delivery. All goes
well they should be there in about eight hours.” Grant paused. “Oh
and one more thing.”

John winced. What
now?

“I’m shutting off your
internet. For the time being all communication in or out of town is
restricted to your satellite phone. No other outside contact. By
order of the President.”

Andra walked the trail up to her cabin.
Deputy Palmer’s light bobbed with his steps behind her. She didn’t
need the aid to know the way, and she didn’t think he was being
chivalrous. It was like he was guarding her from doing
something.

Did he think she was going to kill him up
here? Spur of the moment crime of passion was hard to get away
with. Although whoever had killed Betty seemed to be doing fine
staying anonymous.

But why pin it on Andra? It didn’t make a
whole lot of sense, unless there was some other motive that had
nothing to do with her having this supposed grudge against
Betty.

“You think you got away with it, don’t
you?”

Andra’s abs clenched.
Don’t do this,
Palmer.

“Walking up to your hideout all smug because
you think you’re home free. Well, you’re not. It’s only a matter of
time before the sheriff realizes it and your butt is in jail.”

Andra kept walking. It wasn’t far to her
house but it was far enough Palmer had a few more minutes to say
whatever he wanted and she couldn’t do anything about it. One wrong
move and he’d be hauling her back down in handcuffs.

“Nothing to say? That’s how it is when you’re
guilty. Now all that’s left is to face the inevitable.”

She didn’t turn, just kept climbing the hill.
“And if I didn’t do it?”

“Unlikely.” He was quiet for a second.
“You’re gonna find it hard to convince anyone otherwise. Even if
you didn’t do it your life here is basically over. Now everyone
knows who you are. You should probably request a transfer to
another city.”

Leave it to Palmer to assume that was even
possible. Had he listened at all to her story?

Andra turned. Palmer’s eyes went wide for a
second and then narrowed. He stepped right into her space and
looked down at her. It was a shame she hadn’t worn heels in ten
years because she could use the four-inch boost right now.

He smirked. “Something to say, murderer?”

The passage Andra had read in her Bible that
morning hadn’t left her mind all day. As though today of all days
she’d needed precisely those words.

She sighed. “No, I don’t have anything to
say.”

Andra turned and started walking again.
El Señor peleará por ti, y deberá tener su
paz.

T
he Lord w
ill fight for
you and you shall hold your peace.

The flashlight jabbed her
in the back. Andra held her breath, lips pressed together. Her life
had been fine the last decade. Why did God seem to think things
needed disrupting like this? What good could possibly come of
it?

She glanced up at the
stars.

I’m trusting You, Lord.
You gave me all this, I don’t believe You’d take it away now. But I
know You’re doing something big.

Palmer waited at the top of
the trail while Andra crossed the clearing and went inside. She
walked through the living area without switching on the light. The
lack of curtains had never bothered her before.

Andra lit a fire and sat on
the floor, staring while it fanned to life. She must have dozed off
because she sat up straight some time later when the fire was only
glowing embers. She winced at the crick in her back and her neck.
She was way too old to be sleeping on the floor, her back against a
ratty armchair.

A shuffling noise outside
brought her head around so fast she sucked in a breath.
Ouch.

The noise passed in front
of her door, the sound of shoes on the front porch. Splashing, then
the sharp tang of fuel permeated the air…diesel.

Andra climbed to her feet
and yanked on her hiking boots. She didn’t wait for the smoke or
the flames. She pulled her shoe box of photos from the top of the
refrigerator and stuffed it in her backpack.

With a rush of heat and
flames, the entire front side of Andra’s cabin was engulfed. She
ran to the bedroom, tugging the backpack on her shoulders, and
jimmied open the window. She hopped out onto the grass and made her
way around to the front, giving the cabin a wide berth. She’d
cleared a sizeable area of brush and kept it maintained in case
exactly this happened. She didn’t want the whole mountain to go up;
therefore it was necessary to have clearance between the house and
the trees.

The air was thick with
smoke but she didn’t see anyone hanging around. Thank God for the
wet September weather. The ground was virtually saturated. Had it
been autumn after a long, dry summer they’d have all been toast.
Literally. The mountains would trap the smoke in the basin unless a
weather system passed over that was strong enough to clear it
out.

Andra didn’t need a town
full of people with lung problems added to her account.

The smoldering fire was so
bright she had to squint but there it was. The flames had gone now,
leaving only glowing embers. As though the fire had whipped up and
burned out in minutes, all the accelerant consumed. The letters
were clear on the grass.

MURDERER.

Andra lifted her elbow and
coughed. Her throat burned. Circling out of range of the heat, she
walked to the opposite side of the cabin where the outside spigot
was. It was stiff but she got the water running, praying enough of
it would cool the heat. The whole system ran off a hot spring, so
it wasn’t always all that cold.

Though there was a fire
department—of sorts—they weren’t likely to come up here. Not for
the sake of her cabin. It was down to her to make sure it was out.
Her home was gone. No one else would care about added water damage
besides her.

“Hey!”

Andra spun around, nearly
spraying Hal with the water. He lifted both hands.

“It’s just me.” He bent
over, hands to his knees as he sucked in air.

Andra went back to spraying
the cabin. “Did you run all the way up here?”

“Of course. I was walking
home when I saw it.” He straightened. “Your house is on
fire.”

“Did you meet anyone coming
down when you were running up the trail?”

He stilled and then shook
his head. “No, I didn’t.”

Andra scanned the clearing
in all directions.

“You think they’re still up
here?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out.”
She shut off the water. “We should get to town.”

The porch roof
collapsed.

Hal flinched. “You have
everything you need?”

Andra nodded and hitched
the backpack higher on her shoulders. Hal trotted along behind her
so she slowed her pace while she kept her ears open. Whoever had
done this was still around, unless they’d taken an alternate route
back to town that went between the trees.

“You’re not upset about
this?” Hal panted.

“Oh, I’m mad.”

“You don’t look mad. You
don’t look like someone who’s losing everything. You just
look…ready to move.”

“It’s just a
cabin.”

He huffed. “That place was
never just a cabin to you.”

Andra pressed her lips
together but kept walking. He was right. Still, if life had taught
her anything it was to hold loosely to the things she thought
“belonged” to her. The most valuable things did not have a
price-tag.

Sure, part of her thought
maybe all of this was recompense—the consequences of her actions
coming due. Lives had been taken by her hand; families grieving for
years now because of her. Even though her WITSEC agreement meant
she hadn’t been prosecuted for her crimes, the legal ramifications
still hung over her head. Her sin might have been washed away when
she became a believer in Jesus. But that didn’t mean people hadn’t
been destroyed.

If someone in town wanted
to blame her for Betty Collins’ death that was one thing. It was a
lie. But how could she be mad at being called a murderer? That was
true and she’d come to terms with it. At least as much as anyone
could come to terms with the realization they were the thing people
feared. The monster in the dark.

Poison had been her
preferred method. It meant she didn’t have to be present, or even
have physical contact with her victims. But that didn’t make her
any less of a killer.

Andra kept walking, even
though her lungs were burning. Even though her throat felt like
knives every time she swallowed. She reached Main Street with Hal
at her side and shot him a glance. The older man was frowning, his
beard jumping up every time his lips pressed together. What exactly
was he confused about?

No faint glow on the
mountain said the fire hadn’t re-ignited. Good.

The nascent day’s sun was
on the horizon. Andra had no clue what time it was. She pounded on
the front door of the Sheriff’s office. When there was no answer,
she kept banging with her fist. Whatever it took to wake the man
from his beauty sleep.

“I can go back to my place
and call it in,” Hal said.

Andra shook her
head.