Sanctuary Lost WITSEC Town Series Book 1 (43 page)

Then the door opened.

Andra’s eyes were bright with tears as the
wind whipped her hair. She stepped out slowly, like she didn’t want
to jar anything not all the way healed yet. She touched her hand to
her front, just below her throat.

Tears tracked down her face.

Pat ran full speed before John could stop
him. He barreled into Andra and the tackle sent them both flying
back until Andra was sitting on the ground.

John rushed over, praying his son hadn’t sent
her straight back to the hospital. Before he reached them, Andra
tipped her head back and she burst out laughing.

She grinned at John, her arms tight around
his son. John hauled first Pat and then Andra to their feet. She
looked past him, taking in the crowd standing behind him. “Hi,
everyone.”

She shifted her gaze to him. “Hi, John.”

John pulled her into his arms. He bent his
head and whispered in her ear.

“Welcome home.”

Coming Soon

Star Witness (Sept 2014) Love Inspired
Suspense

Sanctuary Buried (Oct 2014) WITSEC Town
series book 2

Lisa Phillips
is a British ex-pat who
grew up an hour outside of London. Lisa attended Calvary Chapel
Bible College where she met her husband. He's from California but
nobody's perfect. It wasn't until her Bible College graduation that
she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Since then
she's taken the Apprentice and Journeyman writing courses with the
Christian Writers Guild and discovered a penchant for high-stakes
stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find
made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever
after.

Lisa can be found in Idaho wearing either
flip-flops or cowgirl boots, depending on the season. She leads
worship with her husband at their local church. Together they have
two children—a sparkly Little Princess and a Mini Daddy—but there’s
only one bunny rabbit now (sad face).

To find out more about Lisa Phillips,
visit:

Where you can sign up for a Newsletter and
receive email notifications of new books.

You can also follow Lisa on Twitter
@lisaphillipsbks

Francine Peters jerked awake. The crash came
again, the sound of something heavy falling over and splintering on
a hard floor, like the cracked tile of her downstairs entryway.

Her breaths were heavy, her mind flitting
through the murder of the Mayor’s wife only weeks ago, the series
of break-ins and thefts at the Medical Center and the missing
drugs. But there was likely a far less sinister explanation for
this noise. She glanced at the clock. 3:04 a.m. That was half an
hour of sleep she was going to lose before she had to get up for
work anyway.

The front door slammed. Footsteps were
followed by giggles and loud “shushing.” Frannie rolled her eyes
and pushed back her comforter. In the darkness she made her way to
the door of her bedroom and down the stairs. Did they really think
they were fooling her?

Memories from years ago washed through her
mind and her steps faltered. An entirely different scene had met
her at the bottom of the stairs of her childhood home that night. A
scene that led to her witnessing her father’s murder and Frannie
testifying against the partner her father had been embezzling
from.

Frannie blew out a slow breath and continued,
gripping the stair rail to keep from rubbing the scarred skin on
the top of her left shoulder. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. He would
never find her here, in the middle of nowhere surrounded by
mountains. In a town only accessible by military transport.

He would never find her again.

Frannie’s mom, Mimi, wobbled across the
entrance to their tiny three bedroom house on her stiletto heels.
She was barely forty-five, but she swore she was still in her
thirties. She didn’t realize no one believed her. Not when her
daughters were adults.

Mimi’s low-cut shirt had a wet stain on the
front. It tracked down to the lap of her short denim skirt. Her
hair had looked better earlier that evening, before Frannie went to
bed. Frannie’s sister, Izabelle, was dressed in a matching outfit,
with some of their natural blonde amid the streaks of her hair.

Frannie stopped at the bottom step and folded
her arms.

Her mom looked up, not a shadow of remorse on
her face. Instead, her mouth morphed into disgust. “What is that
hideous thing you’re wearing?”

“My nightgown.” It was an over-sized t-shirt,
XL being the only size Sam Tura had in stock when she’d registered
for his gym, Sleight of Hand. She hadn’t been back there since the
older woman she hired at her bakery had fallen ill. Cancer.

Izzy, who was twenty-four and younger than
Frannie by two years, snorted. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing
that.” She shot a smirk at their mom and both of them erupted into
giggles.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what
their lazy limbs and slurred speech meant. Despite there being no
alcohol allowed in the WITSEC town of Sanctuary, they seemed to
have gotten their hands on some anyway. Not that anyone had ever
accused Frannie of being a genius, even though her mom always
referred to her as the “smart daughter”. She had to tell people
something when Izzy was the pretty one. Especially given Frannie
looked more like her father. She was smart enough to figure this
out.

Instead of waiting for them to quit laughing,
Frannie went to the kitchen and hit the button on the coffee maker.
It wasn’t set to come on for fifteen more minutes, but she didn’t
want to wait. She stared at the liquid dripping into the carafe and
tried to ignore the sounds of her mom and sister following her into
the kitchen for round two.

Frannie grabbed the Ibuprofen from the top
shelf of the end cabinet, got two waters the fridge and set both on
the breakfast bar’s stained linoleum surface.

Her mom shook out the tablets. When she
drank, water dribbled down her chin. Mimi lowered the bottle and
swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Thanks, darling.”

Her mom’s look of gratitude was eclipsed by
Izzy saying, “Yeah, thanks Cinderella.”

Frannie poured her coffee, ignoring the
clench in her stomach that told her to fire a quip back at Izzy,
whether the thing was words or something substantial. Too bad Izzy
wasn’t ugly, or Frannie’s step-sister. But she was wicked.

Mimi swatted Izzy in the arm.

She shot her a look back. “What? You’re the
one who came up with it.”

Mimi shot her a look that said, “Shut up,”
her eyes wide.

Why was she worried about offending Frannie
now? That day had long passed.

“I’m going to bed.” Izzy set her bottle on
the counter and water sloshed over the top. “That was a great
night, Mom.”

Mimi grinned. “It was. I think Diego really
likes you.”

Hearing the name was like a blow to the face.
Why did it have to be
him
of all people? So long as he
didn’t come around, Frannie would be fine. She’d never cared for
him, or the way he looked at her.

His brother Matthias, on the other hand,
probably didn’t even know that Mimi had two daughters. The brothers
worked as hands at Bolton Farrera’s ranch. And Nadia Marie, the
salon owner who’d given up trying to get the ranch boss to notice
her, had told Frannie there was a lot of that going around at the
moment. There was probably something in the water over at the ranch
that made them oblivious to interested women. What other
explanation could there be?

Frannie pushed away all thoughts of tall men
in chambray shirts, jeans and chaps. If she kept thinking about
them any longer, she’d go into pre-mature menopause. Then the fair
skin she’d inherited along with her strawberry blonde hair would
turn an unsightly shade of pink.

“Nighty-nighty.” Izzy giggled, her unsteady
footsteps retreating from the room.

Frannie held her breath and turned. Sure
enough, her mom still stood by the breakfast bar. “You need
something, Mimi?”

It was by mutual consent that Frannie called
her mom by her given name, and it was not something she cared to
dwell on. Not given everything else swirling around in her
head.

When her mom didn’t say anything, Frannie
said, “You should probably get some sleep if you’re going to be in
the bakery this afternoon.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,
darling. I—”

“Whatever it is, it’s not going to happen.”
Frannie wanted to throw a fit.
God, why do I always feel like
the parent?
“With Stella in the medical center I’m
short-handed. I need you to come to work and do the job that I pay
you for.”

Frannie was more than short-handed. Stella
had for years been doing the work of two people, and she never said
a word about it, even though Frannie paid her for the work of one
because she had no idea.

Then Stella was diagnosed with terminal
cancer and she kept coming to work, even up until she had to spend
the day in a chair manning the register because she didn’t have the
energy to walk up and down the space behind the display counter.
Like that was the obvious thing to do. Frannie never said a word,
because she loved having Stella there and if the woman wanted to
carry on as normally as possible, Frannie was going to give her
that.

Her mom’s face morphed into something meant
to look either kind, or in need of sympathy. Frannie wasn’t sure
which.

“Darling, you work so hard. And I love that
you’ve found what makes you happy, I do. Sweet Times is a great
success and everyone says so. Especially when I tell them it was my
daughter who set up the bakery. I know you need help right now, but
I simply can’t come in today. I really would help if I could, but
there’s something I’ve got to do, see. I’d get out of it if I
could. You understand, don’t you, darling? That I’d love nothing
more than to be there to help you.”

Like pushing Frannie, at sixteen years old,
out of the walk-in closet? While Mimi and Izzy hid, Frannie had
been sent downstairs to see what was happening.

Just in time to witness her father’s
murder.

It was on the edge of Frannie’s tongue to
say, to pour the accusations out at her mother, but she held the
words back because it wouldn’t change anything. And it never
would.

“It’s not even really my thing, it’s Izzy.
She has an appointment—” Mimi leaned close. “—with the doctor, you
know?”

Frannie didn’t know, why did her mom think
she would? The two of them kept only their own confidences, leaving
Frannie to navigate life by herself living in the same house with
her mom and sister like they were the family and she was just a
renter. Despite the fact she paid the mortgage each month and did
all the cleaning. The nickname Cinderella might sting, but it
wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

“Mom—” She was ready to launch into her
speech about responsibility and earning the money Frannie paid her
mostly out of sympathy. Then her mom’s eyes would glaze over.

Instead, her mom cut her off. “You’re such a
good girl.” Mimi squeezed Frannie with her spray-tanned, skinny
arms. “So honest and strong.” She patted Frannie’s cheek a little
too vigorously. “My brave one, taking care of us.”

Unfortunately, Frannie had learned that those
weren’t necessarily good things. All it meant was she was the one
picking up their slack. Doing whatever they didn’t want to do.

Mimi tottered to the door and glanced back.
“I’ll make it up to you next week, when my schedule isn’t so
busy.”

Meanwhile, Frannie’s bakery hemorrhaged money
paying salaried employees who barely came to work, and when they
did were two hairs above useless. She needed to hire two people to
replace Stella but could barely afford it, since her mom and sister
were on the payroll and she needed all her spare money to replace
the oven that went out the week before.

In the real world, Frannie would fire them
and get herself a studio apartment followed by hiring staff that
was actually competent.

But this wasn’t the real world.

This was Sanctuary.

The United States’ first and only—as far as
she knew—town entirely populated by people in witness protection.
All because forty years ago the Marshals Service decided to
experiment and see if federal witnesses could live in their own
community, tucked away in the mountains somewhere. It was where
they hid the high-profile witnesses, household names with
recognizable faces. And because her mom had been a movie star as a
teenager a billion-ish years ago, Frannie’s testimony landed them
here.

Which meant she was stuck with her mom and
sister forever.

Frannie dressed in her work clothes and
pulled her hair into a ponytail. She rode her bike from their
street, which was on the south side of town, along the deserted
darkened roads down to Main Street.

Sweet Times was located on the east end of
Main. As she did every morning, Frannie locked her bike at the back
of the building and glanced once in the direction of the ranch
before going inside. Like always, the light at the ranch house was
on, as was the light in the barn and the residence where the hands
lived—where
he
lived. There was a sense of solidarity,
knowing he was awake. Even though he’d never said anything to her
but, “Two loaves of white bread, sliced, and a dozen chocolate
cupcakes.”