Dangerous Sanctuary Read online

  “Have you found her?” Bennett demanded before anyone could speak.

  “Mr. Remington,” Wren replied. “I know this is upsetting, but we have a lot of work to do. I can assure you, as soon as we find your niece, you’ll be informed of it. The best thing you can do is go wait with your mother. She’s very upset and could use some support.”

  “My mother knows how to handle herself, and she’ll understand if I’m out here trying to get to the bottom of the situation. As for being informed... That’s a laugh. I wouldn’t even know she was missing if my mother hadn’t called me.”

  “Dotty let us know you were on the way. If she hadn’t, I can assure you, we would have called you to update you on the situation,” Wren explained calmly. Better her than Radley. He wasn’t in the mood for dealing with Bennett’s faux indignation. As far as he could tell, the guy couldn’t care less about his niece. He’d never visited her in the hospital, he rarely called. He might have been her guardian when she was young, but he certainly hadn’t filled the role of father. He’d given her what was necessary to get her through her childhood and her teen years, and then he’d let her go her way while he went his. Dotty was the tie that bound them together.

  “How could this have happened?” Mary Alice asked, her face pale, her red hair gleaming like fire in the afternoon sun. Unlike Bennett, she looked sincerely concerned and alarmed. “I just spoke to her this morning, and she was fine.”

  “What time was that?” Radley asked, his nerves jumping to attention, his mind grabbing at the new information.

  “Maybe 4:30. I knew I was going to be at your offices, and I wanted to meet with her. We haven’t had a chance to talk, and I thought it was time.”

  “Did she mention going into work?”

  “She said she was on her way. We ended the call, and I assumed she’d be at the office when I arrived.” Her voice caught and tears slid down her cheeks. “I should have told her I loved her before I hung up. We always said that to each other. Until recently.” Her gaze shifted to Bennett, and there was something in her eyes that captured Radley’s attention, that made him want to explore that relationship a little more deeply.

  “We think someone was waiting for her to leave the house and grabbed her when her car ran out of gas,” Wren explained.

  “But...” Her voice trailed off, and she was still watching Bennett. He seemed oblivious, his attention on the Explorer.

  “What?” Radley prodded, hoping she’d continue with whatever she’d planned to say.

  “Honor never runs out of gas,” Mary Alice finally said.

  “Don’t be absurd, Mary Alice,” Bennett nearly spat, whirling to face them again. “Of course, she does. The evidence is sitting right in front of us.” He gestured at the vehicle, then stalked into the middle of the driveway. There was a slight hitch in his stride, a small limp that he hadn’t had the last time Radley questioned him.

  “Are you injured, Mr. Remington?” he asked, and Bennett scowled.

  “Pardon?”

  “It looks like you’re limping.”

  “I twisted my ankle while I was out running. A nasty sprain, the doctor said. Not that it matters. We need to focus on finding my niece and bringing her home.”

  “I thought you only ran on the treadmill,” Mary Alice said, and the thing Radley had seen in her eyes was now in her voice. Something dark and ugly. Not anger. Maybe disgust.

  “How would you know anything about me? You’re Honor’s friend. Not mine.”

  “Right. Sure,” she replied, turning away from him, scanning the area, her gaze drifting across the landscape. Lush fields. Colorful maple trees. The brilliant blue sky.

  Radley could almost hear her cataloguing the details.

  Finally, she shook her head. “I’m still not buying it. Honor is meticulous about safety. She always fills her gas tank before she leaves on a trip. I know she hasn’t been driving since she arrived home. Dotty refuses to drive the Explorer because it’s too big a vehicle. So, why was there no gas in the tank?”

  “Honor wasn’t the last person to drive the vehicle,” Wren pointed out gently. She understood, as Radley did, that loved ones often refused to believe that people they cared about were victims of crimes. “The Vermont State Police transported it here for her.”

  “It’s not that far a drive to Vermont. Two hours. Maybe a little more. Like I said, Honor would have filled up the gas tank before she left home. I find it really difficult to believe the tank was empty when the police brought it back here,” Mary Alice insisted. For the first time since Radley had met her, she looked confident and self-assured. Strong. It was as if she had found something to fight for, and she was going to do it with everything she had. “Even if she did run out of gas, there’s always a five-gallon jug of it in the barn with the tractor. All she’d have had to do was bring it out here and fill the tank.”

  And that was it.

  The missing piece to the puzzle.

  He met Wren’s eye.

  “The barn,” he said. “Whoever it was knew she kept a can of gasoline there. He siphoned the fuel from the tank and waited for her in the barn. She wouldn’t have been expecting an attack. She’d have walked in blind and unprepared and been ambushed.”

  “Inform the sheriff. He’ll need to bring his evidence team,” Wren called to the deputy who was already on her radio.

  Radley sprinted across the grassy field that separated the driveway from a sea of yellow cornstalks. Beyond that, the barn was brick red against the stunning blue sky. No clouds. No thunder. No hint that the day had gone from good to horrible, but the barn was just ahead, the doors yawning open. He’d been to the farm enough to know that Honor never left them that way.

  He sprinted across the threshold, skidding to a stop a few steps in. The tractor was there. The gas can—tipped on its side. A rag lay beside it. There were scuff marks in the dirt floor, obvious evidence of a struggle. And he knew Honor had fought, that she’d made every attempt to escape.

  He stepped closer, ignoring Wren’s warning to be careful, to be sure he didn’t contaminate the scene. He could clearly see two sets of footprints in the dirt. He could see the disturbed earth where Honor had fought. No blood, and that gave him hope. He didn’t want to believe she’d been critically injured.

  He wouldn’t believe it.

  Jessica and Henry entered the barn. He didn’t have to explain. They both knew what they were seeing.

  “What do you think?” Jessica asked, crouching near the door and studying the floor from her position there.

  “He ambushed her. They fought,” he responded, eyeing the scuff marks, trying to put aside his emotions and think like the law enforcement officer he was. “He dragged her backward, and then he carried her.” He pointed to a set of footprints moving away from the scene.

  “Carried her where?” Jessica asked. “The door is over here. Those footprints are moving in the opposite direction.”

  “There’s another door. It goes out to the horse pasture and pig pen.”

  “On a farm like this, there are plenty of places to hide someone,” Henry added. “He wouldn’t have had to take her to a vehicle. He could have dropped her somewhere and left her. Maybe he planned to return later.”

  Or, maybe, he hadn’t thought he’d need to.

  None of them said it, but Radley knew they were thinking it. In their line of work, they saw the worst of humanity.

  He moved through the barn without speaking. The door into the pasture was open, and he walked through, following the prints into the grassy field that the horses grazed on.

  A few yards out, something lay in the grass, a crumbled mass nearly hidden by knee-high grass.

  “Honor,” he shouted, running toward it.

  Suddenly, the mass lunged up, and he realized he wasn’t looking at a fallen woman. He was looking at a huge pig.

&n
bsp; Wilbur squealed angrily, but instead of charging toward Radley, he lumbered away. Screeching loudly, scuffling at the dirt at the edge of the fenced area.

  He huffed again, took a few steps toward Radley, and then went back to what he was doing. Grunting and digging as if there were something buried...

  Radley’s heart stopped.

  He felt it freeze in his chest, his entire body going cold as he raced through the grass and braced himself for what he might find.

  He saw the old well before he reached it—gray rock edging up four feet from the ground, several planks lying nearby.

  And he knew.

  He knew she was there. That she’d been carried from the barn and dropped into the well.

  “Honor!” he shouted again, and the soft tap of rock hitting rock answered.

  Three short. Three long. Three short.

  SOS.

  He reached the edge of the well, Wren right beside him a Maglite in hand. She aimed it down into the well, and Honor was there. Staring up at them. Face smeared with dirt, eyes glowing hotly in her pale face. Water up to her knees, clothes clinging to her skin.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to find me,” she said, smiling broadly.

  And that smile?

  It settled in his heart like the best gift he’d ever received, like the most precious treasure he’d ever found.

  “So,” she continued, as she dropped the rock, let it splash into the water. “Now that you’ve all finally arrived, how about you get me out of here?”

  TWELVE

  Honor hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed her freedom until she didn’t have it anymore. Three days had passed since she’d been pushed into the well, and they still had no idea who’d done it. As a precaution, Wren had insisted Honor have twenty-four-hour protection. They’d considered moving her to a safe house, but she’d refused. She hadn’t wanted to leave Dotty again, and Dotty had been dead set against leaving the farmhouse.

  Currently, Radley and Jessica were staying at the farm. They escorted Honor to work and back. They stayed overnight in the guest rooms. In three days, they’d woven their way into the fabric of the farm’s life.

  Dotty was ecstatic, the extra people reminding her of how life had been when her husband was alive and her sons were still at home. She’d told Honor that while they’d made apple pie and homemade ice cream the previous evening. Honor wanted to be happy for her grandmother. The situation was bringing her no end of joy. But she worried about the disappointment and heartache Dotty would feel when this was over and Radley and Jessica went back to their lives.

  The house would be empty again.

  The days long and lonely.

  Maybe Uncle Bennett had been right when he’d suggested that Dotty would be better off in a retirement home. That had been seven or eight months ago. Honor had been busy helping Mary Alice prepare for her wedding, and she’d been too distracted to listen to the detailed description he gave of the wonderful retirement villages. She remembered him talking about community, friendship, games, companionship.

  She also remembered how livid Dotty had been when he’d broached the subject with her. She had no intention of moving anywhere. The farm was where she’d spent the last fifty-three years of her life, and it was where she planned to stay until the day she died.

  She’d made the pronouncement then, and she’d continued to make it every few days since.

  Honor sighed, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. It was two in the morning, and she was wide awake, trapped in her room because Radley and Jessica were sleeping a few doors away.

  Who was she kidding?

  She didn’t care if Jessica heard her wandering around.

  It was Radley she was trying to avoid.

  Avoid?

  That was an exaggeration.

  She wasn’t avoiding him. She was avoiding the conversation she knew they needed to have. The one about the way she’d felt when she’d looked up and seen him at the top of the well. There’d been three other people with him, and his was the only face she remembered. His were the arms she’d walked into when they’d finally managed to toss down a rope and help her rappel up. It had felt so right to be there that she’d forgotten her coworkers, the police, Dotty and Mary Alice. She’d completely tuned out her uncle’s disapproving glare. His arms had been home, and she hadn’t wanted to leave.

  But life happened, and time ticked by one moment at a time.

  The world didn’t stop because a woman had fallen head over heels for a guy she worked with. There’d been no time to discuss anything but the case, no opportunity to ask Radley if what she felt when she looked into his eyes was reciprocated.

  She sighed. If she and Mary Alice were still close, she’d have discussed the situation with her. As it was, because of the timing of her early morning phone call, the police and FBI suspected that Mary Alice had been working with Honor’s attacker.

  Honor understood their reasoning. She could see the case from their points of view, but she still didn’t want to believe that her best friend would betray her like that.

  She’d wanted to go to the precinct and be there when the police interviewed Mary Alice, but Wren had thought it was too dangerous. She’d asked that there be no contact between Honor and her best friend, and that had been hard. Cutting ties, refusing phone calls, allowing herself to pull away from the one friend she’d had since childhood.

  She loved Mary Alice like a sister.

  She wanted to trust her.

  But she didn’t.

  Not really.

  And that hurt almost as much as knowing her friend was still keeping secrets.

  Frustrated, unable to stand one more minute of pacing her room, Honor eased open the door and stepped into the hall. Up until the last month, she’d thought she had life figured out. Sure, she’d been worried about Dotty and Mary Alice, but she hadn’t thought any of their problems were insurmountable. She’d believed, hoped and trusted that things would work out. She’d expected life to go on just the way it had been—smooth sailing with just a few daunting waves along the way.

  And then she’d gone to The Sanctuary. She’d nearly been killed. She’d realized that the problems she was facing were way more complicated than she’d thought.

  God was still good.

  Dotty loved to say that. Honor remembered the words being murmured in her ear the day of her parents’ funeral. Tears had been streaming down Dotty’s face, but she’d hugged Honor tight and told her that.

  Honor had believed it then.

  As she’d matured and grown, she’d learned to believe it in a deeper way, to understand that God’s goodness was not measured by life circumstance.

  Circumstances changed.

  God did not.

  “And He is still good,” she whispered as she walked downstairs and into the kitchen.

  “Always,” Radley responded.

  She leaped a foot, whirling to face him.

  “You’re quiet as a cat,” she said. “You need to do something about that.”

  “Like?”

  “Wear a bell around your neck?” she suggested, and he laughed, the sound warm and full. No holding back with Radley. He was what he appeared to be. All about justice and his job and protecting people he cared about.

  “That might be difficult to explain around the office.”

  “You never know. Our coworkers might appreciate it.” She grabbed the kettle and filled it, lighting the gas burner before she turned to face him.

  “You look tired,” he commented.

  “Funny, I was just thinking you look great,” she responded. He did—dark jeans, blue flannel shirt, hair just a little mussed.

  “Just so you know, the fact that you look tired doesn’t mean you don’t also look great. You’re a beautiful woman, Honor. Even dressed in pig-pr
int pajamas.”

  She glanced down, realized she was wearing the joke-gift Mary Alice had given her two Christmases ago. “These were from Mary Alice. She’d told me Wilbur was going to be a big pig. I told her that he’d be the size of a small cat. When he reached a hundred pounds, she took his photo and had these made.”

  “You smile when you tell the story,” he said.

  “It’s a good memory.”

  “And a good thing Mary Alice was right. We think Wilbur is the reason your attacker didn’t kill you before he threw you in the well. We found blood on the boards that were covering the well, a few drops on the grass and some on the dirt near the barn. We also found them on Wilbur’s muzzle.”

  “Are you telling me,” she asked, trying not to smile when she thought about it. “That you swabbed the pig’s snout to see if he bit my attacker?”

  “It was Wren’s idea. She noticed he had some discoloration on his face.”

  “So, Wilbur is a guard pig,” she murmured, smiling full-out, because the little pot-belly pig she’d laughed at Dotty for getting had come more in handy than she ever would have imagined he could.

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Wow. Just...wow. That’s amazing.”

  “The fact that he tried to protect you? Or that we swabbed him for blood?”

  “The fact that a tiny little potbelly pig could grow into a vicious attack animal. God is certainly creative when it comes to saving the hides of His children,” she said with a laugh.

  “He is that,” he replied, smiling as he watched her. And, her laughter died, her smile faded away, because he was there, and they were alone, and being with him still felt right.

  “You need to stop worrying,” he murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears.

  “Who says I’m worrying?”

  “The frown line between your brows.”

  “I don’t have one,” she retorted, but she touched the area anyway. “Do I?”

  “Only when you frown.”

  “I don’t frown. Much.”