Friday
YAWNING WIDELY ENOUGH to make her eyes water, Landon leaned her elbows on the deck rail and cradled her second cup of coffee. The morning sun washed the tree trunks behind the inn with golden light while here in the building’s shadow condensation skimmed every surface.
She’d taken Anna’s advice to sleep instead of helping with the guests’ breakfast, but Ciara’s text woke her anyway.
After waiting in the local emergency room last night for triage, a protesting Ciara had been transferred by ambulance back to the larger regional hospital in Bridgewater. She’d been admitted with pneumonia, put on oxygen and antibiotics. This morning, she alternated between self-pity and concern for her dog.
Landon had promised to go when she could. For now, watching the trees sway and listening to the birds and squirrels felt good. The September air carried a cleansing crispness.
A muted cry stilled her thoughts. Soft yet sharp, like an animal in pain.
It came again. From behind the barn, where they fed the marmalade stray. She left her mug on the railing and slipped down the stairs and onto the grass.
When he strolled into her life earlier this summer, battle-scarred and aloof, she’d named him Captain Jack. Until they discovered the truth about the real Captain Jack, builder of the inn. Now they called him Mister.
Landon had built a fragile trust with the animal, but he wouldn’t let her care for an injury. She eased around the corner of the barn. His stainless steel food dish lay arm’s length from where it belonged.
In a dark blur, an arm snaked out from the shadowy wall. A gloved hand clamped her open mouth before she’d even drawn breath to scream. Her assailant’s other hand dug strong fingers into her upper arm. He spun her face-in to the wall.
“Don’t struggle, and you won’t get hurt.” His whisper hissed against her cheek.
Cold sweat slicked her body. The trafficker had employed that menacing tone whenever he was about to mete out punishment to any of the girls.
“Good.” The word carried satisfaction.
Her thoughts ricocheted in crazy flight. Fear. Cage. Pain.
Her trafficker—dead. Zander gripping her hands as he gave her the news.
The memory jolted her from the cycle. She was free. Safe.
But the scent of leather clogging her nostrils and the grip on her mouth and arm said no. Not safe.
If one of her trafficker’s friends had found her—
Landon’s legs buckled.
The man held her upright, mashed against the grey barn wall. “I have a message for your friend.”
Friend?
“Pushing her was a mistake. Let it go and she’ll be safe.”
The words buzzed in her brain. Little balls of light. They meant something. One truth burned clear. This was no trafficker. That light sliced her terror. Brought strength to her legs to stand.
“Mmm?” She squeaked the sound.
“Your friend.” He shook her. “Back off and so will I.”
“Hey!” The shout came from behind and to the left.
The man spun Landon and shoved her toward the sound. Footfalls thudded away behind her.
Her palms broke her fall. She pushed off the soft grass to her knees, twisting to catch sight of him. A dark figure fled into the woods behind Roy’s place.
“Are you hurt?” Nigel. Quiet. Nearby.
Straightening, she looked around. He stood just out of reach. She hadn’t heard his approach even though his chest heaved from his sprint. His sharp eyes, hooded under bristly salt-and-pepper brows, watched her like he would a wounded forest creature. Waiting for her response.
“I—” Ciara. This was about Ciara. Now that the mind-numbing terror of a sex trafficker’s revenge had dissipated, she could understand his words. Their meaning.
“I’ll be okay. Did you see him?”
Nigel blinked twice. “Come to the inn. To Anna. He was masked.”
She placed her hand in his large rough one and let him lead her to safety. Her knees wobbled on the stairs, and she made for the nearest chair at the patio table. But Nigel steered her to the door and into the kitchen.
With the gentleness of a host, he settled her in one of the white hoop back chairs and squeezed her shoulder. “Wait for Anna. And tea.” He hurried from the room.
A minute later, Anna burst through the doorway with Nigel a silent shadow.
The air fled Landon’s lungs, and she lunged to her feet—and into Anna’s embrace. Warm arms held her tight until her tremors stopped. Finally she gathered herself. “I’m okay.”
“You will be.” Tight-lipped, Anna led her back to her seat. “And there will be a camera behind that barn. This will not happen again.” She rubbed her hands along Landon’s forearms as if to warm her. “Thank God Nigel came by. Anything could have happened.”
Eyes closed, Landon massaged her temples. “He said it was a message. That Ciara’s attack was a mistake. That if we drop it he’ll stop.”
Anna dropped into a chair beside her. “Why would he come to you?”
Nigel chuckled. “Our Landon is persistent. He may have more to fear from her than from the police.”
Anna placed a warm hand between her shoulders, fingers shifting side to side. “You know you can trust Dylan and the others to do their job.”
“Of course. But civilians share information among ourselves that an officer would never hear.” Landon inhaled through her nose, visually tracing the grey strands in Anna’s brown bob. Strands that had multiplied over this ten-month ordeal. Continuing to ask questions would worry Anna—and jeopardize Ciara.
But the defiant burn in her mind pushed for answers. “I can’t let it go—because it can’t be ‘let go’ from Ciara’s emotions. Dropping it would be saying it didn’t matter.” She flattened her palms on the glossy pine tabletop, fingers stretched wide. “Besides, the minute he touched me, he made it personal.”
“I have to call this in.” Anna plucked the landline handset from the counter. “Zander arrives today. What’s he going to think about you being involved? And this man terrorizing you right here at the inn?”
Zander’s quiet pain when he’d said he couldn’t lose her… A weight lodged in Landon’s stomach. “I hope he’ll help me.”
~~~
Landon set her phone on the kitchen table. “Bobby was going to take me to the hospital this morning. I told him it’ll be a while yet.”
Nigel studied her over the rim of his special tea blend. “There’s another one who won’t be happy about this.”
Anna ushered Constable Zerkowsky in from the hallway. He settled his husky frame on the chair opposite Landon. Radiating stillness and solid strength, he leaned in like a friend inviting a confidence. “You know the drill.”
Her throat tightened. It wasn’t what had happened—it was what her triggered mind had thought was happening. The soul-blanking horror of the past reborn.
She concentrated on the feel of the contoured wooden seat beneath her. The smooth pine tabletop. The pale pink wall. The faces. Zerkowsky’s, broad and patient. Anna’s, drawn but determined. Nigel’s, alert and questioning.
Nigel’s scarred hands. Burned to save a life.
These people were on her side. She couldn’t ask for better.
Her words came unstuck.
Once Zerkowsky absorbed her story and Nigel’s, Landon tried to think of everyone she’d asked about Ciara’s fall. Family, friends, none of whom seemed to have a motive. “That’s all, I think.”
He listed each name in his notebook. “Plus anyone they may have mentioned it to. The ripple effect can spread a long way.” The tip of his pen dotted the margin. “Who was the guy I saw walking up the drive when I came? Dark pants, dark sweater tied around his waist… A brazen move if he’s your attacker, but stranger things have happened.”
“Oh.” Anna’s expression cleared. “That must have been Ken, one of our guests from BC. He walks every morning. I heard the front door chime before I let you in the back.”
“So he’d have no connection with Ciara.”
Landon grimaced. “He’s her former boss.”
Zerkowsky positioned his pen beneath the entries on his list. “Tell me his full name.”
After he and Nigel left, Anna went online to order another security camera to add to the ones already in place. “In the interim, we’ll feed your stray together.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Landon wandered into the common room and slouched into the leather club chair by the bookcase to watch for Bobby. When the Corvette eased up the drive, her thoughts and emotions were still swirling. She called goodbye to Anna and hurried out the rear door.
Nigel was right. Bobby wouldn’t take this well.
He greeted her from the driver’s seat. “Anna draft you for cleaning duty?”
Instead of buckling in, she twisted toward him. “We had an incident. I had an incident. The police were here.”
A too-casual breath lifted the skateboarding snowman on his shirt—a snowman, in September—and he cut the engine. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. But I’m not.” The story tumbled out in fragmented sentences, jumbled words. Why was telling Bobby harder? That same blue-grey gaze had held hers in the barn when Gord intended to kill them both.
Bobby’s stubbled jaw clenched so tight it pulled his lips into a line. “Objectively, an anonymous quasi-apology and message that Ciara was safe could have seemed harmless to him.”
“Except he grabbed a trauma survivor.” And stirred flames she thought she’d quenched. Landon’s fingers quested the spot where her neck met her hairline. Where the trafficker’s brand marked her as property—until she’d had the tattoo covered with another.
“Today—he threw me right back into that pit. I am so angry.” The breath hissed between her lips like venting steam. The man had no idea what he’d unleashed. She swiped her hair away from her face. She had no idea what he’d unleashed. “He made this personal, and I will bring him down.”
His eyebrows eased upward. “I hope you didn’t express that to Anna. Or Dylan.”
“Zerkowsky. But no.” She rubbed her neck again. “What am I saying? The strongest person wins, and that’s never me.”
Bobby restarted the engine. “There’s no point asking you to sit this out? To get your revenge in court?”
“I can’t.”
He guided the car down the driveway. “Then don’t sell yourself short. You defeated Gord this summer.”
“We did, together, but not head-on. If he’d stayed, we’d have lost.” Her fingers twisted together in her lap. “Seeing Ciara so helpless… I thought I was sticking up for her. But this is still about me. About wanting to lash out at the men who hurt me.”
“Hey.” His knuckles tapped her arm. “You told me in July we were heroes. A hero may have reversals, but she does not quit.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You are stronger than you know, my friend. And you have someone even stronger in your corner.”
He couldn’t be talking about himself, not when he kept comparing himself to the character in his novels. She cut him a weak grin. “You do realize Travers isn’t real.”
“Jesus is. Guaranteed stronger than this troublemaker. And stronger than any hate you still need to let go.”
“For now, I need Him to find this guy. And keep us safe.”