“HEAR ME OUT. You owe me that much.” Calm, almost hypnotic, Zander led her to the brown wingback chair where she’d been bound. He rotated it toward the underground passage before dragging its twin to face it. His chair. Between her and the door. “Sit, please.”
She dropped into the seat and retrieved her cast-off sock. Dried sweat prickled against her body, but she didn’t want to shed the coat now. Urgency thrummed in her veins. “Zander, we need to call the police. They won’t believe self-defence if he lies there too long.”
He steepled his fingers and raised them to his lips and chin. His forehead dipped, casting his eyes into shadow. “You don’t believe it either. Therein lies the problem.”
Landon worked moisture into her mouth. “Then help me believe. I didn’t see what happened.”
“The man intended to kill us both. We struggled for the gun. I shot him.”
All true. But his flatline delivery sent an ocean of shivers across her skin.
To dismiss a life so easily… This couldn’t be the first time he’d been in this position. “No mercy. No escape.” His earlier words tumbled from her lips. She covered her mouth, but too late.
His sallow skin darkened. “You can’t deny you want vengeance. In providing it, I’ve kept you clean and taken the curse upon myself. Now that you know my mission, you need to keep the secret.”
“Mission?” Her ribs locked, trapping her lungs, reducing her air to frantic shallow gasps.
“I exact justice. Dispatch those who prey on the innocent to judgment.”
He rose and circled the floor, maintaining position between her chair and the exit. “I once considered myself a type of Old Testament Avenger of Blood. Until that woman’s serial killer accepted Christ and evaded eternal torment.” Zander whirled on her, his cheeks an ugly red. “His salvation is the ultimate betrayal of his victims—a mockery of their pain.”
God knew her struggle with this. How her heart agreed. And yet… “If vengeance belongs to God, then so does forgiveness.” Landon’s throat strained so tight that swallowing brought tears. “God is good. You taught me that. He knows what He’s doing, even when we can’t answer the questions.”
“He goes too far.” Zander resumed pacing, his heels ringing on the grey and white tiles. “My purpose is clear. If God won’t cut these evildoers off, I will. When they stand before Him without repentance, He has no choice.”
He circled back to his chair and eased into the upholstery. “When I met you… my heart wept at how terrified you were of your trafficker finding you again. And yet, like Gabriella, you intended to testify. In your voice, I heard my daughter’s final anguish. I couldn’t let it happen again.”
He reached out as if cradling a gift. “You won’t have to worry about meeting your trafficker. Gord. Tait.”
Gord… Her trafficker… Landon’s stomach lurched. “How many years have you been doing this?” How many lives?
“The one who took my daughter got off on a technicality. Because of her trauma, Gabriella’s statements had inconsistencies. The defence lawyer claimed her suicide proved her evidence was unreliable.”
His lips twisted. “Everyone knew he was guilty. I shadowed him for weeks, hoping to catch him in another crime. Then God put his life into my power. Instead of saving him from the river, I cracked his head and let him drown.”
“What if God wanted you to show mercy?”
“Then He tapped the wrong person.”
Where was the compassionate counsellor she’d trusted? This man was all sharp angles and cold tones. The fanatic light in his eyes…
She didn’t know him at all.
Holding his gaze, she allowed her fear to leak out with her tears. Could she reach the real Zander—was there a real Zander? The man who cared and protected? “Zander, I’m frightened. Please take me home.”
“I’m sorry.” Fingers steepled, he inclined his head in a seated bow. “My mission can’t end here. Others will need me.”
The breath left her lungs, hollowing her to the core and stopping her tears. The moment stretched. “So what happens now?”
“You remain in this place until you understand. I’ll close up the house as if we’ve never been here. Keep a key. Deal with the body, dump his vehicle. Bring you food and whatever else you’ll need.”
“Anna—”
“I’ll think of something.” His hands, flat in his lap, curled to clutch his thighs. “You can’t ruin my life’s work.”
“Your life’s work!” Landon shot to her feet. “Murder matters more than all the hurting souls you’ve helped?”
She couldn’t dodge him for the door, so she sidestepped around her chair. Anything to put distance between them. “You want to trap me here? You’ll chain me up? Put me in a cage again?” The shriek scraped her throat.
Zander stood too. “Landon, you need to see. Trust me once more.”
She should be quiet. Pretend to submit. But he’d already seen through that attempt. “You killed my trust when you killed Tait. There’s no way out of this. Let me go.”
He clasped his hands at his waist and made a brief half-bow. “Then you force my decision.” With measured steps, he retrieved the pistol from the monitor station. “It will be easiest if you let me put this to your heart.”
The hunting knife weighted her pocket. Useless against a gun. She darted frantic glances around the room. Glass display cases, soft chair, nowhere to take cover. She stood her ground, chin high and fists clenched. “This is how you protect the ones you love?”
“Don’t be afraid.” His countenance softened as he approached, a trace of the Zander she knew. “Think about heaven. No more pain. Peace.”
She backed away. Dodged a display case. Zander had introduced her to the love of God, to forgiveness and healing and hope in Jesus. But this time, he was wrong. If she didn’t have his theological degree, she had the simple truth.
Chest heaving, she jabbed a finger toward his heart. “You’ve become the same as the ones you judge.”
Tears poured onto her cheeks. Not a sign of weakness. A sign of life.
In her blurred vision, Zander wavered.
She braced her core, shoulders stiff. Praying.
The gun dipped toward the floor. “God could have stopped me. Taken me out whenever He wanted. Instead, He let me go. It’s been worth it to take a few forsaken with me.”
The emptiness in his expression wrenched Landon’s soul.
Angling the gun away from her, he ran slow fingers along the matte black metal. “Go now. You shouldn’t see this.”
Arm shaking as if fighting an enormous weight, he bent his wrist toward himself.
A flood of horror, icy and relentless, swelled from her stomach to her mind. “Zander, no, please.”
Hands outstretched, she walked toward him. Carefully, with no sudden moves. “What if God let you live to give you a chance to repent?”
“This is my choice.” The gun shook in his grip. “Sweet child, let me spare you this one last thing. Go into the house. When you hear the shot, you’ll know to call the authorities.”
She continued her steady approach.
Eyes glittering, jaw a sharp line, he snapped his shoulders to military attention. “Very well. Remember me as a bloody corpse.”
He raised the weapon.
Everything stopped. Landon’s vision shrank to his stone expression and the gun jammed between his teeth.
Gazes locked, they stood trapped in time.
Zander’s cheek twitched. Black terror filled his eyes.
His arm dropped. Gun in hand, he bolted for the door.
Landon choked on a sob. Then the shakes started. She tottered toward the security desk. One of the monitors showed him sprinting along the tunnel.
The second showed the area in front of the house. With another car. Anna’s? If she met Zander coming out—
Bobby sprang from the vehicle.
Landon shrieked and dove for her phone. Would it even work in here?
One bar. She hit his number, praying, tracking Zander’s progress on the screens. Inside the tunnel, he scrabbled for the bookcase latch.
Bobby stopped. Grabbed his phone. “Landon?”
“Get around the house. Or behind the car. Don’t let Zander see you—he’s coming out the front.”
He stared at the house. “You’re alive! What—”
“Bobby, move! Please. Once he’s gone, come inside and lock the door.”
Zander was running up the stairs.
Outside, Bobby hesitated, then darted from one monitor to the next as he rounded the building.
Landon wilted against the desk.
Zander reached his SUV, whipped it around, and sped out of view.
With shaking fingers, she keyed in 9-1-1. “God, don’t let him hurt anyone else.”
She spared Tait a regretful glance as she left the treasure room, giving the emergency dispatcher a description of Zander’s vehicle. “He has a gun, and he might be suicidal, and—tell them to be careful.”
She was still answering questions when she reached the main basement and a flurry of frantic yelps burst from the closed bathroom door. With an apology to the 9-1-1 operator, she freed the trapped Chihuahua.
If a dog could cry, the little fellow did, whimpering, yipping, and jumping at her knees. Landon scooped him into the crook of her arm and headed for the stairs.
Above her, a door slammed. Not Zander. Please.
“Landon?” Bobby’s voice washed sweet relief through her bones.
She muffled the phone against her side and called, “Here.”
At the top of the stairs, she set the dog on the floor. He dashed away, an amber and white blur, then sped back to circle her ankles.
Bobby stopped in the kitchen’s arched entrance, his face haggard, stormy eyes huge behind rain-spattered glasses. His gaze seemed to drink her in, head to toe, as if reassuring himself she was real.
She spoke into the phone. “I’m safe and locked in, and I’m not alone now. I’ll stay on the line until police arrive, but I’m going to put the phone down.”
The dispatcher’s answer came as the phone clicked against the granite countertop. Landon left it behind. “You came.”
“I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t stay away. I’d gone to the inn to finish the website upgrade Jessie interrupted the other day. Zander had told Anna, and she told me.”
Moxie’s pattering feet traced a figure eight around them. Bobby didn’t move. His gaze never left hers. “Tait’s SUV was at The Ovens that day. He nearly ran Shaun off the road. When Shaun found out that’s who you’d gone with, he alerted Zander. What’s up with him taking off? And your crazy warning?”
Landon drew a shuddering breath, but the words wouldn’t come. She stepped toward him, reaching out.
He closed the space between them in a blink. Then his arms were around her, sheltering her close. He drew her head to his. “You’re safe now. Did he go after Tait? I’m guessing Tait’s gone too.”
Tait was gone for good. Maybe that could have been funny, but it started her crying again.
Bobby held her with a soft rocking motion, one hand against the small of her back, the other stroking her hair. “I know you’re not mine to hold. Just let me be here for you now.”
His beard stubble poked her cheek as she leaned into his embrace. Held. Safe. Selfishly taking comfort from the one whose love she couldn’t return. Yet he was trembling worse than she was. Maybe he needed this too. For this moment, she locked her arms tighter around his ribs and let her questions fall away.
When the sirens approached, she stirred and pulled free.
Bobby caught her hand and squeezed. “You can do this. I’ve got your back.”
“Anna—will you tell her it’s over? I’m supposed to keep my line open with 9-1-1.” She scooped up her phone and started for the front of the house.
The sirens hadn’t sounded close, but they’d stopped. A check through the living room window showed Anna’s vehicle and Tait’s in front of the garage. No police cruisers.
Bobby joined her, tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. “She had way more questions than I had answers, but she said come home when you can. Where are the cops?”
“I don’t know.”
Landon shed her rainwear and draped everything over one of the cream leather loveseats. The interview process wouldn’t be quick. Tugging at the thick knit of her sweater waistband, she flapped air underneath to dry off. Peeling down to a thin, sweaty tee shirt would be too drastic a change.
A bulky police SUV rocketed into the yard, jolting to a stop with lights flashing. The driver’s door opened, and Zerkowsky sprinted toward them through the rain.
Landon and Bobby raced to let him in. Moxie threw high-pitched barks from Landon’s heels.
Zerkowsky stopped in the entryway, dripping on the ceramic tiles. “Sorry for the delay. Accident on the road out. You’re okay?” He looked first at Landon, his gaze searching, then to Bobby. “We thought she was alone.”
“I just arrived.”
“Good of you to call us.” Zerkowsky’s heavy eyebrows crowded low.
“Zander phoned 9-1-1 on his way. I couldn’t believe you weren’t already here.”
“Zander who’s now our fugitive?”
Landon gulped. “He’s—be careful.”
“He won’t be a danger to anyone for a while. Broken tree branch speared through his windshield, and he rammed the nose of his vehicle into a rock. Dylan’s there with him waiting for the ambulance.”
“Is he alive?” Her hands clenched.
“Unconscious but breathing. You want to tell me how he fits into this? And what exactly this is?”
She scrubbed her palms against her scratchy sweater. “Tait brought me here to kill me. Zander killed him. Zander also killed Gord, but Tait killed Orran. Clear?”
Zerkowsky shed his wet overcoat and scuffed the worst of the mud from his boots. “It will be. Is Tait’s body on the premises?”
“I’ll show you.”
Turning, she caught Bobby in an open-mouthed stare. He snapped his lips closed.
“Hold one minute.” Zerkowsky keyed his radio and updated the others.
Dylan’s voice carried across the connection. “Ambulance is here. Ingerson’s going to meet them at the hospital. I’ll see you soon.”
“Let yourself in.”
Landon coaxed Moxie into her arms and led the constable to the basement stairs. “There’s an open passageway to a hidden art collection Orran and Tait have stolen over the years. He’s in there, on the floor. Could I stay up here?”
“For now. Point Dylan my way when he comes.”
She’d have to experience the scene again, describe the movements in the underground room. Show them how to work the secret door. But not yet.
Back in the living room, she set the dog on the claret accent rug. Mouth wide and tongue lolling, he seemed to laugh at them as he wove in and out under the coffee table.
Landon curled up in a corner of a loveseat, throw pillow clutched to her stomach. Bobby took the other end, his body angled toward her. She squeezed the pillow tighter. “You have a million questions, and you’re being so patient.”
“Two million. But I’m trying not to make you tell the story more than once.”
“Until I get home. They’ll want to hear it all again.”
The front door opened, and heavy boots sounded on the tiles. Landon jumped up. “Dylan?”
His head poked around the edge of the wall. “Both of you. Landon, you need to put this guy on salary if you’re going to keep dragging him into places like this.”
Bobby stood beside her. “I’m paid in ice cream. And Anna’s baked goods.”
“Man, winter’s coming. Hold out for burgers.” Dylan focused on Landon. “You don’t need medical attention?”
“No. Zerkowsky’s downstairs. He said I could wait up here.”
“I’ll check in with him. One of us will come for your story. You can walk us through the crime scene after that.”
By the time Landon arrived at the inn, she’d answered Bobby’s two million questions and more. Zerkowsky, Dylan, plus two more officers who arrived later, wanted details on top of details. Nuances, inklings.
The art expert who drove out from the city had all but swooned over the vault’s contents. Landon extracted a promise from Dylan that they’d bring Nigel in to consult on the hidden room. She pitched it as the possibility of finding yet another hiding place, but they both knew it was a perk for the one local resident with a bunker of his own.
They’d taken the dog carrier from Tait’s SUV to transport Moxie. Landon hoped Shaun would take him to Ciara’s apartment tonight. Or maybe Ciara would want to sleep in her own bed now that the danger was past. Unfastening him now in the inn parking lot, Landon crooned, “Good boy. It’s over now.”
Despite the rain, Anna, Ciara, Shaun, and Roy crowded onto the deck to welcome them home, Ciara squealing at the sight of her pet. Anna herded them into the kitchen to two heaping plates of lasagna and salad and shooed everyone else out. “Eat fast—before they explode.”
As Landon sank into her chair, exhaustion fell like a weighted blanket. Her head drooped. “Will you say grace?”
“Jesus. Thank You. For everything.” The words dropped like rocks into sand, landing heavy and inert.
“Amen.”
The spicy tomato-cheese scent and the vibrant colours hit like a carnival of overload. Landon’s brain had no space for this. Her stomach, empty though it must be, felt numb. When she’d forced down as much as she could, Bobby’s plate was empty. He tipped a half-smile. “Nobody does comfort food like Anna. Ready?”
In the common room, Bobby waved Landon toward the empty club chair. She groaned. “If I sit there, I’ll be asleep.”
Shaun transferred to the soft leather embrace in one fluid movement. He gave a cheeky wink. “Taking one for the team.”
Lowering into the seat beside Ciara, Landon couldn’t help a smile. Thank God Shaun had recognized Tait’s vehicle to know he’d been at the park that day. If not… Her gaze flicked to the oval clock on the bookshelf. She could be dead by now. Drowned, submerged wherever Tait chose to dump her for an innocent local to find.
Gulping air, she clasped her palms to her elbows, pressing into her sweater’s rough weave. Anchoring on the physical sensations. The firm upholstery beneath her. The people around her.
Ciara clapped her hands. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Spill it.” In her lap, Moxie sat up with a little yip.
Somehow the sight of the tiny amber and white dog, who couldn’t tell his story of imprisonment, released Landon’s words.
When Landon finished, Ciara’s cheeks were parchment white. Biting her lips, she cradled her dog close.
Shaun reached out and bumped his fist against her arm. “Happy ending, remember? Landon’s safe, and your menace is over.”
She shuddered. “Ken lost his business because of me. Now Landon nearly died. It’s all my fault.”
“You’re not responsible for the actions of others—Ken or Tait or Zander.” The grim cast of Roy’s jaw dared anyone to argue.
Sniffling, Ciara pressed quivering lips into the top of Moxie’s head.
“And it’s not about you.” Bobby’s scowl matched his grandfather’s.
Roy coughed. “We almost lost Landon today. Twice. Betrayed by one of the people she trusted most.”
Shaun bounced his palm against the leather armrest. “Zander thinking he can fast-track people to hell—or to heaven—man, that’s twisted.”
Zander’s resolute stare, the pistol pointed dead at her. Landon’s heart lurched. “I’m so glad the tree branch stopped him.” He couldn’t pull the trigger on himself. Desperate as he was, would he have tried to force the police to shoot him?
Blinking away tears, she focused on each person here, absorbing the unspoken. Love and concern from Anna, Bobby, and Roy. Confusion from Ciara. Curiosity from Shaun. Silently, she blessed each one. “Thank God for His care today. And that this is over.”
“Amen.” Roy’s voice rang the loudest, but even Shaun joined in.
Anna stood and took Landon’s hand. “Let me help you upstairs. You look like a puff of air could blow you over.”
She could have walked alone. Maybe. Although her hands didn’t have much strength to grip the banister as she trudged upward.
As she climbed into bed and drew the sage duvet up to her chin, she whispered, “Thank you, Anna. You don’t have to stay. I’ll be all right.”
“I know you will. But something else is troubling you.” Anna’s chair rocked slowly beside the bed. “It’s hovering right over your head like a heavy grey cloud about to dump.”
Groaning, Landon rolled onto her side. “I don’t know how to say it.”
“Then let it dump.”
Landon folded an arm and tucked it beneath her head. “It’s Zander.” Tears roughened her throat. “He taught me to drop my grudges and let God into my hurts. To forgive. But he was killing people at the same time. He also connected the dots for me to find Jesus. If he was that off-base, what does it mean for my faith? Was it all a lie?”
Anna’s chair creaked as she leaned forward. “God can speak through someone who’s seriously off the rails. It doesn’t mean He’s blessing or affirming their current situation. He even spoke through a donkey in the Bible.”
“I guess.”
“This blindsided us all. But God’s got you, Landon, and His love is true.”
Tears slipped sideways from Landon’s eyes, dripping down onto her bent arm. “I’m wiped out, but I’m afraid to go to sleep.”