Saturday
“DID MEAGHAN TEXT yet?” Landon set her tray with the guests’ dirty breakfast dishes beside the kitchen’s double sink.
If Gord’s killer had been sent by the crime syndicate, surely he wouldn’t linger in the area. Each passing day made Meaghan and her boyfriend seem less like targets.
Anna flicked a soap bubble from the purple-potted aloe vera plant on the windowsill. “She’ll be here in about an hour. She said she needs to be busy. I’m sure she could use the pay too.”
If Gord’s estate passed to Meaghan, life might get a bit easier. For now, his death was one more problem he added to his daughter’s life.
As Anna rinsed, Landon stacked plates and glasses into the dishwasher. “You won’t need me, then.”
“Going to finish your homework before Zander arrives?”
“Maybe.” She should hole up in her room and do just that.
Zander Luca was even more of a father figure to Landon than Orran had been to young Ciara. A former prison chaplain, he’d found a new calling in ministering to troubled youth in the Ontario justice system. Especially young offenders, runaways, and human trafficking survivors like Landon. Zander’s influence at the recovery centre, and Anna’s long-distance care, had led sixteen-year-old Landon to risk trusting Jesus with the shattered pieces of her life.
Risk. From this side of the decision, she knew it was the safest choice she could have ever made. But the moment of commitment had felt like stepping off a cliff and hoping for an invisible safety net.
Years of prayer, therapy, and counselling had brought her now to a place she thought of as “I’ve been healed, I am being healed, and I will be healed.” Here with Anna at the Green Dory Inn, she felt nurtured and could continue to grow. From his phone calls and texts, Zander wasn’t convinced. A few weeks after she’d told him she was staying for the school year, he booked an impromptu weekend vacation at the inn. Meeting Anna, the other spiritual rock in her life, would reassure him. As would the inn’s homey, restful atmosphere.
Even the kitchen, professional-grade in terms of food prep, invited friends to pull up a chair to the pine block farmhouse table. The vinyl flooring’s rose and grey flagstone pattern softened the stainless steel appliances. This room, the inn’s warm core, reflected Anna’s heart. Zander would approve of Landon staying here because he would approve of Anna.
Anna hung her apron in the pantry cupboard and retrieved her sunflower mug from the table. “Time for another cup of tea before Meaghan gets here. Want a refill?”
“No thanks. I need to get back to my readings, but I keep thinking about Meaghan and Gord. It was a terrible way to die, and I know she’s grieving. But I wish she hadn’t tried to drag me into the mystery.”
Anna left her mug on the counter and closed the distance between them. Giving Landon’s shoulders a gentle squeeze, she held eye contact. “That was the grief talking. Our last mystery was one too many. She’ll understand eventually.”
“I know. I just… don’t want to go there today.” Landon rested a little longer in the warmth of Anna’s gaze, then stepped back. “I owe Bobby an ice cream. Ready-made distraction if he’s free.”
Bobby responded to her text with a thumbs-up. That meant he wasn’t writing—whether by choice or because he was stuck again.
Or she’d woken him up. It took half an hour before the white Corvette arrived from next door, and when she settled in the passenger seat, his hair was still damp. “Late night?”
“Huh? No, I’ve been up for hours. New video game.”
“Well, at least I didn’t interrupt anything important.”
“I’ll have you know gaming is serious business. It simply can’t compete with ice cream.” He dropped the car into gear and cruised down the long driveway.
The two-lane road snaked along the coastline, small whitecaps tossing in the bay on their left. Landon snuggled deeper into the leather seat, glad Bobby had warned her to wear a sweatshirt. Despite the strong September sun, the wind had teeth—especially with the car top down. She brushed hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. A few blond strands fluttered forward to dance in her vision. “Can we walk too? Speed therapy isn’t going to do it for me today.”
“I don’t know. Strolling the beach, ice cream in hand… Sounds like a recipe for happiness. Are you up for that?”
“You know you’re an idiot.”
“I do. Seriously, what’s going on?”
Telling him about Meaghan’s request brought the tension back, creeping along her muscles, tingling at the edge of her hairline. “I know she wasn’t trying to upset me. But I don’t even want to think about a mystery—about danger—ever again. I can’t find out who killed Gord. It’s unreasonable.” Her neck started to cramp, and she rubbed the spot at the base of her skull. “I have to get this out of my head before Zander gets here, or he won’t believe I’m safe to stay.”
Bobby nosed the car into a parking spot at the edge of the beach lot away from the other vehicles. “You’re an adult. He can’t make you leave.”
“No, but he went ballistic when he heard what Gord did to us in July.” He’d urged her to return to Toronto at once, but she’d chosen to stay at the inn and help Anna back to health.
The long beach grass between the parking lot and the shore bent in the breeze, green turned silver in the sunlight. They followed a path through the grass and stepped into dry, light-brown sand that filled Landon’s sandals. She slipped them off and hooked them with her index finger for the walk. After a few paces, Bobby was carrying his flip-flops too. Today, his shirt bore a black cartoon figure in a green skirt with a broom brush on its round helmet.
On a Saturday morning in September, Landon hadn’t expected to wait in line for ice cream. She’d been a little afraid the stand would be closed. But the chattering swarm of preteen girls ahead of them chose quickly and clustered around a nearby picnic table.
When she saw the mound of triple chocolate in Bobby’s cone, she was glad she’d ordered herself a small.
“Thanks for this. You’ve fuelled me for the day.” His expression twisted into an exaggerated scowl at the cone in her hand. “How can you eat that stuff?”
Grinning, she slurped the side of the scoop. The sharp licorice and sweet orange melded perfectly. “When I was little, the brightest ice cream won. Tiger’s the one I still like.”
The tide was going out, and as they neared the water, they hit firmer sand, cool beneath their feet. Bobby angled into the shallows until they reached his ankles, but Landon kept to the shore near the surf’s edge. Every so often, a rush of sea water would surge in and drench her toes.
The roar of incoming breakers made a soothing rhythm. Airborne gulls cried and wheeled. Small shorebirds scooted along the wet sand, chasing the receding ocean to turn and flee, stick-legged, from the next wave. Here in this expansive place, Landon’s memory of Gord’s crimes couldn’t trap her. She spread her arms wide. No walls, only the horizon on one side and a line of beach grass on the other. Light, not darkness.
She inhaled a lung-straining breath of salt-tanged air. “Why do you suppose Meaghan would even ask me to help find Gord’s killer?”
“See, now, you should have had the chocolate. It would have distracted you from all that.”
She glanced sideways at his half-eaten cone. “What did you need distracting from?”
“No comment. But about Gord, I don’t know. I mean, you figured out Meaghan was behind the poison.”
“After you thought to check for poison in the first place. And it took both of us to escape from the tunnel.”
“There went my chance to be a hero. Rescued by a girl.” He sounded like a five-year-old boy complaining to his mother.
She refused to laugh. Instead, she jammed fists to her hips and planted her feet wide. “What’s wrong with a female hero?” They’d talked enough for her to know he wasn’t dismissing women. He was comparing himself with the larger-than-life character he wrote about.
Bobby left the shallows and plucked a pebble from the hard-packed sand. A quick swish to wet it, and he uncurled his fingers to reveal a tiny treasure that sparkled in the sun. “Sea glass.”
“Quit dodging the issue. Besides, we rescued one another. Either one of us alone would have died.” Even together, they’d only survived because Gord didn’t stick around to finish the job.
“So we make a rocking team.” Bobby dropped the bit of glass into the side pocket of his cargo shorts and picked up another sea treasure.
Landon scooped up a finger-length black stone, worn smooth by the tumbling surf. The thin oval fit into her palm, releasing the sun’s warmth against her skin. “As kids, we never left the beach without a few shells or stones for our collection.”
“Me too. To my mom’s chagrin. She’s a neat freak with a superpowered sense of smell.”
“So you took home crab legs to be a brat?”
He splayed a hand against his heart and gave her a look of round-eyed innocence that dissolved into a smirk. “One or two.”
“Did you come every year?”
“When we could. Mom couldn’t take much time off. Sometimes it was Dad and me, and once I could fly unaccompanied, they’d send me for the summer.” He stooped for another find, wet it, and lifted it to catch the light. “This one matches your eyes.”
Landon peered at the pea-sized bit of sea glass. “I guess.”
“Hey, I’m a writer. It’s my job to notice things.” He ground a heel into the sand, a dusky tide rising in his cheeks.
She stepped over a long strand of seaweed. “How’s the new book coming?”
“I’m in edits for the one I wrote this summer and gearing up for the release of the one before it. Ideas are taking orbit for the next one.”
“How long is the series?”
“I’ll write Travers as long as people want to read him. It’s not high-class literature, but it’s good clean fun.”
He’d hinted that something in their escape from Gord inspired part of this last book, but he wouldn’t say what it was. She’d have to find out when it was published.
His steps slowed, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “So now that I’m here for the winter…”
Her phone chimed in the pause, and he shrugged. “Go ahead and check that.”
“If you’re sure.” Shading the phone from the sun, she squinted at the text. “Zander says he’ll be at the inn in about half an hour.”
The hiss of Bobby’s exhale echoed her frustration. Zander wasn’t supposed to arrive until midafternoon. Plenty of time to get her head on straight and still make headway with her homework. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I need to go. Finish what you were saying on the way?”
“It’ll keep. At least we got the ice cream.”
The way to the parking lot stretched farther than she’d realized. As the tide receded, more people had arrived. Some sat in chairs or on blankets, but most strolled the shoreline or tossed balls or flying discs. Not surprisingly for September, the only ones in the water were a couple of energetic dogs.
If Zander reached the inn first, he’d ask Anna and Meaghan how Landon was doing. As part of her recovery team, that was expected. But if Meaghan expressed hope that Landon would find Gord’s murderer, Zander would see a major red flag.
Bobby was right. Zander couldn’t force her to move back to Toronto. His protective concern, however, could make for an uncomfortable weekend visit.
She had to keep him away from Meaghan.
~~~
A brown SUV with Ontario plates was parked beside Anna’s sedan when they arrived. Zander. Meaghan’s car wasn’t there, but if Hart had dropped her off, that meant nothing.
“Thanks, Bobby. Say hi to Roy for me.”
Landon hurried along the slate path and up the steps to the deck. When she opened the screen door, Anna’s cat, Timkin, swished past her ankles in a black and white blur and strolled into Anna’s sitting room. He must have followed her from the grass.
Anna poked her head out of the kitchen. “Did you have a good walk? I’m making Zander a coffee.”
Coffee and tea fixings were available on the sideboard in the breakfast area, and guests weren’t invited into the behind-the-scenes part of the inn. Anna must have decided Zander counted as a friend.
With his chair set diagonal to the square farmhouse table and one ankle crossed over the knee of his navy dress pants, he looked more like a visiting caseworker than a trusted friend and mentor. He’d folded his sleeves up to the elbows. Maybe that was his nod to vacation attire.
“Landon.” As he rose to take her hands, he studied her the same way a doctor would check a thermometer or a pulse. With the same accuracy. Zander always knew when she wasn’t okay.
A smile softened the angle of his jaw. “It appears you’re thriving.”
With Anna’s cooking and the good sea air, not to mention eluding a toxic professor, how could she not thrive? “It’s good to see you, Zander. I’m glad you can finally meet Anna.”
Zander’s presence always filled her with warm security. Behind his formal manners and his thin, earnest features lay a quiet and highly sensitive man who’d invested years of patience to support her well-being. He’d filled the role her father couldn’t fill, much like Anna had stepped in for her mother.
Anna set a steaming mug of coffee on the table along with two wildflower porcelain mugs, then carried the teapot from the stove.
“No tea for me, thanks.” Landon took a tall glass from the cupboard and filled it with cold water from the tap. The ice cream had left her thirsty. She settled in the chair between Zander and Anna. “How was your trip?”
“Very satisfying. I rearranged my schedule to leave a few days early, so I’ve been touring your scenic province.”
Overhead, a floorboard creaked. Landon glanced at Anna. “How’s Meaghan?”
“About what you’d expect.” Anna’s broad forehead creased. “Zander, you may have heard we had a shooting not far from here. The victim was my housekeeper’s father.”
His cheeks hollowed slightly, accenting the sharp cut of his chin, and he sat still as if sifting the information. “How tragic for her. Wasn’t he the one who tried to kill you both this summer?”
“Yes. I hired Meaghan when I thought Gord was my friend.” Anna’s eyes welled. “Now he’s dead. I should have visited. Talked to him about his soul.”
“But something prevented you.”
“I wasn’t ready. I’ve forgiven him in my head, but it hasn’t reached my heart. He’d have known I didn’t fully mean it, and he’d have thought the gospel hope was false too.” She palmed grey-streaked brown hair from her cheeks, accenting the sorrow lines around her mouth. “If God didn’t have someone else to speak to him—” Her hands dropped to the table.
Gord’s life choices led to murder. Wouldn’t he have already rejected God too completely to come back? Landon covered Anna’s nearer hand with her own. Focused on justice for Gord’s crimes and the sniper’s identity, Landon hadn’t thought about judgment for his soul. No wonder Anna’s pain ran so deep.
Zander watched Anna over the rim of his coffee mug. “God’s ways are deeper than we see. And forgiveness takes time.”
“Gord didn’t have time.” Anna’s chin wobbled, then firmed. “But that’s my problem, and I’m sorry to spoil the moment.”
“I understand the struggle to forgive. I’ve experienced a significant loss of my own.”
From the day Zander first spoke to her recovery group, his brooding expression and haunted eyes revealed a private sorrow. Despite his being male, Landon and the other girls knew he was no threat. He could empathize.
Footsteps in the hallway interrupted the conversation. Meaghan walked into the kitchen. “Anna, I’m—” She stopped short. “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll just put this away.” She opened the cleaning cupboard and stowed her blue plastic basket of supplies.
Anna swiped her eyes before turning. “Meaghan, let me introduce Landon’s friend Zander.”
Zander left his chair and rounded the table, extending his right hand. When Meaghan took it, he covered hers with his left. “My sympathy for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
As Zander moved out of her space, she flipped her thick red braid over her shoulder and lifted her chin. “He wasn’t a good father, but he’s all I had. I don’t expect they’ll look too hard to find his killer.”
The accusation targeted Landon, but Zander wouldn’t know that. He made a sympathetic sound. “I’m sure the authorities will do their best.”
Her lips flattened. “For a murderer?”
“For any of us. Justice matters.”
He stood in Landon’s peripheral vision. “I have connections in law enforcement. They won’t share details on an active investigation, but I can press for them to give this the attention it deserves. Things can fall through the cracks with so many needs vying for limited resources.”
Meaghan stared. “You’d do that for me? After my father tried to kill your friend?”
“Absolutely. I respect your pain.”
“Thank you.” Meaghan’s fingers bunched the hem of her baggy blue shirt. “If it was his old gang, we may never know. But if someone local killed him, they could come after me or my boyfriend. Dad made us help him. What if they don’t believe that? Or don’t care?”
Anna’s forehead puckered. “You and Hart were only involved here at the inn. Anyone else’s issue would be with Gord alone. But I can’t believe anyone here would have done this.”
Did the police? Investigating the locals in a case like this could be pure routine. On the other hand, how well did Landon and Anna know any of the others with motive?
Nigel had claimed innocence. With his strong, if complicated, sense of justice, he’d admit killing Gord and consider the jail time a small price. Elva? Hart? Landon had no idea what statements they’d made. Or if they’d told the truth. Hart had both attitude and motive. Did Meaghan fear her boyfriend had killed Gord? In revenge or in fear the man’s coercion would somehow reach them from prison?
Landon squeezed her water glass, the smooth curve firm against her skin. She needed to be firm and cool too. Not reshaped into someone who’d jump into mysteries and take unnecessary risks. Dylan and the other officers here and in Bridgewater had the skills and training to find the shooter. She needed to stay out of the way.
She tuned in to what Anna was telling Meaghan. “Call me in the morning if you change your mind about coming in. Or if you’d like to try church with Landon, I’ll stay home and cover breakfast cleanup. Grief is terrible, but walking through it with God helps.”
“Thank you.” Meaghan hoisted a roomy purse onto her shoulder and tucked a stray red curl behind one ear. “My ride’s here. See you tomorrow.”
After the back door shut, Anna sighed. “She’s been through so much this year.”
“As have the two of you.” Zander carried his empty mug to the sink and rinsed it before returning to the table. “I trust this is the end of it.”
Landon had held a similar hope when Gord was arrested. Now he’d gone from villain to victim. She swallowed the last of her water. Lunenburg County folk were friendly, hard-working, and fiercely loyal. Local trouble meant domestic disputes, petty theft or nuisance, or the occasional stash of illegal drugs. Not murder.
Now they’d had two within a year—Anna’s husband and Gord. Plus Gord’s four attempted murders.
She’d thought it was over. Gord’s death had to be a contract hit. If not, there was a new killer in town.