Shirlee McCoy - Dangerous Sanctuary

She’d watched members of the community dressed in their cotton pajamas, clearing brush from the edges of the property, working in the greenhouse and in the kitchen, cleaning cabins for wealthy guests. Prepping and constantly busy.

But she hadn’t seen Mary Alice.

She hadn’t spoken to her.

And she needed to.

A biochemist who worked for a pharmaceutical company in Boston, Mary Alice loved urban sprawl and noise and people.

But, for some reason, she’d come here. She hadn’t told Honor about her plans. She’d left without a phone call or a goodbye. Twenty years of friendship deserved more than that, and Honor would like an explanation.

She suspected she knew what it would be. Or, at least, part of it.

Mary Alice hadn’t been herself since she’d called off her New Year’s Eve wedding two nights before the big event. A year of planning, thousands of dollars, all of it tossed away after Mary Alice found out her fiancé, Scott, had cheated on her.

Good riddance. That had been Honor’s thought, but Mary Alice had been heartbroken, embarrassed, lonely. All the things that might have made her easy pickings for a place like this one. A place that seemed like the perfect sanctuary from a hectic world but...

What?

There was something nagging at the back of Honor’s mind, some memory that might have given her a clue as to what had happened, how she’d ended up in a yurt, her hands bandaged, her thoughts muddled. The more she tried to grasp it, the more elusive it became.

Frustrated, she walked to a curved doorway and pulled back a heavy curtain that hung in the threshold. Cool air wafted across her skin, skipping along her hot cheeks and clearing her mind a little more.

She should remember this place. The yurt. The clearing it was sitting in. The grassy expanses that led to tall trees and thick forest.

“How long have I been here?” she asked.

“Two weeks.”

“I can only remember maybe a week of that.”

“You’ve been sick. At least, that’s what they told me when I checked into this place,” he responded.

“Sick? Injured is more like it.”

“They failed to mention that part.”

“There’s a lot of things these people don’t mention. Like the fact that leaving is a lot harder than entering.”

“You tried to leave?”

“Sure. Once I knew that Mary Alice wasn’t around, I had no reason to stay.” She frowned. Whatever had happened to her, it had occurred after she’d asked to have her car keys, laptop and cell phone returned so that she could go home.

They’d all been taken when she’d arrived. Anything that would distract from the peaceful aura The Sanctuary provided had to be handed over during check-in. That had all been outlined in the literature she’d been sent. She’d played by the rules, because she’d wanted to see Mary Alice, talk to her, figure out how to get her to return home.

“So, you tried to leave, and then that happened?” He gestured to her hands.

“I remember asking for my belongings to be returned. Then, nothing.”

“Like I said, I have a bad feeling about his place,” he muttered.

“So let’s get out of here.” She stepped outside, and he grabbed her arm, pulling her back into the yurt.

“We’re in the-middle-of-nowhere Vermont. No nearby community. No cell service. No weapons. My car keys and cell phone were confiscated at the gate, and I’m pretty certain they made sure they took yours.”

“They did,” she responded.

“So, how about we come up with a plan before we let anyone who’s watching know that you’re awake, lucid and ready to leave?”

She wanted to argue, because she didn’t want to spend another second in The Sanctuary. It gave her the creeps, and there weren’t a whole lot of things that did that.

But, without a vehicle, it would take a day to reach town.

“This is a great setup for holding people hostage and manipulating them,” she said.

“I’d think you’d have clued into that before you arrived,” he replied.

“Why do you say that?”

“The lack of web information. This place has no real online presence.”

“I noticed that.” The one-page website gave a brief description of The Sanctuary and provided a phone number. That was it. No reviews that she could find. No Facebook or Instagram or Twitter presence. “But what I was most concerned about was the fact that they’d somehow found Mary Alice, convinced her to come to their retreat and then brainwashed her into staying.”

“Are you sure she didn’t find them?”

“I’m not sure of anything. But I know that a place like this is as far outside her comfort zone as the big city is mine.”

“You live in Boston,” he reminded her. As if she might have lost that memory, too.

“During the week. I spend the weekend with Dotty on the old family farm. She’s going to be worried sick.” Her mind rushed backward as she tried to remember the last time she’d been able to contact her grandmother.

“Dotty?”

“My grandmother. She’s got to be worried out of her mind. I promised I’d contact her once a week. I don’t think I’ve spoken to her since I left Boston.”

“We’ll get out of here, and then you can set her mind at ease.” He had a calmness about him, a confident way of doing things that made people comfortable.

She’d noticed that the first time they’d met.

Right now, though, she wasn’t in the mood for calm.

She was in the mood for action.

“We need to get to the meeting house. There are some locked offices there, and I’m sure that’s where they’re keeping our belongings,” she said, stepping outside again.

Her gut was screaming that they needed to leave. Now!

And she always listened to her gut.

God whispering to her soul was how Dotty described it. Honor had no reason to call it anything else. She knew God worked in His own way and in His own time, but she also knew He always worked. He never slept. He had no limitations on His ability to see the past, the present, the future.

And Honor? She was fallible and flawed, prone to act first and regret later.

Which was how she always got herself into situations like this one.

“I’m going to work on that,” she whispered.

“Good idea,” Radley replied, his voice just as quiet as hers had been. He’d grabbed his duffle and followed her outside, moving silently beside her as she stepped further into the clearing.

“You can explain what you’re going to work on after we talk to our friends,” he continued, suddenly sliding his arm around her waist.

She tensed.

She didn’t like people in her space, and he’d never seemed like the kind of guy who pushed himself in where he wasn’t wanted.

“Friends?” she asked, suddenly aware of Radley’s tension, of the clipped cadence of his voice.

“We’ll talk later, honey,” he replied, the endearment so surprising she almost missed the subtle nudge of his arm against hers.

But, she looked into his face, saw a warning in his eyes.

He leaned close, his lips nearly touching her ear as he whispered, “The only way I could get in here was by pretending to be your husband.”

“My hus—”

“You’re beautiful in the moonlight, Honor,” he cut in. “Have I ever told you that before?”

“Probably. But, feel free to repeat it every night for the rest of our lives,” she said as several figures stepped from the shadows of some nearby trees.

Three. No four men. Tall. Moving quietly. Carrying machetes. Dressed, of course, in the light blue cotton uniform The Sanctuary’s residents wore.

Radley had obviously known they were there.

He was on his game.

Honor was not.

That worried her, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it.