Silent Protector (18 page)

Or ever,
he decided to himself. With all that was happening now, Charlie didn’t need to rehash the pain he’d been forced to experience. He needed time to heal. He
wouldn’t force the boy to talk, like he had wanted. He’d find another solution. With God, all things were possible. Have faith.

A light touch brushed his arm, and he looked up to find Liz’s watering eyes blinking as she smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He swung back his right arm, the one that didn’t hurt, behind her and pulled her into him. Their lips touched ever so briefly. Heat burst through his chest. He had so much to be thankful for, himself.
Thank You, Lord. Thank You for bringing me back to You.

But the danger wasn’t over yet. One hard slap of water told them that much. The predicted storm surge was here, and it was very high.

And Sabby still wanted Charlie dead.

“W
e’ve got to get out of this storm. And off this island,” Liz announced forcefully. “With Monica, too.” She only hoped that Monica’s brave act wouldn’t be her last. They needed to get her to a hospital, but the ambulance attendants had said that they wouldn’t be returning until after the storm.

“Charlie, you go on ahead and hold the branches back. Ian, can you stand?”

“Yes.” He stood, and though she could see the pain ripple over his features, she was forced to fight her desire to hold him. “I’ll take Monica’s upper body, and you grab her legs.”

Together, they managed to carry the woman into the forest.

Liz was grateful that the trees filtered the wind and rain enough for them to get back to the village. As soon as they left the trail behind them—and could see the rec center ahead—a gust lifted Ian’s Tilley hat off his head and away into the forest.

That beaten-up old thing was finally gone, she thought. The SUV still sat there, and Charlie ran ahead to open one of the back doors. They managed to slide Monica onto the
back bench seat. Amazingly, Charlie crawled in with her, grabbed one of the blankets shoved behind the seat and draped it over her.

“You gotta keep her warm,” he told Liz.

As she leaned forward to help Charlie, a hand clamped on her arm.

“Liz?” Monica said weakly.

Liz lowered her head toward the woman. “Yes?”

“I’m…sorry. I need the money. I…wanted you to leave.”

Liz sat back, her head lifting to meet Ian’s pained expression. She leaned forward again. “Don’t speak. We’ll talk when you’re better.”

“Will God forgive me?”

Ian pushed forward, gritting out through his agony. “Yes, Monica. God forgives you.”

Not wanting to waste any more time, Liz jumped into the driver’s seat and started up the vehicle. Ian climbed in beside her more slowly. Abruptly, a dog barked and scratched at the SUV. On the passenger side, Charlie opened the door. Poco jumped in.

The road to Northglade was empty, except for one lone police officer who let them through and contacted the Northglade Health Care Center. Thankfully, a skeleton staff had remained on duty and took Ian and Monica in immediately.

Sitting ramrod straight in the waiting room, stroking Charlie’s hair as she listened to the wind howl and the rain slash at the front entrance, Liz prayed—for the strength she knew God would give to her and mostly for Ian and Monica. Both had gone too long with a bullet hole, ripping muscles and sinew and losing too much blood.

A nurse appeared. “Liz? Ian’s asking for you.”

Liz rose. Seeing that he had dropped off to sleep, she wondered where she could leave Charlie.

“Here, give him to me,” the nurse said, holding out her arms. “I’ll put him in the room beside your friend’s.”

“Thank you.” Liz followed the nurse down the hall and watched her gently set him down on the bed in another room and cover him with a blanket. She then followed the nurse down the empty corridor, quiet except for the raging storm outside.

“How is Monica?” she asked the nurse.

“She’s been taken to Miami by ambulance,” the woman answered over her shoulder, “but she regained consciousness and seems pretty strong. She’ll pull through. She said a lot of things that don’t make any sense to me, but they might to you.”

Ian was in the first room on the left. Half of his chest and all of his left shoulder was bandaged up. With an IV in his arm and a tired look on his face, he smiled at her.

“Everyone okay?” he asked.

“We’re fine. Charlie’s sleeping, and I talked to Elsie, who said everyone is safe at the high school, even George. Monica is on her way to Miami, but the nurse says she’ll be fine.”

He agreed with her. “She told the nurse a few things. She was in debt, as I knew, but she spent it on trying to find her sister, who had been left in Guatemala. The family couldn’t get her out when they left, and she disappeared shortly after.”

“So she stole the petty cash from the resort?”

“No, she said that Leo claimed to have stolen it and was going to give her some money if she would find out about Charlie for him.”

“Leo knew about him?”

“Not at first. But Monica said she was told that Smith saw Leo steal the money and found him in the forest burying it and threatened to tell security at the resort unless Leo could get him Charlie. Leo must have been shocked, getting discovered by a strange man in the forest and then extorted by him.”

Liz took Ian’s hand and held it. “So, he was willing to part with some of the money for information.”

“Yes. I think Leo wondered why Charlie was worth so much and what I knew. Leo asked Monica to access my computer for the info, because she was desperate for money, and later, he asked her to help him get Charlie. But I think she refused.”

“She must have realized the situation was getting dangerous. When I caught her in the forest digging, she must have been looking for the box. That’s when she told me to leave with Charlie. I wonder if she was planning to leave with him.”

“She said something the nurse couldn’t catch, something about a snake, so I’m betting she was the one who put the snake in your luggage in order to scare you off.”

“Where does the fire at the Callahans’ fit into all this?”

“Monica told the nurse about Smith threatening Leo and that Leo was ‘ripe for revenge.’”

Liz gasped. “So Leo killed Smith?”

“No proof yet, but Monica claims she heard it. It wasn’t until she saw the belt that she realized what Leo had done to Smith. I’m thinking Smith set the fire with the hopes of scaring Leo into helping more. Smith didn’t dare show himself in the village, and at night, George and I shared shifts to keep an eye on the Wilsons’ house.”

“Poco got very upset on two occasions. One right around the time Smith was murdered,” Liz answered thoughtfully. “And the other could have been when Leo shot Monica. She must have been a threat to him.”

“I bet she refused to help anymore, and when she heard about Smith’s murder, Leo decided she’d have to die, too. Good thinking about Poco. I hadn’t considered that he’d be a witness, of sorts.”

“I think he smelled blood in the air, and with everyone anxious, he was upset, too. But I wonder who tried to run me off the road.”

“Smith. Leo would have been working, and the security chief didn’t mention he’d been dodging work. But fingerprint tests may prove that, when we locate the car. And that’s just a matter of time. The nurse also listened to Monica say that she meant to take Charlie off the island to save him but was intercepted by Leo. She said something about Leo breaking into the clinic to get stuff to clean himself up. I think that he also took the ether Monica used on Elsie.”

“Why?”

“To give to Monica to subdue Charlie, but instead, she tried to steal Charlie off the island.”

Liz paused. “Leo must have been thinking that he could make more money than what he stole from the resort, by talking to the big boss at the cartel. But first he decided to kill Smith. He wasn’t thinking straight, was he?”

“The fire and nearly losing his family must have upset him. After he killed Smith, he found the phone and called the cartel with his plan to give them the two of you. You’re right, though, he wasn’t thinking straight. He’d killed the guy he needed to be alive. That’s why he told them Smith was alive, just as Charlie overheard.”

“His poor family. He must have sent them away in that car we found, and now they have no father and maybe don’t even know it.”

“‘The Shepherd’s Smile’ will take care of them.”

“Do you think he was the one who broke into your home?”

“I think so. I bet that if we searched his house properly we’d find the jacket and surgical mask.”

She stepped closer to him. Outside, the wind rattled everything, and the roar was deafening. “Enough of this. You need to get some rest. Any questions can wait until tomorrow.”

“Liz, there are some more things that can’t wait.”

“There’s nothing, Ian—”

“No, hear me out. I took the position with ‘The Shepherd’s Smile’ because I wanted to do good things for the people of Moss Point. And I took that last assignment with the U.S. Marshal Service because I figured I could do it all. You’ve taught me that I can’t and I shouldn’t. You also taught me about sacrifice.”

She lifted her brows. “Sacrifice? How?”

“How you were willing to do anything for Charlie, even when you didn’t think you could. You were willing to risk it all for him. That’s bravery. To face trouble even when you’re scared.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

“That’s why I love you.”

Before her bravery faded away, Liz leaned down to kiss his lips. He pulled her closer and kissed her hard back. When she lifted her head, she whispered, “I love you, too, Ian. So very much.”

She curled up beside him and stared up at the ceiling, forgetting for the moment the storm raging, the terrible tragedies and no matter how much they may love each other
that there was still a gap of about a thousand miles between them. She lived in Maine, and he was a man on a mission here. She wasn’t mission material, and would Charlie want to stay here, a place with such terrible memories? She had to think of him.

“Liz?”

“Yes?”

“We need to discuss other things. I know I’ve agreed to administer ‘The Shepherd’s Smile,’ but if you don’t think it’s best for you and Charlie, and you want me in your lives, I’ll tell the Vincentis I have to leave. Many good pastors could do my job. I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“You would do that for us?”

“If you want me, I would. I trust you, and I know you seek the Lord’s will in all things. I can see that.”

Tears sprang in her eyes. “I try to. I always thought I wasn’t strong, but you’ve shown me that I am.” She paused. “But I don’t know about Charlie. He may not want to stay here. There have been so many awful things happen to him here. Is it right to keep him here?”

Something hit her hard on her right side, the one not touching Ian. “No, Auntie Liz, let’s not leave Moss Point! Please! Not ever!”

She bent her head down, and seeing a short scruff of bleached hair at her elbow, she sat up. Charlie clung to her legs, and with pleading eyes, he stared up at her. “I don’t want to leave Moss Point! I mean, your home is fun and all, but I like it here. I like Ian and George and Joseph and all my friends here. I don’t want to leave them.”

“You said it was too hot here.”

“We’ll buy an air conditioner. We’ll borrow Elsie’s fan. It’ll be okay. Let’s not leave, okay? Okay?”

Liz smiled at Ian. “I’m beginning to see that the Lord wants us both down here. Out on Spring Island, building a church.”

“There may not be much of an island when we get back. The storm surge could swallow it all up.”

“Then we’ll be helping the community rebuild itself.”

Ian’s cell phone rang and he grimaced as he answered it. Liz stayed close. Finally, after he hung up, Ian lay back and spoke. “Because of Leo’s call to Sabby, the police were able to trace him. They arrested him at a New York airport, trying to leave. And they have enough evidence to charge him with Jerry’s murder.”

She looked down at Charlie. “Is hearing this sad for you?”

“Nope. God keeps me safe everywhere, even when I act up. So I have to stay here cuz it’s part of the deal I made with God. I stay here and tell Ian about the men who killed my dad and God will make sure I don’t get hurt anymore. That’s the deal I made with Him. He’ll take care of you again, and make you strong, too. We’ll lift weights together to help.”

Laughing, she squeezed him close, as Ian squeezed her close. “So where else can I learn about God and His love but with a pastor husband and a boy who loves the Lord, too? In a village that teaches us so much?” She met Ian’s lips with her own and shut her eyes.

The storm blasted on, and she could hear the nurse talking in the hall about the hurricane.

But they were all safe and together. In love.

Dear Reader,

As someone who lives in a cold climate, I love to vacation down south. Naturally, the hot summer weather I avoid, but I often thought of those who must make that transition. And of course, I think of how exotic even Florida seems to me and how I would love to set a story where the heat practically becomes a character in the story.

But it’s more than just a story set in hot weather that drove me to write
Silent Protector.
Children touch our lives all the time, and when they are in danger even childless adults are willing to die for them. It’s something I believe God has set in our souls. And as a writer, putting a child into a story is a joy. They are so innocent, so sweet, it’s wonderful to write them. So when they are put in danger, the tension ratchets up in exciting increments. I hope you feel the same way Liz and Ian feel when they learn to work together, find love and save those who mean so much to them.