Chapter 4 #3
He kept his hands busy and his attention open.
Nothing happened. No one slipped a note under a cup.
No stranger walking by lingered at the windows.
No customer behaved in a way he could take to Claire and Emmet as more than a vague unease.
Yet the longer Reid stood under Sanctuary’s warm lights, the more the risk grew in his mind.
The threat wasn’t only the front door, the back entrance, or the windows left bare after dark. Those mattered, and he’d deal with them. The deeper vulnerability sat at every table.
People came here because they trusted the room and they trusted Holly. They believed Sanctuary was neutral ground, safe ground, a place where book clubs could order a drink for a friend and old courthouse employees could argue over cards while rain slid down the windows.
They brought their routines here, their grief, their predictable seats, meeting times, and small private sorrows. If the offender was watching, he didn’t need to break a lock.
Holly came to the counter around eight, carrying an empty tray. “You’re quiet.”
He took the tray from her before she could set it down. “You’re one to talk.”
She gave him a tired look, but there was less resistance in it now. Not acceptance—he wouldn’t insult either of them by pretending they were close to that—but she’d stopped watching him as if every movement was an intrusion.
“The retirees like you,” she said.
“Hank knew me when I was a kid.”
“He cares about your grandfather.”
The simple observation carried more weight than she likely intended. Reid set the tray beside the sink.
Holly remembered his grandfather at the table, his grandmother packing leftovers, Roni dragging Holly in through the back door like she had every right to be there.
Holly remembered more of Reid’s family than many people who shared his blood.
She had been woven into those years, and he’d cut himself out of her life as if the thread between them didn’t matter.
He glanced toward Hank’s table. “Granddad doesn’t like people seeing what age is taking from him.”
She sighed. “No one does.”
“I wish he’d come here. Or go anywhere that isn’t a doctor’s office, the grocery store, or the front porch.”
“He might, if you ask the right way.”
Reid looked back at her. “And what way is that?”
“Not like a lawyer presenting evidence.”
“That bad?”
“You have a gift.”
He let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. “Noted.”
Her mouth softened before she turned away to check on the book club.
They were wrapping things up. Reid watched her cross the room, stopping when the silver-haired woman touched her arm and said something too low for him to hear.
Holly listened with her head slightly bowed, her hand resting over the woman’s for a few seconds before she moved on.
He’d come into the evening ready to study strangers.
Instead, he found himself studying Holly and learning the same lesson from a dozen angles.
Her shop worked because she cared in ways that were specific, practical, and exhausting.
She knew what people drank, where they sat, when they were grieving, when they wanted conversation, and when silence was the better kindness.
She’d built something stronger than a business, and the thought of anyone exploiting it made anger settle low in his gut.
The book club packed up first. The hot chocolate for Nell had gone cold, untouched. Holly cleared it after they left, her movements careful, almost ceremonial. Reid wiped the neighboring table and said nothing.
The card group lingered another twenty minutes, with Hank extracting a promise from Holly to make lemon scones next Thursday and from Reid to bring his grandfather if he had to drag him in by the lapels.
When the last of them left, Sanctuary fell quiet except for the rain and the low hum of refrigeration.
Holly locked the front door, then stood with her hand on the deadbolt, looking out at the wet sidewalk.
Reid joined her but left space between them. “How many people know when these groups meet?”
“It’s not a secret. The book club posts on the community board. The card group is here every Thursday unless somebody has surgery or a grandchild’s recital.” Holly’s voice dropped. “You think the person who hurt Nell could’ve watched her here.”
“I think someone could watch a lot from here.”
She turned from the door, and he saw the cost of that answer in her face. “You want me to look at all of them differently.” Her breath went out slowly. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You already are.” Reid had watched it happen all night. Holly still poured coffee, smiled, and remembered lemon scones and hot chocolate. But now her attention snagged on empty chairs, windows, patterns, who asked questions and who avoided them.
The investigation had changed the sanctuary of this space for her. He wished he could give the old version back.
Instead, he checked the community board covered with meeting notices, and understood the problem with brutal clarity.
He’d expected to spend the evening identifying physical weaknesses: locks, exits, blind spots, camera gaps.
Those were solvable. The harder vulnerability was woven into every good thing Holly had created.
Sanctuary ran on trust.
And someone had learned how to use that against them all.