fresh set of heavy footprints had marred the beauty of the new-fallen snow. Someone has passed through the front yard while he’d been moving through the house.
Nathan hurried upstairs and across the breezeway, checking both sides of the yard as he went. Nothing in the back and nothing, no one, in the front. Maybe someone walking to work had cut through the yard, but this place was so stately and secluded he doubted that. The Amish would respect the property and stay on the roads or sidewalks. Anyone else would drive to work. Why would anyone walk through the snow on private property this early in the morning?
Knocking softly on the door, he waited, hoping Alisha would hear and check through the peephole since her room was the closest. When he heard movement behind the door, he did another sweep of the front yard. Other than those glaring, man-size footprints in the powdery white, the world looked serene and safe. Like a Christmas card.
Alisha opened the door, a cup of coffee steaming in her hand, her expression wary. “What are you doing?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He swept past her. “What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep much, either. I’ve been up a while.”
Not into small talk, he said, “I saw footprints down in the snow.”
She puttered in thick red socks to the windows of the tiny sitting room across from the big kitchen.
Nathan tugged her back. “Hey, don’t get too close to the windows.”
“I want to see.”
“Trust me—the footprints go right through the yard.”
Giving him a sleepy stare, she said, “What should we do?”
“Nothing for now since they’re gone and we don’t know if they were just passing through or not.” He eyed the coffee.
“Go get a cup,” she said, reading his mind.
Soon, they were nestled in the dainty sitting room. The deep burgundy brocade covering the furniture looked old and comfortable, worn in all the right places but adorned with feminine things like doilies and crocheted blankets. He watched as Alisha curled up with one of the blankets, papers and folders scattered all around her.
Nathan inhaled a sip of the good coffee and then watched her while the brew burned all the way to his stomach. “What have you been working on?”
She gathered the papers and shoved them to the side. “A case regarding a divorce. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“And this?” He pointed to a bullet-point list and skimmed the information. “You’re building a case for what happened last night, right?”
“I’m jotting down things as I remember so I can sort through them, yes.”
“That’s very lawyerly of you.”
She took a long sip of her coffee. “Did you sleep at all, Nathan?”
“No, but the one time I did fall asleep someone decided to take an early morning stroll through the yard. Some bodyguard I am.”
“You don’t have to do this. I don’t expect you to watch me 24/7.”
For a brief instant, he wondered what it would be like to have her around day and night. But he pushed that dream away, like he always did at three in the morning when he ached with loneliness and hopelessness. “I told you already, I want to do this.”
Picking up her list, she studied it for a moment and then dropped it back on the couch. “I stopped there to get coffee last night. I wanted to shop since I’d been so busy. Everything looked so pretty. Like Christmas. I thought it would put me in the spirit.”
Nathan’s heart, so hardened and withered, crumbled a bit. She wasn’t ready or willing to collapse and she sure wouldn’t do it with him in the room. She’d always been strong, sure, secure. Now her world had been shattered.
Now he was back in her world and she would fight him every step of the way. “You can talk to me, you know.”
She bobbed her head in acceptance. “I don’t even know the names of the victims. I mean, I heard the crime scene people talking, but I don’t remember. I remember so many details, so why can’t I recall that? I need to find out who those people were.”
“We can do that,” Nathan said, thinking the shock was still messing with her head. “We’ll get a full report and compare what you told the police to what the police in Philadelphia have. You can stay in contact with all of them, but you don’t have to leave here to do that.”
“We won’t get anything done if we don’t go into action.”
“I say we lie low here today,” he told her. “You need some time with your grandmother. I’ll start digging into things.”
“I want to dig with you.”
“Well, we can do that but first, try to relax and enjoy being here, okay?”
“Is that possible after last night?”
“I said try.”
“I won’t put them in danger.”
“I’m going to map out a way for us to slip out of here if we need to do so. I’ll also coordinate with the police about beefing up security for them if we do run.”
“I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life on the run,” she said. Standing, she held her cup and watched the dawn breaking, careful to stay back from the opening in the drapery. “It looks so peaceful out there, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s the thing about life. The surface covers so much more. So many undercurrents and hidden things. That couple last night obviously had it all but they knew something—or were hiding something—that caused someone else to want to murder them.”
“Or they could have done things that made someone extremely angry.”
Nathan also wondered if the couple had witnessed events they didn’t need to see or if they’d managed to make dangerous people put a hit on them. Probably both.
Thinking about Alisha’s jaded view of life, he waded through the undercurrents in this room. His chest hurt with trying to breathe while being this close to Alisha again. As grim as it was, working on this murder would help him to clear his head. He’d barely had time to process being in her life again or having her back in his in such a shocking way. The last time he’d seen her here, they’d both wound up working on a missing person case involving an abandoned baby in the Amish community up the road. He’d found the young mother and reunited her with her older brother, who was now married and raising the girl’s baby with his new wife.
He and Alisha had worked together, grudgingly. But they both wanted the same things—justice and
