“Hello?”
A metallic voice said, “Call that a warning. You have something we need. Return it, or next time we won’t miss. And if you go to the cops? Your son is dead.”
Knowing the caller was gone, Rebecca began to shake.
DANIEL BYLER PULLED his squad car to the curb to let a bus pass. Having already noticed several buggies and horses lining the street, he assumed an Amish visitor was expected. Come to think of it, weren’t Roy and Nancy Schwartz supposed to be arriving about now from Iowa?
Roy was a cousin of his, although Daniel had lost track of whether they were second cousins or first once removed or... It didn’t matter. The Amish tended to have a lot of children, and family networks sprawled and frequently tangled. Daniel and Roy had played together as boys. Too much had passed for them to reconnect as friends, but he did hope his parents would invite him to dinner sometime during the visit so he could say hello.
The bus groaned to a stop in front of the general store. Daniel got out of his car, careful not to jostle the people exiting the bus. He didn’t see anyone from his direct family among those waiting on the sidewalk. Apparently, this wasn’t the day Roy and his wife and children would arrive. Emma and Samuel Graber, members of his parents’ church district and their contemporaries in age, stood in front of this group. Leaning a shoulder against the brick building, Daniel exchanged nods with them.
As usual, it was the Englisch passengers who got off first. They had a way of assuming it was their right. That wasn’t fair, Daniel realized, thinking of his good friends among the non-Amish in his county. There was no way around it, though—they had a different way of thinking.
And me? How do I think? he asked himself, as he did daily. Betwixt and between, that was him.
Finally a slender Amish woman wearing the usual black bonnet stepped off, reaching back to help a young boy down. Looking tired and shy, the boy pressed himself to his mother. The woman lifted her head to scan her surroundings, her gaze stopping on Daniel in what he thought was alarm.
He straightened on a jolt of anger, followed by curiosity. One side of her face was discolored and swollen. The eye on that side opened only a slit. Had she been in an accident? Or was she a victim of spousal abuse?
Her scan had been wary, and something about him triggered her fear. Was it because, like most Amish, she was unwilling to report the assault and thought he might press her to do so?
The driver unloaded the last piece of luggage from under the bus and got back on board. With a deep sigh, the bus started down the street. None of the buggy horses so much as flapped an ear. It took something much stranger than a noisy bus to bother them.
Daniel ambled forward, the picture of congeniality. After all, as county sheriff, he was an elected official. He greeted folks he knew and nodded at strangers while assessing them, until he reached the Grabers and a cluster of Yoders, all enveloping the two newcomers.
Looking him in the eye, Samuel Graber stepped away from the group.
Protecting the woman and child by distracting me? Daniel wondered.
“Sheriff.” Samuel’s greeting was pleasant, but he didn’t smile. The Amish trusted Daniel as a person, but they were wary of everything he represented. Behind Samuel, his wife was hugging the woman from the bus, while the blond boy gripped her skirts. His summer straw hat fell to the sidewalk. One of the many relatives picked it up.
“Family?” Daniel asked easily.
“Ja.” Samuel cleared his throat as he made a mental switch to English from the Deitsch language the Amish used among themselves. “Rebecca is the daughter of one of my sisters. Here for a visit.”
His gaze resting on the slim back clothed in a dark blue dress and apron, he said, “You know I’m only here to help.”
“You saw she has been injured.”
“I did.”
“She was hit by a car and thrown over the hood of another. A miracle it is she was not hurt worse.”
Daniel nodded. “I hope her little boy didn’t see it happen. That would have been frightening.”
“Ja, but I don’t think he did. She will tell us more once we get her home.” Without another word, Samuel returned to the group, his broad frame hiding the newcomers.
The message was not subtle: this is none of your business. But Daniel thought Samuel was wrong. The sight of a police uniform made many of the Amish wary, and accidents happened every day. But an accident did not leave a woman afraid of who might be waiting for her when she stepped off a bus.
Chances were that she was escaping trouble of one kind or another. In his experience, trouble had a way of following people, and the Amish were defenseless.
He often stopped to say hello to folks in his small county. He’d give the Grabers a day or two and then drive out to their farm, just to say he hoped their niece was recovering and enjoying her visit.
He was opening the door to the café, where he’d been headed for lunch, when he glanced back to catch Rebecca watching him, her expression now unreadable. With her high forehead, fine bones and sharp chin, she’d be a pretty woman once the swelling subsided. Between the bonnet and the prayer kapp, he couldn’t tell what color hair she had, but she shared her son’s blue eyes.
He smiled. She looked startled and quickly climbed into one of the buggies. Her onkel Samuel closed the door, and she was lost from Daniel’s view. Thoughtful, he went into the café, taking a seat at the window.
As he watched the buggies drive away, he wondered how long the Grabers’ guest intended to stay.
* * *
THE DRONE OF the metal wheels on the paved road, the sway of the buggy and the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves would quickly make her drowsy, Rebecca feared. At least she didn’t have to strain to understand Deitsch, often called Pennsylvania Dutch, which was actually a Germanic dialect. Aenti Emma and the others had spoken English from the moment she stepped off the bus. Or maybe they were doing so for Matthew’s sake. Rebecca suspected the language would come back to her quickly. She had been reasonably fluent once upon a time—as a child, she had spent her summers with her Amish grandparents. She had loved those visits until she became a snotty thirteen-year-old with the same preoccupations as her other San Francisco friends. Boys, the right clothes, boys, how unfair their parents were, boys. The plain life had suddenly held no appeal. Her mother’s disappointment in her wasn’t enough to combat peer pressure.
That, she thought now, was when her foolishness had begun.
“Your aenti Mary gave you clothes, I see,” Aenti Emma said approvingly. Her round face was as cheerful as always, but she had become considerably stouter since Rebecca had last seen her.
“Yes.” Rebecca plucked at the fabric of her apron. They had gone first to her aenti Mary and onkel Abe’s farm to confuse anyone trying to find them. “It feels strange, I have to admit.” She kissed the top of her son’s head. “Matthew doesn’t know what to make of the suspenders.”
Sarah, the younger
