of them called out to her but continued what appeared to be an intense discussion about another patient. She rode the elevator down to the lobby, feeling the walls closing around her the entire time. She tensed as the door slid open with a soft whoosh, but no one was on the other side.
Relieved, she pulled the hood of her coat up, both to protect herself from the chilly air and to shield her face. She walked past the reception desk and out into the cold.
Now what? There was no one meeting her, and she had no car.
A car with a taxi sign pulled up in front of the hospital, and an older woman got out. She paid the driver and started to head toward the hospital.
Sadie looked around. No other taxis were in sight. This might be her only chance. She quickened her step, trying to hurry without drawing attention to herself. Please, don’t leave.
The driver saw her and he smiled. She could almost see him mentally adding on another customer. “You need a ride, miss?”
She nodded. “Can you take me here?” She pointed at the address listed in the paper.
“Absolutely! That’s about a twenty minute drive. That all right?”
“Fine.” She hurriedly climbed into the vehicle. The driver, a young man in his twenties, pulled away from the curb and slid smoothly into the light traffic. She glanced back at where she’d just left.
A man was jogging from the parking lot toward the hospital. Pulling her hood so it hid the right side of her face, she looked away. Something about the man struck her as familiar. Half a memory of an angry face formed, then it faded. She had seen him before. And he scared her.
She had been right to leave the hospital. Whoever had answered her brother’s phone probably had him, and they were apparently coming to get her, too.
She bit down on the panic that was screaming to get out. Ben was the only one she could go to. Maybe he’d know what to do.
Her phone vibrated. Hands shaking, she looked at the text.
I got away. Hide. Don’t text back. Danger. No police.
Kurt had gotten away. The very fact that he told her not to text back reassured her that it really was Kurt and not someone trying to get to her.
When the driver pulled up at the large two-story farmhouse, she distractedly paid him. There was something very solid and comforting about the look of the house. And, she realized, something familiar. Not specifically about this house, but about the feel of the place.
This was not her first visit to an Amish home, she decided. For a moment, she tried to grasp at the memory, but gave up as it continued to evade her.
A young boy watched her approach from the wraparound porch. He looked about seven. Ben’s son was seven. She thought back briefly, trying to recall his name.
“Are you Nathaniel?” she asked gently.
He nodded, his eyes wide.
“Could you ask your father if he has a moment to talk? My name is Sadie.”
The boy whirled around and dashed into the house, calling for his father. Sadie climbed the steps. The sudden adrenaline rush she had experienced as she escaped the hospital had gone, leaving her exhausted. Her bones felt like they had turned into half-cooked spaghetti. She just wanted to slump down against the wall and take a nap.
Footsteps pounded toward the door. She straightened her spine, embarrassed at her weakened state.
The man from the hospital appeared, his dark eyes astonished as he held open the door for her. His gaze swept the driveway behind her. Searching for Kurt, she realized. He wouldn’t have expected her to show up alone.
When those eyes returned to her, she responded to the question in their depths.
“I need your help.”
Ben stared at the woman in shock. He hadn’t really thought that she would show up here, much less on her own. The silence between them stretched tensely before he realized that her face under the bandage on her temple was pale and drawn. There was an air of sorrow that hovered around her.
He was being rude. “Sadie. Come in. My son and I were getting ready to eat lunch. Please join us.”
He could see the dismay that crossed her face and hurried to make her feel at ease. “It’s no imposition. I made plenty.”
He led the way into the kitchen. The little boy who’d greeted her sat at the table, his eyes excited. “Is it her, Dat? Is it the lady from the car?”
Ben chuckled. His son had run into the house telling him that the lady from the accident was at the door. Ben hadn’t mentioned the idea that she might come and stay with them. The more he had thought about the idea, the more ludicrous it had seemed. He was a widower living with a young boy. Having a young woman in the house at night was not appropriate, and he didn’t know who he could have stay with them. It would have been different had they been near his own family, but he and Nathaniel had moved to this district three years ago after Lydia was gone. They had friends, but no real family close by. He had done that on purpose, to escape from the expectations that he remarry and give Nathaniel a mother.
He had never expected to have her show up on his doorstep alone.
That alerted him that something had gone wrong. His stomach tightened. Kurt had been working on a sensitive project. A potentially dangerous one. Despite Ben’s desire to keep his distance from the pretty Englisch woman, he needed to discover what had happened to Kurt.
The small group settled down to eat. Ben and Nathaniel both bowed their heads to pray silently, the way they always did before meals. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Sadie was staring at her plate uncomfortably. It had never occurred to him that she might not be a praying person. Kurt was, he knew, so Ben had assumed that his sister was, as well. Or had she forgotten?
That was an unsettling thought, that one might forget Gott. Even during the darkest times of his life, he never doubted that Gott was there. Truthfully, he had often wondered how he would have survived without his faith. Shame filled him when he realized that just a few minutes ago he had looked at this woman who was obviously in need and had basically been trying to decide how to best get rid of her because her presence in his life was not convenient. That was not who he was. That was not what he wanted to teach Nathaniel.
Questions burned inside of him. Questions that would have to wait until his son was no longer in the room.
“Sadie,” he began the moment they finished eating and Nathaniel had skipped off. “Where is your stepbrother? I know we had talked about you coming out here, but I had gotten the impression that you didn’t want to do that. Am I mistaken?”
The eyes that rose to meet his were wide with anxiety. “He never came to pick me up this morning. When I called his phone, someone else answered it. I could hear my brother yelling in the background for me to run. I think whoever he was investigating had found him.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone.
“What—”
“Hang
