by Dana Becker
“Okay, he’s gone. Anything you wanna tell me?”
There was so much she wanted to say. But she’d already tried with the police, and it had taken her nowhere.
“No,” she said. “I was just letting off some steam. Just being a drama queen.”
The cop smiled in a way that made April regret saying that. But, of course, it worked.
“All right, hon, you ever need anything—anything—you give me a shout.” He leaned over and handed April his card. As she took it, he gently stroked her hand. She shuddered. And then he was gone.
* * *
Culinary school classes were harder than April expected. She wasn’t at the top of her class—and she suspected that the people at the top didn’t have full-time jobs, as she did. But she was keeping up, and even slowly progressing. By the end of the classes, which met three times a week for four-hour sessions, she was physically exhausted from all of the running around, the chopping and mixing, the lifting of heavy equipment and containers, and especially the mental stress of following orders, quickly, from unfriendly instructors, and enduring the nasty looks of competitive fellow students. She would walk home from these sessions in a fog, barely mustering the mental strength to guide her legs where they needed to go, and aching to collapse into her bed.
Which was why she missed the signs. The footsteps, the man walking too closely behind her. Until it was too late. It all happened quickly. The moment she turned a corner, onto a small street, the man pounced. From behind. With one quick motion. He struck a blow to her head, then grabbed her under her arms and hoisted her, almost threw her into a nearby alley. If he wasn’t a professional, he was certainly someone who’d done this before, who knew what he was doing. He had chosen this corner, this alley beforehand. It had all gone down according to a careful plan.
Not that April didn’t fight back. She did. She was exhausted and distracted from class but a rush of adrenaline coursed through her body and she felt strong and resilient and was scrambling as hard as she could. She was caught entirely by surprise at that moment, but she’d also been preparing for combat during the past few weeks. And there was the gun. It was in her purse. Even as she struggled to her knees, trying to steady herself—and to see where the attacker was: he seemed perpetually behind her, no matter where she turned. But the purse, she could see clearly, was lying about two feet away from her, on the ground where it had flown during the initial attack.
Without a single hesitation she lunged after it.
The kick was swift and it connected squarely with her ribs, sending her flying and flailing, out of control, until her body and head slammed with force into a Dumpster. And before she knew it, she was on the ground. Flat. Her cheek on the pavement. She felt sharp burning sensations all over. She couldn’t move at all. In her fog, she heard someone take a deep breath. And then footsteps.
April was conscious enough to know that she was in serious trouble but too weak to do anything about it. It was as if some giant weight were bearing down on her. With her face pressed heavily against the pavement she had a view of the man’s large white sneakers, and she studied them carefully, trying to commit their details to memory, in case . . . in case she survived this ordeal. And what were those sneakers doing? They seemed to be just standing there, and April got the sudden feeling that the man was looking at her.
Suddenly he shifted. Before she saw the sneakers move she could hear them: she could hear the sound of them rubbing over the loose pavement, over the grimy papers, the metal shards, and the broken glass. There was no question about it: his feet were making their way to her. April struggled desperately to move and felt a sudden electric bolt of pain in her ribs, and immediately collapsed. All she could do was brace her head for the blow she knew was coming.
She closed her eyes.
A sudden flurry of footsteps. A loud groan. And then the hard thud of a body slamming to the ground next to her. She cried out in pain. But realized that the pain she felt was still the pain of her ribs, from before. April opened her eyes and saw the man. He was facedown, like her, on the ground, but he was unconscious, his eyes closed curiously, almost peacefully, as though he were just taking a nap. April’s mind didn’t feel right; nothing was making sense. With her waning strength, she tried to crane her head up, to see what was happening, to gain some ounce of clarity. And what she saw only confirmed that her mind was not right.
Joseph. It was him, standing there.
Was she imagining it? It was someone, some man. With city streetlights behind this person, he appeared almost like a shadow. But just from the shadow, the silhouetted form of this person, April could tell that it was Joseph. She knew that form well, had memorized its strong, expansive contours. He was holding a long tool of some kind. Was he coming after her? She was terribly confused.
“Jos—” she said, meekly.
He stepped closer to her and knelt down.
“Joe . . .” she said.
“Shhhh,” Joseph said, and put his hand on her forehead. “You’re safe.”
April saw that there was another man standing behind Joseph with his arms crossed. Her strength was ebbing. But she tried to make out who it was. When his face came into focus, April suddenly felt a wave of panic. It was Ricky. Just standing there.
April was done. She had no more energy. Everything went black.
Chapter Ten
April’s eyes flashed open. A moment of panic swept over her. She had no idea where she was. She had no idea how she’d gotten wherever it was she was, nor any idea where she’d been. For a brief moment she thought maybe she was waking up from a long, long sleep, in which the disappearance of her sister, her relationship with Joseph and Carmen, and all the rest of it, had just been a wild dream.
But now, she was definitely awake. Only, where was she? This wasn’t her room. She looked, with utter confusion, at the old-fashioned lace curtains at the window and the goofy dog-themed art on the wall. When had she gone to sleep? She certainly did not feel rested. She felt that her body was broken in every way. The moment her eyes flashed open, a wave of confusion immediately washed over her, her body shuddered, and she tried to sit up. But a shooting pain in her back and legs flattened her body. It was so pure and electric, it almost didn’t hurt so much as simply grasp complete control over her movements.
“Whoa. Hey,” she heard a man’s voice suddenly say. “Just relax there.”
It was a familiar voice. But nothing, not even her own body, felt familiar at the moment. April turned her head, carefully, trying not to trigger that electric pain again. The panic returned. It was Ricky. He was standing beside the bed, on a chair, messing with the curtain over the window.
“Uh, I’m just fixing this thing here,” he said.
“No, no,” she said. “What are you doing here . . . ?”
“It’s okay, April,” another voice said.
April saw Joseph walking through the door. Before she could protest, he’d put his hand on her forehead, which, despite her misgivings, gave her a measure of comfort.
“You’re safe here,” he said, whispering in her ear.
But his words only re-triggered April’s confusion and sense of panic.
Her vision was clearing up. She could see that she was indeed lying in a bed, and that this bed was definitely not hers. But she was clearly in a woman’s bedroom. Dim, late-afternoon sunlight was streaming in through lace-trimmed curtains. The place felt vaguely familiar.
“Where am I?” April finally said, realizing how dry her throat was and what a bad headache she had. She could feel her body shift, painfully, as someone sat down next to her on the edge of the bed.
“You’re in my home, dear,” Carmen said, handing April a tall glass of water. “Drink this down. You’re safe here. I promise.”
The sight of Carmen did finally put April at ease. She breathed easily at last. But now, as her mind was clearing, her questions only became more demanding.
“Why is he here?” April said, sitting up, c
arefully, looking toward Ricky. She took a giant drink of water, finishing the glass in one gulp. Just as Ricky was about to reply, Joseph raised his hand, stopping him.
“Please don’t be upset, April,” Joseph said. “He’s with us now. He’s okay. You gotta trust me.”
April turned to Carmen, who nodded, and said, “It’s true, hon. We’ll explain everything. You need to trust us. We’re all on the same team now.”
April didn’t reply at first.
“We’re trying to figure out the next step,” Joseph said.
“We?” April said, glancing toward Joseph. He didn’t reply.
April sighed deeply and shut her eyes. She dropped her head back onto the pillow. She was already exhausted from this conversation.
“You just rest now, dear,” Carmen said, taking April’s hand. “We’ll explain later.”
“No,” April said. “I need to know now. What’s going on here?”
“Okay,” Joseph said, sitting down again, and smoothing the creases out of his pants, a gesture that was so familiar to April. “I’ll tell you everything we know.”
* * *
“Someone has been following you around,” Joseph began.
April glanced over at Ricky, her eyes narrowed.
“You’re right, April,” Joseph continued. “It was one of Ricky’s guys. But he was following you around to watch over you. To protect you. He was the one who called me when you were attacked. He actually was the one who saved you.”
“From who?”
Joseph hesitated.
“Tell her,” Carmen said. “Just tell her.”
“From an incredibly dangerous man named Gabriel Hornung,” Joseph said. “But most people call him Whitey.”
Joseph paused for a moment to let April absorb this new information.
“Those were the guys who broke into your apartment, April,” Joseph said. “That was the guy who left Rose’s sweater in your freezer that night. With the note telling you to stop searching for Rose. That was Whitey’s people.”
April said nothing. Her eyes remained shut to conserve energy.
“Joseph is telling the truth,” Carmen said. “So is Ricky.”
“Why?” April turned weakly toward Ricky. “Why were you trying to keep me off the trail?”
“It was for your own good,” Joseph cut in. “And for Rose’s, too.”
“How do you know that, Joe?”
Joseph told her that he’d suspected it for a while— and finally Ricky himself had convinced him. And he got confirmation from Lemuel, that shady guy they’d met in the woods that day, the guy who’d worked with Ricky. This Lemuel had also just been brutally assaulted—just days before April had been attacked. Lemuel, too, was ambushed by assailants sent by the same guy: Whitey. But Lemuel hadn’t been as lucky as April. His wounds proved to be fatal.
But before he died, Joseph rushed to visit him in the hospital, and asked him what he knew. And that’s when Joseph finally learned the whole story. The person who was holding Rose was indeed the notorious Whitey Hornung. This was what Ricky had been trying to tell Joseph, and what Lemuel himself had been hinting when they’d met in the woods—but now he was ready to confirm it.
Earlier, when Joseph and April had met at Lemuel’s cabin in the woods, Lemuel hadn’t wanted to tell them this piece of information directly. He, like everyone—including Ricky—was terrified of Whitey. All he was willing to reveal at that meeting was that the kidnapper wasn’t Ricky. But now, on his deathbed, he could tell the whole truth: Whitey, the notorious formerly Amish gangster, was the man behind everything. It was, in fact, this bit of information—that Lemuel knew who’d kidnapped Rose—that got him killed. Whitey’s men had likely discovered him talking to April and Joseph. And this conversation, too, was the reason that Whitey finally struck at April: he assumed that she knew everything, and so she had to go, too.
April closed her eyes, trying to process all of this information. Her head hurt, and she was in a fog. She kept her eyes shut long enough that Joseph assumed she’d fallen back asleep. “Let’s give her some space,” he said.
“No,” April said. “I’m awake. Keep going. Fine. So Ricky wasn’t the one. This Whitey guy was. But tell me why, Joseph. Why did Whitey choose Rose?”
Joseph sighed deeply.
“Well,” he said, “that’s where Ricky comes in.”
April’s eyes shot open. She turned to Ricky and gave him a long menacing look. He just looked away.
At first, Whitey had kidnapped Rose as part of a plan to extort Ricky, Joseph said. Whitey was a skilled gangster and he’d worked out the following scheme: he had a business extorting lower-level gangsters. The racket was simple. If Ricky wanted to run his drug smuggling operation, which was on Whitey’s turf, he had to pay Whitey for protection; and once this drug business grew and became very profitable, Whitey would up the price, significantly. He would demand a much higher price. Or else. That was just business as usual for Whitey.
Ricky had refused. At first. Really, he was bluffing, intending to buy some time so that he could think things over and figure out how to get that kind of money. But Whitey wasn’t having it. He was not a patient man. And worse: Whitey was not just a shrewd businessman he was also a sadist. He liked the power plays, he enjoyed inflicting pain and violence. So Whitey struck back, without warning. He had his men beat Ricky up. Bad. And they left a message with Ricky: until you pay off the debt, your beloved Rose will be in Whitey’s hands. You try to run, or do anything, Rose pays. At that point, Rose was simply being held as collateral in this extortion plot. As soon as Ricky paid up, Whitey would return her home, he said.
“I knew it was your fault,” April hissed at Ricky.
“I didn’t know he would do that,” Ricky said, suddenly emotional. “I never wanted Rose to get caught up in this. I’ve been trying to get her back.”
Joseph continued. Things got worse. The situation changed dramatically when Whitey learned Rose’s identity. Whitey’s spies discovered an interesting fact about his captive: as Whitey’s men were busy trying to stop April in her search, they discovered that this sister of Rose was dating an Amish guy, one Joseph Young. They immediately reported this back to Whitey. When he heard it, his ears perked up. Was this Joseph Young . . . the son of Hezekiah Jonathan Young? His spies confirmed that, yes, he was that Joseph Young.
This changed everything for Whitey. Hezekiah Jonathan Young, Joseph’s father, was Whitey’s older brother. And a nemesis of his. (Whitey had long ago changed his name to Hornung, another family name, in order to distance himself from the family he despised.) Now that it turned out this Rose girl in his possession was connected to the Youngs—his own estranged family—the situation turned from business transaction to personal vendetta.
Whitey immediately reneged on his offer to return Rose when Ricky paid up. No, the price for Rose immediately climbed higher. Much, much higher.
“Ricky?” Joseph now said. “Do you want to explain to April what Whitey told you?”
“Yeah, okay,” Ricky said. “I went to pay him. You know, to pay up? It was a lot of money. More than I had. But I paid. But then one of Whitey’s guys says to me, ‘Whitey thanks you for the money but he wants you to know that Rose stays with him.’ Those were his words.”
April was silent. Now Carmen spoke.
“What did you do next, Ricky?” Carmen asked. “When that happened?”
“I flipped out, completely flipped out,” Ricky said, and turned to face April. “That’s why I came around to your shop, to the bakery, April. And then you pulled the piece.”
Carmen’s eyes bulged. She turned to April.
“You were carrying a gun in the bakery? You pulled it out!”
April was too tired to explain or even to register a reaction on her face.
“Sorry,” she muttered to Carmen. “I wanted to tell you. But didn’t want you to worry.”
“Well, it’s okay, hon,” Carmen said, trying to put on a brave face. “The
fact is, you were right to be scared. If I had any idea that that man was behind this . . .” Carmen just shook her head, scared to even finish the thought. “You have no idea who this Whitey is, April. But I do, ’cause I grew up Amish. And Joseph knows, too,” Carmen said, pointing at Joseph.
He nodded.
“It’s true,” he said. “Everyone in our community knows that guy,” Joseph said. “And I’m kin. So I know better than most. He’s evil, April. Real evil.”
“Yeah,” Ricky jumped in. “And where I do business. . . we know all about him, too. Nobody messes with that guy.”
“That’s why I was so nervous and didn’t tell you,” Joseph said to April. “I was afraid you might do something like try to find Whitey or something. I did not want you going near him. But I was getting information. That Rose’s disappearance was connected to Whitey. But I didn’t want to tell you that, or what it meant. Because I didn’t want to scare you or lead you into trouble. I just kept trying to figure it out myself and, in the meantime, to protect you from it. But I was always, always, even when we . . . broke up, I was always keeping an eye on you, April. And searching for Rose.”
April’s eyes suddenly found Joseph’s. A familiar feeling passed between them. Oh, familiar eyes! Those eyes that felt to her like a warm home.
April hadn’t looked into those eyes since she’d been attacked. In fact, it had been much longer than that. She hadn’t looked into those eyes for weeks. They’d broken up. He’d stopped coming around to the bakery, to give her space when she was at work with Carmen.
Of course, April’s real work was to not fall apart, and to grasp on to what remained of her breaking heart. She was in culinary school; she was fresh off probation; she was in search of her missing sister. April needed to keep it together. And so they’d stopped seeing each other. But until they were actually apart, she hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on those eyes, on the sense of safety and love that emanated from them. And now, unexpectedly, here they were again. She was right next to Joseph. But, even so, she hadn’t dared look into his eyes until he’d said those words: