Where Shadows Meet

by Colleen Coble

  Nora carried it closer to the sputtering gaslight. “It’s hard to see. What is it I’m looking for?”

  “I recognize the quilt. It’s the one Mamm was working on the week she died.”

  “Oh, Hannah, my dear, are you sure? The Sunshine and Shadow Quilt isn’t uncommon.” Her aunt’s eyes held strain when she passed the picture back.

  “I’m positive. I helped her choose the colors.” It was the last quilt her mother had finished, and Hannah’s favorite. “Mamm called this her ‘almost Amish’ quilt.”

  Her aunt took another look at the picture. “Because of the yellow in it.”

  “She loved to push past a bit of tradition.” The design radiated green, turquoise, yellow, and red against a navy background. “She let me decide which colors to set against one another. And she let me buy some yellow fabric for it even though that’s not a normal color for us.” Even Hannah could recognize the stubborn tone of her voice. And honestly, was she sure that the quilt was Mamm’s? She thought she was. But was it wishful thinking? Only finding the child and the quilt would answer those questions.

  Nora handed back the picture. “Did you tell Matt?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a cop. He won’t be interested in helping me find my—the little girl.”

  Nora patted her hand and settled onto the sofa beside Hannah. “You’re not sure this is the same one, are you, dear?”

  Hannah picked up her quilt block again. “I want to see it to make sure,” she said. “Aunt Nora, Reece called me this morning, right after I got here. He said he has our daughter and that he’s raising her Amish. He said he’s converted. I think he’s lying. Oh, I’m so confused. Are you up to talking?”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing.” Her aunt laid her book beside her on the sofa. “I know you’ve been dying to ask me about what I know about the little girl and Moe’s death. There are things you need to know, Hannah. A powerful enemy isn’t through with this family yet. When the letter came, I went to see—” Before her aunt could finish, the window glass beside the sofa shattered. Shards of glass spilled out onto the wooden floor. The cats yowled and ran for the kitchen. Hannah and her aunt jumped up and turned to look as a glass bottle shattered and burst into flame. The fire spread quickly from the accelerant.

  “The extinguisher!” Her aunt ran to grab a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, then returned to smother the fire.

  Hannah called 9-1-1 from her cell phone as she roused Angie from sleep.

  HOURS LATER, THE fire department and the sheriff’s department left, and the women wearily cleaned up the soggy mess. The burn marks on the floor couldn’t be hidden, but they mopped up the water and scrubbed away the soot in preparation for the funeral only hours away. None of them had heard or seen anything to indicate who had tried to torch the house. But Hannah feared she knew—Reece. He was sending her a warning that he’d found her. And that anyone who stood between the two of them would suffer the consequences.

  SMOKE STILL LINGERED in the air from the ordeal the night before. Hannah slept restlessly in the old bed, the single window in the room looking out over the Indiana hills. She was back in her hometown, yet she wasn’t part of her family, her people. Did she even want to be? Her life here was a lifetime ago. She coiled her thick braid at the nape of her neck. She’d forgotten how hard it was to see in the small mirror that only showed part of her head. Her gaze stared back, and she wondered who that woman was. She didn’t know anymore.

  Angie spoke from behind her. “Do I look okay? I have no idea since this place only has that teeny mirror. What’s up with that?”

  Hannah turned. Her friend’s black skirt touched the top of stylish boots. The lacy black top plunged farther than Hannah ever wanted to wear again, but it looked good on Angie. “You look lovely. We don’t hold with vanity. A full-length mirror would encourage us to put too much emphasis on our appearance.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t even tell if my slip is showing.” Angie twirled on heels high enough to give her a nosebleed.

  “Not a sliver of it.” Hannah gave her hair a last pat.

  “You sure you want to wear that old shapeless thing?” Angie pulled on the loose waist of Hannah’s dress. “It’s like a gunnysack.”

  Her aunt had hung one of Hannah’s old dresses in the bedroom closet, and she’d put it on. She looked down at the plain blue dress. “You’re right. I think I’ll change. The bishop might think I intend to confess at the next meeting.” Besides, it seemed she was a girl again, and the clothing brought back the horror of the night she’d found the bodies of her family.

  She stepped past two twin beds with no headboards. They were neatly made up with white sheets and blankets. She opened the closet, her hand hovering over a plain black dress with three-quarter-length sleeves. So severe and unflattering. Was it a sin to want to look nice? She’d tried to cover up after the way Reece made her dress, but maybe she’d gone too far.

  After changing her shoes to low pumps, she defiantly added a simple locket to the outfit. Her family and friends would think she was a heathen for wearing the jewelry, but she needed some space from them, and this would create it.

  Angie shook her head. “It’s better, but sheesh, Hannah. I wish you’d let me take you shopping sometime. You’ve got a terrific figure, great hair and skin, and you do nothing to enhance your assets. I know you think you need to look the part of a matronly quilt expert, but you’re only thirty-two. Live a little!”

  “Reece used to make me wear slinky dresses that plunged to my navel, and high heels,” she said. Her skin still burned at the memory of the way men looked at her.

  “You’re kidding! You?”

  “I hated them.” Hannah smoothed her skirt with her hand. “Has Aunt Nora come out yet?”

  “Nope. Not a peep from her room.”

  “I’ll check on her.” Hannah went to her aunt’s closed doorway down the hall off the living room. There was no sound from the other side. She tiptoed to the door and listened. Nothing. Rapping her knuckles softly against the wood, she called to her aunt. At first she thought the older woman would ignore the summons, but the door finally opened.

  Her aunt was fully dressed in her usual dark blue dress and sensible shoes. The prayer bonnet looked a bit askew, but her features were composed as she tucked a hanky up her sleeve. “We should probably go down. Everyone will be arriving.”

  Hannah nodded and followed her aunt downstairs. Buggies were beginning to pull into the drive, dozens of them. Men hauled in backless benches and lined them up around the living and dining rooms and the kitchen. Women carried covered dishes for after the burial.

  Her back erect, Aunt Nora accepted their handshakes and thoughtful words.

  An hour later, they were all assembled. Hannah followed her aunt to the dining room and sat on the bench beside her. Moe’s coffin was a plain pine box. The split top was hinged, and the upper portion of it had been folded back to reveal Moe’s face. Hannah clasped her hands together as the usher seated people on the benches. She barely noticed Sarah and the girls come in. Luca would grieve that he’d missed the funeral. He likely didn’t even know yet. He had no phone with him.

  Angie sat on the bench behind Hannah and her aunt. Hannah turned around and whispered to Angie that they would sit through a regular church service, not a real funeral as the Englisch knew it. The bishop removed his hat, and in unison, the other men in the line of ministers removed theirs, as did all the men in the house. The bishop began to speak, an exhortation from the Old Testament. Preparation for death was the main theme of the sermon, and that theme was continued thirty minutes later by the second minister. When he was done, the minister read Moe’s obituary in German, then dismissed the men to prepare for the viewing.

  In spite of the number of people attending, the rearrangement went forward in near silence. The house emptied of mourners, and the men carried the coffin to the entry. Friends and neighbors filed past Moe to say the
ir good-byes. Several people nodded to Nora and murmured condolences as they left to get in their buggies and go to the graveyard.

  Hannah whispered to Angie that she wanted to go to the grave site in a buggy. Slipping away from the crowd, she hurried to the barn and hitched up a spry black horse to Moe’s single-seater. She waited until the last of the buggies pulled out, then fell into the line behind them.

  She needed to be alone to think. Life had come at her too fast in the past week, and with it, memories of her earlier life in this place. Was it as idyllic as she remembered? She believed it was, and she mourned the loss of her innocence.

  With her thoughts swirling, she fell behind the rest of the buggies. The sky darkened, and rain began to patter onto her head. It grew nearly as dark as dusk. The air took on a greenish cast, and she feared a tornado might be in the swirling clouds.

  She slapped the reins on the horse’s rump, and he picked up the pace. As the rain fell harder, she wished her people believed in buggy coverings. She could barely see the road with the water dripping in her eyes. A dark shape loomed ahead in the downpour, and she realized a car without lights was bearing down on her. Did the driver see her? She directed the horse to the side of the road and kept going forward, but the car swerved toward her side of the road. She couldn’t see the make or model, just the shape coming closer.

  It was going to hit her, and her gut told her it was a deliberate move. She didn’t want the horse to be harmed but didn’t know what to do. Then she saw a path cut into the newly planted field of corn. Just as she turned the horse into the path, the car brushed by so closely that it rocked her buggy. Perspiration popped out on her forehead, and her hands began to shake. All she could see were the taillights flashing as the car slowed at the next intersection and went on.

  Someone had tried to hit her.

  She gulped back her fear and backed the buggy out of the lane to continue on to the grave site. The sun began to peek through the clouds as she finished the trip. She’d be late and a bedraggled rat, but she was alive. Still shaking, she stopped the buggy behind the long line and stepped down into the mud. She realized she was right in front of the graves of her parents.

  Plain wooden stakes marked their sites. There were no flowers on any of the graves, and she longed to put just a single carnation on her mother’s. She’d loved beautiful flowers so much. Keeping them from her didn’t seem right.

  Did Mamm ever regret her decision to join the Amish church? It wasn’t done very often. It helped that her parents were German and she was already bilingual, but she gave up so much for Datt. Hannah wished she could talk to her mother’s family, but the brief glimpse of her aunt and cousin at the funeral had been her only contact with them. Maybe she could find them again. Aunt Nora might know how to contact Aunt Cathy and Mary.

  Had Reece really converted to the Amish faith? And if he had, where did that leave her? She couldn’t go back to him. What if Reece was indeed behind everything—her parents’ deaths, the fire at Aunt Nora’s, the attempt on her life? Or was it her bitterness blinding her? Could she be wrong about Reece? But no, she’d felt his hand shoving her down the steps. A man who would do that was capable of anything. Her hatred swelled.

  Hannah saw Angie’s car parked along the road and waved to her. Angie jogged over to join her. “What happened to you?” she asked. “You look like a drowned kitten.”

  “Someone tried to run me off the road.” Hannah told Angie what had happened, and immediately her publicist wanted to call Matt. “I don’t want to spoil the funeral. We’ll go see him later.”

  They stood on the edge of the crowd. Hannah tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. A blue Saturn rolled to a stop in the line of vehicles, and a woman got out. A sense of déjà vu rolled over her when she recognized her cousin Mary.

  Ten years older now, Mary had lost the fresh bloom of her early twenties. Her auburn hair was cut short, and the style did nothing to flatter her face. She’d gained a few pounds as well, and the blouse she wore strained across her stomach. Hannah stepped out to meet her.

  “Mary, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Hannah.”

  The other woman smiled. “It would be hard to mistake you since we look so much alike.”

  “Is your mother here too?” Hannah remembered how her mother and Aunt Cathy also resembled each other.

  Mary fell into step beside Hannah, and they moved toward the throng of people around the grave. “No, she’s in Maine again. After your parents were killed, I ended up moving here to Indiana. I read about Moe’s death in the paper and thought I’d come pay my respects. I know he’s not a direct relative, but I still feel part of the Amish side of the family. I thought you left town.”

  “I did. I came back for a visit a few days ago. Where are you living? I’ll stop by if you don’t mind.”

  Mary gave her the address. “I’d love that.”

  “Are you married? Have kids?” When the question sprang from her lips, Hannah wondered if the child she sought might be Mary’s.

  “Nope, no husband. Or kids.” A shadow darkened Mary’s eyes.

  They rejoined Angie at the edge of the crowd. The interment service proceeded without incident, but watching Nora’s pain hurt Hannah. It was all she could do to stand back and let closer family comfort Aunt Nora.

  Mary had to get back to work after the service, and Hannah promised to visit. Once her cousin got in her car and drove off, Hannah wanted to do the same. “I can’t eat with them,” she told Angie. “I don’t want to embarrass Aunt Nora or Sarah. Let’s go to the jail. I need to see Matt and tell him what happened on the road.”

  She told her aunt they were leaving, then she had Angie follow her to return the horse and buggy to her aunt’s house. Once she cared for the horse, she and Angie headed for Rockville. When they got there fifteen minutes later, Hannah stood five feet away from the car, staring at the big boxy building. The jail repelled her, reminded her of the questioning she’d endured ten years ago. She could still smell the cleaning solution used in the room where she’d been grilled for four hours, and the scent made her stomach churn. What made her think they’d help her now?

  She glanced down at the picture in her hand. The little girl smiled up at her, but the gap-toothed grin failed to move her. This couldn’t be her child. The wind ruffled Hannah’s hair, swirling it around in her face as a sign that she shouldn’t go in.

  Confusion gripped her. She retreated to the car and put her hand on the door handle. The best thing was to get back in the car and not draw attention to herself.

  “Hannah, what the heck? I thought you wanted to talk to Matt.”

  “I probably imagined the whole thing. Now that I think about it, I’m sure it was an accident. And this whole daughter thing is probably a mirage.”

  Angie pointed her red-tipped finger at her. “You get right back in there and talk to him. We haven’t come all this way not to pursue every avenue.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right.” Hannah turned and forced herself to march to the door and yank it open.

  THE JAIL SMELLED like someone’s roast beef sandwich. Matt walked past the deputy manning the front desk and proceeded down the narrow hallway to his cramped office, last room on the left. Blake followed him. The guy whistled through his teeth, and the annoying ditty set Matt on edge.

  “Hey, Beitler,” a young deputy called. “The Rockville police reported a big heist from the Ace Hardware store. The alarm wasn’t triggered and we’ve got nada.”

  Great. The rash of break-ins was getting worse. He wondered—for the umpteenth time—if it was an inside job. Someone smart had been pulling the robberies. He pushed away his doubts about Blake and stalked on to his office.

  Attending the funeral had been a waste of time. He’d seen nothing suspicious and caught only one glimpse of Hannah. She hadn’t seen him.

  He dropped into the chair behind his overflowing desk and pulled his keyboard to him. Calling up the files, he ignored Blake, who w
as pacing the room.

  “The white powder at Trudy’s was insecticide dust, nothing lethal to a person,” Matt said. “But the flowers that were delivered to Nora Honegger were loaded with poison. So far we haven’t been able to discover what florist delivered them. The box they came in was in the trash, but it was plain white cardboard with no business name.” Leaning back in the chair, he flipped open the file containing the printouts of what they knew so far. “The funeral was this morning. I went for a little while. Some people from town came, but it was mostly Amish.”

  Blake finally quit pacing and came to sit on the other side of the desk. “I think it’s a family member.”

  “Of course you do,” a female voice said from the doorway.

  Matt looked up to see Hannah standing in the hall. Her cheeks were flushed, and her golden brown eyes sparked with fire. Her hair looked wet, and so did her clothes. With that titian hair, she probably had trouble hanging on to her temper. “You have something to say?”

  She advanced into the room. The black dress only partially concealed her figure, and he wondered if it shamed her that she was so beautiful. He realized he was enjoying seeing her agitation.

  “You’ve trained your partner well,” she said. “He’s just as quick to jump to conclusions as you.”

  “The murderer is generally someone close to the victim,” he said.

  “We are Amish. We abhor violence.” She pointed to the computer. “If you look through your files, I doubt you’ll find a single case of one of us breaking the law. No one in our community killed Moe or my family.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked when he realized she was shaking. He thought more than anger lay beneath her nerves.

  “Someone tried to run me down in the buggy.”

  He stiffened. “Why didn’t you call me? What did the vehicle look like?”

  “It was during the storm, and the rain was coming down too hard for me to tell.” She gripped the back of a chair, and her voice grew steadier. “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. It could have been an accident, but I tried to move out of the way and the vehicle matched me.”