Chapter 56
Ed was leaning back in his chair, drumming on his desk with his fingers again as Rachel came in. He did that when he was in deep thought, especially when the thought was not a good one. One could almost tell what kind of a mood Ed was in by how fast his fingers drummed. This time, he was drumming very slowly, which meant that he was troubled and trying to work something out in his head.
“We got the DNA results back,” he said.
“That was awfully fast,” Rachel said. “Gertie’s lawyer must have really lit a fire under them. Cassie was hoping that asking for the DNA test would buy her a little more time to research and prepare.”
“I don’t think we’re going to need Mike’s wife for this,” Ed said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Tony is not the father of Lily’s baby,” Ed said.
This news was so unexpected, it felt as though a bomb had gone off in the room.
“But… that means Gertie can’t sue us anymore. She has no connection to the baby whatsoever.” Rachel’s mind spun with the ramifications of what Ed had just revealed. “No lawsuits. No more threats over custody. Gertie is not going to be happy about this, but what a relief for Keturah and Ivan!”
Ed wasn’t smiling. Something was wrong.
“So, who is Holly’s father, Ed?”
“A gang member by the name of Dane Richardson.”
“Dane…” she sorted through her mind. Where had she heard that name before?
Then she remembered and her heart plummeted.
“Dane is Tony’s killer.”
“Yes.”
“Let me guess. Now Dane wants the baby? Or maybe he has some horrible relative waiting in the wings to take her?”
“I have no idea what Dane wants,” Ed said. “They haven’t found him yet.”
“So what do we do now?”
“It’s a long shot,” Ed said, “but I called a reporter I know. He’s doing a quick human interest piece on this. It should be on the six o’clock news tonight. If Dane is in the area, he might see it.”
“What’s this going to accomplish?” Rachel said.
“I’m gambling that it’ll shake something loose. Maybe someone knows something. Maybe someone will turn Dane in. Maybe nothing. Your guess is as good as mine.”
Rachel called Adrian Stephenson, Gertie’s lawyer and gave him the news about the DNA. He took it well, but seemed unhappy about having to be the one who would have to break it to Gertie. He suggested she keep his contact information in case she was ever in need of a good lawyer.
Then she stopped by the Hochstetlers and informed them that they could bring Holly out of hiding because the DNA had shown that Tony’s mother no longer had any claim on the baby. They promised to go over to Michael’s and let him and Cassie know.
She watched the six o’clock news. The reporter got most of the story right.
Joe brought home supper—leftovers from the restaurant. They listened to Bobby chatter about school while they ate, then Joe put Bobby to bed. Once Bobby was asleep, they had some ice cream while they discussed Darren’s latest plan to build a small, bare-bones pie-baking building in the back of the Sugar Haus Inn. He wanted to employ Amish girls for a couple hours after school each day to make pies under Lydia’s supervision.
They went to bed, but she could not sleep.
Then her cell phone rang.
“This is Rachel,” she said.
“Did I wake you?” She recognized Mabel’s voice.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Good. I think you’d better come up here,” Mabel said.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to explain on the phone,” Mabel said. “Just come.”
“I’ll be getting there in the middle of the night,” Rachel said.
“I know.” The old woman’s voice quavered. “Please, Rachel. Please just come.”
“Okay, Mabel. Calm down. I’m leaving now.”
“What’s going on, babe?” Joe mumbled, from his side of the bed.
“Police stuff,” she said, sliding out of bed. “You go back to sleep.”
He already had. Running a restaurant was not easy. Joe slept like a rock most nights.
She put on her uniform, slipped her Glock into her shoulder holster, a small Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 into her ankle holster, and slid a knife into her pocket. If she was going to Mabel’s in the middle of the night, she felt it was best to go armed.
There was so little traffic on the road at this time of night that she made it to Mabel’s in record time.
Once she pulled into Mabel’s driveway, she checked in all directions, and then slid warily out of the car. She didn’t know what to expect but, in this neighborhood, bad things could happen. Especially after dark.
She went to the front door. Knocked. Waited for the telltale lifting of the blinds, which didn’t happen. Instead, Mabel came straight to the door and unlocked it.
“I’m glad you came, Rachel.” Instead of wary, the old woman seemed worried and agitated. “Someone here needs to talk to you.”
When Rachel followed Mabel into the small living room, a young man stood up. He pretty much filled the space, dwarfing the furniture with his size. Muscular. Built like a refrigerator…
“I’m Dane Richardson,” the man said. “I was Tony’s bodyguard.”
“I remember you,” she said. “I remembering wondering why Tony needed a bodyguard.”
“When you move as much product as Tony, you need a bodyguard.”
“Product as in…?”
“Tony didn’t care what he did as long as he made money.”
“Like his mother then.”
“I guess so. In a way.” He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, as though trying to decide whether to stay or flee.
“What can I do for you, Dane?”
“You have my little girl?”
“Baby Holly? No. She’s with some people who are taking good care of her.”
“I didn’t know she was mine until tonight. Me and Lily… we weren’t together much.”
“Okay.” She evaluated his size and strength, and was grateful she had come armed. She would be no match for this man otherwise. “Look, Dane. I have to ask you something. You were in the military. I looked up your records this afternoon. You were a model soldier. You had job skills. You didn’t have to come back here after you served your time. So, why did you?”
“My brother and Tony grew up together. Tough guys. Both of them. I was just the kid brother hanging out with them. Then my brother got shot and Tony kinda stepped in and became my family after that. A kid needs a family. You grow up like me and my brother, you make a family out of anything you got, even if it’s just a bunch of other kids like you. Except there was something wrong with Tony. He could do something good for you, then turn around and be scary mean. No predicting.”
“But you weren’t a kid anymore. You could have gone anywhere.”
“Once a Ghost, always a Ghost. If you weren’t loyal to the gang, Tony got mad. Besides, me and Lily fell in love. We didn’t mean to. I knew she was Tony’s. Had to be careful so no one knew. We wanted to leave but Tony would have killed us both, or had someone else do it. But I had to stay. To watch over Lily. Make sure Tony didn’t hurt her.”
His eyes looked strangely haunted in an otherwise strong face.
“What happened the night she ran away?”
“Tony was crazy angry that night,” Dane said. “He thought he’d been double-crossed by one of our soldiers and was taking it out on everyone. I told her to get out of there and I would stay behind. I figured if I stuck close to Tony, didn’t leave his side, it would give her time to get out, get away, and have her baby in peace. If he went after her, I would be there to keep him from it.”
“You would make two of Tony,” Rachel said.
“I do now,” Dane said. “But when you grow up scared of someone, you tend to stay scared of them. Size didn’t protect you fro
m Tony.”
“So, why did Lily come to Sugarcreek?”
“It was that newspaper story Mabel says you found. Lily must have read it a hundred times. She liked the part about how you went after the kidnappers when they took your little boy. I think she thought you might be the kind of person who could help her if she could just get to you. I think, when she ran, it was the only place she thought it would be safe to go.”
“Did she have any family?”
“No one she ever wanted to see again.”
“Do you know who or where her family is?”
“She wouldn’t tell even me.”
“The Cleveland cops say you killed Tony. Your DNA was found at the scene.”
“Tony didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“How’s that?”
“After Lily died, I didn’t want to be part of the gang no more. I figured I’d done enough. I was sick of it. I went to Tony and told him I wanted out. He didn’t like that. He went off on me.”
“Off?”
“He came at me with a knife. Said there was only one way to leave the Ghosts and that was to become a real one. Tony was always good with a knife.”
“What happened?”
“I was better.”
“All that, just because you wanted to leave the group?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the only thing we had been arguing about. I was worried about Lily’s baby. I wanted Tony to sign those papers you talked about so she could get adopted by some nice family. He didn’t want to.”
“Why?” Rachel said. “He seemed almost ready to when we were at the morgue.”
“That was before his mom got hold of him. After Gertie found out about the baby and learned what had happened, she got all excited. Said she thought she knew a way to make money off the kid. You’d have to know her. Gertie stays awake nights trying to figure out how to get money out of people.”
“The couple times I saw her, she seemed high on something.”
“Pills. Tony used to complain that she eats them like candy.”
“You’re wanted for murder, Dane,” Rachel said. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m a cop. You know I have to arrest you… if I can.”
“You probably can’t.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “I’d have to let you, but you need to let that wait for now. This thing with Tony isn’t why I needed to talk to you.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “I’m listening.”
“I’m that baby’s girl’s daddy, right? For sure?”
“DNA lab said so.”
“Remember when you thought Tony was the father, you told him he could sign papers that would give her to someone else? Right? Make it legal?”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “I remember.”
“I’m her daddy, but I can’t take care of her good. Not now, probably not ever. Me and my brother, we bounced around in foster care until we aged out. I don’t want my little girl to go through that. I want her to have a real family.”
Rachel was impressed. “I’ll call the social worker. There are lists of people hoping for a baby. You could probably have some say in choosing…”
She stopped. Dane seemed to be getting agitated.
“What?” she said.
“That newspaper story said you nearly died trying to protect your husband’s son. Is that right?”
“He’s also my son,” Rachel corrected him.
“Right,” Dane said. “I been thinking. I figure if you can love a step-kid so much that you would protect him with your life, you could feel the same way about another kid—like an adopted daughter.”
It took a moment for her to realize what he was saying. The realization made her dizzy.
“I—I need to sit down,” Rachel knees went weak, and she felt for the armchair beside her and sank into it.
Mabel hobbled into the kitchen to get her a glass of water.
“Here,” Mabel said. “You’ve had a shock.”
If Dane had had any sense, he would have run right then and she would have been unable to catch him. In fact, she wasn’t certain she could even stand up unassisted right now.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, as the dizziness passed. “Are you offering to allow me to adopt your daughter?”
“I think Lily would really like that,” Dane said. “A lot. I like it too. The thing of it is, I need to get this taken care of before I go to jail. The Ghosts are everywhere and I’m not bulletproof. When you come up the way me and my brother did, you don’t expect to live past twenty. I’ve made it to twenty-six. That’s, like, pretty good.”
And Rachel thought that the Amish were fatalistic. This sort of mindset broke her heart.
“You came back here, knowing you’d have to give yourself up and put yourself at risk—just to make sure your baby would be taken care of?”
The big man shrugged his massive shoulders. “She’s my daughter,” as though that answered everything.
She was still trying to wrap her head around what was happening. She and Joe were going to have a daughter? Bobby was going to have a little sister?”
“I want her to be safe,” Dane said. “I don’t know nobody else I can give her to who will keep her safe and raise her right. Nobody.”
A baby. She was going to have a baby.
She glanced up. There were tears streaming down Mabel’s cheeks, but Dane was looking confused.
“Did I do something wrong?” Dane asked.
She had never hugged a fugitive before, but she did now. She stood up, walked over to him, and hugged him as tight as she could, even though her arms only went halfway around him.
“I’m going to love your little girl so much,” she said. “And my husband, Joe… he’s a really good man. He’ll be so kind to her. And our Bobby has been begging for a little brother or sister. He has such a tender heart. She’ll have a wonderful big brother, I have three aunts who are going to be so happy to have another child in the family, and...”
“It’s going to be okay then,” he said, patting her shoulder. “I’m doing the right thing. My little girl will have a real family.”
“I’ll do the best I can to protect you too, Dane,” she said.
He smiled down at her and shook his head sadly, as though he knew the reality too well.
“So—do you know how to do this?” he asked. “Make it all legal and everything?”
“I know someone who does,” she said. “Just give me a second.”
She pulled out her cell phone, and her finger hovered over the numbers as she got ready to call Cassie… who was sick. Cassie who would have to get dressed first—always painful right after surgery. Cassie who would have to make the long trip up here.
She changed her mind. Maybe, instead, she would call the second-best attorney to graduate from OSU law school the year that Cassie graduated. Adrian Stevenson had said to call if she ever had need of a good lawyer. Her guess was that he had more knowledge about guardianship, or adoption, than Cassie. He might even have the papers already. Plus, he lived close. It was in the middle of the night, but any lawyer who was hungry enough to hire themselves out at a flea market wouldn’t let a little thing like being called in the middle of the night to stop him from getting work.
Adrian picked up on the first ring.
“This is Rachel,” she said. “Remember when you said to call you if I ever needed a good lawyer? Well, something extraordinary has just happened…”
Chapter 57
It was a Saturday night, and Keturah and Ivan were doing something rather rare for them. They were sitting side by side, holding hands, doing absolutely nothing, and they were completely alone. Keturah had washed her hair for church services in the morning, and it was drying, unbound, loose and flowing down her back.
Their ordnung specified that women should not cut their hair, but Keturah suffered with headaches when her hair grew too long. Since Ivan was the only one who ever saw her with it loose, he gave her his hus
bandly permission to cut it off halfway down her back, although he had a strong suspicion that she would have done it with or without his permission. His father had once told him that sometimes it was wise to give one’s wife permission to do the thing she would do anyway.
She kept it just long enough to pin up beneath her kapp. He cut it for her with her sewing scissors whenever she asked. It was their secret that he did this.
It was good for a husband and wife to have a few secrets, he thought. She knew where he put their extra money when there was any extra. He knew she always kept a package of miniature candy bars hidden away in her top drawer. Keturah was a disciplined woman but, sometimes at night, she would lay abed for a while and read and, sometimes while doing so, she would allow herself to have a small treat. He did not tease her about this, nor did she tease him about his need to keep a mason jar of money buried in the barn.
Another secret between them was that she loved to have her head rubbed when her hair was down. Tonight, he patted his lap. “Come, sit here. Lean against me and let me rub your head.”
She had always been a tiny woman. He often wondered how she had done all the heavy work she had accomplished over the years, let alone giving birth to three big boys. Already in her nightgown, she easily moved onto his lap and lay her head against his chest.
They had been young when they married. She had been seventeen. He had been eighteen. They had seen no issue with this at the time. He had inherited land and knew how to farm. She had been well-trained by her mother in domestic chores and knew how to run a house. She often came out to the fields with him to help harvest or plant. If company was coming, he knew how to sweep the floor and help ready the house. They helped each other and it had worked.
Their love for each other had deepened so much over the years, he hardly knew where he stopped and where she began, so close were they in spirit and mind.
He began to gently massage her head and neck. She leaned into it, making small groaning noises as he expertly found the knots that formed when she had been under too much stress for too long.
Love Rekindled: Book 3 Page 25