Plain Protector

by Alison Stone

  “What about the other names?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Not familiar to me.”

  “I’ll have to talk to each of them. See if they’d been near the church first.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone you asked if the young Amish men had been to one of my meetings. My work is based on trust. They’ll be afraid to come if they think I’ll rat them out.”

  Trust.

  Nick nodded. Strange word for a woman who seemed afraid to trust him. She was obviously harboring secrets.

  “You going to be okay out here?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Nick hesitated a fraction before pivoting on his heel and stomping down the porch steps.

  Sarah Lynn had secrets. Unless her secrets drew the attention of the Apple Creek sheriff’s department, Nick decided he’d let her be.

  The last thing he needed was to get caught up with someone like Sarah. It would be easy to do. But Nick had already been burned by a woman with her share of secrets.

  Once in a man’s lifetime was enough.

  * * *

  Sarah walked through the small cottage she rented—cash only—from the Amish family next door without turning on any lights. The downstairs windows lacked curtains, and she hadn’t remedied the situation because she had to be conservative with her money. Make it last. But she hated the lack of privacy. A woman who had a stalker didn’t relish the notion of being in a lit-up fish tank. So most nights, she retired to her upstairs bedroom to read in privacy.

  How long can I keep hiding? Delaying my life because I’m afraid of one man?

  Sarah reached the kitchen. The white moonlight slanted across the neat and functional cabinets and stove. Englischers, as the Amish called people like her, had lived here and when they moved away, Amos Zook had purchased the house adjacent to his land for future use by one of his children. Therefore, the house had modern amenities, such as they were, that would have to be torn out once one of the sons and his new bride moved into the house. Perhaps when Ruben, their second-eldest son, married Mary Ruth. If the rumor mill was to be believed. When Sarah first heard the plans for the house, she found it amusing. Updating a home by removing modern conveniences.

  Sarah opened a cabinet closest to the sink and got a glass for water. As the cool liquid slid down her throat, her mind drifted to her mother. Alone in the only home Sarah had ever known.

  She and her mother had been exchanging letters through their pastors. Her mother’s were always filled with cheery accounts of what she had been up to depending on the day and the weather.

  “Weeded the garden today. You should see your father’s rosebushes.” Her father had been dead twenty years, but his rosebushes kept thriving.

  “Wow, had to shovel the walkway three times today. I don’t think spring is ever going to get here.”

  Or...

  “It’s been so hot that I’ve had to turn on the fan at night. You know how I hate to sleep with that fan.”

  Despite her mother’s lung cancer diagnosis almost a year ago, Sarah rarely ever heard her mother complain about her health. And when it came time to flee Buffalo because of Jimmy, her mother encouraged her to go and live her life, happy and healthy and away from that domineering man.

  Her mother made it sound like her last wish: that her daughter live a happy life. Perhaps the kind of life that had eluded her mother after she lost her husband in a drunk-driving accident.

  Pinpricks of tears bit at the back of her eyes. Losing a dad as a little kid did that to a person. Her poor dad had gone out for ice cream when some drunk teenager T-boned him at an intersection. Sarah inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, a trick she had learned to calm her anxiety. It worked maybe half the time.

  Sarah glanced around the dark kitchen, and her cheeks flushed. Her mother had been widowed when Sarah was only ten. She raised Sarah to be a confident, independent woman. It shamed Sarah that she had fallen for a man who was able to control her.

  Instead of following her mother’s lead, Sarah had grown up fearful, cautious, contained.

  Now she’d have to spend the rest of her days hiding. And pray she’d get to visit her mother again in person before the horrible disease took its toll.

  A rush of nostalgia overwhelmed her, and the sudden urge to call her mother nearly brought her to tears. Sarah moved to the kitchen hutch in the darkness and opened the middle drawer. It opened with a creak, sending shivers up and down her spine. Sarah hated that she had grown fearful of her own shadow. Yet, she had turned Nick away when he volunteered to check her house. Such was the conundrum of being stalked by a cop.

  Afraid, but too afraid to call the police.

  Glancing around the darkened space of her current home, she convinced herself she was alone. Safe, but alone. She laughed, an awkward sound in the silence.

  Boy, am I ever alone.

  Leaning down, she stretched her arm to the back of the drawer. There, she found the disposable phone and a prepaid card with one hundred minutes. Items she had purchased—with cash—in a moment of weakness, but then never used. Sometimes just knowing she had a phone, a way to reach out, made her feel less lonely.

  Tonight she had reached her breaking point. No one could trace the call, she reasoned. She needed her mom. What girl didn’t? She needed to hear her mother’s reassuring voice. Tonight of all nights.

  Sarah flipped on a light. Her hands shook with the knowledge of what she was about to do. Sarah fumbled with the packaging until she freed the phone. It fell and clattered against the pine table in her kitchen. She scooped it up and held it close to her beating heart, feeling as if she were doing something criminal.

  The tiny hairs on her arms stood on edge and she couldn’t shake that feeling that someone was watching her. She lifted her head and stared toward the back window, her reflection caught in the glass. Beyond that, the yard was pitch-black. A surge of icy dread coursed through her veins. She’d have to save up for curtains. Sitting here like a duck on a target stand with a big red bull’s-eye over her head didn’t do anything for her nerves.

  She gathered up the phone’s instructions and turned off the lamp. She hurried into the downstairs bathroom, closed the door and turned on the light to read the instructions. In short order—after installing the battery and activating the phone—she was calling the familiar phone number of her childhood home. The same phone number Sarah had since the time she could reach her mother’s rotary phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen. The phone had been updated, but little else had in her mother’s cozy home.

  Yeah, the Gardners didn’t have the fanciest gadgets, but they did have each other. Sort of.

  With shaky fingers, Sarah pressed the last digit of her home phone number and held her breath. Silence stretched across the phone for a long time. Sarah pulled it away from her ear and glanced at it, wondering if it actually worked. A distant ringing sounded in the quiet space, and Sarah quickly pressed the phone to her ear. It was getting late, but she knew her mother didn’t sleep much nowadays.

  ...Three, four, five...

  She counted the rings.

  “Come on, Mom, answer the phone.”

  She imagined her mother pushing off the recliner—maybe asleep in front of whatever show happened to be on right now—muttering about the nerve of someone calling so late. No matter how many times she told her mother to keep the portable phone by her side, her mother insisted on placing it in the charger.

  Every. Time.

  ...Eight, nine...

  Sarah’s body hummed with impatience.

  “Hello,” came her mother’s curt greeting, startling Sarah who had all but given up hope that she’d reach her mom tonight.

  Sarah swallowed a knot of emotion. “Mom.” The word came out high-pitched and tight.

  “Sarah...”
her mother said her name on a hopeful sigh.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Her mother’s tone shifted from surprised delight to concern. “Is everything okay?”

  Sarah touched the bandage on her head. “Yeah, yeah, I just missed you and needed to hear your voice.”

  Her mother made an indecipherable sound and started to cough, a wet, popping noise. Her mother tried to talk, but the racking cough consumed her.

  Sadness, helplessness and terror seized Sarah’s heart.

  She envisioned her mother reaching for a tissue and holding it in a tight fist against her mouth as her pale face grew red from the exertion of coughing. Her eyes watering. A loud gasp sounded across the line as her mom struggled to catch her breath.

  Sarah muttered a curse against Jimmy. She should be there caring for her mother. Not hiding an hour away, alone in someone else’s house.

  After a moment, when the coughing slowed, Sarah asked, “Are you okay?”

  Her mother seemed to have collected herself. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

  Her poor, sweet mother, always trying to protect her only daughter. Sarah hadn’t magically forgotten that her mother had lung cancer.

  “Have you been keeping up with your doctor’s appointments?”

  “Yes. There’s just so many. Sometimes I’ll have a coughing jag when I’m driving...” Her mother forced a cheery tone. “Now, don’t worry about me. I’m as tough as they come. Now tell me about you. I thought we were only supposed to write letters. Safer that way.”

  “I called on a disposable phone.”

  Silence stretched across the line. “Jimmy came here the other day.”

  Sarah’s heart jackhammered in her chest. “What did he want?” You, stupid, stupid girl! Suddenly the phone felt like a hot coal in her hand. What if he tracked her down here? How? It was a disposable phone.

  Jimmy was resourceful.

  She looked up at the lavender walls of the small downstairs half bath. She’d have to run again. This time farther away. Away from her mother.

  “Jimmy acted like he was checking up on me, seeing if I needed anything—boy, that man could charm a lollipop from a baby—but I knew better. He was fishing around to see if I knew where you were. Same as he’s done the other times he’s swung by the house on the guise of checking up on me.”

  Sarah pressed the phone tighter to her ear, her racing pulse making it more difficult to hear. “What did you tell him?” Sarah’s mouth grew dry as she anticipated her mother’s answer. They had rehearsed before Sarah left as to what her mother should say or do, but Sarah constantly worried that her mother’s illness, medication or just a plain old slip of the tongue would jeopardize her location.

  Sarah knew she was being irrational, but having someone mess with your mind for two years straight had forced an otherwise sane girl to consider every crazy scenario.

  Her mother started coughing again, but regained her composure more quickly this time. “I told him what we agreed upon. Again. That you had a job opportunity in California. Lord, forgive me for lying, but I do it to keep you safe.”

  “I imagine he’s pressing you for an address. A phone number.”

  “I told him it was best if he moved on now.”

  Sarah could imagine Jimmy’s reaction when he was told to give up on something. Jimmy Braeden wasn’t a quitter. Or one who liked to lose. And losing Sarah had come as a huge blow to his ego.

  “Mom, there’s no way Jimmy believes I moved to California for a job. Not when you’re not feeling well.” Not feeling well. That was an understatement. “He’s going to keep pushing.” Maybe they should have come up with a different story.

  Jimmy would never stop looking for her. That much she knew for sure. Knees feeling weak, Sarah grabbed the towel bar and lowered herself onto the closed toilet lid. She reached forward and turned the lock on the bathroom door.

  One swift nudge with a strong shoulder would send the door into splinters. How pitiful. She had locked herself into the bathroom of the home where she lived alone.

  “I’m sorry I’m not there for you.” Sarah fought to keep the tears from her voice.

  “I’m managing fine.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “What did the doctor say last time you were there?”

  She envisioned her mom waving her hand in dismissal. “Oh, the same as always. If I believed everything they told me, I’d be buried next to your father already.”

  Cold dread pooled in Sarah’s stomach. She feared her mother would never tell her the truth when it came to her prognosis.

  Sarah traced the round edge of the brass door handle. “Maybe it’s time I came home.”

  “I’m fine.” Her mother’s forced cheeriness sounded shrill. They both knew Sarah returning to Buffalo would only add more stress to her mother’s already stressed life. And they both knew Jimmy was a violent man who had the backing of his brothers in uniform—both in Orchard Gardens where he worked and his fellow cops in nearby Buffalo. All the cops seemed to know each other. Yet, Sarah couldn’t fault the men. Jimmy was a great liar and friend, when he wasn’t beating up his girlfriend. She didn’t blame his fellow cops for being deceived. Hadn’t she been? When Sarah tried to make a report, Jimmy’s own mother gave him an alibi. Then the rumors began when Sarah showed up at the station with a black eye.

  Sarah had been out drinking and picked up the wrong guy. Now to save face, she’s trying to blame it on Officer Braeden because they just went through a bad breakup.

  It was then that she knew she’d never get justice. And if she valued her life and her mother’s peace of mind, she had to leave.

  Sarah pulled off a strip of toilet paper and wiped her nose. “Maybe you and I can go off somewhere. Somewhere where Jimmy can’t find us.”

  “Sarah... Sarah...” her mother said, in her familiar soothing voice that made Sarah’s chest ache with nostalgia. “We’ve been through all this. I need to stay close to my doctors. And I like my home. Tending the garden.” I want to be in my own bed when I die. Her mother didn’t say it, but it was implied.

  Sarah swallowed around the knot of emotion in her throat.

  “Have you made any friends where you are? Someone you can trust?”

  Nick’s kind smile floated to mind. “It’s hard, Mom. I don’t know who I can trust.” However, Sarah had confided in Nick’s sister, but Christina was bound by doctor-patient confidentiality. And sweet, Amish Mary Ruth would never understand her new friend’s predicament.

  And Sarah didn’t trust her own decision-making skills. She had been wrong—so very wrong—before.

  “You need to stay safe,” her mom said, her voice cracking. “Please, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom. I’ll stay here.”

  “That’s my girl. Go and save the world.” Her mother liked to tout that her only daughter was always looking for ways to help people. Too bad Sarah didn’t know how to help herself.

  THREE

  The next morning, Nick grabbed two large coffees—one black, one double cream, double sugar—and headed to his sister’s clinic. When he arrived, the first rays of sun were poking over the full foliage of the trees. He could already tell it was going to be a scorcher today. They were in the dog days of summer, and in a few short months, everyone would be grumbling about the snow and cold.

  He glanced at the clock on his dash. The clinic didn’t open for another thirty minutes, but he knew his sister would already be doing paperwork and preparing for the day. Both he and his sister were workaholics in jobs that served the public. Nick always figured that had a lot to do with their upbringing, the children of two entrepreneurs who made and lost their first fortune before they were thirty-five and made it again by forty. The second time was a keeper.

  All the children could have gone into
the family business—only their younger sister Kelly had—and continued to live a life of privilege, but instead Christina and Nick seemed determined to save the world. Their parents, although wealthy and living lives unimaginable by most, had been philanthropists and had made things like Christina’s health-care clinic possible. Linda and John Jennings were well respected in Apple Creek even though they only touched down at their home base once or twice a year.

  Nick went around back to the alley and found his sister’s car parked next to the back door. He tried the handle, but found it locked. He was relieved. Christina was a smart, compassionate doctor and street savvy. Even in small towns, addicts and other low-life criminals sought out drugs from whatever source they could find them. He was glad his sister took her safety seriously.

  Juggling the stacked coffees in one hand, he pulled out his cell phone and texted Christina.

  At back door

  A few seconds later the door opened. Christina initially looked like she was going to scold him for bothering her this early, but when her eyes landed on the coffee, a bright smile crossed her features.

  Christina was his little sister, younger by three years. The two of them grew up in Apple Creek and mostly only had each other and Kelly as playmates on their parents’ sprawling estate. Their mom and dad, both self-employed, could work from anywhere, and when Nick, Christina and Kelly were young, they decided the tranquility of Apple Creek was as good a place as any to build a home.

  “Double cream, double sugar?” Christina reached out with the look of a woman in need of a caffeine fix.

  “Of course. First coffee of the day?”

  “Yes, I usually wait until the office staff comes in to start the coffeemaker.”

  Christina stepped back, allowing her brother entry into the clinic. She peeled back the brown lid from the takeout coffee and inhaled the scent.