The sight of strange faces had alarmed Matthew, so Daniel was elected to carry the half-awake boy upstairs in the traditional, two-story house and lay him down in a room that had once been shared by two of Daniel’s cousins. Leaning heavily on Amos’s arm, Rebecca had followed. In the light of the gas lamp, he had seen her pallor and wished she was leaning on him. But Barbara rushed to her, so he helped Matthew take off enough clothes to sleep comfortably in his twin bed, then tucked the covers over him. He’d murmured, “Sleep tight,” before turning to the other twin bed and taking Rebecca’s hand. “I’ll be out to see you tomorrow night. Rest. Don’t try to leap out of bed in the morning and help.”
“Bossy,” she mumbled.
Barbara chuckled. “We won’t let her, don’t worry.”
There hadn’t been much he could do but leave.
Tonight, Daniel parked in a tractor turnout a short ways down the road from his aunt and uncle’s, slipped up their neighbor’s driveway and made his way through a greenbelt, Aenti Barbara’s orchard and at last to the kitchen door. Through the glass, he saw only Amos, apparently nursing a last cup of coffee. When he rapped lightly, his uncle rose and let him in.
“Coffee?”
“Denke, but no. I’ve had enough for one day.”
“That never stops me,” Amos said, deadpan, making Daniel wonder if he had a sense of humor, after all. “Rebecca said you would come for sure.”
“We still haven’t found her ex-husband, and I’m hoping she can help.”
Amos studied him, taking his time before nodding. “If she is up.”
Had she spent the day in bed? Alarmed, Daniel wondered if he’d made a mistake pushing for her to be released from the hospital.
Amos left without another word, and Daniel felt constrained to wait in the kitchen. His aunt treated him like family, but his uncle maintained more reserve. It might only be his personality, but Daniel knew him to be rigid in his beliefs. Beliefs Daniel had violated.
It was a good ten minutes before Rebecca entered the kitchen, her appearance causing him to grind his teeth. This time, her eye had escaped the damage, but otherwise she looked like she had when he’d first seen her getting off the bus. Except that this time the bruises were fresh, mounting from her cheekbone over her temple and onto her forehead. Purple and black instead of fading to yellow. Even the good side of her face was wan, and he had the feeling she wasn’t focusing well.
He had half risen at the sight of her, but now forced himself to resume his seat. “Amos didn’t get you up, did he?”
“Yes, but I was just lying on top of the covers, not sleeping.” Moving gingerly, she sat across the table from him. “The headache is bad, but I’m not dizzy or seeing double or anything else the doctor warned me about. I count my blessings.”
“How very Amish of you,” he said drily.
For an instant, her gaze sharpened. “Seems like there’s something you never mentioned.”
He ignored that. “Are you taking the pain pills the doctor gave you?”
“Mostly. I’m a mother, you know. I can’t expect Barbara to take over entirely.”
Stubborn woman, he thought, not for the first time. “Where are they? You need one right now.”
“I...” She closed her eyes. “Ask Barbara.”
He came back a minute later with one in his hand, poured her some milk to protect her stomach and watched her down the pill. “Go back upstairs and lie down, Rebecca. You’re not ready for this.”
“No. But...will you stay for a few minutes?” She sounded timid. “Just talk to me?”
Daniel hesitated, even though he knew he’d agree—despite the risk of letting her get under his skin enough to shake his resolve. He’d come here to wring a straight story out of her.
“It’s okay—” she started to say, but he shook his head.
“Of course I’ll stay.”
“Can we go out on the porch?” Rebecca offered a weak smile. “The dark would be soothing, I think.”
“We seem to do all our talking on front porches.”
He kept his hands to himself, but stayed close as she went to the living room to tell his aunt and uncle where they were going. Once they were outside, she headed toward the porch swing, then stopped.
“I think I’ll sit on the steps.”
He watched anxiously as she eased herself down, resting her head against an upright supporting the porch roof. Sitting beside her, he swiveled so he could keep an eye on her.
“Where’s Matthew?” he asked.
“I already tucked him in. I was keeping him company until he fell asleep.”
The air felt, if not cooler, at least less stuffy than inside. The moon was three-quarters, and the golden squares of the kitchen and living-room windows provided some illumination. Fireflies darted through the night.
“How’s he taking the change?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.” He heard worry in Rebecca’s voice. “You saw him yesterday. He’s still the same, not wanting to be more than two feet from me.”
Silence enveloped them. Daniel braced himself.
* * *
EVEN WITH THE throbbing in her head, curiosity had eaten at Rebecca all day. Daniel knew so much about her that it seemed only fair to ask him to reveal a small part of himself. It would be different if he had always approached her as the sheriff, but the attraction they both felt made everything they said and did personal.
Finally she said, “You were Amish.” She couldn’t deny the craving she felt to really know him.
“Yes,” he said readily, as if he’d expected her to ask. “You know my parents, Isaac and Susan. They’re in your aunt and uncle’s church.”
“I remember them. I should have guessed. You look like your daad.”
“Ja, so people tell me,” he said in Deitsch, sounding rueful.
She laughed, then moaned. “Don’t do that to me!”
His quiet chuckle felt like a touch.
She waited for the sharp pain to subside before asking, “When did you leave the faith?”
“In every important way, when I was sixteen. I stayed at home for a couple more years—we moved here from Iowa during that period—but I never accepted baptism, and my parents weren’t surprised when I packed up one day and left.”
“I’m assuming it has something to do with why you went into law enforcement.” Before he could answer, she said, “Just tell me to butt out, if you want. It’s really none of my business.”
He shifted on his step, but said, “No, it’s okay. Many of the Amish in the area know something of my history. Otherwise, I’ve kept quiet about it until recently. Away from here, all I wanted was to erase my roots.”
“Starting with the accent and the tendency to say ja or my daad.”
She caught his smile. He’d stretched out long legs.
“Starting with those, ja.”
Rebecca had the startling thought that, if not for the confession she needed to make, she could have been completely happy right now. There was something about Daniel Byler. She clasped her hands together, wondering how it would feel to be tucked against his side, his arm around her. He had kissed her, yes, but to be held lovingly, that was different.
What she ought to ask herself was how he’d look at her when he learned about the wallet and ring. Would he understand her decision?
Just for now, she shoved her worries aside, letting the tension ease from aching muscles.
Daniel started talking, gazing out over a field of hay to the woods beyond. The minute he described the impromptu party put together by a teenager who didn’t think it important to deposit the day’s business receipts the way his father had asked him, she knew what had happened was bad. She tensed again when he told her about the boys’ ineffectual efforts to keep the thieves
away from the girls. When he reached the rape, she heard the remembered rage bubbling beneath Daniel’s matter-of-fact recitation. The rest was terse, but she had enough history with the Amish to read between the lines.
Finished, he let out a long breath and scrubbed a hand through his short hair. “My parents hoped I would regain my faith if we lived in a less conservative settlement. My mother sent letters far and wide, trying to find the right place. She has a distant cousin who lives near Jamestown. This settlement in Henness County was fairly new, the farmland cheap compared to Iowa. Mamm’s cousin had heard good things about the bishop.”
“Is he still here?”
“Bishop Jonas.”
She blinked, picturing the man with a long white beard and a twinkle in his eye. “He does seem nice.”
“He’s a good man.”
“But you’d seen what you’d seen, and done what you’d done.”
“That pretty well sums it up.”
Studying his face in profile, she said tentatively, “Was it hard? Out there, I mean? With only an eighth-grade education?”
He turned his head, eyes a dark charcoal in this light. “Yes.”
He’d said all he meant to, she realized. Maybe more than he had meant to. She closed her own eyes and let herself drift.
She didn’t know how long had passed when she felt a touch on her shoulder.
“Bedtime, Rebecca,” Daniel said in that impossibly gentle voice. He wrapped an arm around her waist and set her on her feet, turning her toward the front door. “Sleep tight. And if you wake up hurting, take the damn pills.”
A kiss on the cheek, and he ushered her inside, where Barbara took over.
Swaying, Rebecca wished for foolish things before deciding all she really needed was to be prone.
* * *
DRIVING HOME, DANIEL wondered how she’d softened him up when he knew she hadn’t told him anything close to the truth. Did she think she could keep playing him?
He grimaced. Maybe he was a sucker for a delicate face framed by chestnut hair and a kapp. But at thirty-five, he had never yet allowed himself to veer from a path he considered right by a pretty face or a lush female body. Or, truthfully, by anyone or anything, unless he were to count the sight of girls he’d known all his life being raped on the cold concrete floor in front of him. The bishop and even his parents believed he had chosen the wrong path from that moment.
But, for all his sometime regrets, he knew he couldn’t have done anything but fight. Or to find a different meaning in his life from that moment on. He did respect the Amish choice to live by Jesus’s teachings to be harmless as doves. But he’d found enough passages in the Bible to know God had given His blessings to warriors, as well as men of peace. Most of all, he took comfort in the knowledge that God called men according to His purpose. That didn’t stop him wondering, at his darkest moments, if he was only trying to justify his decisions.
But it was an old debate, and he had mostly made his peace.
Daniel’s mouth tipped up when he remembered a passage from Matthew that he ought to bring to Rebecca’s attention tomorrow: “Fear them not, therefore, for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.”
Somehow, he didn’t think she’d appreciate his bit of piety.
CHAPTER NINE
THE MEMORY OF Rebecca’s pallid, bruised face stayed with Daniel that night, sleeping and waking, and was on his mind from the minute he got up. He’d seldom struggled more than he did that day to concentrate on his job.
He trusted that Amos or Barbara would have let him know if she had a bad turn. But did they understand the dangers of head trauma? Were they watching her closely?
He chafed at having to wait until nightfall to return to the Troyer place, but also felt dread. Had Rebecca done anything he couldn’t accept? How hard would he have to push to get the truth from her? He might lose his temper if she kept defending her scumbag of an ex, the man who had brutalized her.
As he’d done last night, he parked in a tractor turnout, at last reaching the kitchen door.
When he knocked, it was Rebecca who appeared, letting him in.
“Hi,” she said shyly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You look better.” He studied her. “I think.”
Rebecca made a face at him. “I do feel better.” Apparently seeing doubt, she said, “Really. It’s just...” She touched her cheek carefully. “I think it’s getting more colorful.”
It was, but her eyes were clear, and she didn’t hold herself as if she feared an incautious movement might make her head explode.
So he nodded. “I’m glad.” He glanced around the otherwise empty kitchen. “Do you want to include Amos in this discussion?”
Distress replaced the gladness he thought he’d seen when she first let him in. “Do we have to?”
“Of course not.” He hesitated. “In that case, let’s go outside again.”
They paused on the way so he could greet his aunt and uncle, sitting in the living room. Never idle, Barbara was knitting, the needles flashing beneath the propane-powered lamp. With one finger, Amos marked his place in the bible passage he had been reading aloud, took in the uniform Daniel had worn to emphasize his purpose tonight and said only, “Nephew.” Barbara smiled a greeting.
“We’ll sit out front again,” Daniel said, and Amos nodded.
Daniel was glad, once the front door was closed behind them, to realize he could no longer hear Amos’s voice, which meant his family inside wouldn’t be able to hear him and Rebecca, either.
This time she chose the glider, while Daniel remained on his feet, leaning against a porch upright.
Assuming Matthew was asleep, Daniel asked how the boy was adjusting.
“I don’t know.” Worry sounded in Rebecca’s voice. “He’s shy with Amos and Barbara, and she’s really tried with him. Mostly, I think he’s scared. And, of course, he misses Abram. I’m having to sit with him until he falls asleep every night.”
“Seeing his father hurt his mother has changed him,” he said gently.
“Yes. So stupid of Tim.”
“Under stress, he seems to have poor impulse control.” Daniel congratulated himself for describing inexcusable behavior so clinically.
She gave a half laugh that held no amusement. “That’s truer than I knew. Matthew had seen a few outbursts, but nothing awful until yesterday.”
“I’d guess Tim’s stress level is cranked even higher now.”
She started the glider rocking, perhaps to comfort herself. “I...suppose so.”
“You need to tell me why, Rebecca.” He kept his voice soft, but with no give. “Your hideout has been blown. It suggests that your ex-husband paid a lot more attention than you thought he did to your reminiscences. It’s also clear he’s not going to back off. If this was all about him getting Matthew back, he wouldn’t have been trying to stuff you into that car. He’d have grabbed his kid and taken off.”
She stared at her hands. In this light, the garish bruises were less obvious. She appeared demure, her heart-shaped face set off by her gauzy white kapp.
Daniel let the silence stretch, acquire a weight.
Finally Rebecca sighed and lifted her head. “No, it’s not all about Matthew, although he’s a big part of it. And I got to thinking about how Tim found me. I still doubt he paid any attention to what I told him about my family. But when we left to come here, I couldn’t take much from the apartment.”
Daniel nodded for her to continue.
“I had a box of family stuff in my closet. A bible, letters from my mother and from Grossmammi dating, oh, way back. The kapp I wore that last summer. If Tim got into the apartment...”
“I think we can assume he did.”
“Yes.” H
er shoulders sagged. “Have you heard anything about Ephraim?”
Was she trying to distract him?
“Last I knew, his condition was unchanged. Word will spread fast when he dies.”
“I suppose that’s true.” She pressed her lips together, then chewed on the lower one for a moment. “Why Tim wanted to find me. You won’t be surprised to hear it has to do with that whole mess at G, G & S.”
No, he wasn’t surprised. But he had tensed, his body suddenly battle ready.
“Were you involved in any way with the company?”
“Me?” Her eyes widened. “Heavens, no! Tim didn’t even talk about work, which made me feel as if I was on the sidelines of his life.” Sadness infused her voice, although it had the patina of something long accepted. “He’d brag sometimes about a new project, and show off anything in print about him or the company. But when things went wrong, he closed up. Until he and Josh had to call the police, I didn’t even know there were money troubles, just that he was worried and...angry. It wasn’t until quite a bit later that I knew more than what was in the newspapers.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Except for the fact that your husband was relieved, when a normal person would expect about any other reaction.”
“Well, yes, but there might have been legitimate reasons for him acting that way.”
He’d conceded as much the last time they talked about this. Now he was only annoyed that she kept making excuses for the creep.
Possibly reading his expression, she looked away from him, toward the moonlit pasture. She fiddled with one of the long ties dangling from her kapp.
“What happened is, during a meeting with our attorneys before the divorce, Tim gave me permission to take anything from the house that I wanted.” She told him about deciding she wanted to keep a particular necklace, and opening a hidden safe her husband hadn’t known she could get into.
Oh, hell, was all Daniel could think.
“I opened it and, well, there was something at the front. Now I wish I’d never looked, but then... It was Steven’s wallet. With his driver’s license and credit cards. The thing is, the police had been tracing him because he’d been using those credit cards.” Very softly, she said, “Or someone was.”
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