Love Rekindled

by Serena B. Miller

  In fact, it was only against the backdrop of the old-fashioned Amish mindset that it seemed like he had made a mistake. Had he allowed his lifetime association with Hochstetlers to make him believe Cassie was in the wrong, when all along it was him?

  But if he had made a mistake by leaving her to come here, it was a little late to come to that conclusion. He had already signed papers agreeing to purchase Doc Taylor’s veterinarian practice. Doc Taylor had not left a big estate. All he had left his widow besides his good name was his veterinarian office on Main Street and the practice he had built up over the years. Widow Taylor was dependent financially on the monthly payments Michael would be giving her. He couldn’t simply walk away from a responsibility like that.

  “Do not worry,” Ivan said. “Your wife is probably only being a little bit stubborn. Sometimes it takes a while for things to smooth out between young couples. Sometimes even young Amish couples remind me of two people competing in a three-legged potato-sack race. Both of them wanting to go in opposite directions, tripping and falling and arguing until they get the hang of running the race together. Keturah and I will be in prayer about this. You will see. Something good will happen.”

  Michael admired Ivan and Keturah’s faith, but he had no doubt that Cassie would push through with this divorce no matter how many prayers the Hochstetlers said. They had not lived with her and seen her single-minded focus. He had.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly fond of the steely-eyed woman he’d left behind in Columbus but, the longer he was away from her, the more he missed the friendship they had once shared. As he and Noah helped Ivan finish up in the barn, he wondered if there might still be a shred of that friendship left.

  Chapter 23

  “And how did your holiday go?” Bradley Cooper asked Cassie, as she joined him in the conference room the day after Christmas.

  “It was fine. I finished work on the Johnson case.”

  “Great! Did Michael come here or did you go see him in Sugarcreek?”

  Cassie hesitated. She didn’t like discussing personal things at work, but Bradley was her boss and a partner in the firm. It would be rude and unwise not to answer.

  “I stayed home.”

  “Then he came here?” Bradley’s question felt odd to her. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. On the other hand, he’d overseen her work for the past five years. He probably felt like he had the right to show interest.

  “No,” Cassie admitted. “He stayed in Sugarcreek.”

  “Did some sort of animal emergency keep him there?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Bradley sat back in his seat as though absorbing the import of what she’d just revealed.

  She was in her usual spot, just to his left, as they sat around the conference table during their office meetings. As usual, she and the always-punctual Bradley were the first to arrive.

  “You know you can call me if you ever want to talk.” Bradley astonished her by covering her hand with his own.

  “Thanks.” She heard what sounded like genuine kindness in his voice, but it felt creepy when he let his hand linger on hers. That was new. He jerked it away as two other attorneys arrived.

  She hoped he wasn’t anticipating the possibility of her being available for an office romance.

  On the other hand, he and his wife had recently divorced. Office rumors said that his wife dumped him because she couldn’t handle him never being home. Cassie had felt a jolt of sympathy for Bradley because Michael often complained of the same thing.

  “I might as well live in Sugarcreek,” Michael had thrown at her as he packed to leave. “I never see you anyway.”

  “If you would just be patient, I might make partner in a few years,” Cassie had thrown back. “Then things will be different.”

  Michael had not responded.

  It was so much easier to talk to the people at her office than it was to talk to Michael. Everyone at the office understood the pressure. Especially Bradley. He was one of the youngest to ever make partner in this firm. Of course, his father had been one of the founders, which didn’t hurt.

  Bradley didn’t make her feel bad about her goals. To him, they made utter sense, and she liked that a lot. Nothing about being around Bradley ever made her feel guilty, except right now. As he started the meeting, the feel of his hand covering hers lingered long after it should have. It was not a good feel. His hand was too soft, a little moist, and his fingernails were nearly as manicured as her own.

  Some women liked a man who was that fastidious. She would have expected to prefer it to Michael’s somewhat rugged hands and neglected, chipped, fingernails. Instead, she was slightly repulsive and that surprised her.

  She mentally shrugged it off and focused her attention on the meeting. This was not hard for her. Her well-honed ability to hyper-focus was one of her strengths but, when the meeting ended, Bradley asked her to stay for a moment, which she did, thinking he wanted to talk more about the Johnson case.

  Instead, he invited her to dinner that night.

  Red flags immediately went up. She had serious misgivings about accepting his invitation. She also worried about the possible repercussions if she turned him down. Office politics were as difficult to deal with as office romances and it was often hard to tell the difference. Things could get very sticky if she turned him down. Things could get even stickier if she accepted.

  “It’s just dinner, Cassie,” he said, when she hesitated.

  Bradley was a nice guy, she reassured herself. She’d known and worked with him for over five years. He was definitely no stranger. This was just a friendly dinner. It was fine, she told herself. Colleagues had dinner out all the time together.

  “Of course,” she said, ignoring the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “That would be nice.”

  Chapter 24

  It had been just over thirty hours since the wreck, and Rachel was no closer to finding out the identification of the mother of the baby. The only lead they had at this point was the fact that the car was licensed to Mabel, who was either clueless or hiding something. Rachel tended toward thinking the old woman was hiding something.

  While Ed checked into more missing person’s reports, she borrowed Joe’s beat-up truck, which she thought would blend in well in Mabel’s neighborhood. She donned winter gear involving a sock hat and some Carhart coveralls, filled a thermos with coffee, and went to do a little surveillance. She didn’t know what she was expecting to discover, but she didn’t have any better ideas.

  Snowplows had been through the neighborhood, and she found a spot in front of an empty house with a “for sale” sign in front and parked there. She was partially hidden from Mabel’s house by mounds of snow, and doubted anyone would notice Joe’s pickup in this neighborhood anyway.

  She had dressed warmly because she didn’t trust Joe’s heating system, but also because she would have to turn the truck engine off once she got there. A vehicle that wasn’t running attracted less attention. Fortunately, within an hour, her surveillance paid off.

  Walking down the opposite sidewalk, she saw what looked like another young gang member, but this one was carrying a snow shovel. Without bothering to go up to Mabel’s door, he methodically began to shovel the sidewalk in front of her house, clearing all the snow away. When he was finished, he grabbed a broom leaning against the side of the house, which he used to sweep off the porch and porch steps. He knocked down some icicles hanging from the eaves, then he repeated his actions for the house next door—the same one that the Eagle-Scout-looking guy had gone into yesterday—and then went inside.

  After a few minutes, Mabel’s personal snow shoveler came out of her next-door neighbor’s house and went back the way he’d come. This time he was walking a little dreamily, as though he were high on something.

  So, it was probably safe to assume the house next to Mabel’s was a drug house, but it seemed strange that the kid was willing to shovel her snow before he went into her neighbo
r’s for a fix.

  It was time to pay Mabel another visit, and this time Rachel had brought one of Aunt Lydia’s fresh apple pies with her. The kind with lattice work on top. She was fairly certain that Mabel would open up when she saw that. She started the truck, drove around the block to scout things out a bit more, and then she pulled into Mabel’s newly pristine driveway.

  Even though she was dressed very differently, it was only seconds after seeing that telltale flicker of the curtain, that she heard the thump, drag, thump, drag of the walker. Unless she was very much mistaken, Mabel was moving a little faster today. No doubt, she’d seen the pie.

  Once again, there was the ritual of unlocking of several locks. Then Mabel’s face peered out at her, only this time she wasn’t looking at Rachel; her eyes were already on that pie.

  “That for me?” Mabel asked.

  “Sure is,” Rachel said.

  “I suppose you want to come in.” Mabel’s voice was grudging.

  “I would appreciate it.”

  Mabel opened the door. Then she once again carefully looked up and down the street, as though trying to see if anyone was watching her let Rachel in.

  “I saw a kid shoveling your driveway a few minutes ago.” Rachel sat the pie on a small side-table.

  “Yeah, the kid does some work for me sometimes,” Mabel said. “I haven’t had lunch yet. I think I’ll go ahead and have some of this pie right now if you don’t mind.”

  The old woman limped off to the kitchen. Rachel waited until Mabel had returned, sliced herself a large piece of pie, and was taking a bite.

  “I also saw him shovel your sidewalk before going into your neighbor’s house,” she said. “Who lives next door?”

  Bingo.

  Mabel’s eyes narrowed. She chewed slowly as she considered whether or not to answer the question. “Tony Maddox.”

  “Does he sell drugs out of his house?”

  Mabel choked a little on her bite of pie and then swallowed. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “I need your help, Mabel,” Rachel said. “A dead girl is lying in a morgue, and she has to belong to someone. The license plate of the car leads here. You and I both know this car was not a random theft. It was someone who knew you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “For one thing, no self-respecting car thief would steal a car that is so obviously an old-woman’s car. For another thing, whoever stole your car put the padlock back on the garage and locked it. Thieves don’t do that. You either gave someone the key, or someone knew where it was and cared enough about you to lock up after themselves. It’s time for you to tell me what you know, Mabel. Who is the girl? And why is a gangbanger shoveling your driveway?”

  “I don’t know nothing.” Mabel took another bite. “Good pie, by the way.”

  Rachel sighed. “The young woman was in her early twenties. She had short blonde hair and multiple piercings in her ears. There was no I.D. in the car or on her person. No cell phone. No purse. She was pregnant, Mabel. A local midwife was able to save the baby, but not the mother.”

  “Wait a minute!” Mabel’s fork clattered onto the plate. She was visibly shocked. “Are you telling me that Lily’s baby survived?”

  “Who is Lily?”

  Mabel looked stricken by her slip of the tongue.

  “Uh huh,” Rachel said. “I think it’s time you came with me to the morgue. We need someone to identify the body.”

  Mabel shrank back. “I’m not going to no morgue.”

  “Why?”

  “I—I just can’t.” Mabel shivered at the thought.

  Rachel had had that reaction from people before. She’d been counting on it.

  Some people were horrified at the thought of having to go identify a body.

  “Who was Lily to you, Mabel? A relative? A neighbor? Tell me who the father of the baby is. I need a name and an address.”

  “You won’t need an address,” Mabel jerked her head toward the house next door. “It’s Tony Maddox’s baby. Lily lived there with him the past couple of years.”

  “And who, exactly, is Tony?”

  “He’s… well, all I know is, if you treat him good, he’ll take care of you. That’s why I get my sidewalk shoveled. Tony makes somebody do that every time there’s a snowstorm and then he gives them a little reward afterward. Makes sure my yard is mowed in the summer too. Tony is a good neighbor as long as you don’t cross him.”

  “What does he do if you cross him?”

  “Just… don’t ever do it.”

  “Are you saying that Tony is violent?”

  Mabel avoided Rachel’s eyes by focusing on the pie again. She picked up the fork and toyed with the crust.

  “If I have to haul you in front of a judge to get the information I need, I will.” Rachel was losing patience.

  “Well, okay then!” Mabel threw down her fork again, nearly in tears. “I never shoulda let you in here in the first place!”

  “Just tell me what you know about Lily and I’ll go away and leave you alone.”

  That wasn’t strictly true. She might need Mabel again, but it was true that she would go away and leave her alone for today.

  “Oh, okay. I guess it won’t hurt nothing,” Mabel sighed. “Lily was the sweetest thing. Kinda innocent, you know? She was a runaway. Tony found her wandering around near the bus station and took her home. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. She didn’t seem to know how to do much. Except she was good at cleaning house and cooking. Because of that, Tony let her stay even when he got tired of her as a girlfriend.”

  “Tony found a runaway who became his housekeeper and cook?”

  “Yeah,” Mabel said. “It was kinda like that. She kept house and cooked for him and any of his friends who wandered through. The girl didn’t have much of an education or any job skills. She didn’t have much gumption either, for that matter, or she would have gotten out of there sooner.”

  “Were you and her friends?”

  “Seemed to me like we were. I think maybe I was her only friend. At least the only one Tony allowed her to have. Tony had plenty of other girlfriends who came and went, but he always kept a tight hold on her. Didn’t want to lose his cook, is my opinion. He loved the homemade doughnuts she made. Loved them. He wanted them two or three times a week, she told me. About the only place Tony allowed her to go by herself was over here to visit me. I guess he didn’t think an old woman like me would be a problem. She came over here nearly every day.”

  Mabel’s voice choked up and Rachel saw that, underneath her cranky and suspicious exterior, the old woman truly cared about the girl.

  “We would watch soaps together most days,” Mabel said. “She loved Days of Our Lives. I miss her awful.”

  “Did you give her the keys to your garage that night?” Rachel asked.

  “I did more than that.” There was a touch of pride in Mabel’s voice. “I taught the girl to drive.”

  “How was that?”

  “She’d never had anyone to teach her, I guess. Tony sure wasn’t gonna do it. One day he left for Florida. Some kind of a drug run he had to make. Wasn’t gonna be back for a few days. She put my walker in the trunk of the car, I got in and told her what to do and she did it. Lily was quick study. Nothing wrong with her mind. My car was an automatic instead of a standard, so she didn’t have to learn much except how to keep it on the road. By the time Tony was supposed to get back, she was driving real good. At least I thought she was. Looks now like she didn’t learn as much as she should have, wrecking my car and all.”

  “It was raining Christmas Eve,” Rachel said. “Anyone could have slid into that tree. Especially someone who didn’t have much experience driving a car. Did you see her that night before she left?”

  “No. I was at my brother’s Christmas Eve. It was nearly midnight when he brought me back home. I didn’t know nothing until you showed up. Didn’t even know she was gone.”

  “Why do you think she waited until Christmas E
ve to leave?”

  “I don’t know, except sometimes, if Tony was in a bad mood, he would knock her around some. Maybe she finally got the courage to get out of there. Women will be brave for their kids sometimes, even when they won’t stand up for their own selves. Tony and his friends were probably out partying somewhere and she stayed home and grabbed her chance.”

  “Did she have a key to your house?” Rachel asked.

  “No, but she knew where I hid it outside in case I got locked out. I always kept a spare hidden away. I knew an old woman who walked out on her porch to look at the thermometer in the middle of winter, got locked out of her house, and froze to death.”

  “So you think she might have come inside, grabbed the garage door key, backed the car out, locked the garage back up, and then put the key neatly away before she drove off? That’s a lot of trouble for a car thief to go through.”

  “I don’t know if that’s the way it happened,” Mabel shrugged. “But she was a tidy little thing.”

  “What was Lily’s last name?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if Lily was her real name. Wasn’t none of my business.” Mabel brushed a crumb off her lap. “I do know she planned to name her baby Holly if it was a girl, because her due date was two weeks after Christmas.”

  “Did she ever say anything about her family? Where she came from? That sort of thing?”

  “No. She was pretty closed mouth about all that. The only thing she ever told me was that she was the black sheep of the family and could never go home again.”

  “Tony will need to be told he has a child,” Rachel said.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mabel said. “He never wanted that kid to begin with. In fact, it’s the only thing Lily ever fought him over. She was determined to have that baby no matter what.”

  “And yet he still let her stay?”

  “He did, but she was on thin ice the whole time. Told me she stayed out of his sight as much as possible. Once she started to show, she either stayed in her room or came over here. She did her housework and cooking when Tony wasn’t there.”