Off the Grid (Amish Safe House, Book 1)

by Ruth Hartzler

  The phone was a simple burner, cheap and plastic, nowhere near as loaded with features as the one she had left behind, in her old life. There were no games on it, and it couldn’t connect to the internet.

  The internet. She missed the internet so much. She missed her email; she missed Netflix. She didn’t even really know what was going on in the world. She hadn’t watched television; she hadn’t even read a newspaper.

  And her iPad, she really missed that. The stupid little games, how she would pass the time in the hotels in which she was forced to stay as she drove from state to state. There was nothing here. It was just hard physical work during the day, and then coming home at dark, lying in bed, and staring at the ceiling until she fell asleep. Kate was already going stir crazy.

  There was a knock on her front door, and Kate rose from the edge of her bed. She pulled on the simple cotton robe and then made her way out into the living room, and she pulled the door open.

  Beth was there, holding a bunch of lavender in one hand and a bunch of rosemary in the other.

  “I thought you might like a hot bath with these to soothe and relax you,” Beth said, and she handed over the herbs.

  “Thank you,” Kate said.

  Kate watched Beth walk across the yard to the back door of her own home, thinking how kind and considerate she was. Then Kate shut her door and went to the bathroom.

  The tub there was old, on four feet and was of heavy porcelain. She released the herbs into the tub into the hot water after fitting the rubber stop into the drain, and then she undressed and slid into the water.

  Kate had to admit it felt nice to be taking the bath, and she closed her eyes and managed to forget just how bored she was for a while, though a movie afterwards would have made the bath even better. Of course, there was none of that anywhere around her.

  After soaking in the tub until the water cooled, Kate washed up and got out. After a quick dry, she was in her nightgown once more, and as ready for bed as she was going to get. She lay on her bed and reached under the pillow, pulling out her burner cell phone. She pressed the button and looked at the screen, her face illuminated by the pale blue light streaming from it. She had wanted to see if David had called, but of course he hadn’t. It was for emergencies only. She likely wouldn’t hear from him again until the person who was after her was in custody, and she could go back to her own life. She slid the phone back under her pillow, and then she cried.

  In the morning Kate awoke when the sun came streaming in through her window and fell across her face. It forced its way under her eyelids, and she sat up and groaned as she stretched her arms over her head. She got up and dressed, taking the phone from its hiding spot and sliding it into one of the hidden pockets sewn into her dress. Socks and shoes on, and then it was time to find some breakfast.

  Kate had gotten into the habit of having breakfast in her cabin, and then joining the family for the rest of the meals of the day. Beth had shown her how to make a quick and delicious oatmeal, and Kate repeated the lesson with slightly less success, though it was still good and more importantly, filling. She left the few dishes for later. She tied her bonnet to her head and then went outside.

  Beth and her husband Isaac were outside, working in the large garden that ran alongside their house. Isaac saw her first, standing straight and smiling as he waved. He was a nice man, with a full beard that had once been black but was now mostly gray. Of course, like all Amish men, his beard did not include a mustache, and Kate had learned that this tradition was from the days when having a mustache signified that the man was in the military.

  “Gude mariye,” he called as Kate neared, and she returned his good morning in English. By then Beth had stood as well, and was coming toward her.

  “Katie, I wonder if you would be kind enough to do us a favor,” she said in her soft and small voice.

  “Of course,” Kate said. Beth and Isaac were certainly doing her more than a small favor, allowing her to live in their grossmammi haus, and they were so kind Kate that would have done anything for them.

  “Would you please take the buggy and deliver some whoopee pies to Mr. Byler for me will you? There’s a basket in the kitchen. He’s a widower, and we often take food to him.”

  “The buggy?” Kate asked, hoping her face didn't betray to them the fact that she had no idea how to drive a horse and buggy. Still, the bishop’s wife had warned her that this would happen, and assured her that she would be given only the quietest, most well mannered horses to drive. After all, the community had been told that she’d had a buggy accident.

  “Yes, it’s some way up the road,” Isaac chimed in. “If you walked, you’d likely miss lunch for the next three days.”

  He smiled, and Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “All right,” she said. “I’ll leave right away.”

  “I already have the horse harnessed up, and the buggy ready to go,” Isaac said. “It’s out front. Head straight down the highway there; take a right off this road, and you’ll go until you see a sign for Byler Farms. There’s a big white house at the end of the lane there, and Mr. Byler will be expecting you, I’m sure.”

  Beth patted her arm. “The horse is old and very quiet,” she said. “You have nothing to fear after your accident.”

  Kate nodded and then headed for the front of the house. She saw the buggy there, with the horse at its front. It was not the same horse as the one Beth had driven to visit people. Kate turned away and went inside, finding the huge basket of packed whoopie pies of which Beth had spoken, and then she moved back outside. She placed the basket of whoopie pies up on the seat and then moved to the front of the buggy so she could have a pep talk with the horse.

  The beast was large and black, with soft hair and a shining mane which was graying at the roots. Kate patted the horse on the side of his neck, and looked him square in his large eye.

  “Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, and you’re going to have to just get me there somehow, all right?”

  She turned to head to the buggy proper, but stopped herself and went back to the horse. “Uh, Byler Farm, all right? That’s where we’re headed.”

  Shaking her head at her own foolishness, Kate made her way to the buggy and climbed up onto the bench. She placed the basket beside her and then took up the reins. She wasn’t expecting the horse to take off like that, but he did. Apparently he knew it was time to go, and he was doing just that: going.

  He started trotting slowly along the dirt path, away from the house and toward the paved highway. At first Kate was terrified, but the horse was only going at a steady pace. The dirt path was a mile long, with a few branching paths leading to more Amish houses and farms. The highway was used by the Amish and the non Amish alike, but there wasn’t very much traffic, and as she turned onto it, Kate did not see a single car, much to her relief.

  There were yellow diamond shaped signs up and down the road, indicating that the wide lane to the right was for horse and buggies, and Kate made sure to stick to that lane. When she saw her first car, it was coming toward her, in the other lane, but Kate found herself sucking in a deep breath and holding it until the car was gone. Ten minutes after that there was another, this one coming up behind her.

  There was a small circular mirror attached to the side of the buggy, and she saw the car in it before she heard it, but as she neared she could hear the engine revving and screaming, and she found herself racked with fear. Then the car was speeding past, a blur of red, and Kate fought to regain her composure and calm herself.

  What were those people thinking? Kate wondered. They had known she was in an accident, or at least that was her story. And here they were asking her to drive their buggy ten miles down the road. For all they knew, she was an amnesiac because of her accident, and getting back in a buggy on the road might surely cause her to have crippling flashbacks or something like that.

  Of course, Kate hadn’t really been in a buggy accident, so it was all for naught. Maybe Beth and I
saac thought they were helping her in some way. Getting back up on the bike after a crash, as the old saying went.

  By the time Kate saw the sign for Byler Farms, she had been passed in either direction by eight cars. By the seventh car, she found herself able to be passed without holding her breath, although her heart pounded so fiercely it was audible in her ears each and every time. At least the horse seemed to know what he was doing.

  The sign was large and a pristine white, with black lettering that spelled out Byler Farms: Turn Right. She did so, leaving the paved highway and finding herself on dirt once more. Turning was an easy maneuver after all; she simply pulled gently on the rein in the direction in which she wanted to go. She had watched enough old westerns on TV to know how to do that. The horse had done almost everything himself, and Kate had been thankful for that.

  The dirt lane stretched on toward a strand of large trees, and then it twisted through them, and when the buggy came out of the woods on the other side, there was the farmhouse, and great rolling green hills, most of them filled with apple trees.

  Kate managed to stop the buggy in front of the house. She climbed out, picking up the basket of whoopie pies and making her way to the horse. She patted him once more. “Thanks for not getting me killed,” she said. She tied him to the rail, left the horse and buggy behind, and climbed the few stairs to the porch of the large farmhouse. She knocked on the door and waited, but there was no answer. A series of knocks later provided the same result.

  Kate left the porch and looked down the side of the house. There was a large red barn there, and both doors were hanging open. As Mr. Byler was Amish, he was likely working hard in the barn, not lazing away his hours in the house. Kate placed the basket of whoopie pies on the porch, just outside the door, and headed for the barn.

  When she got there, her blood ran cold. Her hair stood on end. She sensed something wrong; her training told her that. The barn was dark, the morning sun streaming only a quarter of the way in through the slightly open door. Toward the back of the barn, there was a dark shape upon the ground. Kate knew somehow what it was, without her eyes having enough information to confirm her thought. It was a person.

  Someone was hurt, or worse. Kate ran forward. She reached the dark shape and kneeled down. It was a man, an older man in his sixties, Amish. He was staring up at the roof of the barn, his eyes wide, but unseeing.

  “Dead,” Kate said, and she stood up straight, dusting her dirty hands off on her dress. How had he died?

  She heard something behind her, turned, and saw someone coming for her. Whoever it was, wore a hat that created a large enough shadow to conceal his face. He held a heavy garden fork above his head, and he brought the blunt end of it down at Kate.

  Philippians 4: 8.

  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

  Chapter 9.

  Kate was experienced in hand to hand combat training, and had to take the classes every other year to stay fresh. Kate turned nimbly out of the way and elbowed him hard, and the garden fork clattered to the ground.

  As Kate turned to face the man, she saw him pull a gun from somewhere on him. As he brought it forward, Kate closed in and kicked out her foot, connecting with the gun. There was a deafening roar, and a bullet slammed into the far wall of the barn, splintering the wood there.

  Kate moved forward, knowing she had to keep herself close to the man. She could not allow him to get the gun between them. Somehow this all came easily, as she was working on instinct.

  She pressed her hand to the man’s arm, keeping the gun away, and she brought her knee up and slammed it into his stomach. He doubled over, and dropped his gun.

  There was a scramble for the gun, and when Kate came up holding it, the man pushed her backward and turned to flee. Kate took aim and fired over his head. Her shot missed, hitting the doorway just as the man left the barn.

  Kate ran after the man, but by the time she left the barn, she couldn’t see him anywhere. The orchard was near enough that he could have disappeared into it by the time she got out of the barn, and she guessed he had done just that.

  Kate turned back, and went to Mr. Byler. She bent again at the knees and checked his pulse, but she knew she wouldn’t find one.

  Kate was still holding the gun, and she dropped it to the ground now, next to the garden fork. She looked around, and saw a phone hanging on the wall of the barn. She hurried to it, and called nine one one.

  She spent some minutes talking to the operator, who was trying to pinpoint her location. When that was done, she hung up and went out to the front of the house to await the police.

  A squad car pulled up within twenty minutes, and two men climbed out. One of them was an older man with a mustache, his partner younger, closer to Kate’s age, and handsome. When they approached, Kate averted her eyes, doing her best to put on a shy, Amish girl persona. The last thing she needed was two police officers poking into her cover story.

  The older officer introduced himself as Officer Stan Andrews, and the good looking officer with the square jaw and the green eyes as Officer Ryan Weaver.

  “Dispatch says you were attacked?” Andrews asked, hooking his thumbs into his belt and teetering a bit on his heels.

  “Yes, sir,” Kate said, keeping her eyes downward.

  “Also says there’s a body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me,” the older man said, and Kate led both officers into the barn.

  “Who is this man?” Officer Andrews said. Officer Weaver knelt down, and slid plastic gloves onto his hands.

  “I think he is Mr. Byler. I was sent to deliver some whoopie pies to him,” Kate said.

  “You don’t know if it’s Mr. Byler or not?” Andrews asked.

  “I’m new to this community,” Kate said.

  “Hmm,” Andrews said, and Kate didn’t like the sound of it.

  “He had a gun?” Officer Weaver spoke up, standing and pointing to the weapons.

  “He came at me with the garden fork first, and then he got the gun out.”

  Officer Weaver took a step closer to her. “And he just dropped them and ran off?”

  “I, uh, I got a fright and pushed him back,” Kate stammered, anxious to avoid any hint that she was a trained fighter. “He tripped and dropped them, and I guess it spooked him something awful.”

  “He got spooked from tripping?” Andrews asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Whatever caused him to go, you’re a lucky woman,” Officer Weaver said.

  “I’m not lucky; I’m blessed,” Kate said, remembering that expression from the televangelist shows on television. “I put everything into God’s hands. He sees me through.”

  “Seems like it,” the older officer said as he turned back to the body. “Too bad he didn’t see him through.”

  “Well, we all go home sometime,” Kate said, and both cops looked at her.

  “Did you touch the gun?” Andrews asked. “We’ll take prints off it, to rule you out.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  Kate thought fast. “It was pointing at me as he ran away, so I just picked it up and moved it. I didn’t want it going off, so I pointed it to a wall in case it went off by itself.” She did her best to put an innocent expression on her face.

  Ryan Weaver pulled a small pad of paper from his breast pocket and took out a pen from the same location. “So your official statement is that you came in, found the body, and got attacked?”

  “That’s what happened,” Kate said, perhaps a bit too strongly.

  “And then the man tripped, left his weapons and ran?”

  There was no turning back now. “Yes,” Kate said.

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was between fifty and sixty, wel
l build, and strong,” Kate began, and then thought she needed to sound more like a civilian. “He had thick, short, dark hair, and was a little shorter than I am, about so high.” She held up her hand to indicate the man’s height. “He was wearing jeans and a dark shirt; they were normal clothes, not Amish clothes.” Kate paused again, wondering if she should have said normal. She would certainly have more respect for her own WITSEC charges from now on.

  “And his face?”

  Kate shrugged. “It was dark. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  Officer Weaver stared at her. “To the contrary, I’m quite frankly amazed at the description you’ve given me. Most people in your position wouldn’t have had a clue, wouldn’t have been able to describe the man at all.” He took a step closer and narrowed his eyes, studying her.

  Kate felt uneasy under his scrutiny, and his proximity set her heart racing. She was suddenly aware of what an attractive man he was, and she was also suddenly aware of his manly scent, all pine and oak and citrus.

  Kate had never had a serious boyfriend, but right now, she wished she wasn’t disguised as Amish. She stole a quick glance at the handsome officer’s finger and saw there was no wedding ring there.

  What’s wrong with me? Kate wondered, thinking about a man at such a time as this. She shook her head as if to drive away the unwelcome thoughts.

  Weaver seemed oblivious to her dismay and was busily writing in his notebook. After he was done, they called for backup, and an ambulance to take the body. Weaver made Kate go through the events again and again, but finally told her that she was free to go.

  Later, Kate would have no idea how she got back to the Kauffman farm. She had no idea how she had pointed the horse in the right direction, and gotten back without incident. She was trembling the whole way.

  When she got back, Beth and Isaac were nowhere to be found, and that suited Kate just fine. She left the buggy in front of her hosts’ home, tying the horse to the rail, and then hurried to her little house. In her bedroom, she pulled her phone from the secret pocket. She didn’t hesitate; she called David.