Читать книгу Plain Peril - Alison Stone - Страница 12

TWO

Hannah tossed and turned on a small cot in the first-floor bedroom of her childhood home, now her sister’s home. Even the white noise of the crickets couldn’t lull her to sleep, not after the news she had received from Sheriff Maxwell. He had left her with a warning to be careful, his cell phone number and a promise to have his officers patrol her property.

Small consolation in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere.

Not even knowing that her mother slept nearby in the adjacent dawdy haus could calm her nerves.

The small bedroom grew stifling, yet she still couldn’t bring herself to move to her sister’s more spacious bedroom upstairs. Hannah slipped out of bed and slid the window open. She dismissed her silly fears that someone would climb through her window because if someone really wanted to get in, all they had to do was stroll through the front door. It didn’t have a lock.

Hannah flopped down on the cot and sighed. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and stared toward the open bedroom door, imagining the shapes morphing into an intruder, namely John. She was driving herself crazy. Her nerves felt like they were jacked on too much caffeine.

Had John really killed her sister? The sheriff had warned her they didn’t have enough evidence to prove John had been involved. But still...

Hannah struggled to quiet her mind with prayer and the hope of sleep. The chirping crickets filled her ears, and she realized the noise could also mask footsteps on creaking floorboards.

Tingles of dread crept up her spine.

“You’re being silly. You lived in the city and never were this afraid,” she whispered into the night.

You never tried to fall asleep with the knowledge your sister had been murdered.

Sitting up, she leaned against the wall and tipped her head back. The piece of snitz pie she had eaten before bed didn’t seem like such a good idea. She was making herself sick with anxiety.

Just when her rational side had talked her irrational side out of a full-blown panic attack, the blaring of a car alarm sliced through the cacophony of chirping. Hannah bolted upright and snapped her attention toward the window. Her car was parked behind the barn and covered with a tarp.

She pressed a hand to her thumping chest and drew in deep breaths.

The alarm will turn off by itself. It will turn off by itself.

How many times had a car alarm gone off in the city? Especially on her street filled with college students and their varying schedules. Car alarms were sensitive. An animal probably scampered across the tarp. Or a tree branch dropped on it. Or...or...

No, it did not mean someone was out there waiting for her. Her apprehension grew with the strident pulsing of the alarm. She drew in another deep breath through her nose and released it.

Hannah threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. She pushed back her shoulders. I’m being ridiculous.

She grabbed her cell phone from the end table and dialed six digits of Sheriff Maxwell’s phone number, ready to press the seventh digit if needed. She grabbed a flashlight and her car keys from the kitchen on her way out the door. She stopped long enough to stuff her feet into boots.

Her focus tunneled. She made a direct path to her car, tucked neatly between the barn and a dense crop of trees. Striding across the yard, she rolled her ankle in a rut. “Whose great idea was it to park my car way out here? Oh yeah, mine,” she muttered. Hannah was doing everything possible to comfort her mother, even if it meant hiding everything that made her an outsider.

The alarm came at Hannah in varying waves of ear-piercing obnoxiousness. Wincing, she lifted her key fob and aimed it in the general direction of the car and hit the alarm button. The sudden silence deafened her. Even the crickets were mute. She glanced back toward her mother’s dark residence. Apparently, the noise hadn’t disturbed her.

Hannah debated about returning to the house, but decided to quickly check on her car. She rounded the corner of the barn, and the beam of a flashlight blinded her. Her heart leaped in her chest, and she turned to run.

“Wait.” A deep, commanding voice vibrated through her.

Hannah didn’t wait. She had to put distance between herself and the man trespassing on the farm. She was out here alone. She had to protect the girls. She bolted toward the house, calculating how she’d reach the girls’ room and wedge something against the door.

She stumbled in a wagon wheel rut and pitched forward. Crying out in panic, she braced herself. Pain shot up the heels of her hands as they met the earth. Her knees slammed down hard on the packed dirt.

“Miss Wittmer, it’s Sheriff Maxwell.”

On all fours, Hannah dropped her head in relief. She pushed to her feet and brushed the dirt from her palms and her pj’s. She spun around. “What are you doing? You scared me to death.”

“What are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be wandering alone outside.” The sheriff arched the beam of the flashlight across her dirty pj bottoms and her University at Buffalo T-shirt, complete with boots she obviously should have laced up.

“Don’t answer my question with a question.” Hannah crossed her arms and huffed. She had a tad more confidence in her English pj’s than she had wearing her sister’s Amish dress. No one expected her to fake Amish while she slept, did they?

“I was patrolling the area and heard the alarm.” Sheriff Maxwell flicked his flashlight toward her vehicle. “Yours?”

She didn’t bother to answer the obvious. He tossed back the tarp, revealing her three-year-old Chevy Malibu. “Someone slashed your tires.”

Hannah plowed a hand through her hair, and a mix of annoyance, resignation and fear wound their way up her spine. “Did you see anyone?”

The sheriff shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

She glared at him skeptically. “Why are you lurking around here?”

“I’m not lurking. I’m doing my job.” An annoyingly coy smile played on his lips.

“If you were doing your job—” she held out her hand toward her car, the one with twenty-seven remaining car payments “—then this would have never happened.”

“Fair enough.” His smooth voice rolled over her. “But doesn’t it make you feel better to know I’m not far away if you need me?”

Hannah smoothed the tarp back over her car. “Let’s be clear about something. I don’t need anyone.”

He seemed to give her a once-over. “That’s debatable.”

Hannah swept her hair into a ponytail and fastened it with a rubber band from her wrist. “Fair enough.” She repeated his words. “I am glad you’re here. Find out who did this. But make sure you’re not lurking around too much. I don’t want the neighbors talking. They already give me enough grief.”

Hannah spun around—her snippiness fueled more from her adrenaline-soaked nerves than from anger—and marched up to the house, keenly aware that Sheriff Maxwell was watching her.

* * *

The next morning, Hannah slipped into her sister’s black Amish dress, an outward sign she was grieving. She peeked in on her sleeping nieces and decided to check on Mem. Through the screen door of the adjacent dawdy haus, Hannah saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. When Hannah knocked, her mother pushed back from the worn pine table slowly. Hannah couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw her mother wince.

“Are you okay?” The screen door squeaked, and Hannah stepped into the small space. Memories crowded in on her. Hannah had spent long hours here visiting her own grandmother. Her mammy was the one person who loved her unconditionally. When Mammy died shortly before Hannah turned sixteen, Hannah had found herself rudderless between an overdemanding father and a too-passive mother.

“Tired is all.” Her mother waved away her daughter’s concerns. “Would you like coffee?” She took a step toward the stove.

“No, I can’t stay long. I want to make sure I’m in the house when Emma and Sarah wake up.”

Her mother shook her head in disbelief. She did that a lot since Ruthie died.

“Did you hear the commotion outside last night?”

Her mother paused. “Commotion?”

“My car alarm went off.” She omitted the part about the slashed tires. She hated to add to her mother’s grief.

“Neh.” Her mouth pursed her lips. “My hearing is neh gut.”

Hannah leaned against the counter and watched her mother slowly sit back down. Her mother took a sip of coffee then touched her head. “Your kapp.”

Hannah tugged on her apron with both hands. “But I’m wearing a dress.”

Her mother looked down without saying anything, renewed disappointment etched in her pale features. An expression Hannah had seen many times. An expression that had both frustrated and confused Hannah as a teenager. Why didn’t her mother say what she meant?

“Mem, I came back for Sarah and Emma...and you.” Hannah pulled out the chair across from her mother and sat. She angled her head to see into her mother’s eyes. “I don’t know what my future holds.”

Her mother lifted her brows. “Your sister said you were coming home.” Her hopeful tone broke Hannah’s heart.

Hannah dipped her chin, surprise making her momentarily speechless. “Ruthie told you about our visits?” Ruthie had sworn her to secrecy.

Her mother nodded. “Yah.” She fingered the handle of the coffee mug. “Are you ready to be baptized Amish? Find a nice Amish boy and marry? Maybe next year you can prepare—”

“No.” The single word came out sharp, angry. Hannah flattened her palms on the table and drew in a calming breath and said more softly, “Not yet, Mem. Not yet.” Hannah scratched her forehead. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t happy in Buffalo.” She was lonely and didn’t enjoy her job, but she hadn’t decided to return to the Amish way of life. Not permanently anyway. She was toying with the idea. Searching for happiness. Wondering out loud to her sister if she had been naive in her decision to leave the Amish community in the first place.

Perhaps saying as much to please her sister.

Or perhaps, in a way, dissuading her sister from making any big decisions that would alter her life irrevocably. As Hannah’s decision had forever changed her life.

Hannah covered her mother’s hand. “I’m here for the short-term until I know the girls are okay. Please, don’t get your hopes up about me returning for good.”

Disappointment creased the corners of the older woman’s sad eyes. “I thought with Dat gone...”

Although the rift between Hannah and her father was apparent to anyone with eyes, it pained her to hear her mother talk about it.

“Mem, please, let’s talk about this another time. We’re all trying to come to terms with Ruthie.”

“Gott has a plan.”

Hannah’s body tensed. “I wish God’s plan was to leave Ruthie here on earth with us. With her daughters.”

Her mother’s lips quivered. “Life is hard. You have to make decisions that are gut for the family. You can’t be selfish.”

The sting of her mother’s comments wounded her. Had Hannah been selfish?

“One day at a time, okay?” Hannah hated throwing out a silly platitude, but she wasn’t ready to make life-altering decisions right now.

Will I ever be ready?

Hannah didn’t want to discuss Ruthie’s husband, but it couldn’t be avoided. Not with John running around out there, somewhere. “Did Ruth ever say anything negative to you about John?”

Her mother’s eyes flashed momentarily dark. “Neh.” She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t know how things work in the English world, but a woman does not speak ill of her husband. And if she does, she’s just being gossipy.”

“I’m not gossiping.” She placed her elbow on the table and rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “Was John ever mean to Ruth?”

“John Lapp is the bishop’s son.” Agitation shook her mother’s hands, and she refused to meet Hannah’s gaze.

“John left Apple Creek when he was a teenager. He was gone for a long time. Maybe he wasn’t the son the bishop had raised.”

Her mother lifted her chin. “John came back. Was baptized. Married. It was gut.” Which was more than Hannah had done. The accusation in her mother’s eyes made Hannah’s cheeks fiery. Couldn’t her mother see she was doing everything she could? Everything short of promising to be baptized Amish.

“You like John Lapp?”

“Your sister and her husband took care of me. I am grateful to them.”

Unease settled in Hannah’s belly. Learning Ruthie was murdered would kill her mother. Hannah pushed away from the table. The whole truth would wait for another day.

Hannah brushed a kiss across her mother’s soft cheek. Her mother pulled back and widened her eyes, startled by the display of affection. Hannah started to leave but turned back one last time. Her mother was holding her fingertips to her cheek, where Hannah had kissed her.

* * *

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?” Mrs. Greene, Spencer’s elderly landlady, sat in her wicker rocker on the front porch, nursing her tea.

The screen door slipped out of his hand and thwacked against the door frame. “Sorry about that. Didn’t see you sitting there.”

“Got no air-conditioning in there. Cooler out here. Can’t imagine how hot it’s gonna be later if it’s already this hot at—” She squinted up at him “—what time is it?”

“Early.” Too early, considering he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. The red numbers on the digital clock by his bed read a blurry four-something by the time he left Miss Wittmer’s and climbed into bed. Despite assigning another officer to check in on the Lapp farm, he felt unsettled.

What was it about the brown-eyed beauty that had gotten under his skin? And what kind of danger was she in with John Lapp still out there?

Spencer eased down, balancing his coffee and sat on the top step. Mrs. Greene spoiled him. She brewed the best coffee and left a to-go mug on the hall table inside the front door every morning. She claimed she missed having her boys around. All of them had grown and moved on with their lives, leaving her to dote over the tenants of her two upstairs apartments, only one of which was occupied.

“You finally meeting some people in this town? Doing things besides work?” Mrs. Greene had a say-whatever’s-on-her-mind way of talking that didn’t always allow room for him to get a word in edgewise.

Smiling, Spencer lifted his coffee and inhaled its rich scent. “Last night was work.”

Mrs. Greene made a tsking noise. “How are you ever going to have a life if all you do is work?”

Spencer leaned back on the railing and shifted to look at Mrs. Greene. “I need to find you a hobby so you don’t pay so much attention to me.”

“Someone’s got to pay attention to a handsome man like you. You can’t tell me you haven’t found one pretty woman in Apple Creek who you’d like to take for a nice Friday fish fry.”

Spencer laughed, nearly choking on his coffee. “Is that what women like to do around here? Go to a fish fry?”

“That’s what they did in my day.” Mrs. Greene seemed to go somewhere for a minute before snapping out of it. “Nice crispy haddock and tartar sauce. Yum.”

Spencer watched the content expression on Mrs. Greene’s face. The look of a woman who had lived a good life and was now satisfied to sit back and watch the world go by—and to micromanage his.

“That girl you left behind in Buffalo hasn’t come to her senses yet?”

Why had he told Mrs. Greene about Vicki? Because she had a way of prying things out of people, that’s why. Spencer shook his head and rolled his eyes, feeling very much like a schoolboy under the inquisitive gaze of his grandmother, who always had an interest in everything he did. Unlike his parents, whose only interests involved all the things they required him to do.

“I’ve been here a year. I don’t think she’s suddenly going to show up at my door.”

Mrs. Greene thrummed the pads of her fingers on the arm of her wicker chair. “Country’s not her thing, you say?”

“Vicki was definitely a city girl.” And last he heard, she was engaged to a surgeon. So very Vicki. Looked like she was going to get everything she wanted out of life.

He and Victoria had both been in law school when they started dating. She told him she had signed up for one kind of life, and Spencer had turned the tables on her by signing up for the Buffalo police exam.

“Heard she’s engaged,” Spencer found himself saying.

“I’m sorry.”

He narrowed his gaze and stared at the long strands of grass growing up around the railing posts where the lawn service had forgotten to trim. “I’m not. Now I don’t have to feel guilty for stringing her along for so many years.”

Mrs. Greene made a disagreeable sound. “That’s not like you to string someone along. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

It was tough not to be hard on himself when even his own father claimed disappointment. His father had been a police officer, but he had wished something more for his son. Spencer was the first college graduate in the family. A lawyer—a nice, stable, safe profession.

Spencer grabbed the railing and pulled himself to his feet. “Maybe it’s time I got back into the game.” Miss Wittmer’s pretty face came to mind. He smiled wickedly at Mrs. Greene. “Maybe I should find me a nice Amish woman.”

Mrs. Greene’s eyes flared wide. She waved her hand in dismissal. “Don’t be getting any crazy thoughts. The Amish don’t take to the English. Not for datin’.”

Spencer felt a smile pulling on his lips. He walked over and tapped Mrs. Greene’s knee. “No, no crazy thoughts. I’ll just stick to my job.”

And his job was to make sure nothing happened to Miss Wittmer and her two nieces out there on the Lapp farm. Until he had John Lapp in custody, he feared he wouldn’t be getting much sleep.

He couldn’t screw this up. Not like he had let down Daniel, the teenage boy in Buffalo who had ended up another grim statistic. He wouldn’t let that happen again. Not on his watch.