She unfolded the letter. He’d handwritten the note. Every day for five years he’d left her instructions for the day on the kitchen table. She’d grown to loathe the sight of his penmanship.
“Want me to read it?” Angie asked when Hannah let her hand containing the letter drop to her side.
Hannah held it out to her friend without a word.
Angie took it and began to read. “‘Hi, hon, it’s been so long and I’ve missed you so much. We need to talk. There are things to discuss. Isn’t our daughter cute? She looks just like my beautiful wife. Give us a chance to be a real family. Call me, Hannah. My cell phone number is 317-555-1212. I promise it will be different.’”
Hannah put her hand to her throat. What did he mean? Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat, but she choked it back.
Angie looked up. “‘Our daughter’? What is this, Hannah?” She glanced down at the envelope. “There’s another note in here.”
“From Reece?”
“No, it’s signed ‘Aunt Nora.’ Want me to read it too?”
“Sure.” Why would her aunt send a letter to her from Reece? Nora knew Hannah wanted no contact with him.
Angie cleared her throat. “‘Hannah, my dear, Reece has assumed I’m still in touch with you. He’s right of course. This letter showed up addressed to you. I opened it and was torn over whether I should send it, but in the end, I thought you should see this since it mentions your daughter. I hope it’s not too upsetting.’”
Hannah wrapped her arms around herself. The memories of her fall began to flood back, but she refused to think about it. He was just trying to twist the knife. And doing a good job. Her daughter was dead. Her gaze went to the picture. She picked it up and turned it over.
A little girl of about five stood looking into the camera. Her auburn curls sprang from her head. Her golden brown eyes smiled along with her mouth. She was in front of a familiar covered bridge. Squinting, Hannah could make out the words above it. It was the Narrows Bridge, just two miles from her old home. Hannah could have been looking at a picture of herself at that age. “It can’t be,” she whispered. She tried to find another explanation. Maybe it was Luca’s child. She’d tried to call him at work several times, but she always lost her nerve before he got to the phone. She glanced at the photo again. No, that couldn’t be right. Aunt Nora wouldn’t have sent this if it were a picture of Luca’s child. Besides, the child wasn’t dressed Amish.
She pressed her fingers to her head. “Oh, I’m so confused.”
“Let me see.” Angie took the picture from Hannah’s fingers. “Hannah, she looks like you. You have a daughter?”
Hannah shook her head slowly and began to recount the story.
Every muscle screamed in agony. Her mind replayed falling down the steps. She thought he’d pushed her, but even if it had been accidental, the fall killed her baby, and it was his fault. The horror of that knowledge nearly made her vomit. She’d shared her bed, her dreams, with that man. He’d taken everything she had to give and then destroyed what she treasured most.
“Could I have some water?” she whispered from the hospital bed. She had to get him out of the room.
When he left to get the water, she threw back the covers and staggered from the bed. Ignoring the pain that gripped her, she managed to get to the closet. She had to hurry. He’d be back any minute. She had to escape him once and for all, or he would kill her too.
She managed to pull on her skirt and blouse, to thrust her feet into her shoes. Her purse was in the bottom of the locker. If she could get to the shelter, they would take care of her, she’d been told. When he’d broken her arm last year, the nurse had insisted Hannah take the information about a shelter.
It took her way too long to get dressed with the agony slowing her movements. He’d be back any second.
Nearly bending double with the pain, she peeked out the door. To her left, Reece had his back to her and was haranguing a nurse. To her right was another exit. She slipped out of the room and hurried to the door as fast as the pain would allow. Glancing behind her, she saw Reece starting back to the room. She slipped into another doorway and waited until he entered her room. A patient behind her asked a question, but she had no strength to answer. As soon as the coast was clear, she darted back to the hallway, through the exit, and rushed toward the elevator. It dinged and opened almost as soon as she punched the button, and she breathed a prayer of thanks.
She stepped inside and pressed the lobby button. As the doors closed, she heard Reece’s angry shout. Her last glimpse of him caught the murderous expression in his eyes.
When Hannah finished her story, she found Angie wiping tears from her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Angie whispered. “Have you seen him since?”
“No. I made it to the shelter. They helped me change my name to Hannah Miller, which I’ve used in my private life, hid me while I got a legal separation—I don’t believe in divorce. I finished my master’s degree and got this job three years ago with their help. I always thought he’d find me again.” She’d spent the last five years watching children on the street, wondering what her daughter would have looked like if she’d lived. The pain had never gone away. She knew better than to let herself hope. Reece’s manipulation had caused her pain too many times in the past.
“Do you think he pushed you on purpose—to kill the baby?” Angie asked.
“I—I’ve never been positive. I thought I felt a hard shove. It was enough to send me running away before he killed me.” She looked back down at the picture. “Surely she’s not still alive?” Just saying the words made hope spring to life.
“I can’t tell where this is,” Angie said, looking at the picture again.
“Parke County, Indiana.” The place she missed above all others. But it wouldn’t be the same now, not with her family gone.
“So he’s trying to say the baby didn’t die from the fall? That when she was born, he took her to Parke County? How is that possible? He was with you in the hospital.”
Hannah hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe he had someone help him.” It was stupid to try to argue this into being. “Oh, I don’t know what he would do. I could never second-guess Reece.” Though she’d tried for five long years. “But she’s not with my family.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s not dressed Amish.”
“What are you going to do?”
Before Angie asked, Hannah hadn’t been sure, but she lifted her head. “I’m going home to find out.”
“Hannah, you can’t. We’ve got a full lineup of publicity events.” Angie crossed her arms over her chest.
“Reschedule them. This is important.”
“Your book sales are important. You owe this to your publishing house. This time may never come again, Hannah. Be smart about it.”
Hannah hesitated. Maybe Angie was right. They were riding the crest of a wave. “I’ll do today’s, and I’ll do FOX & Friends. But reschedule the rest.”
Angie must have recognized the inflexible tone of Hannah’s voice, because she nodded. “This journey might make the news if we let it out.”
“I don’t want anyone to know what’s going on.” The odds were against the child’s being her daughter, and Hannah would look foolish for thinking otherwise. Besides, her loss was too painful to talk about.
“Everyone would sympathize with your plight. And the publicity might help you find the little girl faster.”
“No. I couldn’t do that to her. I expect Reece is just messing with my head anyway.” She should put it out of her mind. Tear up the picture and get on with her life. She looked down at the picture in her hand again. What if this child really was her daughter?
“I don’t know the guy,” Angie said. “But could this be his way of flushing you out?”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I have to know.” The desire scorched her. If there was even the slightest possibility that this little girl could be hers, Hannah would follow
any rabbit trail, walk on nails, climb mountains. She’d even face the devil himself—Reece. The man she suspected might have killed her parents.
SEVEN
“The Sunshine Diamond Quilt is simple but has a beautiful message—look for the good everywhere.”
HANNAH SCHWARTZ,
IN The Amish Faith Through Their Quilts
A lightning rod rode the crest of the roof, and as the breeze shifted, a rooster weather vane swung around to face Matt Beitler. He approached the freshly painted red barn. The sliding door stood open, spilling out the scent of hay and horse.
His dog, Ajax, strained at the leash. “Stay,” Matt said. The dog fell back, then sat on his haunches. His grayed muzzle pointed up toward Matt in a hopeful gesture. Matt looped the other end of the leash around a hitching post and glanced around the property.
“Let’s check inside.” His partner, Blake Lehman, stepped around him.
“Wait a minute—we haven’t secured the scene!” Matt grabbed at the deputy’s arm, but Blake shook him off. “The geocacher who found the body said it was in the woods behind the barn.”
“But the perp could be hiding here.” Blake moved through the barn door.
Matt didn’t object. Maybe it was better to have him out of the way. “I’m heading to the woods,” he called. “Backup should be here any minute.”
He turned and surveyed the sparse grass between the outbuildings and the house. Laundry hung from a line strung from the house to the top of the barn. He noticed a pulley that allowed the occupants to run the clothes up the line and back. A buggy sat parked partway under a tree.
“Amish,” Blake said with a twist to his mouth. “Our schools are in trouble because of them. We’ve lost funding since they moved into the area.”
Matt stepped to the back porch and pounded on the door. “Sheriff’s department,” he called. Only silence answered. Nothing stirred in the yard. Matt veered across the lawn, grabbed Ajax’s leash, then headed toward the back. Dry grass crunched under his shoes, and the wind moaned through the treetops. He eased behind the barn, but the area was empty. No back door here. He darted across the empty pasture to the woods. Blake sounded like a herd of elephants following him.
Matt turned and frowned. “Keep it down!”
“Maybe it’s a prank call,” Blake said.
“I don’t think so. Look at Ajax.” He pointed to his dog. Tension showed in every line of the muscular German shepherd’s body. Ajax strained at the leash. “The caller said about fifty feet inside the woods, on the other side of a meadow.”
Matt couldn’t hear anything above the wind and the crunch of dead leaves. Ajax dragged him on. A loud buzzing began to ring in his ears, and he knew what he’d find before he stepped past the meadow into the shade of a large oak tree.
Flies rose in a cloud at their approach, then settled back onto the body, a man dressed in the typical Amish garb of dark pants, a white shirt, and a straw hat. The man was smooth-shaven, so he must not have been married. The heat had caused the body to begin the decay process, and the stink of death coated Matt’s nose.
“Looks like poison,” Blake said. “Probably strychnine from the way he’s contorted.”
Matt retreated. “Don’t disturb him until forensics gets here. Call it in.”
Blake nodded and stepped back into the clearing. Matt tuned out his partner’s yammering on the radio and glanced around the wooded area. A few fallen maple trees stretched across a dry stream. Newly sprouted leaves danced in the wind, and a brilliant cardinal fluttered over his head.
Nothing else stirred. Considering the strong odor and the flies, the perp was long gone. He needed to talk to the guy who found the body. The man had been too freaked-out to wait for their arrival. He had given his name, address, and phone number, though. That would be Matt’s first stop when he was finished here.
Blake’s heavy footsteps tromped back through the brush. “They’re on their way. Weird case. Wasn’t there something similar some years back?”
Matt nodded. “An Amish man and woman were poisoned. Their only kid, a daughter, found them. This setup looks the same. Except their bodies were covered with a quilt.”
“Were there any leads?”
“We found a neighbor dead from the same poison he’d supposedly used on the family. Though it never made sense to me. I was never sure the guy we found dead was the killer. I think he might have been another victim. The case is still open, but we never found a motive—or the quilts stolen from the family’s home.”
“What happened to the daughter?”
“She married the detective in charge of the investigation and left town.” Matt’s voice grew clipped. He should have tracked them down. He was still mad about Reece’s rude departure. And the gun he’d never returned.
Blake jerked a thumb toward the body. “You think it’s connected?”
The thought had been hovering in Matt’s head. “It’s been ten years. You’d think the killer would have kept on killing.” If they were connected, maybe he’d be able to close two cases at once.
Blake’s cell phone rang, and he pulled it out.
Blake answered the phone. “Hi, honey.”
Matt listened with half an ear. It was probably Matt’s sister, Gina, Blake’s wife. He stooped and studied the ground for clues.
SPEAKERS BLARED OUT the names of passengers with messages waiting for them. Her cell phone in her hand, Hannah sipped her latte in the LaGuardia Airport. The show had gone well, but she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep in her own bed tonight. Angie had gone to the restroom, and Hannah toyed with the idea of calling Luca. He’d be shocked to hear from her. Maybe he’d heard of her book. She hoped not, though, knowing that by writing it she broke every principle of Hochmut.
The concept of self-promotion was alien to the Amish. Her cousin would be grieved to know she even had a publicist and sought to promote herself and her book. He would tell her to let God be her publicist or, better yet, to choose a career that didn’t put her in the limelight. Luca and Hannah’s father had built their greenhouse business by providing good service to the community. They’d never taken out an ad in their lives.
Her hands shook as she called the number. She’d never forgotten it, though ten years had passed since she’d spoken with anyone at that number. Settling the phone against her ear, she took another sip of her hot coffee to wet her dry throat. What would she say?
The phone continued to ring until the answering machine in the greenhouse picked up and Luca’s familiar voice instructed her to leave a message. She hung up without doing it. This was a conversation they needed to have in person.
She watched the people walking past. Mothers with children clinging to their hands, fathers carrying babies. Her heart ached with emptiness. How ironic that all she’d been taught since childhood focused on the importance of family and community, and now here she was at thirty-two without anyone. No close friends other than Angie, who was an employee. Oh, she had acquaintances from the quilting society and at the museum, but no one she could pour out her heart to. No one who understood why she kept herself aloof.
Sometimes she didn’t understand herself. It should be easy to put down the wall and make herself vulnerable again. But it wasn’t. Living with Reece had shown her how a mask could hide the real person. Trust was hard to find, maybe because she’d never been able to let go of the bitterness and anger she felt toward Reece. And toward Cyrus Long, who had ruined her life. If her parents had lived, she never would have been brazen enough to run off with Reece.
Her life would be so different today.
SOME DAYS, LIFE had a way of mocking him. The first day of the investigation had turned up nothing, and all Matt wanted was to take pizza home to his daughter and watch VeggieTales after the sitter left. But when he pulled into the driveway, he saw Gina sitting on the porch swing with Caitlin. Every marriage had conflicts, and she needed to work out hers with Blake, not run to him with every little problem.
He stifled a sigh and got out of his SUV. “Hey, girls,” he said, smiling down at his daughter. She was the one bright spot in a world gone gray three years ago, when Analise died.
“I brought pizza,” Gina said. Her smile was tentative, as though she feared he would be upset.
“I was craving it.” He ruffled the top of his daughter’s hair. “You got a hug for old Dad?” When Gina was around, Caitlin had eyes for no one else. Poor kid missed her mother’s touch.
Nothing was said about why Gina had come until two hours later, after Caitlin had been bathed and put to bed. “Spill it,” he said when he came back to the living room where Gina sat with Ajax’s head on her lap.
“Spill what?” She rubbed Ajax’s ears. He wore a blissful expression.
“The long face. You haven’t said a word about Blake. Where is he tonight?”
“I have no idea.” Her lips quivered, and she didn’t look at him.
Matt flopped into the recliner. “Did you try calling him? He’s probably working late.”
“What time did you leave him?”
“About two hours before I came home. I was going over the murder.” He glanced at his watch. Over three hours ago.
Her lips quivered. “I—I think he’s having an affair, Matt.”
Matt balled up his fists. “I don’t believe it. Blake loves you.” He got up and went to the sofa. He started to put his arm around her, then dropped it back into place. They didn’t have a huggy-kissy sort of relationship. But she turned into his embrace and wailed against his chest. He patted her back, but he was bad at this kind of thing.
“Trust him a little, Gina. He’ll be home soon.”
She lifted a tear-stained face. “Well, he can come around and find an empty house. I’m leaving him. Can I stay with you for a while, Matt?”
He dropped his arm. “You know you can, but it would be better for you to go home and work out your problems. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Are you sure this is what you want?”