Return to Grace

  “Yeah? Then I’ll bet they would have been upset at unannounced night visitors, especially weird-looking ones making noise.”

  Despite fitful moonlight and Linc’s flashlight beam, it was instantly darker inside the maze. The dry cornstalks rustled and seemed to press in on them. Shadows leaped from everywhere.

  “Okay, so the guys probably turned to the right here,” he said, darting his beam into the blackness.

  “I’m not sure, but they did eventually emerge from the right side of the maze, over this way. But they were inside here long enough that they could have gotten a lot farther than this.”

  “The Meyers brothers must know this labyrinth in their sleep. They could have been in here, nearby, and Kevin and Mike wouldn’t even have known it.”

  Hannah gasped when they walked through fake, suspended cobwebs—yarn?—around the next turn, but Linc just shoved them away with the flashlight. The beam bounced across his face. It almost made his features look like a fright mask she’d seen uptown in the drugstore near Halloween. While Hannah hung back a bit, Linc peered around another corner. It was all she could do to keep from taking his arm, clinging to him.

  “Don’t look here,” he said, stepping back almost into her. “It’s a gross ghoul or zombie in an open coffin. Tell you what, let’s do this backward since you do know where they emerged from. They should hand out maps of these paths.”

  “They used to. Only, once you got inside and were lost, and opened the map to use it, it was blank. They thought it was funny, but they only got you once with that,” she said as they headed back out, still making one wrong turn before they traced their steps out the entrance.

  Hannah felt she could breathe again out here, despite the fact the cemetery was not far down the road and, at night, the mere idea of that haunted her. She fought back one of her waking nightmares of the shooting.

  “So, over here?” he said as Hannah led him to the raggedy place she was certain the guys had broken out through, once they realized they were thoroughly lost or maybe got scared by something inside they didn’t admit to. She wondered now if it could have been the Meyers brothers. Kevin and Mike had run back to the car and headed to the graveyard in a big hurry.

  She hesitated at the opening made by broken, shifting stalks. “You know,” she said, “you could call Mike and have him come here. He could tell you exactly what happened.”

  “It’s worth a phone call, but he’s with his parents in Michigan and he’s still shaky—in shock, can’t sleep—like post-traumatic syndrome, his family says. I think they’re trying to keep him away from me and hope they can get a lawsuit out of it when I find Kevin’s killer.”

  She said only, “Mike was high-strung and just staring into space that night.”

  “So what was his and Kevin’s demeanor when they got back in the car?”

  “Revved up. Excited. Bragging about it was nothing, but they hit the gas to get out of here, sped to the graveyard.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking her elbow and steering her toward the car. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to put you back inside here to wait for me—windows up, doors locked. You give me about ten minutes to step through the looking glass into— Sorry,” he added at her blank expression. “Didn’t mean to play cultural trivia on you. Ever feel you’re caught between two worlds?”

  “Only every day. I may not know what you mean by through the looking glass, but I do know this corn is a red strain called Butcher Block.”

  “Yeah? Amish trivia, huh? I’d like to help bridge your worlds, Hannah. Really. I admire your strength after all you’ve been through. But right now, you just let me see what I can learn inside this chicken outfit,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the maze. “Maybe I can figure out what spooked Kevin and Mike—or if they somehow riled the Meyers men into following and taking potshots at all of you.”

  8

  HANNAH SAT IN Linc’s car for what seemed a very long time, but of course she was nervous, and that made time drag. She tried to think of other things. For one, she planned to have Naomi drop her off at Amanda Stutzman’s Plain and Fancy B and B tomorrow morning so she could see about that part-time job. And she kept seeing Seth, standing up to Linc.

  Of course, Seth needed the roofing work at John Arrowroot’s, but he didn’t need to get so caught up in this case. He’d done his best to help out that fatal night. Was he staying involved because they used to be so involved with each other? Naomi had said Seth, who was the vorsinger, or song leader at church, had two maidals who were eager to have him be their come-calling friend, but Ella had said he hadn’t made a move on them yet.

  Her stomach started to cramp. Linc had said ten minutes, but it seemed like at least twenty. If he didn’t need her now, he should have taken her home, then come back out here alone. Or did he want her to go with him to the graveyard again afterward? No, she’d refuse. Not in the dark. But she would ask what the crime scene team had done to the grass around Lena’s grave when they were testing the blood spots or looking for bullets. It was enough that her tombstone had been ruined. Why would the FBI tamper with the sod over her grave?

  Glancing out both side windows, then craning around to look out the back, Hannah shifted in her seat. Nothing but dark night draped with pale moonlight. It wasn’t that late, she tried to tell herself. Probably right around eight o’clock, better than near midnight on Halloween when her friends had been here. But she’d sure feel better if a buggy would come down the road and stop.

  She studied the car’s laptop and special equipment—a GPS like the owner of the Cleveland recording studio had and some other stuff she couldn’t name. Without the key, the heater probably wouldn’t work. It wasn’t too cold in here yet, but she had goose bumps. She huddled deeper in her cape.

  Where was Linc? Why didn’t he come out the makeshift exit Kevin and Mike had pushed through? Was he walking the entire maze, or had he found something?

  If she honked the horn, surely he’d hear it and come out. But what if the sound carried clear to the Meyers house? Birthday party for their mother or not, she didn’t want them to think she or Linc were summoning them. If he’d left the keys in the car, she’d be almost desperate enough to drive home, then bring Daad back with her to search for Linc.

  She counted to fifty slowly, telling herself that if he didn’t come back by then, she’d get out and shout for him. Forty-eight…forty-nine…

  She reached over to the driver’s side and unlocked the car, then—before she changed her mind—opened her door, put one foot on the ground and, still in the shelter of the door, stood and shouted, “Linc? Linc! Liiii-iinc! Agent Armstrong!”

  She heard nothing but the wind rustling dry stalks. What could have happened to him? Maybe he tripped or something was rigged to swing like that cobweb and it hit him…hurt him. She would bet that the Meyers brothers would not dare to sneak out after promising they would not, but…

  She wanted to dive back inside the car, but she had to know what had happened. Maybe he’d twisted an ankle running through these dark turns, or had fallen and hit his head. When she found him, she could use his cell phone to call for help. Thank the Lord, she had not heard any shots.

  Instinctively whispering a prayer for protection—ya, she was still more Amish than she wanted to admit—she headed for the outside row of broken cornstalks where Kevin and Mike had burst out of the maze, the same way Linc had entered. She’d have to try to trace his steps without a flashlight, but at least the moon was bright and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

  The paper-dry cornstalk leaves snatched at her skirts as she stepped inside the maze. Shadows loomed, but patches of wan moonlight guided her on. If she got lost, she told herself, she’d just shove her way out through row after row, despite the Meyers brothers’ rules. She almost felt she was on FBI business now, trying to help one of their own who was here to help her and her people.

  On the only path she could take from here, she gasped when she turned the corner and saw a body
hanging by a noose around its neck. A store dummy, but it looked so real. But what—what if something really terrible had happened to Linc? Did she dare to shout for him again? If someone had hurt him and was still here, wouldn’t that pinpoint her position? And if an enemy lurked, would it be the one who had shot at her and her friends?

  She scolded herself not to let her imagination run as wildly as she wanted to run to get out of here. Now she knew what Kevin and Mike had felt; at first curiosity and defiance, then frustration and growing panic. Surely she’d find Linc just intent on checking something out. Either he’d lost track of time or she had. With the wind and rustling stalks, he likely hadn’t heard her shout. Best to look for him, not call out again yet.

  Two more turns of the maze. From here on, she wasn’t sure he’d come this way, because there were choices. She turned right because she thought it was closer to the outside of the maze, but suddenly, she wasn’t sure of that, either, not certain about anything. It was like getting lost in your own thoughts and fears in here.

  The next fright scene was another store dummy made to look like an old-fashioned Indian warrior with war paint and a raised hatchet—no, it was called a tomahawk, she recalled. If John Arrowroot had known about this, would he approve or disapprove?

  She dreaded each turn. The Meyers brothers had outdone themselves, but she understood farmers trying to pick up extra money in these tough times. She passed a witch bent over a small pot and took the stick she was stirring with to use for a weapon. The Amish litany of “harm no one, turn the other cheek, peace not violence” danced through her brain. Some sort of primitive terror consumed her and, one-handed, she held the stick close. Two turns later, a ghost made from a sheet, shifting just enough in the wind to look real, almost swung into her.

  Instinctively, she froze, then listened intently. She couldn’t believe they would use sound effects in here, but she’d just heard someone moving, walking. Footsteps. And was that other sound just the wind or heavy, ragged breathing? She knew any sound could be faked in a recording studio. But here…no, she did hear a footstep and not from any of the lifeless figures around here.

  It must be Linc, but she still hesitated to call out. She stopped breathing, trying to differentiate the sounds of steps from the rustle of stalks, the shifting sheet. It—someone—was coming close, maybe along the path she’d just passed, around the last corner. If it was Linc, he would not expect her to be here, and he had a gun he could shoot in surprise....

  She shouldered her way through one more corn wall, but her stick snagged and made too much noise. She darted around the next turn of the path and found she was in a dead end. And the footsteps could not be Linc’s, because he was sprawled, faceup, just like Kevin, at her feet.

  Hannah sucked in a sharp breath and knelt to feel the side of Linc’s neck the way Seth had checked to see if Kevin was alive. Yes, alive. But so still. She patted his cheek to wake him up. His skin was cold, his slight beard stubble raspy against her fingers. Where were his gun and flashlight? She didn’t see them, didn’t touch them as she felt the ground around him. The footsteps kept coming, someone nearby breathing hard…

  Hannah scrambled to her feet and ran. Nightmare! Could this be a horrid dream, like those the pain pills gave her? No—real. All of it real.

  She shoved through wall after wall of dried cornstalks. Some of the stalks hit at her, one tripped her. When she went down, and for once wasn’t making noise herself, she heard someone crashing after her.

  She scrambled forward on all fours, then got to her feet again, holding her pitiful stick, hardly protection if someone had Linc’s gun or a high-velocity rifle. Passing through all these corn walls had to get her outside, didn’t it? But then she’d be in the open, just like at the graveyard.

  She shoved through a line of corn, banged her knees and shins into a long box or chest. No, a coffin with a fake, bloody body that spilled out when it tipped. If this was the scene Linc said he didn’t want her to see, it was near the edge of the maze. But she’d just made so much noise her pursuer would know where she was.

  She forced herself to halt her headlong flight. Instead, as quietly as she could with her panting breaths, she tiptoed down a path and around one turn, then another. Oh, no—another dead end. And what if it really was that for her?

  When Seth heard Marlena call out in her sleep, he threw down the book he’d borrowed from his father on Ohio Indian history and hurried down the hall to look in on her again. She was thrashing in her little bed and had thrown her stuffed horse she called Gaulie to the floor. It must be the familiar nightmare again, though it was less frequent now, and her limited language skills kept her from being able to explain it to him. But he guessed it was a dream about losing her mother, because in it Mamm evidently “fall down asleep,” then go “bye-bye.”

  He retrieved Gaulie and put it in her arms, stroked her brow and whispered to her until she quieted. He’d do anything to keep her well cared for and happy, and that meant he should find a good mother for her soon, get her some brothers and sisters, too. But, especially now, his heart wasn’t in it.

  When he saw she was sleeping peacefully, Seth went into his bedroom next door and flopped down, fully dressed, on the bed. He laced his hands behind his head and stared at the white ceiling. Both Katie Weaver and Susan Zook would make good wives and mothers. It was obvious from the flow of baked goods, smiles and the comments of their parents that both were interested in him. Katie, three years younger than he, was a gifted quilter and, a rare thing, an only child, which meant she would inherit her family farm someday. Susan, several years older than he, seemed serious-minded and a bit set in her ways but eager enough to please. Ya, he missed a woman in his house and in his bed.

  Seth jumped when a knock sounded on his back door, but only because he’d been daydreaming. It wasn’t strange for his parents or his sisters Ella or Barbara to visit after dark, since it was a short walk from the farmhouse. He hurried to the back door.

  When he was first married, they hadn’t even locked their doors, but these past few years, when it seemed some city problems were invading the countryside, they’d all installed bolt locks around here. He pulled the curtain aside and saw the silhouette of a large man. Oh, Harlan Kenton, Amanda Stutzman’s brother, who owned the butcher and meat shop outside of town.

  Seth unlocked and opened the door. “Mr. Kenton, what can I do for you?”

  “Call me Harlan, for one thing. The lights are out early in the big house next door, and I told your dad I’d bring these last of his venison steaks around. Can you stick them in your freezer so I don’t have to come back tomorrow? This is the end of the Lantz stash from last season.” Many local families had their meat stored in Harlan’s large walk-in freezer, and his shop did big business in butchering venison during that hunting season. The Amish had refrigerators and freezers, but few had large ones since they were run by generators.

  “My freezer’s too small, but I’ve got a key to the house and can take them over. I’ll bet my sister Ella’s light is on around back, because she’s an attendant in a wedding next week and she’s stitching her dress day and night.”

  “Thanks, if it’s not too much trouble. I been so busy I just didn’t get it done earlier today. As is, gotta get back now and cut up some chicken for my sister’s B and B. Got some fancy new guest there, from Las Vegas, no less. Hear it’s the sheriff’s ex-wife. She don’t like to eat any red meat, almost a vegetabletarian.”

  Seth decided not to correct the burly guy. He had what some called street smarts but wasn’t the best scholar. Eli Detweiler, Ella’s former come-calling friend, had worked for Harlan until Eli started sloughing off. Harlan Kenton was a hard worker and a real go-getter. He’d told Eli once he intended to retire in style down in Florida or out west by the time he was fifty, but that attitude hadn’t rubbed off on Eli.

  “Okay, then, tell you what,” Harlan said. “I’ll unload this on the back porch of the big house, and you can take it from there.?
??

  When he stepped back a bit into the reflected kitchen light, Seth could see he wore the usual John Deere hat, tipped way back on his head, with the final E x-ed out, as if he were correcting the spelling. Harlan’s ears protruded almost like cup handles on his big head. His beard stubble made him look tough, but he was always kind and polite. He was obviously prideful about his neatly parted, cut and combed brown hair, probably a result of his wife, Clair, working at the Hair Port Barber Shop in town. As usual, he wore a T-shirt under a plaid shirt—no jacket, no matter the cool weather. In fact, he almost looked like he was sweating from hefting all that meat around.

  “It’s a deal,” Seth agreed. “Any charge for delivery?”

  “Nope. I just knew it would be too much for your dad to lift and his horse to pull on these danged hills.”

  “Real neighborly of you. Harlan, I meant to ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Remember the day John Arrowroot was carrying on in your store about wanting the land around here returned to his people?”

  “Sure do. I was tempted to shove a frozen ham hock in his big mouth. I’m hoping he’s just a crackpot, ’cause I got near four acres over at my place, and it’ll be Harlan Kenton’s last stand ’fore he gets his hands on it.”

  “Do you remember him saying something about the Amish graveyard land?”

  He paused, removed his hat and scratched his head a moment. “Yeah, come to think of it. Like it was ’specially sacred to his people, ’cause they used to have sacrifices to their gods there or something like that—or maybe buried their own chiefs there.”

  Seth nodded, though he didn’t remember any of that about burying their chiefs. In all the years the Plain People had dug graves with shovels there, as far as he knew, no one had ever turned up a bone or artifact, although plows turned up arrowheads now and then.