A Plain Disappearance (21 page)

I shuffled back to my place at the end of the landing. I pressed a hand to my chest and felt the rapid beat of my heart. Danny was on the way, but would he arrive before the landing gave away completely?

Timothy held his useless cell phone in his hand. I knew what he was thinking. Was I safe enough for him to run outside and call Chief Rose? Like me, I was sure that he regretted not calling her from the very beginning. I cringed to think of the chief’s reaction to our stupidity.

Billy pointed a sausage-like finger at his friend. “Don’t call the police. I will throw her off this landing if you do, and you’d better hope you are a good catcher.”

My stomach roiled. How could Billy say that to his friend? Timothy’s lips stretched into a thin line as he tucked the phone back into his pocket. “What happened to you?” The sound of betrayal was thick in Timothy’s voice.

Billy dropped his hands to his lap and refused to look at Timothy. Instead, he turned his gaze on me. I shivered in light of his wild expression.

“Should I call you Walter, then?” Timothy asked, making a grab for Billy’s attention.

The larger man’s head snapped around. Timothy’s ploy had worked. “I don’t go by that name any more. That was my past. I’ve changed.”

“Have you changed, Billy? If you are willing to put Chloe in harm’s way like this, I don’t think you’ve changed at all. It looks like you are still living a life of crime. I don’t know you at all. You really are Walter. Billy is gone.”

Billy shook his head like a stubborn child, his chin lowered toward the floor. “No. No. I’m not like that at all. I’m not that man anymore. I made mistakes, and I paid for them.”

Timothy tilted his head back farther. “If you paid for them, why is there still a warrant out for your arrest twelve years later?”

Billy struggled to his feet, his movement too much for the already taxed platform. The landing underneath my feet groaned, followed by an awful snap as the support gave way. Billy clawed the air for something to hold onto—and found nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped the rickety railing, willing it to hold me. I whispered a prayer. Billy and his portion of the platform crashed to the floor, dust billowing into the air.

“Chloe!” Timothy screeched.

I waved the dust from my face, and coughed. “I’m okay. I’m still on the landing.” I coughed again. “Where’s Billy?”

Billy let out a deep, torturous groan. At least that told us he was alive.

Through the haze the dust created, Timothy knelt beside his friend. “Billy?”

Billy whimpered.

At this point, the platform was too unstable for me to take one step away from my little corner. The cloud of dust in the air was too thick for me to see how badly Billy was hurt.

Billy said something in a choked sob, but I couldn’t understand what. The sound of screeching metal and his crash landing played over in my head.

Timothy coughed. “I think his leg is broken. It’s at a weird angle, and he has a gash on his head that’s bleeding pretty badly.”

The dust began to settle enough for me to see their faces. Timothy ripped off his black wool winter coat and wrapped it over the wound on Billy’s head. “This is not going to stop the bleeding without some pressure,” he said.

I knew he was right. “Go call for help, then. But return as fast as you can, so you can hold that to his head.”

“Right.” Timothy jumped up and sprinted from the factory.

“Billy? Billy, it’s going to be okay.” My teeth chattered.

He moaned softly. I took any noise he made as a good sign. Billy’s face was turned away from me, and I couldn’t see his expression. I felt helpless trapped twenty feet above while Billy could be bleeding to death.

Timothy ran back into the factory. He fell to his knees beside Billy and held his coat down on the man’s wound. “Paramedics and the police are on the way.”

“Did you speak to Chief Rose directly?”

“No, I got Officer Nottingham. I’d still be on the phone if I had spoken to her. She’s going to chew me out. That’s for sure.” Timothy glanced down. His tan sweater was soaked with blood. “Head wounds bleed a lot,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it’s life threatening.”

I didn’t know if Timothy said that more for my benefit or for his.

Danny walked into the room carrying a ladder. He set it on the ground. “Whoa. Looks like I missed all the fun.”

“Emergency is on its way,” Timothy barked.

“Um, Tim when you called and said that you needed me to bring a ladder to get Chloe down you didn’t say anything about Billy bleeding from the head, and man, his leg don’t look so good either.”

“It just happened,” Timothy said through gritted teeth. “Can you help Chloe down, please?”

“Oh, right.” Danny picked up the ladder and placed it against the open end of what was left of the platform. “How’d you get up there?”

“Stairs.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“There
used
to be stairs.”

“If you say so.” He raised the extension, and locked it at the proper height. “All you have to do is climb down.”

Easier said than done. “How do I do that?”

“Swing your left leg around the side and then the right.”

I gripped my railing, reluctant to let go of it. “Will it hold me?”

“This ladder holds good old boys four times your size for hours on end. Of course, it will hold you. Now, move it because I can’t say the same for that platform.”

The sound of sirens broke the air. I wanted to be down on the ground before Chief Rose showed up. She would not be a happy camper.

I swung my left leg onto the ladder. It didn’t budge, but I wasn’t as confident about moving my right leg. The platform under it wobbled. Before I could change my mind, I swung that leg onto the ladder too. A toaster-sized piece of the landing crashed to the floor.

Timothy watched me, gap-mouthed.

I waved at him from the security of the ladder.

Voices shouted back and forth to each other, and the sound of running footsteps echoed through the cavernous building. The cavalry had arrived. Carefully, I progressed down the ladder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three EMTs push Timothy away and start working on Billy.

“Will he be okay?” Timothy asked.

Three rungs from the floor, I heard, “Humphrey, you better have a good reason for this mess.”

I hopped off the last rung to face Chief Rose, her face redder than I had ever seen it. If smoke began to pour out of her ears, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

Timothy wrapped his arms around me, whispering in my ear, “Thank the Lord you weren’t hurt.” Dirt and dust caked his white-blond hair, giving it a grayish cast. He turned to the chief. “This wasn’t Chloe’s idea. She wanted to call you. I didn’t. I was stubborn.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I find that hard to believe. Typically, it’s Humphrey getting you into trouble, not the reverse.”

Timothy shook some of the dust from his hair. “It was my idea to come here and look for Billy. I knew this was the only place he could hide in the county. Anywhere else someone would have seen him in an instant.”

Behind Timothy, an EMT gave Billy a shot in the leg. The mechanic cried out in pain.

Chief Rose’s face was impassive. “I’d say you found him. I won’t bother telling you both how stupid it was for you come into this deathtrap looking for him or that he may have been armed or that you are lucky that he’s the one they are loading on the stretcher and not you.” Her yellow-green eyes bored into Timothy. “Troyer, I thought you had grown up over the last few years. I’m disappointed to see that I was mistaken, sorely mistaken. I can’t even look at either of you. Nottingham will take your statements and then you can go.” She stomped away.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that angry,” I said.

“She has every right to be. Everything she said was true. I let my pride get the best of me. I thought I could find Billy and talk him into turning himself in.” His entire body shook, his voice uneven. “When I think what may have happened to you . . .”

I wrapped my arms around him. “Timothy, I’m fine, I’m safe. It was my idea to go up to the landing, remember? I can be just as stubborn as you can.”

He pulled my arms away from him. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I need to be alone.”

“Alone?” My eyes traveled around the room. How did he expect to be alone? The place was crawling with police and emergency workers. In addition to Chief Rose and her crew, county deputies had arrived since technically they were outside of Appleseed Creek’s village limits and the chief’s jurisdiction.

Timothy’s lips were pale. “I did it again.”

Hoping that he wouldn’t push me away a second time, I gripped his hand. It was ice cold. He had lost his gloves when he had tried to help Billy. “Did what again?”

“Paralyzed someone.”

I shook my head. “No. Is that what the EMTs said?”

“They don’t have to.”

Five burly EMTs carefully rolled Billy onto his back. After strapping him into place, they lifted him onto their shoulders and slowly picked their way over the littered floor and out of the factory.

S
till inside of the factory, I waited a few feet away from Timothy as he recited his statement to Officer Nottingham. Over and over again he said that it was his fault, that he should be held responsible.

His determination to take the blame for Billy’s accident was tied to the guilt he felt for the fall that paralyzed Aaron from the waist down. Anytime Aaron joked about being confined to his wheelchair, sadness washed over Timothy’s face. Aaron forgave his best friend years ago, but I didn’t believe that Timothy ever forgave himself for what happened. The two had been working on a carpentry project on an upper floor balcony. Timothy, who was the expert carpenter of the two, told Aaron he had built the balcony wrong and that it would not hold. Aaron would not agree, and the two argued. The argument ended when Timothy dared Aaron to jump on the balcony to prove its sturdiness. Aaron did and fell twelve feet to the hard ground breaking his back.

Timothy wasn’t the only one unable to forgive himself over the accident. Deacon Sutter, Aaron’s father, was unable to forgive Timothy as well. Timothy believed all of the deacon’s animosity toward the Troyer family could be tied back to this one event. Billy’s fall packed more guilt onto his shoulders.

The ambulance—with sirens blaring, lights flashing, and Billy secured inside—was on its way to the community hospital in Mount Vernon. If it turned out that Billy’s injuries were more serious, like the broken back Timothy believed, he would be transported to a hospital in Columbus.

Officer Nottingham replaced the cap of his ballpoint pen. “Okay. I think that’s all I need to write the report.”

“Chief Rose doesn’t want to talk to us again?” My voice was hopeful. I didn’t want to be on the police chief’s bad side.

Nottingham pursed his lips as he glanced over to Chief Rose who picked through the scene with a metal rod. “No. And my advice would be to leave her be for a few days. She’s not happy with either of you.”

We found Danny outside of the factory holding onto Mabel’s leash. He handed it to Timothy. “I thought she should move around a bit. She was barking her head off when the cops arrived.”

Mabel leaned her body against Timothy’s leg as if she knew her master needed comforting. “Thanks,” Timothy said to Danny. “I’ll see you back at the house after I take Chloe home.”

We rode in silence back to Young’s so I could collect my car. Every time I opened my mouth to ask Timothy how he was, I thought better of it.

He turned into the parking lot, and all the lights were on inside the restaurant.

“Do you want to come over for dinner? We have a ton of food left from Becky’s Christmas party,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Okay. Good night.”

He reached across the bench seat and squeezed my wrist. “You know I’m not mad at you, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, knowing my lack of conviction would leave him unconvinced. Timothy smiled a little. He heard the doubt in my voice too.

“Seeing Billy fall like that brought back a lot of bad memories. Memories I thought that I had already dealt with.”

“You know Aaron doesn’t blame you for what happened.”

“Yes, I know, but I do.” He squeezed my wrist again. “That’s something I need to work out with
Gott
.”

Timothy’s comment made me think of my own personal demons: my mother’s death and my relationship with my father. If I didn’t deal with them, would they floor me like Timothy’s seemed to do? “I wish I could help you.”

“You already have. More than you’ll ever know.”

I kissed his cheek and patted Mabel good-bye before climbing out of the truck.

When I turned the Bug in the Quills’ driveway, I saw Becky and Tanisha move back and forth in front of the windows. Grandfather Zook must have brought Tanisha home from the Troyer farm. I was relieved. I didn’t want to go to the farm and answer the many questions the family must have.

In the living room, I found Tanisha and Becky twirling around the room to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Apparently, neither of them cared that Christmas was technically over.

Tanisha stopped. “Chloe, you’re home. Finally. What took so long?”

Becky’s straight white-blonde hair swung around her face as she spun around the couch. It had been cut to shoulder length.

“Becky, what happened to your hair?” I demanded.

She froze. “You don’t like it?” She touched the back of her head self-consciously.

“I—I—you cut your hair.”

Becky dropped her hand. “I told you that I wanted to. You said I should.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say that you
should
. I said that it was up to you.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “So I made my decision. I told Tanisha about it, and she volunteered to do it.”

Tee’s brow furrowed. “What’s the big deal? She already wears jeans and makeup.”

“I know, but this is permanent. What will your parents say?”

Becky face flushed red. “It doesn’t matter what my parents think. This is
my
hair.”