Lost in Plain Sight (3 page)

Leah’s nose wrinkled. “Well, no. I guess not. But still, it’s strange, that’s certain sure.”

Chapter Three

Leah finished washing the last dish and handed it to her sister, eight-year-old Sarah, to dry. She glanced at her mother. Mamm was putting dishes in the cupboard, but her face was drawn with fatigue, pale against her dark dress and black apron.

Leah took her arm gently. “You sit down now, Mamm. Sarah and I will put away these few dishes.”

“That’s right, Mammi,” Sarah echoed. She was a sweet, sensitive child, one who noticed when someone else was hurting.

For a moment Leah thought her mother would argue the point, but then Mamm crossed the kitchen to her rocking chair and sat down, reaching automatically for her knitting.

Leah exchanged glances with her father. Poor mammi was truly shaken at having the sanctity of her home invaded in such a way.

“Komm, now, Becky.” Daad bent to pat her mamm’s hand. “We’ve cleaned most everything up, thanks to the brothers and sisters who hurried to help us. The kinder will be in from their chores soon. Don’t let them see you upset.”

Daadi’s words seemed to work. Mamm leaned back against her cushion, and soon the knitting needles clicked in time to the rocking of the chair. Still, the events of the afternoon had been enough to shake anyone.

She and Josiah had rushed out to tell Daad and Mamm, trying to prepare them. It had seemed that no sooner had her parents looked through the house than the neighbors started arriving to help, summoned when her brother Ephraim ran across the field to Abe’s house.

News spread quickly in the Amish community, even without telephones and computers. Some people showed up bearing food…the Amish answer to every problem, she sometimes thought. Many hands had made light work, and the house was cleaned up in no time. Everything looked just as it should, but Leah suspected it would take longer to erase the memory from their thoughts.

Ephraim, Joseph and Sammy trooped into the kitchen, their chores apparently finished. Joseph and Sammy seemed to be arguing about something, and she touched their shoulders lightly.

“Don’t be fratching now,” she said quietly. “Mamm is upset enough without that.”

“We weren’t,” Joseph said. “But Sammy said Daadi should call the police, and I told him no, and he said…”

Leah put her fingers over her young brother’s lips. “Enough.”

“Ach, Leah is right.” Daad sat on a kitchen chair and drew the two younger boys to him, holding them against his knees. “Sammy, it is not for us to seek vengeance. Someone did a wrong to us today, but we forgive. God will deal with them.”

“But the police…” Six-year-old Sammy, the baby of the family, always seemed to want the last word.

“We must respect the Englisch police, just as we follow the Englisch laws. But we don’t seek them out. No one has been hurt, and we won’t become involved with the police for the sake of a few dollars, ja?”

Sammy nodded reluctantly. Leah took a steadying breath and began stacking dishes in the cabinets. Daad’s thoughts about the police were those of most Amish. The Bible said that they should live in the world but not of the world. That meant not copying the ways of the world or adopting its values, but living simply and humbly, trusting in God’s will.

What would Daad think if his own daughter were involved with the police? With the Englisch courts? Her courage failed her at the thought.

Sarah tugged at her apron. “Leah, will you go with me to the barn? I want to check on Dolly, but…”

Sarah let that trail off, but Leah understood. Her little sister was afraid to make her usual trip to the barn to say good-night to her pony.

For an instant Leah burned with anger at those who would take away a child’s trust. She pushed down the anger, reaching instead for forgiveness. That was the only way.

“Ja, sure. I’d like that.” She took Sarah’s hand, and they slipped out the back door.

It was dusk, and the shadows lengthened under the hedge of lilac bushes along the back porch. Leah’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light, and she and Sarah started across the lawn.

As they passed the toolshed, she glanced at the phone shanty. The Ordnung forbade the installation of a phone in the house, but most Amish shared the use of a phone in an outside shanty for business and emergencies. Her worries weren’t exactly business, but it was possible that Geneva Morgan would call if she’d thought of anything that would help.

She touched Sarah’s shoulder. “Wait here a minute. I want to see if Mrs. Morgan called. All right?”

Sarah nodded, seeming braver now that she was outside and it wasn’t as dark as it had looked from the window.

Leah hurried into the shanty and pressed the button on the battery-powered answering machine. It wasn’t Geneva’s voice she heard, unfortunately. It was Mrs. Reynolds, the Englisch woman she babysat for on Fridays. Mrs. Reynolds was sorry, but she’d made other arrangements.

Leah stared at the machine for a moment. So it had started already. News must spread quickly among the Englisch, too. She remembered Geneva’s comment about coming to her tomorrow. Geneva had realized this would probably happen.

Leah hurried back out of the shanty, glancing to where she’d left Sarah. But Sarah wasn’t there.

She caught a flicker of white apron by the barn door. Apparently Sarah’s desire to see her pony had overcome her fears. Leah started after her, smiling in spite of the news she’d just heard.

Tomorrow would be all right. She’d just tell her parents that Mrs. Reynolds had canceled, but Geneva wanted her for an extra day this week. But after that—

Much as she hated to admit it, Josiah had probably been right. She’d have to tell her parents about Mrs. Grayson and the missing ring.

She’d put Josiah in a difficult place, asking for his promise not to tell. She hadn’t been thinking of him or of his friendship with her brother, just of herself. That was wrong.

A sound alerted her, and she glanced at the open barn door to see Sarah bolt through it. Sarah raced to Leah and flung herself into Leah’s arms, gasping and on the verge of tears.

“Sarah, was ist letz? What’s wrong?”

“I think…I think there’s someone in the barn. Leah, maybe it’s the robbers. Maybe they came back.”

“Hush, now.” Leah put her arms around Sarah, holding her close. “Are you sure it wasn’t the horses you heard? Or an owl? Those people are far away by now. They wouldn’t come back.”

“They might.” Sarah knuckled away tears. “Aren’t you scared?”

Leah patted her cheek. “I’m not scared because I’m sure no one is there. You wait here while I turn the lantern on, and then you’ll see for yourself, ja?”

Sarah clung to her for another moment, but then she let go and nodded. “Ja. But be careful.”

“I will.” She walked quickly to the black rectangle that was the barn door. Sarah had gone through a spell of being afraid of the dark, and she couldn’t let that fear take hold of her little sister again.

Leah paused for a moment at the door, ashamed to find a prickle of fear running down her spine. That was plain foolish. No robber would stick around here, not when half the Amish community had been milling around only an hour or two ago.

The battery lantern hung on a hook just to the left of the barn door. Leah swung her hand in an arc, feeling for it. Nothing.

She took a step closer, feeling again. Where was it? Her fingers touched a projection, fumbled with it. There was the hook. But where was the lantern?

The shiver of fear grew colder, and she dismissed it firmly. She listened, intent. There was nothing, just the familiar sounds of horses moving in their stalls, knowing she was there. A whicker from Dolly, probably wondering why Sarah hadn’t come to tell her good-night.

If Sarah had taken the lantern down before she heard whatever frightened her, it might be on the floor. Leah knelt, feeling for it, praying it wasn’t broken.

Her fingers brushed the rough wooden planks of the barn floor, dusted with bits of hay and straw. If only—

Her fingers and her thoughts seemed to freeze. She knew every sound of the barn, except that one. That was not a horse, or a bird. Something else was in the barn. Or someone else.

She fought for calm. If she ran out of the barn, she’d frighten Sarah even more. And it couldn’t be a person, surely. Maybe it was a raccoon or a possum, trying to get into the feed.

Leah moved a step, and a bit of light reflected from metal. It was the lantern, sitting several feet off to her right. How had it gotten over there?

Standing, she took a few steps toward it, bent over and reached for the handle.

Steps pounded, hollow on the wooden floor. A black shadow detached from the other shadows, rushing toward her. With no time to think, she flung up her arm to shield her face.

The thing brushed her, sending her staggering into a stall. It loomed black in the rectangle of the door for an instant, and then was gone.

Several very long hours later, Leah went slowly up the stairs to bed, her shoulder aching where she’d hit the stall door. She prayed that little Sarah was asleep and dreaming of something more pleasant than what had happened tonight.

No matter how Leah had tried, she couldn’t make anything of that brief glimpse she’d had of the intruder. Something large and black, that was all she could say.

A person, Sarah had said, once Daadi and Mammi persuaded her that Leah was all right and she could stop crying. Sarah had seen a person, but she wasn’t even sure whether it had been a man or a woman. The person had rushed around the barn and taken off running.

Using his strongest flashlight, Daad had finally found a blurred sneaker print in the mud at the corner of the barn, and then another near the gravel road behind the barn that the milk trucks used.

It must have been one of the thieves, Daad had said. Maybe when Josiah and Leah arrived, he’d hidden in the barn. Then, with all the people around helping, he’d had to wait for dark to make his escape. Leah guessed that made as much sense as anything.

Leah slipped quietly into the bedroom. She undressed in the dark, listening to Sarah’s even breathing from the other twin bed. It soothed her scrambled thoughts as she climbed into her bed.

Tomorrow, she told herself tiredly. Tomorrow she’d figure out what she must do about Mrs. Grayson. She would talk to Geneva. And Josiah.

His face formed in her mind—first grave, then smiling, eyes twinkling. Josiah was home again, and the thought warmed her heart. He was still in her mind when she slipped into sleep.

A sound shocked her awake, and she sat upright in bed, heart pounding, until she identified it. Sarah tossed in her bed, crying out in fear.

Leah slid out from under the covers, crossed the hooked rug between the beds in her bare feet and gathered Sarah into her arms.

“Hush, hush. It’s all right, little Sarah. You’re safe. I’m here.”

Sarah took a choking gasp and opened her eyes—wide and staring in the dim light from the window. “Leah. I’m scared.”

“No need to be scared, little one. It was just a dream, that’s all. Just a dream.”

Sarah’s braids flew as she shook her head. “It was him,” she whispered. “The bad man.”

Leah couldn’t help the jolt to her heart, even though she knew it was just a child’s dream. “No, no, he’s gone. He ran away, remember?”

Sarah buried her face in Leah’s shoulder. “He was after my treasures,” she whispered. “Maybe he’ll come back.”

Treasures? Leah patted her sister’s back. “He was looking for money, that’s certain sure.” Wasn’t it? She couldn’t keep the thought of that ring out of her mind.

Sarah hiccuped and pulled back a little. “But my treasures…he was in the barn. Maybe he took them.”

“Is that where your treasures are hidden? In the barn?” Leah remembered doing something similar at that age—hiding a few special things that she didn’t want the boys to get into, like a lollipop someone had given her or a trinket from a cereal box.

“Ja,” Sarah whispered. “My treasure box. Maybe the bad man took it.” She’d stopped crying now, and the words came out in a sleepy blur.

“I’m certain sure he didn’t. You’ll find everything perfectly safe tomorrow.” She eased Sarah back onto the pillow, tucking the quilt up to her chin. “It will be all right. Sleep now. I’m here.”

Sarah nodded, and then she nuzzled into the pillow, asleep again in a moment.

It will be all right.
She repeated the words to herself, wishing she had someone here to say them to her.

Chapter Four

Everyone knew the hardware store in Springville was the spot to hear all the news…Josiah felt quite sure that hadn’t changed. If anyone was talking about Leah and the theft of that ring, he’d hear about it there.

And if there was gossip about the break-in at the Miller house, this would be the place to hear that, too. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else that would be helpful to Leah, but he could check on this.

Tying the mare to the hitching rail in the alley, Josiah walked in, not surprised to find a couple of Amish men deep in conversation with the Englisch owner. They all looked up at the sound of the bell over the door.

“Josiah King.” Elijah Beiler gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, grinning. “I heard you were back. It’s gut to see you.”

“It’s been a while.” Sam Robertson, the store’s lean, graying owner, leaned across the counter to shake hands. “Planning to start on your own as a carpenter?”

The question led nicely into what Josiah wanted to know. “Could be,” he said. “I see there’s a lot of big new houses out on Bolt Road. Abe Miller’s sister works for folks out there…the Graysons. I thought they might want some carpentry done.”

Elijah shook his head. “I doubt you’d get much from them. I hear they tried a couple local people to take care of the yard and fired them both. Now they’ve got landscapers out from Lancaster. The house was built by an out-of-town company, too.”

“Mr. Grayson’s okay,” Ted Schmidt put in, slapping a box of nails down on the counter. “But I hear the missus is hard to please. She’s gone through several women looking for a cleaner to suit her. Probably Leah Miller won’t last long, either.”