Off the Grid (Amish Safe House, Book 1) (3 page)

“It’s fine,” David said. “Let’s go over to
your house and pack some things.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ve put something together, but we need to
leave now. I’ll tell you once we’re on the road.”

And that was that. Kate knew she trusted
David, and she was trusting him at this moment. Kate popped into
Helen’s bedroom and told the sleepy woman that she was going away
for a while, and didn’t know when she’d be back.

David was waiting for her in the living
room, sitting on the arm of the couch while she went upstairs and
packed a bag. She was done quickly, and her boss led her to his
rental car. She threw her bag in the trunk and then climbed into
the passenger side while David sat behind the wheel and started the
car.

“So what’s going on?” Kate asked as they
pulled away from the curb. “Where are we going?”

“I had to put something together on my own,
and in a major hurry. We need to get you safe, while I figure out
who did this,” David said, an obvious start to a longer
explanation. “I have a friend, and I called him, and he’s going to
help us out. Now only you, me, him and his wife will know what’s
really going on, okay? The community won’t know anything.”

Kate was beginning to get worried. It
sounded as if David was trying to make the big reveal easier on her
somehow, as if she wouldn’t like where she was going. “David, just
tell me,” she said. “Where are you taking me?”

“To Pennsylvania,” he said, looking over at
her briefly. “Amish country.”

“Amish country?” Kate asked. “I’m going to
stay with the Amish?”

“You’re going to
be
Amish.”

Kate didn’t know what to think. She knew as
much about the Amish as did any other person who wasn’t actually
Amish, she guessed. They didn’t drive cars, couldn’t use
electricity, grew their own food, and were heavily religious.

Kate had never made any effort to go to
church. She believed in God, but had never really thought much
about Him. She occasionally watched a televangelist on TV and found
such shows uplifting, but only watched them when there was nothing
else on.

“Okay,” she said finally. “I suppose can
handle that, so long as it’s not for too long.”

“Good. My friend is named Abram. I met him
years ago, when we were both pretty young, and he was on
rumspringa
at the time. Have you heard of
rumspringa
?”

Kate nodded, “It’s where the Amish youth can
drive cars and dress normal, that kind of thing?”

David nodded. “Kind of. I’ve stayed in
contact with Abram over the years, and he was the first person I
thought of. He’s the bishop there, and he thinks we can get by, by
saying you were in an accident, where a car hit your buggy, and you
have a bit of amnesia. That will help cover any lapses in Amish
procedure you make. And we’ll say you’re visiting from a smaller
community from another state and the doctor there thought a change
of scenery would do you good. Abram suggested we say you’re from a
New Order Amish community, as some of them have electricity, so
that will also help cover up any mistakes you make.”

“Sounds like you think I’m going to make a
lot of mistakes,” Kate said.

David shrugged. “To tell you the truth, it
won’t be easy. They have no electricity, no internet, no cell
phones – you name it, they don’t have it. Pennsylvania is big time
Amish country, so you’re definitely going to get quite the crash
course.”

“I’m not dressed for Amish country,” Kate
said, and David laughed.

“Abram’s going to help us with everything,
don’t you worry. By the way, you are no longer Kate Briggs. Your
new name is Katie Lambright, and don’t you forget it. You’re lucky
that Katie is a common Amish name.”

Kate bit her lip.
Standard WITSEC
procedure: similar name or same initials
. For the first time
she had a taste of what her own charges had to go through when they
entered the witness protection program. She realized that she’d had
no real appreciation of just quite how difficult it actually
was.

Still, the idea of her enigmatic boss having
a good Amish friend amused her, and she knew she wasn’t going to be
able to resist asking him about. “So how do you know Abram again?”
she asked, trying not to sound too interested.

David laughed and looked over at her. “You
don’t think I have friends?”

“I know you have friends; I didn’t think you
had Amish friends.”

“Like I said, I met him when he was on
rumspringa
,” David said.

Kate nodded. “I’ve seen some reality shows,”
she said. There was a lot of hotel TV going on in her day to day
life. “When the Amish reach adulthood, they get to leave for some
time, and see what life is like outside of their communities. Then
they go back, and decide if being Amish is what they want.”

“Basically,” David said. “I met Abram when
he was on
rumspringa
, and believe it or not, I was a bit of
a party animal growing up, and we hung out. He went back to his
community, but we’ve traded letters ever since then.”

“How did you get a hold of him so quickly?
If he can’t use phones, I mean.”

“Most Amish now have phones in their barns,”
David said. “I’ve only ever sent letters before, although I did
have his barn number. I called his number and left a message, and
then he called me back. I laid everything out, and told Abram my
idea, and he okayed it, and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Kate said, glancing over at
David. He always went to bat for her, and this was a big deal, and
he had just dropped everything to come to her rescue.

The impromptu road trip was a long one, but
David and Kate did their best to have a good time, despite the
attack the night before. Kate talked David into stopping at a small
gas station and convenience store, where they stocked up on snacks,
and even bought a bag of ice and a disposable cooler to store some
cans of pop.

“This isn’t a vacation,” David grumbled as
he stood and watched her dump the ice into the cooler while he
pumped some gas into the rental car. Kate straightened up and
laughed.

“It is for me, I guess. Who knows how long
I’ll be relaxing on the farm.”

David laughed, shaking his head a bit. “It’s
worrisome that you think living on an Amish farm is going to be
relaxing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kate
asked.

“It means you’d better learn how to churn
butter real quick.”

“Oh, come on; look at me; does it look like
I don’t know how to churn butter?”

David laughed. “Yes. Yes it does.”

“All right, you got me. Let’s get back on
the road. Abram is waiting.” Kate laughed.

But Abram would have to wait longer, because
shortly after the sun fell, David decided to stop off for the
night, pulling into a badly paved lot of a run down motel in
Missouri. David went into get two rooms, while Kate walked across
the two lane road to a dingy diner and got a couple burgers for
herself and her boss. By the time she had walked back to the motel
with a bag of greasy food in her hand, David had rented two rooms
next to one another and had moved Kate’s bag into her room for
her.

They ate their meal outside, sitting on the
raised concrete walkway that separated the motel rooms from the
parking lot. They ate in silence mostly, enjoying watching the
Missouri moon rise higher into the sky, and the thousands of
brilliant stars shining.

They said goodnight after that, and Kate
went to shower and then sleep. She lay down in her pajamas with wet
hair, feeling too tired to dry it. It wouldn’t look great in the
morning, but she figured by that time tomorrow she would be wearing
a bonnet anyway.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought
about what had happened, and where she was going. It scared her. A
man had gone to her home, looking to kill her, and now she had to
leave everything behind, at least for a little while, and learn how
to function in a society so vastly different from the one she was
used to.

Isaiah 41: 17.

When the poor and needy seek water, and there
is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will
answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

Chapter
5
.

Kate stood in a field of wheat that was only
half grown, the brown shafts rising to her waist, and swaying
softly in the wind. She couldn’t see anyone, but in the distance
she heard someone screaming, a woman, and the voice sounded
familiar, although she couldn’t place who it was.

And then there he was, charging at her from
across the field, starting at the edge and coming in fast. He
trampled the wheat under his feet, kept running, held his hand
high, and held something in it. The midday sun was fat and yellow
and angry, and it threw down a ray of light that hit the object in
the man’s hand and reflected it, and when Kate saw the glint, she
knew it was a knife.

She turned to run, but was wearing a skirt
that stretched to her ankle, and restricted her from spreading her
legs too far, and she fell forward. Her hands hit the dirt; her
knees did too, much more painfully, and she heard the footsteps of
the man as he neared her. She tried to get up, but she was too
slow, and the man’s hand came down on her shoulder.

Kate awoke then, panting and covered in a
cold sweat that was drying quickly on her skin in the night time
Missouri heat. It had been a dream, a nightmare, nothing real, just
the worst possible thing her brain could have thought up at that
time.

There was a knock on her door. Kate knew it
was David. She rose and took a deep breath while she walked to the
door, placing her hand on the knob and exhaling slowly, her breath
cool and crisp on her lips. She pulled the door open and smiled,
and there her boss was, looking concerned.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Kate
nodded.

“Just a bad dream,” she replied.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure, thanks.”

“All right.” He turned and left, and Kate
shut the door. She went back to the bed, untangled the sheets from
the column they had been rolled into, stooped and pulled the
blanket off the floor and back to the bed. Then Kate climbed into
bed and lay back, covering herself up and staring at the
ceiling.

A shaft of moonlight fell through the room,
painting the floor, bed, wall, and even a bit of the ceiling, blue.
Kate didn’t sleep any more; she just watched the blue light grow
smaller, and then it was gone, and outside the world went from
black to blue to orange, and there was David again, knocking on the
door.

They drove a bit before stopping for
breakfast, swinging through a fast food chain and buying bagels and
English muffins. Missouri gave way to Illinois, and then Indiana
and Ohio. As the sun was slipping behind the horizon, they entered
Pennsylvania, and proceeded onward.

It was night proper when they pulled off a
lonely, two lane highway and onto a dirt path that cut through an
expanse of woods which gave way to a rolling swath of farmland.

There were homes here and there, although
they were hard to see in the dark. At the end of the dirt path was
a large white home, two storeys with a paint job that looked to be
no older than a few years. As David parked the car, the front door
to the home swung open, and a man came striding out, tall and thin
with an angular nose, the bottom of his face covered by a long,
gray beard.

Kate got out along with David, who was
already making his way to the man. They shook hands.

“How are you?” the man asked, and Kate took
him to be Abram.

“Could be better,” David said, throwing a
glance over to Kate. “Thanks again for helping me.”

“It’s fine, really. Here let’s get her
inside before anyone sees her.”

It was not until she was inside the front
door that Kate was formally introduced to Abram, and she shook the
man’s hand, feeling the strength in his long fingers which
resembled spider legs. He smiled warmly. “Welcome. I believe we
both have the same story?”

“Amnesia, buggy accident,” Kate said after
saying
Hello
, and the Amish man smiled.

“David, are you going to stay? It’s late;
you’re welcome to stay the night,” Abram said.

“No, I really can’t. I have to get started
on this investigation, and get this young woman home.”

A lady bustled out from another room. “This
is my wife, Martha Zook,” the bishop said.

Martha deposited a large plate of food on
the table, and then greeted David and Kate warmly.

“Look, I’d better get going,” David said.
“Kate, here’s the burner cell phone I got for you. Now remember,
the Amish don’t use cell phones, and you’ll have to keep it hidden,
‘cause if anyone apart from Abram or Martha sees it, your cover
will be blown. It’s strictly just to be used to get to me, or me to
get to you. I don’t need to tell you that it needs to be kept set
to vibrate.”

Kate nodded and turned the cell phone over
in her hand, but when she looked up, David was already half way to
the door.

Kate looked around the room, taking in the
plain and neat-as-a-pin furnishings, the sense of sameness. She was
a tough U.S. Marshal, but, truth be told, she was a little scared
of these Amish people. While the bishop and his wife looked nice,
she wondered how she would even make it two days in this place.

Acts 18: 8 – 10
.
Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord,
together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians
hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul
one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do
not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to
harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”