Off the Grid (Amish Safe House, Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter
9
.

Kate was experienced in hand to hand combat
training, and had to take the classes every other year to stay
fresh. Kate turned nimbly out of the way and elbowed him hard, and
the garden fork clattered to the ground.

As Kate turned to face the man, she saw him
pull a gun from somewhere on him. As he brought it forward, Kate
closed in and kicked out her foot, connecting with the gun. There
was a deafening roar, and a bullet slammed into the far wall of the
barn, splintering the wood there.

Kate moved forward, knowing she had to keep
herself close to the man. She could not allow him to get the gun
between them. Somehow this all came easily, as she was working on
instinct.

She pressed her hand to the man’s arm,
keeping the gun away, and she brought her knee up and slammed it
into his stomach. He doubled over, and dropped his gun.

There was a scramble for the gun, and when
Kate came up holding it, the man pushed her backward and turned to
flee. Kate took aim and fired over his head. Her shot missed,
hitting the doorway just as the man left the barn.

Kate ran after the man, but by the time she
left the barn, she couldn’t see him anywhere. The orchard was near
enough that he could have disappeared into it by the time she got
out of the barn, and she guessed he had done just that.

Kate turned back, and went to Mr. Byler. She
bent again at the knees and checked his pulse, but she knew she
wouldn’t find one.

Kate was still holding the gun, and she
dropped it to the ground now, next to the garden fork. She looked
around, and saw a phone hanging on the wall of the barn. She
hurried to it, and called
nine one one
.

She spent some minutes talking to the
operator, who was trying to pinpoint her location. When that was
done, she hung up and went out to the front of the house to await
the police.

A squad car pulled up within twenty minutes,
and two men climbed out. One of them was an older man with a
mustache, his partner younger, closer to Kate’s age, and handsome.
When they approached, Kate averted her eyes, doing her best to put
on a shy, Amish girl persona. The last thing she needed was two
police officers poking into her cover story.

The older officer introduced himself as
Officer Stan Andrews, and the good looking officer with the square
jaw and the green eyes as Officer Ryan Weaver.

“Dispatch says you were attacked?” Andrews
asked, hooking his thumbs into his belt and teetering a bit on his
heels.

“Yes, sir,” Kate said, keeping her eyes
downward.

“Also says there’s a body?”

“Yes.”

“Show me,” the older man said, and Kate led
both officers into the barn.

“Who is this man?” Officer Andrews said.
Officer Weaver knelt down, and slid plastic gloves onto his
hands.

“I think he is Mr. Byler. I was sent to
deliver some whoopie pies to him,” Kate said.

“You don’t know if it’s Mr. Byler or not?”
Andrews asked.

“I’m new to this community,” Kate said.

“Hmm,” Andrews said, and Kate didn’t like
the sound of it.

“He had a gun?” Officer Weaver spoke up,
standing and pointing to the weapons.

“He came at me with the garden fork first,
and then he got the gun out.”

Officer Weaver took a step closer to her.
“And he just dropped them and ran off?”

“I, uh, I got a fright and pushed him back,”
Kate stammered, anxious to avoid any hint that she was a trained
fighter. “He tripped and dropped them, and I guess it spooked him
something awful.”

“He got spooked from tripping?” Andrews
asked.

“I don’t know. I’m guessing.”

“Hmm.”

“Whatever caused him to go, you’re a lucky
woman,” Officer Weaver said.

“I’m not lucky; I’m blessed,” Kate said,
remembering that expression from the televangelist shows on
television. “I put everything into God’s hands. He sees me
through.”

“Seems like it,” the older officer said as
he turned back to the body. “Too bad he didn’t see him
through.”

“Well, we all go home sometime,” Kate said,
and both cops looked at her.

“Did you touch the gun?” Andrews asked.
“We’ll take prints off it, to rule you out.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Kate thought fast. “It was pointing at me as
he ran away, so I just picked it up and moved it. I didn’t want it
going off, so I pointed it to a wall in case it went off by
itself.” She did her best to put an innocent expression on her
face.

Ryan Weaver pulled a small pad of paper from
his breast pocket and took out a pen from the same location. “So
your official statement is that you came in, found the body, and
got attacked?”

“That’s what happened,” Kate said, perhaps a
bit too strongly.

“And then the man tripped, left his weapons
and ran?”

There was no turning back now. “Yes,” Kate
said.

“What did he look like?”

“He was between fifty and sixty, well build,
and strong,” Kate began, and then thought she needed to sound more
like a civilian. “He had thick, short, dark hair, and was a little
shorter than I am, about so high.” She held up her hand to indicate
the man’s height. “He was wearing jeans and a dark shirt; they were
normal clothes, not Amish clothes.” Kate paused again, wondering if
she should have said
normal
. She would certainly have more
respect for her own WITSEC charges from now on.

“And his face?”

Kate shrugged. “It was dark. Sorry I can’t
be of more help.”

Officer Weaver stared at her. “To the
contrary, I’m quite frankly amazed at the description you’ve given
me. Most people in your position wouldn’t have had a clue, wouldn’t
have been able to describe the man at all.” He took a step closer
and narrowed his eyes, studying her.

Kate felt uneasy under his scrutiny, and his
proximity set her heart racing. She was suddenly aware of what an
attractive man he was, and she was also suddenly aware of his manly
scent, all pine and oak and citrus.

Kate had never had a serious boyfriend, but
right now, she wished she wasn’t disguised as Amish. She stole a
quick glance at the handsome officer’s finger and saw there was no
wedding ring there.

What’s wrong with me?
Kate wondered,
thinking about a man at such a time as this
. She shook her
head as if to drive away the unwelcome thoughts.

Weaver seemed oblivious to her dismay and
was busily writing in his notebook. After he was done, they called
for backup, and an ambulance to take the body. Weaver made Kate go
through the events again and again, but finally told her that she
was free to go.

Later, Kate would have no idea how she got
back to the Kauffman farm. She had no idea how she had pointed the
horse in the right direction, and gotten back without incident. She
was trembling the whole way.

When she got back, Beth and Isaac were
nowhere to be found, and that suited Kate just fine. She left the
buggy in front of her hosts’ home, tying the horse to the rail, and
then hurried to her little house. In her bedroom, she pulled her
phone from the secret pocket. She didn’t hesitate; she called
David.

The man answered quickly. “Kate?” he
asked.

“Yes.”

“You aren’t supposed to be using this,”
David said in his gruff voice. “Only in an emergency.”

“I know; it’s just that there’s been an
incident.”

“What?” David said, and she could tell he
was afraid to hear the answer.

“Someone was killed, and I found the
body.”

“Of course you did. Why does it have to be
you? What does laying low mean to you?”

Kate was exasperated. She wanted sympathy,
not a lecture. “No, you don’t understand. I found the body, and
then the killer attacked me.”

“Are you okay?” David asked after a slight
pause.

“Yes.”

“Where is the killer?”

“He got away,” Kate said with a sigh. “I
fought with him.”

“And you’re all right?” David asked.

“Yes.”

“Kate, what are you thinking?” her boss
snapped.

Kate was surprised that her boss was
reacting the way he was. He seemed angry. “I was attacked!” she
said.

“By someone else’s killer. You no doubt
walked in and spooked them.”

“You don’t think it has anything to do with
someone trying to kill me?”

There was another pause. Finally, David
spoke. “No, it couldn’t. No one knows you’re there.”

“Someone does. Maybe. I was almost killed
today.”

“No,” David insisted. “It can’t be. It’s a
coincidence.”

Kate sat on her bed, and she felt like she
wanted to scream. She wanted to reach through the phone and shake
her boss by his shoulders. “Who kills Amish people?”

“Who knows, but it has nothing to do with
you, and you need to stay out of it. That’s it. Do you understand?
It’s none of your business, and you can’t blow your cover. Now keep
away from the media. At all costs, avoid being photographed or
filmed. That shouldn’t be too hard, as the Amish don’t like their
photos being taken.”

Kate rolled her eyes.
I’m not stupid
,
she thought.

“I’ll call you soon, just to check in,”
David said, and then he hung up, and Kate was left to stew in her
anger.

She hadn’t expected the call to go like
that. She had expected David to be concerned, and to worry along
with her that someone knew where she was, the same someone who had
attacked her back in her real home. But she hadn’t gotten that.
Instead, David had seemed annoyed that she had been attacked,
annoyed that she had discovered a murder.

It was just after noon, although it felt
like the morning had taken fifteen hours to pass. Kate went to find
Beth, so that she could unharness the horse.

Ephesians 6: 10 -13.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may
be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Finally, be
strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put
on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand
against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle
against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God,
that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having
done all, to stand firm.

Chapter
10
.

Beth, Isaac, and Rose were shocked by the
death of Mr. Byler, and even more shocked that Kate had been the
one to find him.

From what Kate could gather, there was no
reason in the world for someone from the outside to attack him. He
was hard working. He kept up his farm and helped out his neighbors
whenever he could. He'd been there many times over the years for
his community. From what it sounded like, he didn't have an enemy
in the world. He hadn't even gone out into town in years, since his
wife passed away.

There were no clues as to why anyone would
want to kill him.

Beth was concerned that Kate had already had
another shock after her supposed buggy accident, and also upset
that Kate had to be interviewed by detectives who had come to the
Kauffman farm to interview her.

Kate, of course, was not intimidated by
detectives, but she had been worried that they wouldn’t swallow her
story and would find it suspicious that an Amish girl could so
easily fight off an armed attacker. However, it had all gone more
smoothly than she could have imagined. The detectives seemed more
interested in her description of the perpetrator than in what Kate
had done to get rid of him.

This morning, Rose was driving into town to
deliver her sewing to an Amish store. Rose took in all kinds of
sewing, and was paid well. The women chatted happily on the way,
although Kate had to keep up her guard. It was hard to be friends
with someone when you couldn’t tell them anything about
yourself.

Rose drove the buggy into an Amish parking
lot, and the two girls got out of the buggy. Rose tied up her
horse, and then turned to Kate. “I could be a while; is there
somewhere you want to go?

Kate knew where she wanted to go; she just
didn’t know how to get there.

“Yes,” she said. “Where’s the police
station?”

Rose raised her eyebrows and looked as if
she were about to say something, but didn’t. She simply shrugged
and drew Kate a little map on a sliver of paper, and Kate consulted
it as she walked through the closely packed streets of the tiny,
unfamiliar town. The police station was a two story building which
took up half a block. The other half of the block gave way to a
parking lot, ringed by a chain link fence, and with quite a few
black and white squad cars sitting in it.

The front door was all glass, and Kate
pushed through it and found herself in a small waiting room, with a
long desk before her. A man in a police uniform was sitting behind
the desk. She made her way up to him, waited for him to stop typing
on his computer before she spoke.

“I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Well, I sure can try, Miss,” the man said
with a smile. He was forty or so.

“I need to speak with someone about the
murder of Joseph Byler.”

“Do you have some information?” the man
said.

“Not exactly,” Kate said, shaking her head
softly. “I need some information.”

“What do you mean?” the cop asked, his head
tilting to the side.

“I just needed to know a little bit about
the deceased. I was just wondering if there were any leads.”

The cop laughed, and then looked at Kate,
and then he laughed again. “You aren’t serious, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I know there’s, uh, some things you
may not know, about how, well, our world works, but I can’t just
give you information about a crime we’re working, you know?”