Finding Mercy Read online

  “Ella,” the sheriff said with a nod, “you tell your father Deputy Hayes and I will keep a good eye on your place for a while, even at night, though you all probably won’t see us. Does your family own the top of the hill behind your house and lavender field?”

  “No. The end of the lavender field is the end of our property line. Why do you ask?”

  “Just ’cause at the top of that hill and in the large woodlot there are vantage points where someone could spy on you.”

  “I—I’ve only told my father this, but I did see a sort of reflection up there the night you questioned us about the car accident. But I’m pretty sure it was moonlight off a tin plate I have up there to scare the birds.”

  “You should have told me,” the sheriff said.

  “And me!” Andrew added.

  “I said, I could explain it away,” she insisted, looking from one to the other. “We can’t live our lives fearing a bear behind every tree—well, you know what I mean. The next day, I was pretty sure it was just that tin plate.”

  “Okay, okay,” the sheriff said. He seemed to be calming down better than Andrew. “And, on a happier note, I was going to ask permission to take Ray-Lynn on a picnic up there—for the great view of the valley.”

  For the first time since they’d been in the sheriff’s office, Ella smiled. “Oh, that sounds lovely. You can see the sunset just great from there, and I don’t think it’s supposed to rain again for a while. Just be careful not to walk too far along that hill, because not only does it get steep with a couple of hidden rain wash holes, but there are six hives of honeybees up there, which take care of my lavender. Daad gets some honey from them too.”

  “Well, I’ll remember all that. Just one more thing. You said you thought you saw the long-range part of a camera or telescope in the back of the van.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay. Just wanted to check. Now, if you wouldn’t mind waiting outside, I’d like to talk to Andrew for a minute.”

  “Oh, ya, that’s fine. I’ll just carry Ray-Lynn’s lavender products over to her.”

  “And don’t you go telling her about a picnic. That’s a surprise.”

  “And a lovely one, very romantic, a perfect place to get betrothed.”

  “Now, never you mind,” the sheriff said, kind of shooing her out the door with a wagging index finger. “You and your buddies Sarah and Hannah don’t need to do any more matchmaking for the two of us than you already have.”

  Putting her own index finger over her mouth as if her lips were sealed, Ella went out and quietly closed the door.

  * * *

  Alex wondered if the sheriff was going to tell him to stay away from Ella, give him some sort of lecture about getting too close to the Lantzes. How could he not respond to a family that took him in and to that sweet, saucy woman?

  “Now that I’ve been filled in on what’s going on, I’ve been doing some homework on the situation—your case,” Jack Freeman said, keeping his voice low. “Even if you tried to explain to the Amish about SkyBound, Inc., I doubt if they’d get it about international GPS and satellites and the Chinese commies paying your boss for our technology. I really don’t grasp it all. But there’s something that is in my bailiwick. Have you given a thought to the fact that guy who almost hit you was of Chinese heritage?”

  “I have. I’m glad to see you’ve got my well-being in mind, but it doesn’t comfort me to have you think Sam Lee’s a possible enemy too.”

  “Yeah, but a long shot. His family’s spas are on the up-and-up. I checked them out. They got a small chain of them, real nice, real expensive too. But one more thing.”

  Alex held his breath. Of course, Gerald Branin had given the sheriff a heads-up on the case and he had technology at his fingertips. That made it all the more amazing that Ella had come up with the Chinese connection on her own.

  “Here’s my point,” the sheriff went on. “Whatever Ella saw in the back of that van that blocked her in, either a long-range camera or a telescope, could point to someone being spied on. Then that reflection she glimpsed on the hill—who knows?”

  “You just admitted it’s a great view from there, but being spied on? If you get any hint of that—and it could tie to me—I’ll be out of here, for my own safety, but for the Lantzes’ too. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  “Keep me apprised, okay? I don’t think we need to panic, but you see anything, I can arrange for you to have a cell phone. And I’d better tip off your friend Branin. I have his cell number, and he said he’d be in and out of this area, sometimes incognito.”

  “No thanks about the cell phone. It was part of the deal that I would become a member of the Amish community, honor their ways while I’m here, and I want that.” The sheriff rose, so Alex did too.

  “The so-called plain people aren’t plain at all, Andrew. They’re complicated as heck, but it doesn’t take long for some of us to want to do anything to protect and help them. Just don’t get in too deep, you know, with any single person.”

  That assumption and advice made Alex angry, but the man was probably right. He didn’t need personal complications, especially when he was in a rush to get out of here as soon as possible. Or now, was he?

  7

  BEFORE SUPPER THAT evening, while it was still light, Ella worked alone in the lavender shop. She didn’t feel alone, though. Daad was in the barn, putting another safety sign on the back of her buggy. Andrew was weeding about twenty yards away on the hill, and Mamm was taking clothes off the line on the other side of the lane. Ella knew she’d better quit and go help her with supper, but she wanted to finish up here before dark.

  She did feel a bit lonely now that little Marlena wasn’t toddling around. She imagined she could hear her high-pitched voice and feel the tugs on her skirt. It had been almost like having her own child. But she’d see her Friday. Despite the tension Ella had felt ever since Andrew arrived, the anticipation of the wedding bucked her up.

  Every so often, she stooped to look out the window to watch Andrew bend over to pull weeds high up on the hill. He was getting really smooth at handling himself with just one crutch, though she hoped Grossmamm didn’t see him balancing like that. In a couple of days, he wouldn’t even need it. Ella’s eyes kept drifting to his tight bottom as he leaned over.

  She forced herself back to spooning last year’s dried lavender heads into small quilted bags and tying them shut with lavender ribbons. These were her most popular and least expensive sachets. To each ribbon was attached a little tag with the hand lettering, Lavender Plain Products. But, she thought, if she did begin to work with that fancy new spa run by the Lee family, would that mean making things that weren’t so plain and simple? Body candles to produce warm, fragrant wax for a massage? Obviously, the person would have to be partly or completely naked…and then to have a stranger rub warm, sweet-scented wax…

  She shook her head to clear the image of Andrew stretching and bending over. He had his sleeves rolled to bare his upper arms and his shirttail had come out to expose a strip of tanned back, so unlike the white skin of Amish men....

  “So what would he think of a massage?” she said aloud to the empty room.

  “You talking to yourself lately, Ella?” came a masculine voice behind her. It wasn’t Andrew’s—or an Amish voice. She gasped and turned.

  FBI Special Agent Linc Armstrong blocked the light as he opened the screen door and came in. She hadn’t seen him for almost seven months. He looked as thin and edgy as ever, and he’d grown out his hair from its usual finger-width cut. Holding a white envelope in one hand, he wore a red knitted short-sleeved shirt with something sewn over its pocket. Oh, a little alligator. That was a good emblem for him.

  “Agent Armstrong. You startled me.”

  “So I did. Just Linc Armstrong now. How’s your guest doing?”

  She decided not to answer that, even though she’d learned this man had a part in placing Andrew here.

  Instead, she t
old him, “The bishop and my father think you more or less recommended us to host him.”

  He shrugged. “I thought of Bishop Esh’s family first, since I knew Hannah was out of there, living with Ray-Lynn Logan. But the bishop needed privacy since so many of your people come to him for counseling.”

  “And the Eshes needed time to help prepare for Hannah and Seth’s wedding. It’s this Friday.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I mean, not for the wedding, but to ask you to give Hannah this.” He extended the white, square envelope toward her, but she didn’t move around the table to take it. Instead, she gripped the back of a chair and didn’t budge, though her mind was racing. Daad, Andrew too, would be upset that an outsider could corner her alone like this with them nearby. It was obvious he had not driven a car down the lane. He must have walked in across the front yard so no one at the back saw him coming. Besides the fact she didn’t like the man, it unnerved her that he’d seemed to just appear out of nowhere.

  Standing her ground, she told him, “With all that’s happened between you and Hannah, I wouldn’t feel right about giving her a personal note.”

  “It’s a wedding card and a gift certificate for the Brand Amish furniture store near Homestead, so she can pick out something she and Seth want for their house when it’s finished. That’s all and that’s it.”

  “Oh.”

  He sailed it onto the kitchen table, just missing her big wooden bowl of dried lavender. “You always were too protective of her, Ella.” He frowned, and his voice hardened. “I can see why you pushed Seth at her, but—”

  “I didn’t. It was their decision all the way.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe.” She could tell he was angry but trying to hide it. “Decisions, decisions, right? I guess you didn’t hear I’ve retired early from the FBI.”

  “No. I thought you loved it.”

  “Maybe I learned there were other things to love. Yeah, I took early retirement. I’ve gone into a private security firm with a couple of friends. The FBI just didn’t love me anymore, and it didn’t help that Seth and Hannah solved the graveyard murder instead of me. So, will you give that to her for me?” he demanded, pointing at the envelope.

  “I’ll give it to her and Seth together since you said it’s for both of them.”

  “Ella Lantz, always on the straight and narrow. Well, take good care of your cousin Andrew. I’d hate to see that go wrong, the way other things have around here.”

  His voice and harsh expression grated on her composure. His words almost seemed like a challenge or threat. He glared at her. For a moment—maybe just because she’d been harassed earlier today—she felt afraid of him, but he turned away. Was that because he heard Andrew thudding up the porch steps on his crutch?

  “I saw you have an English visitor, Ella,” Andrew said. “One who appeared without a car, ya?”

  She was glad that Andrew was trying to sound Amish. He had even mastered the pace of their English words pretty good. The two men stared at each other. They were about the same height.

  “That’s because I left my car down the lane and walked in,” Linc told him. “Great country for walking—right?—though I heard about your little accident. I’m Linc Armstrong, a friend of Gerald Branin’s,” he explained, finally extending a hand, which Andrew shook. “I’m just here to ask Ella to deliver a wedding gift to her brother and his bride.”

  The man had evidently said everything he wanted to, because he walked out, just when—now that Andrew was here—she was wishing he’d stay and the two men might talk a bit about Andrew’s witness situation, so she could pick up more about it.

  “Kind of a brusque guy,” Andrew said.

  “He doesn’t like me much. He thinks I swayed my friend Hannah Esh against him and toward Seth.”

  “Hannah and him—an outsider? I didn’t know. And is he right? Did you sway Hannah?”

  “She always loved Seth, but it’s true that Linc Armstrong had his eye on her. Anyway, I don’t think she could have been happy with an Englischer.”

  “But you said earlier your friend Sarah is happy with one, despite the fact you were against that too.”

  They stared at each other with the wedding card and her lavender on the table between them. “And she’s been put under the ban because of that,” Ella argued, her voice rising. “She can’t be at Hannah’s wedding, can’t so much as sit down to a meal with her family. She can receive things from their hands but they cannot take things from her or visit her.”

  “That’s pretty harsh. So I won’t meet Sarah and her Englischer husband at the wedding? And the wedding is one of your and Sarah’s lifelong friends, but she’s not invited?”

  “That’s what I said! Keeping the way things should be—it’s difficult at times but necessary for the protection of our people.”

  “Protection. Well, I wouldn’t want to mess with that. As your grandfather said, Never the twain shall meet. But that’s a shame, isn’t it? I’ll wait out here on the porch for you to go into dinner so you don’t get any other surprise English visitors—just old Amish me. Ser gut und danki, Ella.”

  The undertone in his voice—even his few German words—sounded sarcastic and angry. Either he agreed with Linc Armstrong that she’d been wrongly judgmental, or he was just upset someone had been able to sneak up on her when she was alone. Or what if he thought she meant that the two of them shouldn’t get any closer? Ach, for sure, like he’d said, that would be a shame.

  But when she started out onto the back porch to make amends, Andrew wasn’t there. He must really be angry with her. But no—there he was going back up the hill, shading his eyes against the late-afternoon sun. He was still limping a bit, but she saw he’d left his crutch on the porch and was staring down the lane toward the road.

  As if she could read his mind, she realized what he must be doing. Dashing back inside, she hurried to a window at the front of her house and looked out toward the road. Linc Armstrong was nearly to his car; it was dark blue, not black and not a van.

  Trembling, Ella leaned against the wall next to the window. Must they suspect everyone? Well, she’d told Andrew that her visitor didn’t like her very much. But he was a former FBI agent. Could he want to harass and hurt her just because she’d urged Hannah to give Seth a second chance? Who else out there hated her and why?

  * * *

  Ray-Lynn was even more thrilled with the impromptu picnic than with the fabulous view from this vantage point. Holding hands, she and Jack had taken a walk atop the hill, admiring the valley from all sides, though they’d steered clear of what Jack called potholes, several small, grassy sinkholes where someone could fall and might tumble all the way down. From a safe distance, they’d looked at the stacked white boxes that were the neatly kept beehives that Eben Lantz tended. Best of all, they’d cuddled and kissed.

  Now Jack was looking through his binoculars while she poured the Merlot he’d brought. She was touched that he’d brought delicate, slim-stemmed goblets clear out here. For once, he’d arranged everything, including bringing an old transistor radio tuned to an easy-listening station.

  “Doggone!” he said, sitting up straighter. “If that isn’t Linc Armstrong down there, getting in his car. He’s driving away from near the Lantzes’ driveway! Just earlier today I told him on the phone to give me a heads-up if he was in the area, but I assumed he was in Cleveland, when he must’ve been nearby.”

  “He better be here on FBI business and not to look for Hannah.”

  “He’s not FBI anymore, took early retirement. And I told him to steer clear of her. He’s doing some kind of private security work now, pays a lot more, he said.”

  “I don’t care what he’s doing. After what Hannah told me about the graveyard murder investigation, all she’d need is former Agent Armstrong suggesting she try a professional singing career again or messing with her feelings. Jack—wine.”

  He put the binoculars down and took the glass from her. He clinked it with hers. “I guess a
lot of brides get the last-minute jitters, but is she shaky about the wedding?” he asked.

  “No, rock solid in her feelings for Seth.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he said, stroking her cheek with the curled backs of his fingers. A sharp sizzle swept down from there to her lower belly. Even though she couldn’t recall the early days of their courtship, she bet he’d always affected her this way.

  She had to smile that the song on the radio was “The Second Time Around.” Momentarily content, they sipped their wine and settled back against one of the big oaks at the fringe of this lofty woodlot. She knew how hard it was for him to mentally leave his job, even when he was off duty. She understood that and could live with that—live with him.

  “I can see someone—or something’s—been here recently,” Jack said, indicating the smashed grass on the brow of the hill just ahead of them. “Maybe deer lying down or lovers—other lovers.”

  “Is that a hint?”

  “Wouldn’t mind, but I’d rather roll out of a bed we shared than down this steep hill,” he said with a slow, lazy smile.

  “One of my Amish waitresses at the restaurant told me this brow of the hill used to be called Lover’s Leap.”

  “Don’t like the sound of that. What’s the deal?”

  “She said that a couple of decades ago an Amish girl and an English guy who shared a forbidden love jumped off into the ravine near the pond below when they couldn’t marry.” Even though Ray-Lynn could not recall her plunge down a treed hill, she shuddered at the thought, and Jack put his arm around her.

  She cuddled against his ribs. She could tell he had something to say but was holding back, so she decided on a careful approach. “Jack, all of this is great. It’s a real treat, having you bring the food.”

  “Lasagna, bread and salad from the pizzeria, though you deserve much more. Much more from me too, honey, but I’ve been biding my time.” He put his wineglass down on his binoculars case, then took hers and balanced it there too. “I know I’m a busy, distracted man, rough around the edges, Ray-Lynn. I was so afraid I was gonna lose you, first because you could’ve died, then because you didn’t remember me—that is, the way we were. But you were worth waiting for a second time.”