Czytaj książkę: «Hidden In Amish Country»

ONE

Someone was watching her.

Sadie Standings whipped her head around so fast that her light brown hair swung across her face, blocking her vision. Shoving her fingers through her hair to push it out of the way, she searched the area behind her. The parking lot at the local shopping mall was busy, filled with people who had stopped on their way home from work, but none of the other shoppers appeared to be looking in her direction. Seeing no one suspicious, she scrunched her eyes into a squint, desperately trying to catch sight of whoever was watching her. Still, she saw nothing.

She should have been comforted.

She wasn’t. Unease still pricked at her.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, she knew that she was under surveillance. In fact, she had known since the day before when she had spotted the man with the cold blue eyes watching her as she left the post office. He was so familiar. When she had seen him, she had a flash of what she thought may have been a memory, but it had made no sense. In her mind, she could hear a cold voice calling to her, shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. Was it a threat? A warning? Although she couldn’t understand the words, the tone was harsh.

Although it seemed improbable, she knew that she had seen him somewhere before and instinctively cringed. A chill had run through her when his posture stiffened at her reaction. Had she offended him? She didn’t think so. Since then, she’d had the sensation of hard eyes boring into her. It was like walking around with a target on her back, like the one her brother used when sighting in his rifle before hunting season.

The spot between her shoulder blades tingled again, like a spider skittering across her skin. He was there. Somewhere he was out there, watching her. Briefly, the idea of going to the police crossed her mind, but she quickly vetoed it. What would she tell them? That she believed someone she’d bumped into was following her, but she hadn’t actually seen him following her? Oh, and she thought she might have met him before, but had no real recollection of doing so. Yeah, right. They’d think she was crazy or making the story up.

Thankfully, she was in a parking lot full of other shoppers, so there was little chance that anyone would come after her. Still, she didn’t like the feeling of being out in the open. Hoisting her purse higher on her shoulder, she held the bag close to her body and pushed herself to move faster. The October wind bit into her skin as she practically ran the last few feet to her car. Her eyes teared at the cold. She didn’t care what the people around her thought. Every instinct inside her was screaming at her to flee.

She held out the key fob and pressed the unlock button several times as she approached her vehicle. The lights flashed in two short bursts. Opening the driver’s side door, she threw herself inside. Her elbow slammed into the steering wheel in her haste. She ignored the sharp pain that shot down her arm. She pushed the key into the ignition with fingers that shook. The first time she tried to turn the key, it was stuck and wouldn’t move. Not now. She’d had trouble with the ignition jamming before. Thoughts of being stranded here while someone with malicious intent drew closer crowded into her mind. Clenching her teeth, she held her breath and turned the steering wheel to the left. When it clicked, she tried to turn the key again.

Relief flooded through her as the engine roared to life. The sooner she arrived home and was locked inside her house, the better she’d feel. She was concerned that someone might try to break into her house, but she shoved that fear aside. She had good locks, and she didn’t live alone in the house her family had owned for the past fifteen years. Her brother would be home shortly.

Pulling out of the parking lot, she sighed, allowing the tension that had built up inside her to drain away. She had half-expected someone to follow her, but no one did. Maybe she was being paranoid.

Suddenly her confidence that she had recognized the man dwindled. He probably just had one of those faces that looked vaguely like someone she had known. Even with the doubt, she couldn’t completely shake the sensation that she had escaped from some nebulous danger.

She was being ridiculous.

She neared the intersection. Wow. She needed to pay attention to where she was going. She hadn’t realized that she had driven so far already. She tapped the brake to slow as she neared the stop sign.

Her car didn’t slow. Her insides quivered.

She pushed harder on the brake. In horror, she glanced down to see that her foot was all the way to the floorboard.

Her brakes weren’t working.

The car stopped to the left started into the intersection. She was going to wreck! Slamming the heel of her hand against the horn, she let out three sharp blasts. The driver jerked to a halt, yelling angrily as Sadie vroomed past.

She held the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip and leaned forward, her eyes frantically searching the passing roads.

In less than a mile, she’d be at another busy intersection. How far could she travel before she collided with someone? Making a split decision, she wrenched the wheel to the side and peeled off onto a dirt road. The road was at a slight incline. Her stomach began to settle as the vehicle started to slow as it continued uphill.

The relief vanished when she realized that on the other side of the incline was a steep drop. Her mouth was dry. The moment she crested that hill, her car would begin to accelerate again.

Frantically, she stomped on the brake, hoping against all logic that the brake would suddenly begin to work again.

It didn’t. As she neared the top, she knew with utter clarity that if she didn’t figure out a way to stop the car, she was going to crash and possibly kill herself and anyone in her path.

“Dat, they’re going to crash!”

Ben Mast heard his son’s shout a mere moment before he heard the roar of a vehicle approaching way too fast. Throwing his hammer down on his work bench, he rushed out of the brown log-sided structure and raced down the gravel driveway to his seven-year-old son Nathaniel’s side.

The red compact car swerved wildly down the hill, tires spinning on the slick surface.

Ben grabbed Nathaniel and dragged him back from the road, despite the boy’s protests. If the driver left the road, he didn’t want his son to become a victim of some Englischer’s recklessness. His lips tightened in anger. Didn’t these people care that others might be out on these roads? He knew for a fact there was a sign posted saying that children lived on this street.

The car zoomed past, the high-pitched whine of the engine searing the silent afternoon. He caught a glimpse of the driver’s face and saw sheer panic. Why didn’t she try to slow down?

A familiar clopping noise gained his attention. He whipped his head around, mouth so dry he couldn’t have swallowed if he’d wanted to. A horse was coming up the hill. It was pulling a buggy with an Amish couple and several children. The man pulled on the reins, but the car was still coming. Where could the family go? Ben felt the inevitability of the collision clenching his stomach painfully.

“Gott, help them!” he shouted out.

The car swerved to the side, careening off the side of the road and plowing into an ancient maple tree with a horrendous crash. The tree shuddered, and the hood of the small car crunched in like it was made of cardboard. Steam burst from the engine, with a long, loud hiss.

There was no movement inside the car. Fearing the worst, Ben turned urgently to his son. “Go to Caleb and Lovina’s,” he said, pointing to the house across the street. “Caleb has a phone in his business office. Ask him to call for help.”

Most of the houses on the road belonged to Amish families. Although there were a few Englischer homes, as well. Lovina and Caleb were their closest neighbors.

Nathaniel’s head bobbed in a hurried nod, then he shot off across the street. Ben waited until he saw his son was with Lovina before he dashed down the street to the car. He knew that Caleb was probably already calling but giving Nathaniel a purpose would keep him out of harm’s way. Ben reached the car and saw that the front windows had shattered upon impact. Glass crunched under his feet as he approached the driver’s door.

“Miss?” The woman inside the car was hunched over the steering wheel, but he could see part of her face through the curtain of light brown hair. Blood was running down her cheek. Taking care not to cut his arm, he reached in through the broken window and placed his fingers on the side of her neck, feeling for a pulse. He found one. It was strong and steady. Ben sighed and closed his eyes, murmuring a soft prayer of thanksgiving.

The driver of the buggy stepped down to see if he could help. Ben heard the cries of children in the buggy. Looking up, he also saw that the woman sitting in the front looked very pregnant and quite ill.

“Nee, denke. Why don’t you take your family home? My son went to Caleb’s to call the ambulance.”

The man nodded. “Once I get my wife and children home, I will come back to see if you need me.”

Ben agreed, but his attention was back on the vehicle.

He looked at the front of the car and frowned. There was so much damage. He didn’t see how she could have escaped injury; possibly she had internal bleeding. She’d have to go to the hospital. He flinched. He had lost his wife to a cancer that no one had been aware of until it was too late. Their unborn daughter had also perished. The hospital where they had died would forever be stamped in his memory. He never wanted to step inside one of those places again.

He looked again at the woman. It would be easier to decide what to do if the door weren’t in the way. If it even opened. He looked doubtfully at how the frame had been bent on impact. He had to try it, though. To his surprise, he was able to wrench the door open. It swung wide and hung at an odd angle, but he was already focused on the occupant of the car. She was so still. He wished he could see her legs better. He wondered if he should try and pull her from the vehicle but decided against it. He didn’t want to risk hurting her any more than she already was.

“Is she alive?” Caleb’s deep voice startled him. He’d been so wrapped up in his inspection that he hadn’t heard his neighbor approaching.

“Jah. I can’t tell how bad she’s hurt, but she’s alive.”

Caleb wrinkled up his nose. “What’s that smell?”

Ben froze. The distinct sharp odor of gasoline rose to his nostrils. Bending down, he saw the gas was dripping from her car. She must have punctured the line during the crash. He reversed his earlier decision. She might have internal injuries, but if the car exploded, she’d be dead.

“Let’s move her from the car,” Ben said.

The other man grunted in response. Between the two of them, they slowly maneuvered the woman from the vehicle. Ben surveyed her for any other signs of damage as he helped Caleb carry her across the street to his porch. There was blood on her left arm, but other than that and the cut on her cheek, she appeared to be whole.

He looked around. Some of the neighbors had emerged from their houses to see what was happening. “Stay back,” he yelled a warning. “There might be a gas leak.”

Some of them stayed where they were, although several went back into their homes, shooing their children ahead of them.

Sirens sounded in the distance. As they zoomed closer, Nathaniel ran up to him and stared down at the woman.

“Is she going to die, Dat?” The little boy’s voice trembled. It broke his heart to hear it. He wanted to say no, but he would never lie to his child. Nathaniel had already learned the hard truth of human frailty. Although Ben and his son did not speak of his wife’s illness, he knew that Nathaniel had not forgotten the agony of watching his mother waste away and die. How could he forget it?

“I don’t know, Nathaniel. It’s in Gott’s hands. We have called the ambulance, that’s all we can do.”

The ambulance arrived. Ben waved at them to pull up the driveway. A police car pulled up behind the accident, red and blue lights flashing. The paramedics jumped down from their vehicle and rushed to the young woman lying on the porch. With calm efficiency, they started checking her vital signs.

“You shouldn’t move someone from a vehicle if you don’t know the extent of their injuries,” one of the paramedics informed Caleb and Ben.

Caleb grunted, unimpressed. Ben felt it was up to him to give an explanation.

“Jah, I know that. We smelled gasoline and feared it was too dangerous to leave her in the car.”

He watched as they lifted the still-unconscious woman onto a stretcher. Something about her pale face surrounded by wavy light-brown hair tugged at him. Almost like a memory, but hazy. Hopefully they would find some identification in the car and be able to notify her next of kin. His mind again traveled to the hospital where he had spent the last day of his Lydia’s life. It had seemed to him such a place should have been filled with warmth to comfort patients but was instead filled with Englisch technology. The idea of the stranger waking up alone in such a place bothered him, although he told himself that it wasn’t his concern.

He had done his part. He had made sure the emergency personnel were called. She was being well cared for. If she had family, they would soon be with her.

It didn’t help. What if she didn’t have family?

He couldn’t get the horrified expression on her face as she barreled down the hill out of his mind. Had she run into the tree on purpose to avoid the buggy?

The police were finishing up their inspection of the car. The tow truck arrived and hooked it up.

“Not that she’ll be able to do anything with this,” the driver remarked, chomping on a piece of gum. “I’m guessing the insurance adjuster will say it’s a total loss.”

“Why’d she crash? Did you see what happened?” an officer asked Ben.

He shook his head. “I saw her coming down the hill. It looked like she couldn’t stop, but that’s all I know.”

The officers finished up, and within twenty minutes the street was quiet again.

But Ben remained unsettled. Something about the situation continued to eat at him.

“Dat. I found this.” Nathaniel held up something for his father to inspect. It was a cell phone. Ben’s brow furrowed. It had probably slipped from the woman’s pocket when he and Caleb had carried her to the porch. The Amish didn’t use cell phones, not even in their businesses. Their bishop allowed them to have a landline phone in their businesses if it was necessary, but cell phones were considered excessive. But from his interactions with them he knew that the Englisch relied heavily on their devices.

It gave him an excuse to check up on her, just to make sure she was all right. The thought made him pause. It wasn’t like him to be so concerned about what was happening in the Englisch world. He had a few Englisch friends he’d made through his work as a carpenter, but he avoided any deep attachments. He had learned his lesson the hard way. He couldn’t rely on others to protect his family. And technology couldn’t always help. He had lost his wife and their unborn daughter when Lydia had been struck with cancer, and no amount of Englisch technology or medicine had been able to save them. All he had left was his son and he was determined to be careful.

He would check on her, he decided, then he would leave. His conscience would be eased, and he would never have to see the woman again.

His mind flashed back to the memory of the driver’s panicked face before she had hit the tree. She had obviously been aware of the danger. He couldn’t recall any of the telltale clues that she was trying to stop.

His eyes flashed to the tree in question. The bark had been scraped off in several places. He could see bits and pieces of it littering the ground. Although the mangled car was gone, he doubted he’d forget the image anytime soon.

Why hadn’t she stopped?