Fall from Pride (11 page)

“So I heard. I talked to his parents.”

“Oh. Can you locate him?”

“Nope, though I'm hoping to trace him through his license plate if I can get it from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Columbus.”

“I have a better idea. You can get it from Gabe.”

“Gabe?”

“He has a real talent for remembering numbers, working with numbers. All the
youngie liet rumspringa
boys were in love with Jacob's red car—bet you know what I mean. Gabe will know.”

“I should have known to ask you first, Sarah, my Amish translator.”

“So you feel like a foreigner here?”

“Less and less, thanks to you.”

“Even with our technology gap? My people do use technology when it suits them, when it allows us to keep the family together, which things like TVs would not.”

“Keep the family together— A worthy goal.”

“Do you have family, other than your foster mother?”

“No, so I envy you that, the big, close families. My biological parents died in a fire—an arson—when I was eight.”

“Oh, Nate! So that's why—”

“Yeah, I guess so. The thing is, my own father set it.”

“No! I'm so sorry,” she cried, turning to face him, so close her bonnet hit his cheek, their noses almost bumped, their lips nearly brushed. “I'm so very sorry,” she repeated.

“Yeah, me, too, for my loss of them, my mother, at least. My dad was a murderer, actually, though he didn't intend to be. I'm sure he meant to save us. He died of smoke inhalation. A fireman pulled me out, but my mother was burned too badly and died at the hospital. So, even setting the fire,
my father didn't know what the heck he was doing. He set it up all wrong, trapped himself and us inside, waited too long to get us out—an insurance scam that went wrong. I don't know, maybe I'm trying to make up for him as much as I'm trying to fight arsons for myself.

“A childless couple,” he went on, “Jim and Mary Ellen Bosley—I call her M.E.—who lived down the street, took me in. They were very loving, but I was bitter, really a brat at times. They stuck with me, wanted to adopt me but I said no, and now I regret that.”

His voice broke, but he continued. “Jim Bosley passed away a few years ago, and I still see M.E. often and call her when I can. I should see her more than I do, but she still lives on the street where I grew up, so I get her to come to me or to meet me at a restaurant or somewhere. Once I left I never wanted to go back because I still can't bear to see the vacant lot where it all happened.

“Sarah,” he said, almost leaning his chin on her shoulder when she turned away to watch the road again as they neared a stop sign, “I had a doting mother and a distant, thoughtless father I resented—my real parents, I mean. That's often how an arsonist is made. Not me, obviously, but do you think that could be the case with Jacob's parents, him being an only child and all?”

“Could be,” she whispered. “I'm regretful that was the way it was for you, and I'd say that was true of him.”

 

The minute they turned onto curving Orchard Road, the traffic picked up. Despite the road's picturesque name, it led to the interstate. Though Sarah kept the buggy well over, partly on the berm, Nate got really nervous as cars came close, then roared past, usually with people craning
their necks to see who was in the buggy. Most drivers were respectful; however, a few honked. One yelled, “Get a life! And a car!” At least Sarah and Sally seemed to be used to that. The slow pace, which he had begun to savor, now put him on edge. No wonder buggy-car crashes were another cross the Amish had to bear.

“There it is,” Sarah told him, waiting for several cars to pass so they could turn left. “The Miller house and old barn.”

Yeah, Nate thought, it was the barn with the quilt square he'd seen when he first drove into town, and he'd been so intrigued by it he hadn't noticed how run-down the place was.

“It would make a great moody painting with that cloudy gray sky behind it,” Sarah was saying, “a study in soft, muted grays with only the bright quilt square standing out, but I'd like to put some people and horses in it, too.”

Moody
was putting it kindly, Nate thought. To him, Levi Miller's farm looked like a scene from an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, almost a replica of the Bates house from
Psycho
. An old Victorian peeling paint, an antique barn that hadn't been kept up, though that was highlighted by Sarah's bright square painted in glowing blue, green and gold. How unkempt the property was, even to an uncut lawn and scraggly bushes. This was the second lesson he'd had today that the Amish were not all prosperous or industrious—in this case, not even good farmers.

As if Sarah had read his mind—a dangerous precedent—she said, “He doesn't have much land, and he's not really suited for farming like some of the men. The square is painted on this barn not only because he's a church deacon, but because it's on this road, which is busier than most. Tourist buses come this way from I-77, and it's the first square
they see in Home Valley and on a traditional barn, though it's seen better days. I've heard tell tourists don't even notice the house or condition of the barn when they see the square.”

“I can attest to that,” he said. It was the closest he had ever heard her come to praising her own work, though she was just stating a fact. “So what's the name of this one?” he asked. “It's a beauty.”

“Crown of Thorns. You know, like the Lord's enemies put on His head before they crucified Him.”

“Let's hope that's not a bad omen. I keep thinking how your Tumbling Blocks design was painted on a now tumbled-down barn. Do you think there's any connection between the patterns painted and what's happened, though I don't exactly get Robbing Peter to Pay Paul on the Esh barn.”

“I've thought about that, but I just don't know. As I said, some of my people think my work is too showy. But burning barns for that reason? It's too far-fetched.”

“You'd be surprised what is and isn't far-fetched when it comes to investigating a sick crime like arson. It looks like no one's home, and I was hoping to tell Levi Miller that he needs to at least stay home after dark. So far,
that
is part of the pattern, that the arsonist strikes when the place is deserted, but probably just so he won't be seen and stopped.”

Sarah reined the horse in by the barn door, but when Nate gestured her on, she pulled around to the side so they would be hidden from the road. “If the Millers aren't here,” he said, “let's look around, anyway, and I'll leave them a note.”

They got out and walked around the barn, just as it began to rain. It was as if the gray sky, even the faded gray barn, were crying on them, he thought.

“Hey, what's that?” he asked, pointing at three, small,
furry bodies on the ground—without heads. Tiny pools of crimson blood indicated the little animals had bled out. They seemed to be arranged in a trail, leading around the next corner of the barn.

“Dead voles, I think. Barn owls or hawks sometimes behead them,” she said, her voice shaky as she backed up into him, and he put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

Together, they peered around the corner at the back of the barn. Suddenly, Nate needed steadying, too. A few more small, headless vole bodies were strewn there. And someone—sure as heck not a barn owl or a hawk—had scrawled in red on the back of the barn the bold, printed words Mack— Keep Away!

“IS THAT BLOOD?” SARAH ASKED AS THEY STARED at the writing, which was already starting to smear in the rain. Despite getting wetter, they both bent close to study it. “That much blood couldn't come from those dead little animals,” she added, her voice shaky.

Nate touched a letter and lifted his fingers to his nose to sniff at it. “It's not clotting and there's no copper smell. It's paint. Fairly fresh.”

“It's probably latex, like I use, but I avoid red, the color—” her voice faded as she thought again of Jacob's red car “—of martyrs' blood.”

They straightened, both glancing behind and around, but the rain had closed them in like a curtain. When they retraced their steps toward the front of the barn, Sarah couldn't see the Miller house or the woodlot nearby, where someone could easily hide. They both jumped when a bolt of lightning flashed and thunder cracked too close.

They hurried toward where they'd left the buggy. Sally neighed and tugged at the traces. The whites of her eyes
showed as she tossed her head. Sarah felt that frenzied, too. Despite the cover of the rain, she had the feeling they were being watched, but she didn't want Nate to think she was a coward or didn't have faith in the Lord's protection. “Sally doesn't like lightning,” was all she said.

“Neither do firefighters. First that Bible warning to you and your people. Now this one looks aimed at me. Mack must mean MacKenzie. The writer must know darn well I'm not going to keep away. But keep away from what? Let's get the buggy inside the barn.”

“Right. The Millers won't mind. If the arsonist left that message, he—”

“Or she…”

“—seems to know your schedule. He must have figured you would check the two other barns that have paintings. I wonder if there's a similar message on the Hostetler barn in case you went there.” A rolling rumble of thunder shuddered through her as she led Sally inside.

“Or did he or she follow us, pass us on the road and paint it just as we drove up? We couldn't see the back of the barn from the road. The bastard—pardon my French—”

“That's English. Strong English.”

“I was going to say it looks like the arsonist has been watching me—or you.”

Nate's voice was clipped, and he looked tense and angry. That made her feel even more afraid. He was supposed to be the strong one with the answers, to be in charge here.

Nate glanced around the dim barn and rubbed his palms on the front of his jeans. “Being stalked gives me the creeps,” he admitted, “about as much as knowing he or she is out there waiting to ignite another barn. We wouldn't be inside this one if it wasn't pouring hard enough that it would be
difficult to start a fire right now. But if the arsonist is following us, we may be able to set a trap later.” He kept staring at her as if waiting for something.

Sarah was suddenly aware of how she looked. Though she'd shaken her skirts, they clung to her legs just the way his shirt did to him. The only thing that was dry was her hair and face under her
kapp
and bonnet. Sally stamped and snorted even as the rumbling thunder grew more muted, but the skies kept pouring rain. It drummed so hard on the barn roof that it sounded like hoofbeats on a wooden covered bridge. She had to say something to break the screaming silence between the two of them. Her pulse pounded harder than the rattle of the rain.

“Do you think my grandmother may have actually seen someone lurking outside our
grossdaadi haus?
” she asked as she brushed drops off her sleeves. “Not a monster with glowing eyes like she said, of course, but I've been thinking we'd better believe her about seeing someone since that Bible note appeared. Still, she does imagine things at times. Nate, the reason she acts afraid of you is that she's haunted by the persecution our ancestors faced in Europe, especially burnings for our faith. It—it kind of haunts me, too, sometimes, all of us. She thinks you're the government official coming to take us away, to burn us out, burn us. I thought I'd better tell you that.”

“You've been tremendous through all this, helpful and honest.”

“Good,” was all she could manage, when she wanted to say something better and wiser. “Good.”

He came close and put his hands on her wet shoulders. She put her hands around his wrists, not only to touch him
but to prop herself up. She wanted him to hold her; she felt he knew that. Her lips tingled.

They had not closed the barn doors, so the wind whipped in, chilling their wet clothes. He let go of her and went over to slide the barn doors closed. At the grating sound—or at the idea of being sealed in here with Nate—she went all shivery with goose bumps.

Just before he slid the door shut, a whoosh and a swoop of air slapped them as a big-winged body swept past and out into the rain.

Sarah let out a shriek, and Nate ducked. “Oh,” she said, “it's just a great horned owl flying out. She's probably the one that killed the voles, though she hardly lined them up that way. I'll bet she's feeding nestlings inside here.”

“I'll leave the doors cracked for her, then. Speaking of which, my crackberry is vibrating.”

“Your phone?” she asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. It was good to talk of something rational, something normal.

“Phone and more,” he said, digging it out of his front jeans pocket. “Email, weather, global positioning, everything. I'll show you later. It's really called a BlackBerry, but it's so addictive that it gets the nickname crackberry—you know, from crack…cocaine.”

She shook her head and shrugged as he answered the phone. It was a reminder to her that they came from two separate worlds. He had to talk loudly over the storm, so she knew it was his boss and something about Jacob's license plate. Could her former fiancé be doing all this? Yes, she was almost starting to think—to fear—he could. Surely, Jacob had seen Nate's name in the
Home Valley News,
and he might figure he was called Mack instead of Nate. Could that Keep
Away on the sign mean for Nate to keep away from this area or to keep away from her?

“That phone kind of runs your life,” she told him when he punched a button and put it away. “It makes a crack in daily living, is that it?”

“Not exactly—kind of. Sarah, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles for the state says that there's no Jacob Yoder who has a license plate registered in this county or any other in Ohio. He must be driving with stolen plates, maybe ones he got when he was running with that auto theft ring. I'll take your advice and talk to Gabe when we get back to see if he knows the plate number.”

To their amazement, the huge owl flew back in with a small snake in its beak, tilting to get through the door. They watched her glide into the side bay, then heard bloodcurdling screams.

“That can't be the snake! What in the—” Nate muttered, seizing her arm and spinning them around as if he would protect her from something.

“That's the nestlings, the baby owls,” she told him.

He nodded. “Sarah, don't ever feel you don't understand my world—my tools of the trade,” he said, patting his pocket where he'd put his phone. “I'm a babe in the woods when it comes to things you know, so—”

And then they heard the knocking.

 

But from where? Nate thought. What was that? Sure as heck not the owls. Outside or inside the barn? It seemed to be coming from the other side of the back wall where there was no window except high in the loft. His imagination ran wild. Was someone leaning a ladder against the barn, then moving it along? The arsonist had started one fire high, using
window access. On the other hand, it could be a trap to lure them outside. He'd mentioned setting a trap, but could their enemy be one step ahead of them on that, too? Then again, it could be that the wind had shifted and a branch was knocking there or, in this ramshackle old barn, something had come loose to bang in the wind. The place had a hundred chilly drafts and strange fits of air movement.

He put his mouth close to Sarah's bonnet and whispered, “Close the door the rest of the way, but don't bar it in case we need to get out fast. I'm going up into the loft to look out that window, down toward where we saw the message.”

“But what's that sound?”

“I hope it's a tree limb in the wind, but I'm not betting on it. Go.”

She did as he said while he quickly climbed the rickety ladder to the loft. It was dark up here; the rain pounded overhead, closer, louder. As he felt his way along under the big roof beams, his eyes adjusted to the dark. Wan light seeped through the patched roof that had sprouted numerous leaks. The old floorboards creaked under his weight and once he felt the entire floor of the loft shudder. Cobwebs laced themselves across his wet face and snagged in his eyelashes. Half expecting he'd be peering out through the paned window into the face of an arsonist on a ladder, he pressed his nose to the glass, dusty on this side but running with rivulets of water outside. He turned his cheek to it, trying to look down, around.

Suddenly, the knocking stopped. The horrible shrieks had just been owlets, natural sounds, so maybe his tree limb idea was right. He'd scramble down, take a shovel or rake with him for a weapon and go outside to be sure. He wished he
had the pistol he kept in VERA, but he'd locked it up there and had shown it to no one in peaceful Amish country.

Man, you're getting spooked by this place, he scolded himself. Creepy house, old barn, bad storm and then that bloodred message smeared on the barn that carried the implied threat Or Else! Did it mean to keep away from this arson case, the Amish or Sarah? And, if the latter, didn't that point to Jacob Yoder again?

He turned to go back downstairs and bumped into someone. It was Sarah, thank God. With the pounding rain, he hadn't heard her come up here.

“Did you see anyth—” she got out before there was a creak, a crack—and the floorboards under them gave way.

Nate grunted and Sarah screamed. He grabbed a beam, grabbed her. Slammed together chins to shins, they dropped partway through the floor, then stuck, suspended at armpit level. Her right arm was splayed along the floor where the rotting boards had given way. Nothing was in reach for him but her.

“Hold on!” he told her. “Hold on to me! Pull your arm in, 'cause we're going down.”

As they fell, her black bonnet and cap were ripped away. They dropped amid dust, dripping rain and loose, splintered boards to land in a pile of hay, a tangle of arms, legs, her wet skirts and hair gone wild.

 

“You okay?” Nate gasped, lifting his head from their landing.

“In one piece, at least,” she said, pulling her thigh-high, mussed skirts and slip down over her bared, white thighs and black stockings. She knew her voice sounded shaky, and it wasn't from the fall or their worsening situation with
an enemy. Oh, no, she knew the enemy she struggled with right now was her own
verboten
desire for this man.

“Thank God for this pile of straw,” he said.

“Hay. It's really hay.”

“Sarah—you're beautiful. We could have been maimed or killed, but you're still teaching me….”

His voice faded and he looked at her intently. “And you
are
beautiful, you know,” he whispered. “In lots of ways.”

Still watching every move she made, Nate lifted himself on one elbow; his other arm was trapped under her, but he didn't move it. He looked at her, down, up, then deep into her eyes, that stare that always made her feel she was falling off a high ladder. She blinked to get some of the dust out of her watering eyes, which made a double image of Nate, his gaze devouring her.

The hay felt both prickly and soft beneath her bottom, back and limbs. He was so close—it was almost like being in bed with him. Suddenly she was aware of her body in a new, thrilling way. She was beautiful, he had said…. She should jump up, find her bonnet, repin her hair, which was splayed out under her head and shoulders with strands in her mouth that Nate gently drew out in a soft caress across her cheek.

Something was going to happen between them that should not, but she wanted to know and cherish each moment. She wet her lips, held her breath.

“My boss, your father and Bishop Esh would never approve of any sort of roll in the hay between us,” Nate whispered, his face coming so close to hers that his breath almost burned her. “But I can't help this.”

And then he tilted his face slightly to the side, lowered his head slowly, as if to give her time to turn away, and kissed her.

Smooching, her people called it. But this was entirely new, like nothing she'd had with Jacob. Spinning, swirling. Had the fall knocked her silly? She lifted her free hand to touch the side of Nate's face, the crisp, damp hair at his temples, his earlobe, the strong back of his neck as the kiss went on. She opened her lips for him and only moaned when his hand, trapped beneath her hip, moved, caressed the curve of her there, then slid slowly up her waist and rib cage, over her breasts to pause before coming up to cup her chin. His head had jerked a bit. He'd sniffed in a sharp breath. She'd bet he'd never known Amish women didn't wear bras—that is, not until now.

Every part of her seemed to come alive at his touch. And still the kiss went on, moving, deepening. He might be hovering on top, but she met him halfway until their entire bodies were pressed together as hard as their mouths. He rolled them over, her up and around until he was on top again. A roll in the hay, he had said. They breathed in unison, then she could hardly breathe at all, before he slowly—reluctantly, she could tell—came up for air.

“I should say I'm sorry, but I'm not,” he whispered, his voice deep and raspy. “
Ya,
me neither.”

“I want to look around outside. We've got to go back.”

“Right. This barn could have burned down around us and we would not have noticed.”