Safe Hearts (Amish Safe House, Book 3) (3 page)

“
Well, he checked on the
man. Jeremiah thought he might be able to help him start
breathing.” Beckie paused as there were collective gasps of
sympathy. “But just as he leaned over the man, the police swarmed
in.”

“
So he did call the
police?” Kate asked, surprised as the woman shook her head sadly.
Kate puzzled over that. It was a small town compared to what she
was used to. But even then, no cops should have responded that
quickly.

Beckie looked around at them with
teary eyes. “They aimed guns at him. They made him get on the
ground and treated him like he killed the man. They said they got a
call about raised voices in the store at an odd hour.”

“
Did anyone see Jeremiah
before he went to the store?” Kate asked, trying to piece together
the scene. She ignored the narrow, studious look that Esther
trained on her.

“
No, he went straight to
work to get ready for his promotion,” Beckie answered miserably.
“He tried to explain that, but nobody would listen. And they are
saying they found a bottle of poison, right where he was crouching
trying to
help
the
man.”

Kate's mind whirled. There was a call
to the police, practically as soon as Jeremiah got to work. He went
into the crime scene. He was found with the body and a poison
bottle was nearby? That didn't sound good at all. Kate knew that
the police would have a hard time swallowing the idea he was a
victim of circumstance.

Kate asked what the poison was, but
Beckie had no idea. She didn't even know if the police knew yet.
Beckie just knew that her cousin was in jail for something she knew
he could not have done.

“
I'll get everyone
kaffi
,” Nancy stated as
she headed toward the kitchen. “I bet if we go over this a few
times, we'll figure out something. We should know someone who can
help Jeremiah.”

Kate rose to help Nancy with the
coffee. Nothing about the case made sense. The evidence against
Jeremiah looked bad at face value, but if there was anyone that
could shed some light on a clue or two, it was these
ladies.

Luke 8:
17.
For nothing is hidden that will
not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known
and come to light.

Chapter 3
.

It was almost like coming
home.

Kate never thought she could miss
office life. She had always preferred fieldwork to paper pushing.
However, as she gazed around the small town police station, the
blur of overlapping voices sounded familiar and
comforting.

Kate looked around, wondering what to
do. She couldn't exactly go to the sitting area and blend in, not
dressed as an Amish woman.

“
Excuse me miss. Can I help
you?”

Case in point. It was a busy office,
but she wasn't here ten seconds before being addressed. She turned
her head to see a young receptionist who looked fresh from school,
over dressed and too under confident to pull off the look. Kate
forced a smile at the girl. If she were herself, she'd have been
telling the girl about her posture right about now. Confident
appearances went a long way in their line of work.

Of course, here she wasn't a U.S.
Marshal. She wasn't an experienced field agent with years of
on-the-job training to offer. She was just some Amish woman who had
walked off the street. And they were more interested in why she
showed up than what her credentials might be.

“
Miss?”

“
Oh, yes. I came to see
Officer Ryan Weaver,” Kate finally said, as she turned her full
attention to the woman. She felt a small wave of irritation at her
own state of distraction. She'd never been fully comfortable in the
Amish community, but she had never been so off her game. This
wasn't the time or place to be acting like a cadet.

“
I'm sorry.” The woman gave
her a puzzled, apologetic smile. “He’s out on patrol. I could take
your number and leave it on his desk for you.”

Kate gave the woman a thin smile, and
processed the suggestion. She supposed she could give the number
for the phone in the barn, but she had no interest in lingering
around a barn waiting on a call back like a school girl.

She watched the woman's face color as
the realization sank in that there were still places in the world
that people did not live on their phones. Kate felt a little sorry
for the girl, especially as the receptionist fumbled out an apology
and seemed at a loss as to how to deal with the
situation.

“
It's all right; I don't
mind waiting.” Kate offered, more to help prompt the girl to a
proper solution. It was the truth. She could use an excuse to
linger in the office a while longer. Listen to the sights and
sounds. Take in the smell of old coffee and ink toner.

“
Of course.” The young
woman looked relieved to have some sort of solution for the moment.
“It might be a while.”

“
I have nothing but time,”
Kate assured her.

Kate was surprised when she was taken
to Ryan's office to wait. She assumed she would simply remain in
the waiting area until he got there.

After assurances that she didn't need
anything while she waited, she was finally left alone to look over
the office space. Kate wasn't sure exactly how long Ryan had been
in town. She knew he had not been here that much longer than she
had, and she had seen janitor's closets bigger than the office they
made him. Still, he managed to give the space a personal touch.
There were a few books on Forensics and cold cases. A book on
boating drew her eye. That was unusual in a place that had no major
lakes or rivers to boat at. Maybe his last location had a
port?

She eyeballed the files that were
scattered on his desk. She itched to peek through them, wondering
if there was any data on the recent crime rings. Or better yet,
some clues about Jeremiah's case. Would they have assigned it to
Ryan, come to think of it? He did end up spending a lot of time on
cases related to the Amish community.

No, she wasn't going to go nosing
through Ryan's files just because the new receptionist made it
painfully easy to do so. She closed her eyes and listened to the
sounds of the office. For a moment, she could almost pretend that
she was in her own office. How long had it been? She missed
paperwork and patrols; she even missed the case files. She missed
the late nights on the job followed by an early morning of
paperwork. She'd never complain about needing a vacation
again.

It wasn't all bad. She had met some
amazing people in her time here. She had learned a lot of things,
and had an appreciation for stuff she had previously taken for
granted.

“
Still, if this keeps up
much longer, I'll end up hunting down that mole myself.”
Kate frowned as she pondered the possibility. It
was risky of course. And there was no guarantee that the danger
would pass, just because the mole was apprehended. But at the same
time, this was dragging out far too long.

If Kate kept up this charade much
longer, she was sure that something was going to go wrong. There
was a huge difference between amnesia and never having a skill in
the first place. The Amish weren't fools. They took the claim that
her mistakes were due to memory loss without question at first. Yet
surely they would eventually wonder how she could act like she'd
never done any of this stuff a day in her life.

Kate wondered how she had fooled them
for so long, and felt a pang of guilt. Eventually she was going to
draw unwanted attention. After all, she could demonstrate no memory
of family; no one from her imaginary old community ever called, and
what’s more, it was clear that she was learning everything from
scratch.

And if the mole was never found? Was
she supposed to stay Kate the clueless Amish? Be swapped from place
to place every few months to keep the lies from adding up? Never be
herself again?

Kate was beginning to understand why
certain people would break rules in witness protection. She sued to
wonder why some of them talked to people they shouldn't, and wanted
to go back to their old lives, despite the risk. She finally
understood that the loss of an identity one had worked all their
life to build was crushing, even to a workaholic loner like
herself. How much worse would this be if she actually had people
waiting for her back there?

“
Kate?”

Kate roused herself from her musings
and opened her eyes. Ryan stood in the doorway with his jacket
slung over one shoulder. As usual, he looked absolutely stunning,
even fresh off the beat. In fact, if she didn't know better, she
would have thought he was preparing for a magazine shoot instead of
a day in the office. And those eyes. If she wasn't careful, then
she could get lost in those eyes.

“
Hello, Ryan.” Kate rose
quickly to her feet and checked the time on the wall clock. Not
much time had passed at all.

“
I was told I had a
visitor,” Ryan said as he smiled at her. Something fluttered in
Kate’s chest at his smile. For a moment, she wondered why. She had
dated before; she had felt attracted to men before. Yet with Ryan,
it always felt a little different somehow.

As Ryan walked past her to take up his
seat, she felt a tingle shiver up her arm and down her spine. Every
nerve in her body felt like it was on high alert, but in an
exhilarating way.

“
I'm, I'm...” She blinked
and tried to find the words. Had she been pretending to be an
awkward Amish for too long? She actually felt like she couldn't
find the words to say. “I uh. Jeremiah.”

“
Jeremiah?” Ryan
frowned.

“
Jeremiah Steinbeck,” Kate
said, as she tried to clear the cobwebs out of her head and get
back in the game. What was wrong with her? “He’s Beckie’s cousin.
Everyone’s frantic over his arrest. I was hoping you might be able
to help them.”

“
Steinbeck?” It might have
been her imagination, but he looked a little relieved that this was
a business call, and disappointed too, oddly enough. Was it
possible to be both? “Steinbeck. That’s the murder case in that
café.”

Kate nodded as she folded her hands in
front of her, trying to keep the guise of the proper Amish woman.
“We know he is innocent, but the evidence looks bad for
him.”

“
I hate to break this to
you, Kate -”

“
No one wants to believe
their family can kill someone else,” she finished for him. She
herself had made that speech to many family members of criminals.
She knew how hard it was for them to accept such a horrible truth,
especially when they loved the criminal.

Ryan nodded grimly. “I know it's
probably not what you want to hear.”

“
I expected it,” she
admitted with a smile. “But something isn't adding up about the
whole thing. Like why he would poison the journalist someplace so
obvious? There are lots of quiet places he could have taken the
man. And why poison him if they were fighting loud enough for
someone to call? That is a pretty slow way to do the job if they
were able to draw that kind of attention to themselves.”

Ryan furrowed his brow as he pondered
the second one. “You may have a point there, Kate. Pretty sharp
thinking for a quiet country girl.”

“
Oh no,” Kate said quickly.
“We were discussing the case for hours at the last knitting circle.
Beckie’s a sweet woman. Everybody wanted to find some way to
help.”

“
So you ladies all started
poking around for holes in the story.” Ryan seemed impressed. Kate
knew the feeling. The way the women could brainstorm together still
astounded her, as did the way in which they could rally around a
cause. “Maybe we should hire your group to work on some cases,”
Ryan said.

Kate gave a polite laugh at his joke.
“Right now, they’re concerned about Jeremiah.”

“
Let me make a couple
calls. Maybe I can figure something out, but just keep in mind that
he could still be guilty.”

“
I understand. But at least
it will be less about circumstantial evidence.”

Ryan gave her a half grin. “You've
been hanging around us too long.”

“
Pardon?” she asked. Her
gut clenched as she suddenly realized her carelessness.

“
Circumstantial evidence,”
he repeated with a hint of amusement. “You said it like you've been
in the field for years.”

She gave a strained smile.
She
had
been saying
things like that for years. This fake Amish thing was getting older
by the minute. She frantically tried to think up a reason why it
would seem so natural. “We read too, you know. It's not all
knitting and baking.”

“
Of course.” Ryan looked a
little dejected over the sharp edge in her tone. “I didn't mean
anything by that. I was just teasing you. It’s a bad time for
jokes, I know, what with one of your own in the hot seat. I’m
sorry.”

One of her
own
. If only he knew. In his eyes, she was
Kate the Amish woman. What would he ever think of the real her? Or
of the months of lies to keep her cover, at that? Kate felt a
painful twisting in her stomach as she tried to imagine his
reaction.