Safe Hearts (Amish Safe House, Book 3) (7 page)

Kate hurriedly cleaned up, hoping to
get back to her cottage to make that phone call before much longer.
She filled the sink with dishes and scrubbed at them until they
shone. When she finished in the kitchen, she headed back to the
dining room to see Beth sweeping the floor.

“
Denki
for your help as always, Kate,” Beth said with a smile. “Feel
free to call it a night if you wish. I am just about finished
myself, and then I’ll be turning in shortly as well.”

Kate nodded.
“
Denki
for dinner.”
She made sure all of the chairs were pushed against the table
before she walked toward the exit.

As she approached the door,
it flew open suddenly and Bill came walking through the doorway.
“
Guten nacht
,
Katie,” he said as they passed each other.

“
Good night,
Bill!”

As soon as she walked out into the
cool, night air and the door shut behind her, Kate took off toward
her cottage. She took long strides as she rushed home, but she
wanted to avoid looking suspicious in case the man was watching the
property at that moment. She watched her cottage as it slowly grew
larger with each step she took.

When she got to the front porch, a
tingling sensation tickled her skin. What was that? Kate looked
down to see her dress shaking. “Oh!” she gasped. She reached under
the fabric and wrapped her fingers around the vibrating phone. She
looked up, hesitated briefly, and then ran inside.

Closing the door behind her, Kate
pulled the phone from her pocket and looked at it. She clicked the
green button and then lifted the phone to her ear.

“
Kate, thank goodness you
answered.” She could hear a strange sound in the background as he
spoke, and she couldn’t place her finger on what it might be, but
it almost sounded like trees blowing fiercely in the wind. “I
decided to check a few things internally, and you won’t believe
what I found.”

“
Go ahead,” she replied.
Kate wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say next, but she was
all ears. Even though she was anxious to tell him about the news
she had learned at dinner, she wanted to hear what he had to say
just as much.

“
I’m in the car, driving to
Pennsylvania right now, so if the call drops, just give me a few
minutes and I’ll call you right back.” He cleared his throat and
then continued. “So, after doing a bit of digging, I went through a
list of names and dates of everyone in the agency who’s recently
taken time off. I figured it could be useful to determine if
someone right under our noses might be involved in the death of
that private detective.”

“
Did you find anything?”
she interrupted.

“
Actually, I did. Glen
Tryston went on leave, citing his sick mother as the
reason.”

Kate gasped. She knew Glen Tryston
well; they had partnered on more than one occasion, relocating
WITSEC witnesses. “Let me guess; he’s still on leave now, isn’t
he?”

“
Yes. According to his
time-off request, he initially went on leave about four days before
you called me about the murder,” Harper explained.

“
So, you think he might be
the one behind it?”

“
It’s possible. It would
make sense if the killer was the same person that hired the
detective in the first place.”

“
You think so?” Kate
asked.

“
It probably wouldn’t be
smart to involve too many people in such a plot. The only
apprehension I have, however, is the question of why Glen would be
involved in such things. Why would he be looking for
you?”

Kate thought back to the one time
where WITSEC almost failed its clients. “Remember that job with the
two lawyers that Glen and I worked on?”

“
Yes, that was the one
where we almost had our first deaths in the program?” His tone was
solemn.

Kate sighed as the memories of the
case flooded her mind. “Yes. It happened a few months back. We had
that assignment to relocate the lawyers, but someone was still able
to track them down. That whole ordeal was a nightmare. We came so
close to losing them both, but I never even put two and two
together to figure out that Glen might have been behind it.” The
realization caused her stomach to churn. “It all makes sense now.
After that close call, I had to relocate them on my own, because
Glen had injured his wrist and you put him on desk duty. That’s
probably why they were never compromised again.”

“
That’s right. I remember
that now, and because of his reassignment, he wouldn’t have had
access to any of the new information in that case.” David Harper
let out a loud sigh. “This is extremely troubling, and it all
definitely fits, but until we know for sure that he’s the one
behind this, we need to be careful about everything we do and
say.”

“
Oh, I almost forgot! I was
literally about to call you when my phone started ringing. I was
having dinner with Beth and Bill earlier, and an Amish couple came
by and joined us. They didn’t come just to eat, however; they came
to tell us that a suspicious man has been going around the Amish
communities asking a lot of questions.”

Harper’s voice seemed to change
slightly in pitch. “What kind of questions?”

“
He’s been asking each of
the homeowners how many people they have living on their property,
the number of buggies they own, and the ages of each
resident.”

“
That has to be our guy,”
he said in a serious tone.

“
Apparently he’s been using
an alias and a fake ID. Beckie, the woman who brought this news to
our attention, was able to recognize it right away.”

“
What?” Kate sensed the
confusion in Harper’s voice as he spoke. “How would an Amish woman
be able to identify a fake identification card?”

“
They are a lot more
observant than you might give them credit for,” Kate said with a
chuckle. “Beckie’s nephew had recently completed his
rumspringa
, and while he
was on it, he became friends a man that has a Transportation Worker
ID card. The nephew ended up talking to the man well before she
did, and he noticed the difference in the card right away. He then
tipped off his aunt to the fact that the color shifting inks
weren’t noticeable in the ID that was being shown around the
area.”

David Harper laughed. “I guess you
really do learn something new every day. I suppose it’s a good
thing the bishop didn’t send you to that woman’s property, though.
She might be an amateur sleuth in the making.”

Kate laughed at the thought of Beckie
walking around the fields, looking for clues, like a detective. “I
wouldn’t go that far, but she’s definitely one of a kind.” She
looked out one of the windows of her living room and saw nothing
but darkness interspersed with glowing stars. As she stared out
into the abyss, her thoughts drifted back to her colleague. “If
Glen is the one behind this, do you think he might be the man
that’s been asking those questions?”

Her boss didn’t respond right away,
but after a few seconds, he broke his silence. “Like I said
earlier, it makes sense that he’d want to skate by under the radar,
so he might be doing this all on his own. But what would Glen gain
from finding you and hurting you now?”

Kate closed her eyes and thought back
to the case with the lawyers. They had testified against a big time
crime boss, putting him away for a long time. “He must still be
looking for the lawyers. Do you remember Victor Daxton?”

“
Of course. He’s the one
they put away; the entire reason we had to put them into WITSEC in
the first place.” Harper’s voice faded, filling Kate’s ear with the
sound of the trees once again. After what felt like minutes, he
spoke again. ”I can’t believe I never even noticed it
before.”

“
Noticed what?” Kate asked,
confusion engulfing her thoughts.

“
Now that I’m actually
going through it in my mind, it disgusts me that I hadn’t realized
before that Glen must have been on Daxton’s payroll since the
beginning. I have no doubt he might be looking for the lawyers
still, but I don’t think that’s his primary objective right
now.”

Kate felt the apprehension and fear
welling up as she thought about what her boss was telling her.
“Then what do you think he’s doing here?”

Harper hesitated slightly before
speaking in a quieted tone. “I think Daxton might have sent him to
take you out. He might blame you more than he blames the lawyers
now.”

Kate’s mind felt like it was about to
implode. “Why would I be the main target? And why would Glen be the
one hired to make the hit?”

“
Who would be better to
find you and kill you than one of your colleagues? I bet this whole
time he’s been snooping through whatever files he’s been able to
acquire, if any. Maybe that’s why he had to hire a private
investigator to help find you. I’m thinking the price on your head
must be exorbitant. It’s probably enough for Glen to retire on and
to live his life on the run. With all the knowledge of WITSEC he
possesses, he’s no doubt learned a thing or two about hiding out
successfully.”

Kate’s hand fell to her side, her
fingers still gripping the phone tightly. She looked back out at
the dark sky and took a deep breath, as her heart beat faster and
faster.

2 Timothy 1:
7.
For God
gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and
self-control.

Chapter 8
.

Kate was anxious and nervous that her
colleague, Glen Tryston, was stalking her, and had to force herself
to go about her normal chores. That was her best chance of staying
safe. Today, she was tending the garden. She had gotten quite handy
with such tasks since she had been sent to live among the Amish.
Before she wouldn’t have known how to keep anything alive, but now
she found the dirty work somewhat peaceful. It gave her a chance to
think.

The sun had come up early and bright,
and now, just past noon it was as high in the sky as it was going
to get, and the heat was almost oppressive. Kate thought it was a
perfect place to stop for a moment, to go inside and make herself a
small lunch, and to scrounge up a cool drink.

Kate went after the drink first,
pulling a tall glass from the hand carved cupboard which hung over
her sink. She filled the glass and drank deeply, realizing she was
hotter than she even thought. She carefully pulled the straw hat
perched on top of the kapp from her head and set aside as she
filled the glass once more and downed the cool water. She took a
nearby hand towel, and dabbed it at her forehead before pulling the
cap back on.

Lunch was a simple thing, just a
sandwich made with thick slices of bread that Kate carved from a
fat loaf, and a few pieces of leftover ham from a recent dinner.
She ate slowly, standing over the sink, gazing out of the window
and into the back yard. It really was a beautiful place, and Kate
knew her time here was growing short. When she had first arrived,
it had taken her some time to grow accustomed to everything. It was
quite the culture shock. But now, she would miss the people, and
even the lifestyle.

After the sandwich was gone, and the
few dishes she had dirtied were in the sink waiting to be washed,
Kate went back outside to the garden. She picked up the trowel she
had set aside when she had gone in for lunch, and knelt carefully
among the plants once more.

Kate was lost in her work, and she
didn’t hear the engine of a car pulling into the gravel drive of
the house, but she did hear the door close after someone climbed
out. She turned and couldn’t help but smile when she saw Ryan
coming around the side of the house, toward her.

“
Ryan,” she said simply as
she stood

It was obvious he was hot as well; his
brow was sweaty, his hair damp, but like any look Kate had seen, it
suited him.

“
You don’t mind if I keep
working, do you?” she asked, motioning to the flowers.

“
No, not at all,” the
police officer said. “I could help if you’d like, Kate.”

“
I wouldn’t have pegged you
as having much of a green thumb,” the pretend Amish woman
said.

“
My grandmother taught me,”
Ryan said. “Whenever I went over to her house, we worked in her
garden, until it got too hard for her to do it. Then I took care of
it for her myself as a teenager.”

“
I bet the other teenaged
boys found that to be a strange hobby,” Kate said as she knelt
again. Ryan knelt beside her and accepted a trowel from her. She
was planting a few new plants, so they got to work digging
holes.

“
I never cared much about
what people thought of me,” Ryan said. “Still don’t.”

“
That’s an admirable trait
to have,” Kate said.

“
I guess so,” Ryan said
with a laugh. “It makes life easier, I suppose.”

Kate found herself liking Ryan’s
company, and she forgot that he had probably come for a
reason.

“
I wanted to tell you
something,” he said. “About Jeremiah.”