Danger in Plain Sight (Hqn) Read online

  Libby couldn’t help but smile. Mom always could see right through the three of them. “Did it work?”

  Mom sighed. “I have to admit, it’s easier to do something yourself than to let someone you love go into danger. But I understand why you have to do this.”

  “Good.” It was a relief not to have to argue about it.

  “I’ll come over and spell you anytime you want,” her mother said. “The crucial thing is that someone be there with Esther all the time, right? And to have a cell phone, of course.”

  Libby squeezed her mother’s hand. “I knew you’d jump right in.”

  “And that’s what you told Adam, I suppose.” Mom said the words with such studied casualness that Libby went instantly on the alert.

  “More or less,” she said cautiously. “He was… Well, naturally he wanted them to keep Esther where he could guard her.”

  “You’ve been seeing a lot of Adam, haven’t you? He’s a good man.”

  “He is.” That quiet comment broke through her reserve. “Everyone knows that. But he’s got it in his head that just because of his background, he’s not good enough for…well, for…” She let that trail off, because it wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Oh, honey.” Geneva’s voice filled with pain. “I had no idea that was still bothering him. He’s proved himself a hundred times over. Doesn’t he know that?”

  “That’s not how he sees it.” She tried to collect herself. She was giving too much away, and she didn’t want Mom thinking she had a broken heart, in addition to everything else.

  “He never touches a drop of alcohol, you know.” Mom seemed to be looking back through the years. “Determined not to be like his father. That man—” Her lips pursed. “Well, if I had it in me to hate anyone, it would be him. Keeping that child practically in rags and beating him, too. And the mother didn’t do a thing to prevent it.”

  A chill snaked down Libby’s spine. “Why didn’t child welfare take him away?”

  “People weren’t as aware of abuse then as they are now. And Adam always denied it, out of some kind of pride, I think. Well, the beatings stopped after your father intervened, though I don’t suppose the rest of it was much better.”

  “What did Dad do?” She’d been younger. That must be why she hadn’t been aware of much.

  “Adam and Trey were playing in the creek one day, and they’d taken their shirts off. Your father saw the bruises. He came into the house looking…well, I’d never seen him look like that before. He went off without a word, and when he came back, all he’d say was that Adam’s father wouldn’t lay a hand on him again.”

  It was a fascinating look at her calm, even-tempered father, but her heart ached for the little boy Adam had been. “I remember that he was around here a lot. I just took him for granted, like another brother.”

  “We did our best, but he had his pride. We’d have sent him to college, but he wouldn’t accept. He insisted on joining the Marines, and he did very well. He could have made a career out of it, but by then he’d decided on law enforcement.”

  “Why here?” Her heart was sore from the pummeling it was taking. “You’d think he’d want to live anywhere else in the world.”

  “That pride of his, I suppose,” her mother said. “It was as if he had to prove himself to the very people who’d looked down on him as a kid. And we were here, the nearest thing to a family he had.” Mom looked at her, a question in her eyes. “Does that help you?”

  “I understand a little better, I guess.”

  “You love him,” Mom said softly.

  “Yes. I guess I never outgrew that.” She tried to say it lightly, but failed.

  “Maybe if I talk to him…” her mother began.

  “No.” Libby caught her hand. “I know you want to fix this.” The echo of Rebecca’s words resounded. “But you can’t. This is between Adam and me. And if we can’t overcome it…well, I guess I’ll have to live with that.”

  * * *

  “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.” Judge Judith Waller, black robe open to reveal the sensible suit underneath, shook her head at Adam. “Adam Byler, I thought you had more sense than that.”

  Adam had caught Judge Waller in the courthouse corridor between hearings. Plump, past middle age, with a no-nonsense manner and shrewd eyes behind her glasses, she looked like a grandmother who’d be more at home baking cookies than in a courtroom, dispensing justice.

  “I know it’s irregular—” he began.

  “It’s more than irregular, it’s disastrous. In the first place, issuing an injunction to prevent an Amish family from taking their daughter home to care for would bring the ACLU down on us in about sixty seconds. Besides which, it would earn the enmity of half the county. No thanks. Judges are elected, you know.”

  “I just want to keep Esther Zook safe until we find out the truth about the hit-and-run.”

  Appealing to the judge had been a desperate act, but Adam felt desperate. He’d spent the better part of two days trying to find a solution, and he’d failed. Esther would be going home today, and Libby was going with her. Once that happened, he wouldn’t be able to protect either of them.

  “And what if you never do solve it?” Those shrewd eyes impaled him. “The way I hear it, your case has fizzled out. You can’t protect Esther for the rest of her life.”

  “If I had a little more time…” But he honestly didn’t know what he’d do that he hadn’t already done, to no avail.

  “You’ve done your duty,” she said, her expression softening. “Just get on with things and stop beating your head against a stone wall. That’s my advice, but I don’t suppose you’ll take it.”

  “I don’t drop a case just because it’s difficult.” He was reminded of Jason Smalley. He still hadn’t found out what Smalley’s interest in all this was.

  Judge Waller began walking again. “The young are always so idealistic. I wouldn’t change that.” She paused. “And some not so young, like Geneva Morgan.” She chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t change Geneva, either, for all the world. But you mind you don’t run yourself into trouble, Adam. You’ve got a career to think of.”

  She turned into the courtroom, leaving him standing in the hall wondering.

  Well, he couldn’t just stand here. He glanced at his watch. If he were going to catch Libby before they left the hospital, he’d best get moving.

  Libby. He managed to forget her for as long as it took to get his car out of the parking lot and pull into traffic. What could he say to her that he hadn’t already said?

  She was going to do this thing. When he’d appealed to Geneva, she’d made it clear that she was helping Libby. He should have known that. He had good reason to know what kind of person Geneva was, and it seemed Libby was turning out more like her mother every day.

  Funny, how families worked out. Not that he had any basis for comparison. But when they were young, Libby had definitely been her daddy’s girl. His little princess. Trey had admired his father and confided in his mother, and Link…well, Link had bounced back and forth between his parents, depending on what mischief he was in at the moment.

  The first time he’d gone home with Trey, he’d honestly thought the Morgan family was putting on some kind of an act. But he’d been there often enough to see that it was real. Sensible boundaries, punishment that fit the offense, and an undergirding of unconditional love.

  Thanks to them, he knew what family life could be like.

  He reached the circular drive at the hospital entrance in time to see a wheelchair-accessible van draw up at the curb where a small group waited—Esther in a wheelchair with an orderly in attendance, Rebecca and Libby. The passenger door opened, and Geneva jumped down. Of course she’d have been the one to arrange this.

  Leaving the patrol car behind the van, he got out. By the time he rounded the car to the walk, Libby had come to meet him.

  “You’re not going to distress Rebecca with any more dire warnings, are you?”

  In her bright r
ed anorak, jeans and boots, Libby looked more ready to go sledding than to take up residence at an Amish farm. Still, when it came to Libby, the Zook family knew what they were getting.

  “I won’t upset anyone. I tried everything I could think of to stop this, but I failed, just like you said I would.”

  Blue eyes, so like her mother’s, surveyed him. “I don’t think I said anything about failing. I said we didn’t have any options but this one.”

  He shrugged. “Same difference. I understand your mother is aiding and abetting you.” He glanced toward the van, where the attendant was lowering the platform under Geneva’s supervision.

  “Did you doubt it?” Libby smiled, the dimple at the corner of her lips showing. “Mom never saw a lame duck she didn’t have to help.”

  “Like me, you mean.” It was rubbing salt in the wound, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Libby snapped. “If you can’t talk anything but nonsense, you’d better go away.”

  He had to smile. Dealing with Libby in a temper was like handling dynamite. He’d better watch his step.

  “Okay, no more nonsense,” he said. “What are your plans for keeping your cell phone charged? You can’t rely on it if your battery is going to go dead just when you need it.”

  “Two cell phones,” she said. “Someone will stop by every day to trade off and recharge the other one. You thought I wouldn’t have an answer to that, didn’t you? I probably could recharge it from the generator in the barn, but I thought that might annoy Esther’s brother.”

  “Just wanted to be sure.” He looked down at her, his heart twisting at the thought of her in danger. “I want your promise that you’ll call at the first sign of something not right. Do not investigate on your own.”

  “I know, I know.” She started to turn away, impatient, and he grabbed her wrist, feeling her pulse pound against his palm.

  “I mean it, Libby. No matter how slight it seems, you call me. I’ll check it out. Remember that if you’re out of commission, Esther is unprotected.”

  That sobered her, as he’d thought it would.

  “All right. I promise.”

  “Good. And we need a way to check in on a regular basis without alarming the family.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary…” she began.

  He swept on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ll wait for you in the stable every evening from eight to nine. Make some excuse to go out in the evening. You need some air, you want to feed the horses a lump of sugar, anything. Just be there.”

  “You can’t do that, Adam. Do you think they’re not going to notice a police car pulling into their lane?”

  “It won’t be a police car, and it won’t be in the lane.” He’d already thought this out. “I’ll use my own car, and I’ll leave it out on that old timbering road that runs through the woods. I can walk across from the woods to the stable. It’s plenty dark by that hour, and you know how isolated the Zook farm is. The closest neighbor is a half mile down the road. With no outside lights, there’s not a chance anyone will see me.”

  For once Libby didn’t plunge into argument. She just looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded.

  “All right. But I might not be able to get out every night, depending on what’s going on with Esther.”

  “I’ll wait from eight to nine. Come if you can.”

  “You’re going to freeze out there.” Laughter lurked in her eyes despite the seriousness of the situation.

  “No more than I deserve for letting you be there. If Trey knew about this, he’d knock my block off.”

  “Trey couldn’t stop me, any more than you can.” She glanced to the van, loaded now. “I have to go. I’ll try to see you tonight.”

  “Don’t try.” His fingers tightened on her wrist. “Do it.”

  She pulled her hand free. “I’ll try,” she said, and hurried back to the van.

  He jumped in the patrol car and pulled out after the van. They might keep him off the Zook farm, but no one could stop him from seeing them safely there. After that…well, after that it was up to Libby.

  He had to admit, despite the hard time he’d been giving her over this, that Libby had been right. This was the only way. And if anyone could do it, Libby could.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ARRIVING AT THE Zook farm was like stepping back in time, with the white frame two-story farmhouse sitting well back from its gravel lane, none of the ubiquitous power lines or telephone cables running to it. The fresh coating of snow they’d gotten this morning had dusted the fields with white, and despite the fact that it was only three, the shadows were lengthening.

  The van came to a halt at the back door, reminding Libby that country people seldom used the front entrance. She felt as if she were seeing the farm with double vision—the child she’d been, to whom it had been so familiar, and the woman who was nearly a stranger.

  Isaac was waiting, and the moment the van door slid open, he began a conversation in Pennsylvania Dutch about how best to transfer Esther.

  It took a moment of listening before Libby realized that she actually understood much of what they said. A few weeks ago she’d have said she’d forgotten every word of the Pennsylvania Dutch she’d known as a child. Now, after hearing it spoken nearly every day, the dialect was coming back.

  Esther looked exhausted from the trip, and the first thing to do was to get her settled. The daadi haus, a wing of the farmhouse built to house the grandparents when the younger couple took over running the farm, stood at right angles to the main part of the house, conveniently near the lane. Since her father’s death, Esther lived there with her mother.

  Libby held her breath when the wheelchair was lowered from the van. Esther drooped in the chair, her face white. She blinked against the light of a watery sun reflecting from the snow. Getting her to her bed suddenly seemed an enormous job.

  Isaac, at a word from Mary Ann, simply bent and scooped his sister up in his arms, blanket and all. In a few quick strides he was at the daadi haus door. One of his children held it open, and he swept inside.

  Rebecca and Mary Ann scurried after him with murmured thanks to Libby’s mother and the van driver.

  Libby pulled out her suitcase and hugged her mother. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Her mother kissed her cheek. “This is a good thing you’re doing, dear. Either Marisa or I will be here tomorrow afternoon to swap the phones. Be careful.”

  “I will.” She’d need to be, if they were right about the danger to Esther. She went to the door, held open by a small girl who was a miniature replica of Mary Ann with her soft brown hair and blue eyes.

  “Thank you. Denke.” She tried the Pennsylvania Dutch word, wondering if the child was old enough to be comfortable speaking English. Amish children spoke Pennsylvania Dutch at home, but began learning English in school when they were six.

  The little girl gave her a shy smile, but didn’t speak.

  The others had gone upstairs, but Libby paused for a moment, orienting herself. The daadi haus had a kitchen and living room downstairs, with a bathroom and pantry between. The staircase was wide enough for easy access, although Esther would have to be carried if and when she came down. As frail as she was now, Isaac had handled her as if she were a feather.

  Libby went up the stairs, vaguely uneasy. If she was remembering the layout of the farmhouse correctly, Isaac and Mary Ann’s bedroom was on the other side of the house from the daadi haus, meaning they weren’t within earshot. Nice for privacy, but not for possible emergencies.

  Upstairs the two bedrooms were on opposite sides of another bathroom. Nostalgia swept over Libby as she moved into Esther’s room. A hospital bed with a hand crank had replaced one of the twin beds, but otherwise, this looked just like the bedroom Esther had in the farmhouse when they were children…an oval braided rug between the beds, a sturdy oak chest, a handmade rocker, with wooden pegs along one wall to hold clothing. The doll crad
le and dolls had been replaced by a business-like desk and bookcase where Esther had undoubtedly prepared her lessons.

  Libby’s heart twisted. Teaching had meant so much to Esther. Would she ever be able to do it again?

  Isaac retreated, having lowered his sister to the bed, and Libby hurried to help Mary Ann get her settled. She glanced at Rebecca, realizing that the woman looked nearly as exhausted as Esther.

  “We must get her to rest,” she murmured, and Mary Ann nodded.

  “I know.”

  But at the moment, all of Rebecca’s attention was on her daughter, and Mary Ann probably knew as well as Libby did that she wouldn’t rest until she knew Esther was.

  Libby spread the handmade Log Cabin quilt over Esther, and Rebecca tucked it into place. Esther touched its edge, moving her fingers along it. She smiled.

  “Home,” she murmured, and drifted into sleep.

  If the lump in Libby’s throat got any bigger, she wouldn’t be able to speak. She blinked away tears.

  Mary Ann put her arm around Rebecca’s waist. “Komm, Mamm Rebecca,” she said softly. “Esther is resting, and you must rest, too.”

  “Someone must stay with Esther,” Rebecca protested. “And you have supper to cook.”

  “Folks have brought so much food that I won’t have to cook for a week.” Mary Ann nudged her gently toward the other bedroom.

  “I’ll stay with Esther,” Libby said. “Please, go and rest.”

  Rebecca smiled faintly. “If you two girls gang up on me, I guess I must.” She crossed the hall, and Libby heard her bedroom door close.

  Mary Ann smiled, looking relieved. “Denke, Libby. She’ll do better, now that Esther is home.”

  “I’m sure she will.” But would Esther?

  “We have an upstairs wheelchair here,” Mary Ann pointed out. “And a portable toilet seat. When Isaac’s daad was ill, everything was made easy for him, so I got those things back out. And I had Isaac put a twin bed downstairs, so Esther can rest there when she’s well enough to go down for the day.”

  “You’ve thought of everything.” Libby firmly dismissed her doubts about Esther’s recovery. “You’re a good sister-in-law, Mary Ann. I hope I can do as well with my brother’s new wife.”