by Alison Stone
Bridget shrugged. “I’m fine. Let’s go in.” She made eye contact with Zach, who peeked out from behind the shrub. He jerked his head impatiently toward the apartment.
“So, dinner, huh? Where are we going?” Her little sister’s enthusiasm was contagious.
“Hey,” Jimmy called, “did you want me to send you that photo?”
“Oh, yeah.” Liddie giggled. She jogged over to Jimmy. They chatted for a few moments while Bridget waited impatiently. She could feel Zach’s eyes boring into the side of her face. When Liddie came back, she said, “He got a cool photo of that chipmunk.” She waved her hand. “Anyway...you sure you’re okay?”
Bridget smiled tightly. “I’ve had better days.” She cleared her throat. “I thought maybe we could have a girls’ night before you go home. Let’s go upstairs and talk about it.” She pushed on the gate and held it open. Zach stood on the other side of the hedge, drawing the women up short.
Liddie was about to walk around him when Bridget said, “And this is my friend Zach.”
“Oh...” Liddie seemed to shake her head to clear her confusion. “You have friends?” Leave it to Liddie.
“Ha-ha.” Bridget forced a smile. “I’m full of surprises.”
“Apparently.” Liddie rolled up on the balls of her sneakers. Bridget’s sneakers. “Nice to meet you, Zach.”
“This is my sister, Liddie.”
“Nice to meet you.” Zach greeted her sister, his gaze constantly sweeping the courtyard. Another chill raced down her spine. Did he think someone had followed them here?
“Are you cold?” Liddie asked with disbelief. “You’d think that long skirt would keep you warm.” Her sister had playfully harassed her about her business wear, claiming it was one short step away from the Amish dresses they wore growing up. Bridget would be the first to admit she didn’t have much business savvy. She thought a long skirt and conservative top were safe choices. She saved her most casual clothing for home. Or for Liddie to borrow.
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Let’s go upstairs. I want to tell you about our plans. Zach said he’d drive us.”
“Oh, cool.” Her sister’s eyes screamed, Nice going, sis.
Bridget jogged up the stairs, suddenly very eager to get inside.
“What’s the rush?” Then, perhaps sensing the vibe, Liddie asked, “What’s going on? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Zach brought up the rear and ushered them inside. “We should probably get moving.”
Bridget clenched and unclenched her hands, suddenly unable to think straight. She cleared her throat, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. “Zach’s going to drive us to a hotel. We can order takeout, watch TV and veg before you have to go home tomorrow. Won’t that be fun?”
Liddie narrowed her eyes, studying her. “I smell a fish. What’s really going on?”
Bridget caught Zach’s attention. He didn’t offer any help. “I thought it would be fun to stay in a hotel,” she quickly added.
“You act like I’ve never stayed in a hotel.”
Bridget bit her lower lip, afraid she wouldn’t be able to convince her sister to leave without telling her the truth. For some reason Bridget was especially determined that Zach not find out that she had grown up Amish. Why does it matter, really? Perhaps because she had spent the past five years doing her best to keep her past in the past. To break out and live a new life.
“Remember the time Mem and Dat took us to Niagara Falls?” Liddie asked, still not making any effort to gather her things.
“Yes, of course. We can order room service and movies. Then you can catch the bus home tomorrow.” Bridget opened the closet by the door and grabbed her sister’s jacket. Bridget was hoping she could shuffle her sister out of Buffalo tomorrow morning, none the wiser of what was going on in her life.
Liddie took the spring jacket from her sister and draped it over the back of the couch. “What’s the rush? Oh, I suppose your friend has plans. Zach, are you in a hurry, too? Do you have a date?” Liddie was not a wallflower. Once she got herself into trouble with their father because she refused to apologize for beaning the schoolyard bully with an apple from her lunch. She claimed he deserved the whack and not an apology. Man, Bridget had missed her younger sister. Well, mostly. She’d have to get her back for this.
Bridget’s face was on fire. “Stop harassing my friend. Let’s go. I’m hungry.” Well, she should be hungry. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The knot in her stomach made it impossible to eat.
“Room service, huh?” Liddie asked, a flash of excitement in her eyes.
“Burgers, maybe?” Bridget was really going to miss her sister. She had no idea if she’d ever see her again—well, for more than a brief visit. She still couldn’t believe their parents had allowed her to come for a visit. Even though Liddie enthusiastically answered all of Bridget’s questions about their family and life back in Hickory Lane, her sister had never once tried to convince Bridget to come home.
“Let’s go so we can take advantage of the time we have left,” Bridget said, the band easing around her lungs as her sister finally started picking up her personal items strewn around the living room.
“I’ll pack an overnight bag.” Bridget locked eyes with Zach, who nodded slightly.
“How did you and my sister meet?” Liddie picked up the book that she had been reading from the table next to the couch.
“He’s a friend from work. Now hurry up,” Bridget called from the hallway.
A loud crash sounded on the other side of her closed bedroom door. Her heart exploded, and her pulse roared in her ears. Panicked, she spun around. Zach was on her, apparently in full DEA agent mode. He firmly shoved her behind him. With the palm of one hand on the door, he turned the handle with the other. Thick smoke poured out, and he slammed the door shut. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
FOUR
“Go! Go! Go!” Zach checked the landing outside Bridget’s second-story apartment and hustled the two women out the door.
Liddie turned to grab something, and Bridget pulled at her arm. “We’ve got to go!”
He scanned the area outside the landing again, his eyes stinging from the black smoke. Whoever had set the apartment on fire couldn’t be far. He pounded on each door as he passed and yelled, “Fire!” He didn’t slow to see if anyone came out. He couldn’t leave Bridget exposed.
Bridget and her sister got ahead of him when they reached the parking lot. He aimed the key fob at his truck and hollered, “Get in! Get in!”
Bridget spun around, and Zach followed her gaze above the roofline. Black smoke pumped out from her apartment on the far side of the building. She blinked, seemingly snapping out of it, and ordered Liddie to get into the truck. As naturally protective of Bridget as he was—it was his job, after all—she was equally protective of her sister, perhaps more so.
Bridget climbed into the passenger side after helping Liddie get into the back seat. Once Zach was behind the wheel, he called 9-1-1 on his smartphone, which was connected by Bluetooth to his vehicle. “There’s a fire at...” He tipped his chin toward Bridget and asked, “Address?” On cue, Bridget hollered her address, holding firmly to the grip bar as he pulled out of the parking lot, made a sharp left and raced down the road, all while constantly checking his rearview mirror.
“I have the occupants of the apartment with me. I’m taking them to safety.” Zach gave Dispatch his name and badge number to confirm he was a DEA agent. “Make sure the building is empty. I had to get my witness to safety.”
Once Dispatch assured him that Fire Rescue was on the way, he ended the call. “Now do you have any doubts you’re the target?” He hated his sharp tone, but he was not going to let this poor, naive woman be a sitting duck because she didn’t want to believe her decision to speak up had put her in harm’s way. He checked his rearview mirror again. The road was quiet. Lid
die sat wide-eyed and silent. He made a quick right, then another left, keeping his foot pressed on the pedal.
Zach cut a sharp gaze over to his passenger. All the color had drained out of her face. A dark smudge marred one cheek. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if she had been in her bedroom when whatever it was that set the room on fire came crashing through the window. He should have taken her directly to his office, made a full report. He should not have let her go back to her apartment.
“Are you okay?” Zach eased off the gas. They were safe. For now.
“What am I going to do?” High-pitched alarm made her voice squeak.
Her sister leaned forward in the back seat. “What in the world is going on? I’m going to guess Zach here isn’t a friend from work.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, a hint of excitement laced her tone.
Bridget shook her head tightly and seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I’m a law enforcement agent. Your sister reported—”
“Stop.” Bridget finally spoke up. “Liddie doesn’t need to know everything.”
“Um, Liddie’s right here.”
Bridget shifted in her seat to look at her sister. “You can’t tell Mem and Dat.” Zach had a hard time placing her accent.
“I think they’ll wonder why I’ve returned home with none of my things.” In the rearview mirror, he watched her pluck at her T-shirt. “I don’t have my plain clothes.”
Plain clothes?
“We can stop to pick some up before you go home.” Bridget lifted her chin in determination. “You have to go home in the morning.”
“Where’s home?” Zach asked.
Bridget lifted her hand in a silencing gesture. Liddie ignored her. “Hickory Lane.”
“Where’s that?”
Bridget sagged into her seat and tugged on her seat belt. “Hickory Lane is about an hour from here. It has a large Amish community.”
“Amish?” Zach nearly sputtered out the word before he had a chance to consider his audience. He cleared his throat. “Did you grow up Amish?”
Bridget ignored his question. “Liddie is going home first thing in the morning. It will draw more attention if we were to drop her off tonight.”
“I can’t go home without making sure you’re okay. And you’re definitely not okay. Someone set your apartment on fire,” Liddie said. “I may not be worldly, but I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were stupid.” Bridget’s tone softened. “I can’t deal with all of this. Please.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Liddie pleaded. “What did you report?”
“Take us to the hotel.” Bridget tilted her chin, as if that settled everything.
“Fine, we’ll go to a hotel, but I’m not going home until you tell me what’s going on.” In the rearview mirror, Zach watched Liddie cross her arms tightly over her chest.
“I’ll figure it out. My classes start the week after next.” Bridget shrugged. “Maybe I can get temporary housing through the university.”
Zach was done holding this tongue. “I need to make sure you’re someplace safe until we figure out who’s targeting you.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Bridget shook her head. “Someone knows I was meeting with you.” She fidgeted with the seat belt. “Shouldn’t someone go find Dr. Ryan?”
“The doctor you work with?” Liddie asked, obviously confused.
“All that will have to be investigated,” Zach said. “Until then, you need to be tucked away someplace safe.”
“Bridget, you have to come home. Please,” Liddie begged. “You’ll be safe there.”
“I’m not going home.” Bridget shot her sister an unmistakable “stop talking” glare.
“Dat and Mem will be happy to see you. They will, I promise.” Liddie was nothing if not persistent.
“The only way they’ll be happy is if I return for good.” Bridget shook her head. “That’s not happening. I told you I have school next week. It’s too far to commute.”
Zach felt like he was intruding on a conversation he shouldn’t have been privy to.
“Humor me,” Zach said. “Do your friends in Buffalo know where home is?” Ashley had mentioned something about Bridget growing up on a farm somewhere.
Bridget’s face grew pink. “No one knows where I grew up, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Is there a reason why you couldn’t go there for the week, at least?” Zach suggested.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I grew up Amish. My sister here is on Rumspringa. She’s going home tomorrow. Alone. I never told anyone about my background because it lends itself to questions.” She must have read something on his face, because she pointed at him. “Like that.” She shook her head; frustration slanted the corners of her mouth. “It was a huge sacrifice to leave my family, and returning to Hickory Lane to stay with them is not an option. And if they learn that some evil Englischers are trying to...” she seemed to change course midsentence “...hurt me, they’ll never let the rest of my siblings out of their sight forever.” She dipped her head and scratched her forehead. “There’s no winning here.”
Before Zach had a chance to question her more, his cell phone chimed. “It’s my contact in the Buffalo Police Department. I need to take this.” He pressed Accept on the controls on the steering wheel. “Hey, Freddy, before you give me any updates on Ashley, I need to let you know you’re on speakerphone. I have a friend of hers in my vehicle.”
“Sorry, no updates. Still canvassing the neighborhood,” Freddy said, his tone direct. “We put out an alert for her car. Wanted to keep you in the loop.” The officer cleared his throat. “We’ll keep looking.”
“You should know that someone set Ashley Meadows’s coworker’s apartment on Spring Street on fire,” Zach said.
“Heard the call go out on that one. Looks like someone tossed a Molotov cocktail through the window. Everyone okay there?” Freddy asked.
“Yeah, I’m taking the occupants to a hotel.” Zach tapped on his steering wheel. “Let me know if you hear anything else?”
“Of course. Seems you’re right in the middle of some serious stuff.”
“Afraid so.” Zach slowed at the red light and took notice of his surroundings. Nothing suspicious. “My office will be involved in the investigation, for sure, but we could use the BPD’s eyes and ears.” He hoped his supervisor agreed with him, since he was technically on leave after the Kevin Pearson incident. An incident he’d never be able to forget. Or forgive himself for.
“Sure thing,” Freddy said. “Be careful.”
Zach ended the call and his phone immediately rang. It was his supervisor, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Colleen McCarthy. She wasn’t going to be happy.
“Agent McCarthy,” Zach said into the phone by way of greeting.
“I hear you’re not exactly taking it easy.” The ASAC had sent him on leave.
“Just have a few things to take care of for a friend.” Zach smiled tightly at Bridget as she fidgeted with her hands in her lap.
Colleen’s deep sigh filled the interior of the vehicle over the Bluetooth speakers. “How important is this?”
“Life and death.”
Silence stretched across the line before his boss finally said, “Agent Bryant, you’re technically on leave and what you do on leave is your business. But if this blows back on the department, you’ll live to regret it.”
“Thanks.” He understood her need to cover her backside.
“You won’t be thanking me if you don’t get cleared to come back to work.”
“That won’t happen,” Zach said curtly. He was about to state all the reasons he didn’t need this leave in the first place, but he had already lost that argument.
“Don’t let it. Take care of your personal business and lay low. Got it?”
/> “Got it,” he said as he turned on his directional for the hotel.
Zach ended the call just as they pulled up under the porte cochère of the hotel. “Looks like I’m cleared to help you.”
“Didn’t exactly sound like that to me,” Bridget said in an even tone, turning to study the two-story, nondescript hotel.
“You don’t know my boss like I do.” He smiled. “Let’s get you both inside. Then I’m going to go see what the good doctor has to say.”
* * *
The next morning Bridget woke from a fitful sleep. Her nerves were humming in time with the loud AC unit on the wall of the dank hotel room. Her life had been turned upside down yesterday. Reporting her concerns to law enforcement had been worse than she could have possibly imagined. After much discussion with Zach last night, Bridget had decided she had no choice but to go back to Hickory Lane.
Bridget had no home and limited funds, which meant limited options. She prayed they’d be able to find whoever set her apartment on fire. Then, maybe she could find housing on campus and start her classes in a little over a week, as planned. The ache in her stomach told her it wouldn’t be that easy.
Zach had warned her. Depending on how deep Dr. Ryan had gotten involved with his alleged prescription fraud, the drug-dealing networks were complex and had long tentacles. How was she supposed to know what she was getting into? Ugh...
She closed her eyes briefly and sent up another prayer for Ashley. When she was done, she rolled over and plumped up her pillow and settled her head back down, not quite ready to start the day. Would she ever be ready? Across the narrow space separating the double beds, Bridget found her sister watching her.
“Guder mariye.” Good morning. Liddie had her hands tucked under the pillow, and her eyes shone bright in the soft light spilling in around the heavy curtains that hadn’t been pulled all the way shut. For her little sister, yesterday’s tragedy meant her big sister was coming home. It was a bright side to an otherwise awful day. For Bridget, it was more awfulness. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her family. She loved them dearly, but following her dreams meant severing ties completely with her loved ones. Going back would only tear open those wounds. Wounds she had worked hard to heal over the course of five years.
