Anathema

by Colleen Coble

  She squinted at the car, then her gaze locked with Hannah’s. Her mouth dropped open, then closed. Those perfect pink cheeks paled. Her hand left the screen door, and she took the first step down.

  “Hannah?” she said in a faltering voice. “It’s you, isn’t it?” She moved quickly down the remaining two steps into the yard.

  Hannah put aside her quilt block, then thrust open the car door and got out. For the first time in years, she felt naked without her prayer bonnet. And the sleeves on her blouse were too short. Why hadn’t she taken more care with her clothing this morning? Her attention had been on the child’s picture, and she hadn’t thought about what her family would say. At least she wore a broomstick skirt that came down to the bottom of her calves.

  “Hello, Sarah,” Hannah said. She made an awkward move to embrace her friend, but Sarah stepped back with an alarmed expression and a quick glance at her children.

  “You are all right?” Sarah asked, her gaze going past Hannah to the car. “Where is your husband?”

  How did she explain it? Sarah would never understand. “We ’re separated,” was all Hannah could manage.

  Sarah’s already-wide eyes did a slow blink, and her mouth twisted into a frown. Asia got out of the other side of the car, and Sarah glanced at her. A formal smile froze on her face.

  She wouldn’t be rude to a guest, Hannah knew. It might have been smarter than she realized to bring Asia. “Sarah, this is my, ah, good friend Asia Wang.” She’d nearly introduced Asia as her publicist. That wouldn’t have gone over well.

  “Hello,” Sarah said in a forced tone. “Could I, um, get you some tea or coffee?”

  The Amish prized hospitality. Since Asia wasn’t under the Meidung, she was welcomed, though Hannah was a pariah. The thought hurt.

  “No, thank you. We stopped for coffee on the way,” Asia said. “Your kids are cute.”

  Sarah’s distracted glance went to where the children still bounced on the trampoline. “Naomi and Sharon.” She looked back at Hannah. “Why are you here after all this time?”

  Sarah wasn’t going to make it easy. Hannah would give anything for things to be the way they were ten years ago, before everything changed. “Is Luca home?”

  “No, he ’s on a trip to Indianapolis to sell some plants. He won’t be back until next Monday night.” Sarah bit her lip and looked as though she was about to cry. “You should go, Hannah, before the bishop knows you’re here.”

  “I need some answers first,” Hannah said. She might as well make this quick. There was no welcome for her here. She reached into the car and grabbed the picture of the little girl off the seat. “I wonder if you know this little girl. Maybe you’ve seen her around the area? The picture was taken just down the road.”

  Sarah frowned, but she took the picture and stared at it. “She has the look of my Hannah. She could almost be your daughter.” She gave Hannah a quick glance. “Who is this child?”

  “I’m not sure.” Hannah longed to pour out the story. Once upon a time, Sarah would have listened to every heartache, cried with Hannah over every painful moment. Now they were like two strangers.

  Sarah handed back the picture. “I’ve never seen her.”

  Hannah pressed for an answer she wanted to hear. “You’ve never seen her around? She’s standing by the covered bridge down the road.”

  “She’s a stranger. What is this about?”

  Before she could answer, the sound of an engine and tires on gravel made Hannah turn. The bubble lights atop a blue SUV made her stomach dip. A familiar set of wide shoulders exited the driver’s side of the vehicle. She had no trouble putting a name to the tanned face under the hat. The firm lips and piercing blue eyes sometimes haunted her nightmares.

  Detective Matt Beitler. After living with Reece, she thought of him as Matt now, though her husband’s former partner still terrified her. She forced herself to stand her ground when those eyes that noticed everything looked her way. If she hadn’t been so frightened, she might have laughed at the way his nostrils flared like those of a dog at a fresh scent. His lids came down into a squint that told her he hadn’t forgotten her any more than she ’d been able to rid herself of memories of him. His gaze pinned her in place.

  “Hannah Schwartz.” He drawled the words. “Where ’s O’Connor? He took my favorite gun when he vanished.”

  She remembered the gun. Reece probably still had it. “I have no idea,” she said. “We ’ve been separated for five years.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that, then shrugged. Another deputy got out of the passenger side, and Hannah caught a glimpse of a dog in the back of the SUV. She struggled to remember the dog’s name. Ajax. The other deputy was putting away his phone. He walked with a swagger that announced his importance. He probably was attractive to the ladies, with his young Elvis look.

  Matt looked her over. “How long have you been back in town?” he asked.

  “About ten minutes.”

  “Where were you yesterday?”

  She put out her hands, palms up. “What—I’m under suspicion already?”

  His gaze sharpened. “How did you know we have another murder?”

  “I—I didn’t,” she stammered. “I mean, you were acting suspicious of me. Isn’t there always some crime happening?”

  “Not like this. And not in Parke County. This is Indiana, not Chicago.” His gaze dismissed her and went to Sarah. “Do you have a minute, Mrs. Schwartz?”

  Sarah took a step back. “Luca isn’t here right now. He’s in Indianapolis. He won’t be back for another week.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Matt said in a gentle voice.

  When a man as hard and focused as Matt Beitler sounded sympathetic, something bad had happened. Hannah and Sarah exchanged frightened glances, and Sarah edged closer to Hannah. Hannah slipped her arm around Sarah, and her friend didn’t pull away this time.

  “What’s wrong, Matt?” Hannah asked. She bit her lip when he frowned. Maybe he didn’t like her using his first name. Some people could be touchy about that.

  “Maybe we’d better go inside.”

  Hannah fought against the panic bubbling up. “Is it Luca?” She forced the words out past her tight throat. Please, God, not Luca.

  Surprise flickered across his face. “No, it’s not Luca,” he said.

  Hannah and Sarah exhaled at the same time.

  “Look, Deputy, can’t you see you’re scaring the women half to death?” Asia put in. “Just tell them what’s wrong.”

  Matt pressed his lips together and directed his gaze at Sarah. “It’s Luca’s cousin, Mr. Honegger. Moe Honegger. We found him in a meadow on the other side of the county yesterday.”

  Moe. Hannah could still imagine him yodeling as he milked the cows. She’d been hopeful Moe, if no one else, would listen to her when she came home.

  “Moe?” A bead of perspiration dotted Sarah’s upper lip. “He was supposed to go with Luca until he got sick.”

  “We know,” Matt said with a gentleness that was out of keeping with his sharp glance around the yard.

  “What’s happened to Moe?” Sarah whispered.

  “He was poisoned.”

  Hannah would have fallen if she and Sarah hadn’t been clinging to each other. Poisoned. Just like her family. How could it be coincidence, right when Reece had found her again?

  eight

  “Amish Plain clothing promotes humility and separation.”

  —HANNAH SCHWARTZ, ON Good Morning America

  A chain-link fence barred Reece from the playground. He snapped a few pictures when he thought no one was looking. The kid looked just like Hannah. He’d been amazed and shocked the first time he saw her. And the plan had been born.

  Settling on the bench by the street, he pretended to read the newspaper until the bell rang at two thirty. Kids began to pour from the school, escorted by the teachers who saw them off. Five minutes later, the kid said goodbye to her teacher and ran to a red Neon. Gina got out and open
ed the back door for her. The little girl climbed into the car, and the woman buckled her into the car seat.

  By the time they drove away, Reece had jumped into his car. He followed them through Rockville and out US 36. His car weaved a bit as he jotted down the license plate number. He’d thought Gina would take the kid home like usual, but this wasn’t the right direction. The car turned north by Billie Creek Village and continued on down a gravel road. He let his car fall farther behind. The plume of dust would tell him which way to go without his staying close enough to call suspicion on himself.

  The dust settled at a house and barn near Nyesville. As he idled past, Gina and the kid walked to the front door and disappeared inside. There was surely a chink in the armor somewhere, something that would prove the kid needed rescuing.

  He pulled behind a tree and watched. A little while later Gina came out carrying a suitcase. She and the kid got in the car and drove off. He fell a ways behind them and followed them to Matt’s house. Was Gina moving in or something? That could complicate things.

  But not so much he couldn’t handle it. He had to prove his love to his wife, show her how different things could be. He’d made a mistake five years ago, but it wasn’t too late to fix it. His grandmother had told him it was never too late to do the right thing. He could give Hannah the family she craved.

  MATT’S KNEE ACHED from his old football injury as he walked slowly to his vehicle. Ajax trotted beside him and hopped into the backseat when he opened the door. The new case was going to ruin his day off. They had nothing. The guy had been poisoned with strychnine just like the victims a decade ago, but there were no prints, no clues. Just a body in the woods.

  He had no idea what to do with himself tomorrow. Maybe take Caitlin out to see his grandmother. It had been nearly a month since he ’d gone by the old house. His mind would be too busy thinking about the new case to get anything productive done at home.

  He called his sister at his house. “Hey, I’m just getting off work. You get Caitlin all right?”

  “Of course. We ’re baking chocolate chip cookies. I stopped by home and got my stuff.”

  “Does Blake know you’re moving in with me for a while?”

  “I told him this morning. He didn’t even try to talk me out of it.” She ended on a muffled sob.

  “Did you ask him about the ring?”

  “He said he ’d bought it for me, then took it back after a fight.”

  What a lame excuse. “Do you believe him?”

  “No. I’ll move in with you for a while. Hey, Matt, there ’s something I noticed today. It might be nothing, but it left me uneasy.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There was a guy outside the school watching the kids. He was there on Monday, too, when I got Caitlin. You might ask Mrs. Downs if he was there when she got Caitlin on Tuesday.”

  “Maybe it’s a parent.” But his gut tightened.

  “I’ve never gotten a close look at him. He wore Amish clothes with his hat pulled down low, so I couldn’t see his face. Something about him seemed familiar. I think he followed us today.”

  “In a car? An Amish man drove a car?” Matt quit searching for his keys in his pocket. “You’re sure? Maybe it was a Mennonite.”

  “Well, he had a beard and hat like an Amish guy. I thought I saw him get into a tan truck. One followed us to my house and then on to here too.”

  Matt didn’t want to believe someone could be stalking his sister, but it was a possibility. Could it be someone masquerading as Amish? “Could Blake have asked someone to watch you?”

  “Why?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m not the one cheating.”

  “Sorry, Gina. I wish I could fix it.”

  She said nothing for a long moment. “You helped, Matt. It helped to have someone to talk to. Listen, I need to get the cookies out of the oven. Don’t forget to ask Mrs. Downs about that guy.”

  “I won’t.” He clicked off the phone and rang the neighbor who watched his daughter two days a week. She hadn’t noticed any man, she told him. Maybe the man’s behavior was innocent, but Matt planned to talk to Caitlin’s teacher about it. He remembered when he was growing up, how he played outside all day without Trudy knowing where he was. She didn’t care, for that matter. Thirty years ago there was no need to fear the possibility of some sicko snatching a kid.

  TIME PEDALED BACK as Hannah clipped meadow tea leaves from the patch at the side of the yard. The cats prowled at her feet in the dark. She breathed in the cool spearmint fragrance. Nurturing came naturally to her, but there was so little she could do for her grieving aunt.

  “Don’t go far,” she told her cats before opening the back door. They never wandered away from home. When she went inside, the kettle of water was boiling on the woodstove. She tossed the leaves into the water and turned off the flame, then covered the brewing tea. She could hear Aunt Nora weeping in the living room and the soft sounds of comfort Sarah made.

  It should have been her job, but Sarah thought Aunt Nora didn’t need something else to upset her, and Hannah had agreed. Once the weeping stopped, she planned to bring in tea and reveal herself to her aunt.

  Asia was getting cream from the propane refrigerator. “This milk looks funny.” She gave the pitcher a suspicious sniff.

  “It’s raw, straight from the cow. The cream rises to the top. You just skim some off for the tea.”

  Asia’s brows raised, but she used a coffee cup to skim some liquid, then poured it into a creamer. Hannah turned from the stove to find two sets of big eyes on her.

  The oldest little girl, Naomi, was the first to speak, and the familiar German-Swiss dialect sounded strange. “Are you really our cousin?”

  Hannah nodded and smiled. She answered in German, but the words rolled awkwardly across her lips. “Ja. You are not in school yet?” Amish children spoke German until they went to school, where they learned English for the first time.

  “Next year,” Naomi said. “I’m six. Sharon is five.”

  Asia had that frozen smile on her face that people wear when they don’t understand anything. Hannah held up a finger to signal she ’d switch back to English in a minute.

  Naomi crept closer and put her hand in Hannah’s. “Your hair is pretty. Mamm says beauty doesn’t matter, but I wish mine looked like yours.”

  Hannah squeezed her cousin’s hand but didn’t answer. She wished for a prayer bonnet to cover her bright hair. Her rich auburn locks had singled her out for attention from the Englisch when she was growing up, and she didn’t want to experience that again.

  The sobs were tapering off in the gathering room. Hannah transferred the tea to a teapot, then arranged it on a tray with cups, sugar, cream, and spoons. Just as she lifted the tray, she realized none of them would receive it from her. She ’d forgotten in the grief of the moment.

  “Can you take this in?” she asked Asia. “I’ll stay here with the children.”

  “Why can I go but not you?”

  “They aren’t allowed to accept a favor from someone under the ban. I’d forgotten.” Her eyes stung. She so badly wanted to help. Asia lifted the tray from her hands and disappeared through the door with it.

  There was still some tea in the pot. “Want some tea?” she asked the girls. They both nodded, so she spooned sugar into cups and added the pale yellow liquid of meadow tea. She sipped her own, and the spearmint flavor brought all the familiarity of home to her: the horses neighing outside, the homey welcome of the farmhouse kitchen, the fresh herbs growing on the windowsill. She ’d missed it all, and only now did she realize just how much.

  The sound of a buggy crunching along the gravel outside caught her attention. She rose from the table and peered out the window. The sun caught the strong face under the wide brim of the black hat.

  Bishop Samuel Kirchhofer.

  THE OLD QUILT was getting threadbare. Matt tucked it around his daughter and kissed her sleeping cheek. He left the door partway open and went down the hall to jo
in his sister in the living room. Ajax stayed behind to keep watch. He passed the computer room. The steady blue glow lit the dark office and beckoned to him.

  He sat in front of the monitor and clicked the Firefox icon, then typed in the URL of a forum where people searching for missing persons gathered. The ad he ’d put on the bulletin board hadn’t brought a response in the year it had been up, but every time he sat down here, he hoped and prayed for a lead, anything.

  A figure blocked the light from the hall fixture behind him. Gina pulled up a chair. “Aren’t you ever going to give up?”

  “No.” He studied the screen displaying the old photo he ’d uploaded. She was probably twenty-six in the picture. His eight-year-old self gazed up at her with naked love. Two weeks later she ’d left him and Gina and never looked back. So why then did he think she ’d come running just because he was looking?

  His sister sighed. “You can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found.” She clicked through a few of the links and read the posts. “Look at all these, Matt. Hundreds. And one in a thousand finds a clue. Why bother?”

  “I’d just like some closure. That’s my job.” He attempted a laugh, but it came out flat. “I’d like to ask her why she left us. Why she never called or wrote. I’ve got a daughter myself now, and I’d never do that to Caitlin.”

  Gina leaned back in the chair and shoved away from the computer. “Everyone isn’t like you. Some mothers get tired of kids nagging them all day long. It happens every day. I pray to God every day that I never turn out like her.”

  Matt turned his head and looked at her but didn’t say anything. It puzzled him that she didn’t seem to care. Weren’t girls supposed to be close to their mothers?

  She pushed her hair out of her face. “Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of heartless witch. She left us, Matt, remember? Pretending not to care is the only way I can get through knowing we meant so little to her.”

  “Do you remember her?” He could still smell her perfume sometimes in the night. Hear her voice. It wasn’t natural that he couldn’t get over the abandonment. He wanted to forget, but the memories dogged him.