Finding Mercy

by Karen Harper

  Then they heard it, felt it. A distant rumble shook the air, the very ground, the wall she leaned against.

  “I thought these tracks would be deserted,” Andrew said. He had to talk up now, because the sound came louder, clearer. “I hope it makes them turn back. Come on!”

  But they’d barely gone a few more yards when the tunnel exploded with light and screeching noise. As a train careened around the bend, a blast of air slammed them, then nearly sucked them off their feet. Dirt, papers, pieces of grit pummeled them as the subway train roared past endlessly, then away. They kept their eyes tight shut against flying debris but then had to look behind for their pursuers again.

  “It will stop them too—for a minute,” Andrew said and yanked her on.

  Ella fought her fears, pushed back the waters. She was not being sucked into the drowning depths but was fighting for her life with Andrew. They ran past signs of workers, a discarded orange vest, more tools, a hard hat and then a lit sign over a doorway: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY: ALARM WILL SOUND.

  The alarm for them had already sounded, Ella thought. And yes, an emergency. She felt hysterical. Andrew twisted the knob and thrust the door open; a beeping sound that would surely bring the men behind them. They pounded up the stairs, past an alcove with more machines and tools, then to a tiny hall where they could go right, left or up.

  Footsteps behind them again. A man panting for breath.

  “Up,” she said, when Andrew hesitated. “Go up.”

  The metal ladder seemed endless. It was dark here, but they could see a rim of light above. Climbing Janus and Trixie’s ladder at the circus…climbing her hill.

  “Where the hell are they?” they heard a shout below. And then, “Up here!”

  Ella expected a bullet. She was behind Andrew. If this was a dead end, it was her fault.

  Andrew opened a round metal hatch or door above them a couple of inches. Blinking at the brightness, she could have cheered. He grunted, shoved at the heavy lid, which lifted farther. He banged it all the way open and scrambled out. He reached down for her, nearly yanked her up and shoved her away from the opening, slammed the hatch closed, then stood on it.

  Ella saw they were in a dimly lit storage area with unhitched train cars on tracks, but it seemed glaringly bright compared to where they’d been. Once again, tools and machinery littered the area.

  “Stand on this,” Andrew ordered. “I’ve got to put something on it. If they shoot, it would only ricochet back at them.”

  She was certain, as she stood there, that she could feel the men trying to lift it—or was she shaking that hard? Andrew came back, lugging something that looked like an anvil; he put it between her feet, then carried other pieces of scrap metal over and piled them there.

  He hugged her hard, then they ran again. Out a door, where another alarm went off. Maybe workers would come and find the men with guns trapped below. But they were not dead like the fake clown. They could try again.

  The bright lights of the city startled her at first, just like stars had the time her friends had saved her from the depths of the pond. But she was all right, she told herself. Better yet, this time, she was with Andrew.

  * * *

  Though they were both exhausted and looked horrible, they walked for ten blocks until they found an all-night restaurant. They used the bathrooms there to clean up as best they could, including putting cool water on a few minor burns from scalding steam. He ordered them burgers, fries and chocolate malts—how normal, she thought.

  “I’m not hungry,” she whispered, though she was on her second big cup of ice water.

  “You can speak up now, and you have to eat to rebuild your strength. I’m going to pay one of the guys behind the counter to let me use his cell phone so I can call Logan. I swear he didn’t set that hit up.”

  “But we still don’t know who did.”

  “Stay put. Eat and rest.”

  Andrew chatted with the men who had been speaking a foreign language to each other behind the counter. One of the guys nodded, took the five dollars Andrew offered and handed over his phone. At least, she thought, the Alex Caldwell brand of salesmanship and charm wasn’t just for women.

  She tried to eat and found she was hungry. Keeping an eye on Andrew as he stood by the door and made his phone call, she downed most of her burger. Andrew returned the phone to the counter man and came back.

  “Logan offered to take us to his home, but I said no. He thinks his executive secretary took a call from the hotel checking on his reservation, so she needs to be questioned—or her phone could have been tapped. He never gave away our hotel or room number, but the hotel gave it to his secretary.”

  “I still think I should stay with you.”

  “I used to believe that was the best way to go, but I’m the magnet for the killers, not you. Logan’s going to also disappear for a while too so we can work together. First thing tomorrow, he’ll call Sheriff Freeman to arrange to get you back home, then he’ll find a place he and I can hide near here that can’t be traced.”

  “I’m starting to think that place doesn’t exist. Andrew—Alex, I’ve come this far with you, so I should stay with y—”

  “Ella, no! It’s because I care so much for you that I have to send you away. It was wrong of me to keep you this long, but I thought it could be riskier to leave or send you home. Obviously, that isn’t true.”

  “It’s nice to know you care.”

  “More than that. Much more. But I have no right to do anything but get you home right now. I told Logan to stress to Sheriff Freeman that it should be common knowledge that you’re back without me and don’t know where I am. If I’m here and you’re in the heart of Amish country, where they evidently hesitated to just shoot me before, I believe you can be safe. With Sheriff Freeman and his deputy keeping tabs on you, the assumption will be I’m with the feds, which I won’t be. My enemies don’t want more light shone on this case by harming an Amish woman. They just want to quiet me for good, so they’ll be concentrating on me, not you.”

  “But, knowing that, I can’t just leave you,” she said, and reached across the little table to grasp his hand. “I know it’s impossible for us to be together in the future, but I need you. I—through all this, I learned that I love you.”

  When he blinked, tears in his eyes flew to his cheeks. He did not brush them away. “And I will always, always love you, my Ella enchanted. But this is the only way. It’s going to help me so much not to have to worry about you, to have you watched over by the law and back among your close family and protective people. I have to see this through.”

  “Yes, I know. You would not be the person I admire so if you ran away from what was right. But will I ever see you again, except in my memories and my dreams, Andrew Lantz and Alexander Caldwell?”

  “If—when—I get through this…yes, I promise. And maybe not just to help get your lovely Lavender Plain Products going again. Yes, I promise you!”

  They held hands across the small table in the little restaurant she knew she’d never see again in the middle of the massive city that still felt so foreign to her, the place that was his home. But promises could be broken from within or shattered from without. She could not bear to leave this man, but he was not hers and could never be, not unless she changed so much she would not be herself. Never could she walk the path her friend Sarah had chosen, to leave her people, be shunned for the love of a worldly man and the child she would bear him. And yet…and yet…

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she told him, biting back a sob. But how long—if ever, she agonized—before she could hold him again?

  25

  THE NEXT DAY was one mad whirl, but at least Ella no longer feared for her and Alex’s life—not right now, at least. His lawyer’s wife, Claire, took Ella to someone’s apartment who was away at the time, so she could rest. Then Claire drove her to an airport in New Jersey where she would board a small, private airplane to Cleveland.

  The Amish girl on a f
orbidden airplane! But Claire assured her the bishop had given his permission and that a policeman would be awaiting her in Cleveland with someone called Raylene.

  “Her name’s Ray-Lynn, and that must be Sheriff Freeman himself,” Ella told Claire as they waited in the small terminal. “Please thank Mr. Reese for phoning him.”

  None of this seemed real. Ella ached all over, physically, but emotionally too. Her parting from Alex—she’d decided to call him that now—had sapped whatever strength she had left. She’d tried to stay brave, but she could not bear being separated from him, even if it was what had to be done.

  “Ella,” Claire said, jolting her from her agonizing. It seemed the woman’s voice came from far away. Ella turned to her. Claire Reese was probably in her mid-forties, a thin woman with red hair that wasn’t quite its real color. The diamonds in her earlobes sparkled. “I realize you and Alex have a bond, but you’re helping by allowing him to do this very difficult thing. I’m reminded of a poem I used to teach my high school English students, not that they got the impact of it. Its title is ‘To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars,’ and the soldier is speaking to the woman he loves and has to leave. Part of it goes like this, ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, / Loved I not honor more.’”

  Ella nodded. She got the impact of it, all right.

  “Alex Caldwell is a very moral person,” Claire went on. “It would have been so easy for him to just keep quiet as some others did, to protect his on-the-rise career track at SkyBound, Inc., to continue to please the man who had been his boss and mentor, almost his father figure. Especially now, when he’s found something and someone to really live for… Well, I’ve said enough, but my husband and I thank you for helping him to do what he must to remain true to himself.”

  Ella thought of Claire’s words as she looked out the window at the blur of the ground beneath the wing of the plane. After all she’d been through, she was not afraid to fly, but she felt so numb inside that neither was she as excited as she should be. It would, no doubt, be the only time in her life she would ever soar through God’s beautiful blue sky with its rows of clouds reminding her of a snow-covered lavender field. Below, the eastern area of the country with all the buildings and towns tight together passed away, and then the fields and hills stretched out, beckoning her home. But home would never be the same again.

  Her thoughts returned to the few moments she’d had alone with Alex to say goodbye and wish him well in the backseat of Claire Reese’s car before Claire drove her away and his lawyer took Alex in the other direction.

  “I swear to you, Ella, I will see you again when this is all over. I have so many people in the Home Valley to repay—”

  “Who don’t want to be repaid but by your safety, happiness and good memories of us. If you did come to see folks, even to help me market the lavender, you and I might be together again, but we’ll never be able to really be together to share our love, our bodies, our lives. I mean, it would hurt so much we could not be more to each other.”

  “You’re telling me to stay away?”

  “I’m just telling you I’m Amish and will always be. This must be your world now as you do what you must and even after. I saw that magazine called People in the grocery store. Maybe you can be the ‘man of the year’ or ‘sexiest man alive’ next year, because you are all that to me....”

  Realizing she sounded incoherent, drowning in emotion, she’d burst into wild sobs. He’d held her, murmured his love, but that could never be.

  “Sorry,” she’d said, pushing him away and sitting back on the leather car seat. “Just exhausted…scared for you. Missing you already and always will. No—don’t kiss me goodbye. Let’s pretend everything will work out. I know it will for you. Go now, Alex, please, and stay safe!”

  He’d pulled her to him anyway and kissed her forehead. He’d squeezed her hard, then opened the door and slid quickly out of the backseat. When the door had closed, she’d felt it in her very soul. She had covered her eyes with the palms of her hands so she didn’t have to see him get in the other car and disappear into the night.

  * * *

  Ray-Lynn’s welcoming hug brought Ella back to reality. Home. But home is where the heart is, and hers wasn’t really here anymore. She would have to fight herself to get that feeling back. She’d seen too many people and places, when she only wanted one person and for him to be here.

  “Glad you and Alex are both safe,” Sheriff Freeman said, and patted her shoulder. “Lots of folks, including us, been wondering what happened, but Alex’s lawyer filled me in some. Took me a while to get used to a WITSEC witness in our part of the woods. You got any luggage, Ella?” he asked, looking on the tarmac behind her.

  “Nothing. Just what people call baggage, Sheriff, after all we’ve—I’ve—been through.”

  “Like to hear about the earlier stuff in Florida. I take it, Alex was a target there too.”

  “Now, Jack,” Ray-Lynn piped up as she kept one arm around Ella’s waist to steer her along through the airport, “you can see she’s exhausted. There will be plenty of time for debriefing. And maybe she’s not supposed to tell everything yet, not even to you, right, Ella?”

  “I do want the sheriff to know something for sure. Alex is certain he’s the focus of the attacks, but the person who kidnapped me the day of Hannah’s wedding and wanted to trade me for him could have been someone local. I mean, it could be someone who just came in to do that, but in such a tight-knit community, we were afraid it might—well, you know, be one of us, someone we know.”

  “You tell me all about your being grabbed that day and your escape, and I’ll do my level darnedest to track him down.”

  “Or her,” Ella added as they headed out of the airport toward the parking lot. “Connie Lee keeps popping up at the strangest times. Oh—Ray-Lynn, you have an engagement ring!” Ella cried.

  “Thank you for noticing with all you’ve been through!” she said, and broke into a tearful smile. “Light at the end of the tunnel of a long relationship, right, Jack? Why, ding-dang, when we first met, I never thought Jack Freeman would…”

  Ray-Lynn’s words rolled on as they went to the sheriff’s car and Ella settled in the backseat. She was so tired her eyes kept crossing, and she was seeing double…the light at the end of the tunnel…a subway train rushing at them…clinging to Alex with the killer right behind…

  And, for him, for her, was danger still ahead?

  * * *

  It was nearly dusk when the sheriff pulled into the Lantz farm with Ray-Lynn and Ella. Ella had drifted in and out of a half sleep most of the drive home, even while Ray-Lynn and the sheriff talked. She’d overheard that he and his deputy were going to make regular stops at the farm, not only so she’d feel safe, but so that their patrol cars would be a warning to anyone else who had criminal intent.

  She’d heard them talk quietly about their wedding and reception too: small wedding in the community church, big reception in the restaurant, with the Amish invited to the latter too. And they were going to be dressed like characters in a movie called Gone with the Wind. Gone with the wind—was Alex gone forever from her?

  The moment she was out of the car, everyone came running from the house. Claire had given her a midcalf denim skirt and blouse to wear, but at first her family even stared at that. The baseball cap she wore backward was hardly a substitute for a bonnet or prayer kapp.

  Mamm and Barbara hugged her, then Daad. “We thank the good Lord—and you two,” Daad said to her escorts, “for bringing our girl safely home.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Hear tell Alex, alias Andrew, took good care of her, protected her when things got bad.”

  Wiping away tears, Ella said, “He sends all of you his thanks for the days he spent here. He said—after everything’s over—he’ll be back to thank you in person.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re safe,” Barbara said as she put her arm around Ella and drew her away. “We’ve all missed you, your lavender’s missed you, a
nd now you can deal with that burr in the behind, Connie Lee.”

  Ella didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. “She does seem to pop up in the oddest places,” she said only.

  “At least she’s not here right now. She had some sort of big business back in New York. So what was that like? You have to tell me all about it and—”

  Daad’s voice broke in behind them. “Your sister is exhausted, Barbara. She can tell about things tomorrow.”

  “Danki, Daad,” Ella told him. “But there is something I have to do,” she added. Gently breaking free from Barbara, she walked across the yard, past the side of the barn and into the fringe of her lavender field. She just stood there, tears in her eyes, breathing, just breathing. Barbara, who had followed her, kept quiet for once, but Ella wondered if the family had decided she would go nowhere alone when she was outside.

  Night was thickening, but in her mind’s eye, Ella could see the lavender, pink and purplish hues marching out in rows before her. The scent perfumed the July night air, delicate, yet strong.

  “You and Mamm did a great job tending it,” Ella said as she leaned over and broke off a spike to feel its distinctive, grainy bloom and textured leaves.

  “Well, like I said, it missed you. At least Andrew had it pretty well weeded.”

  “Andrew is really Alex Caldwell, a New York businessman who will soon testify about and against all sorts of worldly evils. I’ll never set foot in this field again without thinking of him.”

  “Will he—really be back someday?”

  “I just want him to make it through the trial, stay strong to do what is right.”

  “Grossmamm always said he had an Amish backbone.”

  “Did she?” Ella asked, turning at last to her sister. “She said a lot of things. How is Aunt Helen and when will Grossmamm be back?”

  “Aunt Helen’s surgery went well, but I’m not sure about Grossmamm’s return. I’ll still help you in the fields if you want.”