Amish Sanctuary

by Katy Lee

  Anna shrugged. “It doesn’t, but I just asked you to let it go.”

  “You asked me to let Naomi go. You didn’t say anything about letting a killer go. As long as I have breath in me, I have to do what I can to protect my community, and that includes our visitors.”

  NINE

  The rest of the night passed in a blur for Naomi as everyone walked in and out of her room at the Rogues Ridge Hospital. Some were pleased, others were not. The doctor planned to send her home today, even though he didn’t understand she didn’t have a home to return to. Going back to Anna’s house didn’t seem like an option. Naomi doubted Anna would allow her to bring more danger into her home. Naomi didn’t want to either.

  But where could she go now?

  Naomi thought of her parents nearby, but she disregarded the idea in an instant. To knock on their door would take more strength than she had in her.

  The door to her room cracked open and Sheriff Shaw peeked in. “May I come in?”

  Naomi nodded and dropped her head back on her pillow. It felt good to be able to lie on her back now. All the glass shards had been removed, and the cuts medicated. Her side wound would leave a scar, but no internal damage had been done.

  “I’m supposed to leave soon,” Naomi told Sheriff Cassie when she stepped up to the side of the bed.

  “I heard.” She frowned.

  “You don’t like the idea either,” Naomi surmised.

  “I just got the ballistics report back from the lab. We’re dealing with two different shooters. Or at least two different guns. The bullet that hit you came from a rifle. Something a hunter would use. The gunshots at Sawyer’s store were from a semiautomatic handgun.”

  “Maybe they didn’t want to miss this time.” Naomi swallowed at her own sarcastic remark. “Sorry. I can only say such things because the shooter didn’t get me.”

  Cassie huffed. “The pain in your side when the painkillers wear off will say otherwise.”

  “Even so, I’m not down yet.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She touched the side of the bed. “May I sit here?”

  Naomi nodded. The seriousness in the sheriff’s face created an uneasiness in the room. “Is something else wrong?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Sheriff Cassie pressed her lips. “Naomi, I can only help you if you are being completely honest and up-front with me. I need to know if there is someone out there who has come after you before, or someone you had an altercation with. Someone who has hurt you in the past. When we talked at the furniture store, I got the impression you had experienced an assault.”

  Naomi’s breathing picked up, and her mind whirred with where this conversation was headed. She shrugged a shoulder in an attempt to end it there, as if it was no big deal.

  “Your attack happened here in Rogues Ridge, didn’t it?” Sheriff Cassie asked.

  “Why does it matter?” Naomi shot a glance in the direction of the door. Cassie had closed it behind her. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t on the other side listening. “Do we really have to talk about that? It has nothing to do with this. That was eight years ago. I don’t see how rehashing that...that incident will help us now.”

  “Did you not hear me? I said someone is hunting you. They nearly succeeded in killing you. Perhaps the person who attacked you before is after you again.”

  Naomi shook her head in denial. “It can’t be someone from here. Debby was killed in Louisville. Her killer came after me here. Hours away.”

  “Or the killer went looking for you in Louisville and Debby got in the way.”

  “No. Debby said her attacker had come back and was stalking her. She asked me to take Chloe somewhere safe.”

  “Then why aren’t you safe here?” Cassie’s eyes stared brightly at her, as if daring her to come clean about that night eight years ago. “You can trust me to keep quiet about whatever you confide in me. I just need the whole story to make sure no surprises pop up. Help me do my job.”

  Naomi bit her lower lip, not sure where to begin or if she should.

  “You mentioned you help women who have been attacked,” Cassie said. “If one of them was in danger, and they could protect themselves by being open, what would you tell them to do?”

  “To tell, of course. If it was safe.”

  “Well, it is. You can trust me.”

  Naomi studied the sheriff’s serious expression. She seemed authentic and honest, but she also seemed to understand...and care.

  Sharing the details of the night of the assault needed to be done.

  When Naomi still struggled to know where to begin, Cassie didn’t rush her. She didn’t speak one word as Naomi formed hers.

  “I...I went to a party. An English party. Alone.” Naomi folded her hands in front of her, outside the blanket that covered her. “My friend Liza was supposed to go with me, but at the last moment she backed out. Sawyer...” Naomi glanced toward the door and cleared her throat. “He warned me. He said someone would take advantage of me. Of an innocent Amish girl.” She looked at her clutched hands, her knuckles white. “I didn’t know what he meant. Until it was too late.”

  At her lengthening pause, Cassie leaned in and covered her hands. “I’m sorry, Naomi. I’m sorry that happened to you. Do you know who it was? Who attacked you?”

  Naomi hesitated with a sigh. “I knew you would ask that. Believe me I really don’t. I never associated with the English before that night. I didn’t know anyone’s name, but...” She swallowed hard as her mouth went dry.

  Sheriff Cassie’s eyebrows rose as she waited for the information Naomi withheld. She squeezed her hand and said, “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

  “I just don’t know if I remember details correctly. If I knew for sure, I would tell you. Does it really matter anymore?”

  “As long as your attacker is still out there, it matters. If you can remember anything about him, please let me know.”

  “Right now, the only name on my mind is Irv Adams. Debby knew someone by that name. Could he have been her attacker?” Naomi looked to the wall as if the name would be scrawled across its white paint in bright red letters. “It’s why I went out in the barn. I was hoping to use Sawyer’s laptop, which he has for his English employee, who handles the website. I thought maybe if I did some searching for possible people, I could find a connection to Debby.”

  “That’s my job. I need you to only worry about staying safe and keeping hidden.”

  Naomi sighed at her predicament. “Do you have another place I can go to hide? I can’t return to Anna’s house.”

  Cassie pressed her lips tight. She eyed the door and said, “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I need to ask Sawyer and Anna how we could stage this, but first, I want to run it by you. I’d like to have them report your death to the community.”

  Naomi tilted her head. “But I didn’t die.”

  “No one knows that yet. Not even Anna or Sawyer. They are not your next of kin, and I made sure the hospital personnel reported your status to me only. Until I know who alerted that shooter last night, I am trusting no one. For all I know, it was Sawyer who made the call.”

  “No.” Naomi wouldn’t believe such a thing. “He—he—”

  “He once loved you, and you embarrassed him. He could want retaliation.”

  “I embarrassed him?” Naomi never thought her leaving would affect him in that way. No one knew he had asked her to marry him. She’d never even told him yes yet. It was their secret. “How?”

  At Cassie’s cautious face and hesitation, Naomi knew there was more to her remark than she was saying.

  “How did I embarrass him? Tell me.” She tried to sit up straighter but could only lean forward. “Please.”

  Cassie looked to the door quickly, then looked bac
k. “I don’t know all the particulars, but I grew up in this town too. I remember what people had said right after you left town. I’m not Amish, so I only heard what the English kids were saying about the Amish girl who showed up at the party down by the old coal mine. What they said about you...” She shook her head. “I can only imagine those rumors reached the Amish community too. Teenagers aren’t always kind. Either way, your community felt you rejected them and their simple ways. That you chose the English lifestyle and all its negative aspects along with it. That you rebelled fully against them. I’m sure that includes Sawyer. Especially Sawyer.”

  A heavy silence weighed over them as Cassie’s words grew louder in Naomi’s head. It couldn’t mean what she made it sound like. But what else could she mean?

  “All this time...” Naomi whispered. “I thought I was running away to shield them from the truth.” She looked up at Cassie’s sad eyes. “All this time they believed the worst of me. What am I supposed to do? To go out there and change what they think would mean I would have to tell every one of them the truth. I can’t do that.”

  “Nor should you.” Cassie squeezed her hand.

  “So I just let them go on thinking the worst of me?”

  “Sometimes we have to be okay with being the only one who knows the truth. You don’t owe anyone anything, and you could spend your whole life trying to change someone’s idea of you before you realized the only people who matter are the ones who believed in you from the start.”

  “But who are they?” Naomi’s voice cracked.

  “That’s what we need to figure out. Or at least it’s my job to figure out who means you harm. If last night’s shooter is someone from Rogues Ridge, then that would mean Debby’s killer still doesn’t know where you are. But it could mean you now have two people hunting you. One who uses a .45 Smith & Wesson and one who uses a .30 aught 6 Ruger hunting rifle. Which I know some Amish homes have for hunting. Not that I’m saying the shooter was Amish. I just have to consider everyone a suspect right now. Even people from your old community.”

  Naomi thought of her own daed’s hunting rifle. Some Amish did have guns. It was possible that the shooter was Amish, even though she couldn’t accept the idea of one of them taking aim at a human being. “And you think letting the community think I died would work?”

  “If you’re dead, no one will come back to try to kill you again. It could buy me some time while the Louisville PD investigates Debby’s killer’s identity. In the meantime, if someone does return looking for you, then we’ll know if someone at Sawyer’s house was behind the attack last night. They will be the only people who will know that you’re really alive.”

  “Anna,” Naomi said reflectively.

  Cassie eyed her. “Would Anna have any reason to want you dead?”

  Naomi shifted on the bed uneasily.

  “I need to know if you think you’re not safe with Anna. I won’t send you back there if Anna has any ill will toward you.”

  “She thinks I’m there to take Sawyer away. She’s on a matchmaking endeavor for him and believes I’m in the way. But she saved my life last night.”

  Cassie gave one last squeeze to Naomi’s hand and stood up to leave. “I’ll take that into consideration as I look into her motives. I’m sure you’re right, and it’s just a bit of harmless protectiveness for her brother. Let me worry about Anna, while you worry about getting your strength back. You’re going to need every ounce of it if this plan to make it look like you didn’t survive the shooting is going to work.”

  * * *

  After searching up and down the hallway, Sawyer stood in the middle of the hospital’s emergency room. Naomi was nowhere in sight. The last time he saw her was when the paramedics lifted her into the ambulance and whisked her away from Anna’s house. Now he couldn’t get one word about her status from anyone at the hospital. Had she even been brought here?

  “May I help you?”

  Sawyer turned to see a woman nurse stepping out from behind a curtain. The patient in the bed was an older man and seemed sedated. “I’m looking for Naomi Kemp. She may have been brought in during the night for a gunshot wound.”

  The nurse, whose name on her badge read Lynda, glanced down the hall. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” She moved to leave.

  Sawyer rushed to step toward her. He raised a hand to hold her off. “Please. Just tell me if she’s all right. I don’t need to know the details. Did she—”

  Die?

  The horrible word lodged in his throat. His stomach rolled, and he forced himself to think positively. Naomi had to be somewhere in this place. And she had to be alive. “Please, anything you can tell me...”

  “I’ll take it from here.” He turned at the sound of another woman’s deep voice from down the hall. A quick glance showed Sheriff Shaw coming his way.

  “Sawyer, come with me. We’ll talk in private.” The nurse hurried off in relief and left them alone.

  Finally, he was going to get some answers. He fell in line behind Cassie, and in a few extra steps he was walking beside her quickly.

  “Is she all right?” he asked.

  No answer. Just the sounds of their shoes hitting the tile floor and his tight breathing as he was forced to wait longer for the answer to the question he’d been asking for hours. How much longer would he have to wait? What had been only one night had felt like years. But then perhaps this was a question he’d been wondering about for over eight years.

  Was Naomi all right? Was she even alive?

  He had told his sister he had been able to forget her, that he had let her go. But that wasn’t the truth. Not a day went by in the past eight years that Sawyer hadn’t asked those two questions. That something in his day hadn’t triggered the thought, even for a brief moment of wonder.

  Her favorite song sung at church. A buggy race he knew she loved to watch, and even take part in, to her parent’s displeasure. A tear on his wife’s face when she realized she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to her closest childhood friend.

  “I need to ask you a few questions about last night.” Cassie opened the door to a small, empty office and let him enter first. She closed the door behind her and waved for him to take the chair by the wall. But he remained standing.

  She stood with folded hands and widened legs. The hair on the back of his neck rose at what this scene looked like.

  “Am I a suspect?” he asked.

  “No.” Her response came swift and sure. “But I need to know if you own a shotgun.”

  “No.”

  “I noticed you are building a gun case in your barn. Why would you need that if you don’t own guns?”

  Sawyer’s breath caught. This was not the direction he thought things would go in. “It’s a special order. For a friend.”

  “Would your bishop take kindly to you building something so against the Amish’s peaceful ways?”

  The negative answer stayed behind closed lips, and the floor became his focal point. He had known he had gone too far in agreeing to build this piece of furniture. “It was never going to go in the shop.”

  “So your bishop would never know. Do you typically sneak behind the ordnung like this?”

  “No, of course not. There are pieces in my shop that are made for the English only. It’s been approved as long as I am not using the furniture. Bishop Bontrager understands it’s part of serving the English community.”

  “But not a gun cabinet. That one you knew you couldn’t make in the store, correct?”

  Sawyer lifted his gaze. “Can you just tell me how Naomi is? I’ll answer any question you want, but I need to know if she’s alive. Please.”

  “And I need to know if you are able to keep a secret, even against your community. The gun cabinet tells me you can. Am I right?”

  Sawyer gripped the back of an office chair. “I’m not proud of keeping secrets, b
ut I will if it means Naomi is safe. Please just tell me if she is all right. I can’t take waiting any longer.”

  Cassie leaned back, her eyes narrowing up at him. Slowly, a smile curled on the edges of her lips. “I’m so glad to hear you say this. Please, Sawyer, sit down. I have a lot to discuss with you. Things I will need your cooperation with. But first, Naomi is alive and well.”

  He let out a deep breath he had no idea had been pent up so tight in his chest. He came around to the front of the chair, and when the backs of his knees hit the edge of the chair, he fell back into it. She was alive.

  And well.

  “Oh, thank You, Gott.”

  “Yes, and with both of your help, I would like to keep her that way. Can I count on you?”

  “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Even if it means going against your family? Your sister, in particular?”

  Cassie’s statement caused concern. “What does Anna have to do with this? She saved Naomi’s life last night. If it hadn’t been for her, Naomi would have bled out.”

  “Just as I had to do with you, I have to question if everyone in the home can and will keep this secret. Plus, Naomi tells me Anna is not happy about her return. She could have something to do with the shooting last night.”

  “But Naomi was being shot at before Anna ever knew she was back in town.”

  “True, but last night’s gunman used a different gun than the first. That means I need to consider multiple shooters. Why would someone with a .45 switch to a basic shotgun for killing varmint?”

  “You think someone in the Amish community tried to kill her?”

  “I think I need to consider there might be other people who are not happy she is back in town. Someone who thought they got rid of her eight years ago, and now wants to shut her up for good.”

  Sawyer considered Cassie’s ideas for a few moments, but they didn’t make sense. “Naomi left because she desired the English lifestyle. No one pushed her to leave.”

  Cassie frowned. “Maybe. But maybe not.”