Plain Refuge

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Watching her smile at her son, he knew the tug he felt every time he saw her wasn’t explained only by her looks. He liked that she wasn’t good at hiding what she felt. It all showed on her face. This wasn’t a woman used to lying or with any aptitude for it. Her fierce need to protect her son pleased him, too, as did her softness toward him.

  Seemed his determination not to think about her this way hadn’t lasted past setting eyes on her again.

  Predictably, Matthew finished eating first and wanted to go watch the older boys playing a casual game of baseball in the nearby diamond. After making him promise to stay where she could see him, Rebecca let him go. The way her gaze followed him, Daniel could tell she wanted to keep the kid on a leash.

  He’d have preferred not to add to her stress, but knew he might not get another chance to talk to her alone. So he asked right out, “Matthew was not raised plain?”

  Those beautiful eyes met his, the color deepened by worry and inner conflict she wouldn’t like to know she was betraying.

  Her shoulders slumped. “I... No.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “His father...”

  She sneaked a desperate look at him. “We’re running away.”

  No kidding.

  Her gaze went to her son, then back to his face. “Onkel Samuel thought we should tell you. In case, well...” She hesitated.

  “Your husband comes after you?”

  Rebecca pressed her lips together. “Matthew’s father, but not my husband.” She swallowed. “Ex-husband.”

  Daniel didn’t even blink as he stared at her, absorbing the words that changed everything.

  * * *

  SHE SAW HIS SHOCK, followed by understanding.

  “He’s not Amish. You jumped the fence,” Daniel said.

  Beyond the instinct that insisted he wasn’t anything like the San Francisco detective, Rebecca didn’t know why she was telling him anything. But she’d seen his expression as he’d gently teased Matthew and listened to him chattering away over lunch. He already knew. Not everything, but too much. They shouldn’t have come today. She’d been foolish to let herself be persuaded by her aunt.

  Now she had to make a quick decision. Still, there was no reason to lie about her background, given how much he had guessed.

  “No,” she said, staring across the grass to Matthew, whose fingers were wrapped in the chain link as he watched avidly. At home, he had been begging to play T-ball. “Not me. My mother. She fell in love with my father, who was a grad student here studying the language. He wanted to know how quickly it changed as the Amish migrated.”

  The sheriff nodded, although it was safe to say he didn’t care how her parents had met.

  “They were happy. He became a professor. They were, um, killed a few years ago. Matthew doesn’t remember them.”

  Still not getting to the point.

  “The thing is, Mom wasn’t rejecting her faith or her roots when she left. She hadn’t been baptized yet, so she was able to stay in contact with her family.” The Amish were not baptized until they fully committed to the church in their late teens or early twenties. “As a child, I spent summers here with my grandparents.”

  “The Grabers.”

  “Yes. I hadn’t seen them in ages, but when I wrote asking for help, they didn’t hesitate.”

  “They wouldn’t,” he said mildly.

  “So...here I am.” Was that enough to satisfy him?

  “Did he hurt you?”

  He was a cop. Of course he’d have questions. Probably lots of them.

  Her gaze shied away. “No, it’s not like that.” Wait, she wanted him to believe her ex-husband was a stalker. Fumbling, she said, “At least, I...don’t know for sure. He’s been...threatening. And then, well, a couple things happened that really scared me.” She nibbled on her bottom lip as she debated whether she needed to edit the next part. No. There was much she had to keep secret, but not this. “First, I was almost shot,” Rebecca told him. “The police thought it was gang related and I just happened to be in the way.” The phone threat... No, she couldn’t tell him about that, not unless or until she had to admit to the entire story.

  “What city?”

  “Do you have to know?”

  His eyebrows twitched. “We’ll talk about that after you tell me the rest of what happened.”

  Wonderful. This was why it would have been better if she had been able to stay off his radar. But...Onkel Samuel was right. Sheriff Byler could be a first line of defense. She just had to convince him not to research any of what she’d told him.

  She glanced at her son again before her eyes met his. She had a bad feeling she was baring too much of the pain and fear that filled her every time she thought about Tim. He had turned into a man she didn’t like or respect, but she knew he’d never have said, Sure, shoot my ex if you have to. And a threat against my son? Great idea. He was being terrorized, too—she had to believe that.

  Needing to answer the sheriff’s question, she touched her cheek gingerly. “This. It happened only two days later. Like I told you, I was crossing the street to get to my own car, parked on the other side. I looked both ways, I swear I did. I’d almost made it when this dark SUV just came out of nowhere. I was flung into the air and came down on the hood of a car coming the other way. I was lucky. So lucky.”

  “You were,” he agreed, his gaze lowering to her hands, clasped tightly together on the plastic tabletop. “Nobody saw the license plate?”

  Rebecca shook her head, fluttering the white ribbons. The kapp still felt alien. She never wore hats. “Someone just coming out of an apartment building said the driver swerved and accelerated. The woman heard the tires squeal as he went around the next corner. She’s the one who called 911.”

  “You didn’t get a good look at the driver.”

  “Nooo.” Uncertainty stretched the word. “I know it was a man, not my husband, but...” She half shrugged. “He could have hired someone.” Please forgive me for the lie, she thought. But she couldn’t tell this man that she didn’t believe the real enemy was her ex-husband.

  “He could have,” Daniel said quietly, although she could tell he had his own thoughts about that. “Had he been stalking you?”

  “Not...exactly.” She’d intended to stick with the stalking ex-husband scenario, but Daniel—no, no, she had to keep thinking of him as the sheriff—had seen how extreme her panic had been when she lost sight of Matthew. He must have guessed Tim was focused on their son, too. “He wasn’t happy about the divorce,” she offered. When he didn’t leap to fill the silence, she squirmed. “Our big conflict was over Matthew. My ex-husband works ten, twelve hour days at a minimum, but he demanded joint custody.” She made a face. “Actually, I’m pretty sure the demands came from his father, who I suspect just wanted me out of the picture. Matthew is his grandson, and that’s all he cared about.” Letting this man hear her bitterness, she added, “I doubt he’d have been the slightest bit interested if Tim and I had had a daughter instead.” Oops. She hadn’t meant to use his name. But really, a first name didn’t tell the sheriff much.

  “Are you afraid of your ex-husband or your father-in-law?” he asked.

  “I’d say my father-in-law, except... Tim has this huge need to impress his father. I wish I thought he was capable of saying no to him, but...” She trailed off.

  Matthew turned away from the baseball game and started toward them. Following her gaze, Sheriff Byler said, “Rebecca, if I’m to be of any help, I need to know where you came from. And your ex-husband’s full name.” His mouth quirked. “Yours, too.”

  * * *

  WELL, SHE’D TOLD him that much, if she hadn’t lied. Which he was reasonably sure she had, even if not about her name.

  Daniel had escorted her to her aunt, whose head had been turnin
g until she spotted Rebecca.

  “Do you want to stay longer?” Emma asked. “Samuel and I need to take Ephraim and Ruth home. Ephraim keeps saying he is fine, but he doesn’t look so fine. We can come back later for you. Or Sarah says Katie and Paul Kurtz will bring her home. You and Matthew could ride along with them.”

  Ephraim and Ruth were Rebecca’s grandparents. Ephraim’s heart was failing, Daniel knew. He was surprised the old folks had decided to come out on such a hot day.

  Naturally, Rebecca insisted she and Matthew were ready to go, too, which maybe they were. Was Matthew of an age to still take naps?

  Daniel returned to his foot patrol after checking with his two deputies that there’d been no disturbances while he ate lunch. He caught a glimpse of a buggy briskly receding down the street in the direction of the Grabers’ farm, the reflective orange triangle obvious on the back. Daniel was grateful that the church districts in his county embraced some modern safety standards. In Old Order settlements, every decision was made with a rigid belief that they must trust in God, not modern technology, to protect them. In some, the Ordnung did not allow for reflectors on the buggies, far less the battery-operated lights the more pragmatic local bishops permitted. Bishop Jonas had told Daniel their concern was not so much for themselves but for the Englischers who might be injured in an easily preventable accident.

  Rebecca Holt. Daniel had committed the other names to memory, too. Timothy Gregory. Robert Gregory. Presumably, her kid was a Gregory, too.

  He could find more information in a heartbeat now that he knew she’d come from San Francisco, not Pennsylvania. Except he’d made a promise.

  “Please,” she’d begged, keeping her voice low. “Please. Promise you won’t contact San Francisco PD in any way. Tim’s family is prominent enough, I’ll bet they have an in at the police department. And that Tim has hired a PI by now. If you do anything, it will draw attention.”

  Matthew reached them at that inconvenient moment, leaning against his mother, his eyes fastened on Daniel.

  “Not without talking to you again,” he agreed. He hadn’t had a chance to ask why she believed the man she’d been married to wouldn’t know her grandparents’ names or where they lived. Had her ex never met them?

  Daniel had learned to swear casually when he went out in the world, part of the camouflage that had helped him blend into police culture even before his slight accent faded. Now he was trying to unlearn the words. His Amish constituents in particular would be shocked, and he found he didn’t like that kind of language. But listening to her talk about the drive-by shooting, as well as being flung into the air by a speeding car, had strained his ability to maintain a professional demeanor. He’d had to bite back a few pungent words.

  Even as he exchanged greetings with people, asked how sales were going, helped a frail older lady without the sense to get out of the sun before she collapsed, he kept mulling over what Rebecca had told him—and what she hadn’t.

  Taking her fears at face value left too many questions in his mind. If the Gregorys were so all-fired powerful—which usually meant wealthy—why hadn’t they challenged the custody agreement in court? Or fought harder for joint custody before the divorce was final? Murder was a pretty extreme solution for anyone but a mob figure.

  And, while it was possible someone was trying to kill her, he had a lot of trouble believing it was a stalker ex-husband. Usually, domestic violence was up close and personal. Sure, there were instances when a person paid someone to knock off an inconvenient spouse. But those were the exception.

  In Rebecca’s case, she’d had two frightening experiences and, probably because they occurred so close together, leaped to the conclusion that somebody was trying to kill her. He could tell she didn’t want to believe that somebody was her ex-husband. Better to blame the former father-in-law she so obviously disliked.

  Coincidences bothered him, as they did most cops. But in this instance, he couldn’t help thinking that the two near misses actually could have been coincidental. Cities did have more crime and crazier drivers than rural Missouri did. Had she checked to find out whether the drive-by shooting suspect had been arrested? By now, even the hit-and-run driver could have been charged. The police took things like that seriously, and they likely had a scrape of paint from the vehicle, which was a good start.

  Had she ever sought a restraining order? He guessed not. That especially bothered him now that he knew she wasn’t Amish. What if the cops were after her for some reason?

  Knowing how easily he could get some of his questions answered left him frustrated. Still, his promise didn’t mean he couldn’t do a general search for her ex and his father. He’d have to use his tablet—the police-department computers trawled the internet closer to the speed of a rowboat than a powerboat.

  What kind of man had Rebecca Holt married? This need to know was more than curiosity. If it was an itch, it was the kind you got from poison ivy.

  * * *

  “DAD WOULDA HAD fun today, too,” Matthew said wistfully, shortly after they left town.

  Rebecca’s grandmother was preoccupied by Ephraim, who kept irritably shaking off her concern even though they could all tell his breathing had worsened. If she heard Matthew at all, Grossmammi didn’t react.

  “Actually—” Rebecca injected amusement into her voice “—I think your dad would have hated it. He wouldn’t have been interested in anything that was for sale.” She smiled. “Maybe a straw hat. It is hot.”

  Her son’s nose wrinkled. “Really hot. I wish it would get foggy.”

  She smoothed a hand over his hair. “I doubt we’ll get that lucky.”

  He lapsed into silence again, and she couldn’t tell if he was satisfied with their exchange or still thinking about his father. Her eyes caught her grandmother’s, and Rebecca realized she’d been listening, after all.

  “A nap will be good, ja?” she said. “This evening will be cooler. I’m thinking Mose might take you and Abram fishing tonight or tomorrow. Fresh, fried catfish, yum.”

  “Or sunfish,” Rebecca said suddenly. “I remember pulling in a few of those from the pond.”

  Matthew’s eyes widened. “Would I have to kill ’em?”

  “I think Mose would do that part,” Rebecca said. “He knows the fish you’ve eaten before came from the grocery store.”

  “’Cept at Dad’s,” he argued. “Justina says she buys fish at one of the piers, right off the boats. So it’s fresh.”

  Tim had changed housekeepers right after the divorce. Justina was full-time and, according to Matthew, prepared dinner for Tim as part of her duties. Matthew liked her, and Rebecca had felt confident he was safe with her. The meals she’d prepared were considerably more gourmet than what Rebecca whipped together after a day’s work. The comparison might have annoyed her, except six-year-olds didn’t generally appreciate gourmet. Matthew was happiest with fast food or macaroni and cheese out of a box.

  “Did you like the fish she prepared?” Rebecca asked.

  He wrinkled his nose. “It was okay, ’cept she always put gunk on it. Sometimes Dad got mad when I scraped it off.”

  “Gunk?” Grossmammi queried.

  “Sauce.”

  Matthew didn’t like any sauce. He preferred his foods carefully separated and undisguised.

  “Ah,” Grossmammi said, her face crinkling with humor. “Aenti Emma, she won’t put this gunk on any fish you catch.”

  “Fishing might be fun,” he decided. “I like Abram’s daad. He helps us talk together.”

  “Gut,” Rebecca said, teasing a bit, then intrigued to see that he didn’t seem to notice she’d used Deitsch. She’d picked it up quickly her first summer here, when she was... She had to think. Six or seven. A new language was so much easier to learn at that age.

  Matthew was silent for a couple of minutes. Then he mu
mbled, “I bet my daad would like fishing, too.”

  Rebecca smiled, but worry ratcheted up a notch. Back in San Francisco, Matthew had hardly mentioned his father between visits. So what was this really about?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT DIDN’T TAKE Daniel long to discover that Rebecca Holt was right about her former husband and father-in-law’s status in San Francisco. The father lived on Nob Hill, while Tim Gregory had built a monstrosity of a house—featured in a local magazine as an architectural gem—in a neighborhood described as SoMa. Robert Allen Gregory was a venture capitalist, which meant he owned pieces of a lot of other businesses. Mostly high-tech, it appeared. Tim had grown up privileged, but one article mentioned in passing his degree from a state university. Given the younger Gregory’s background, Daniel would have expected him to go to Stanford or someplace like that. Had he rebelled? Or had even Dad’s influence failed to get him into a school with a fancy name?

  Whatever his educational background, Tim had done well for himself, launching a construction business not long out of college with two partners. The senior Gregory’s influence might have come to bear there, because they almost immediately made a name erecting ugly but enormous houses and condominiums for people made newly rich with tech start-ups.

  Daniel studied a few G, G & S buildings and tried to imagine living in one. Why would anyone want a house big enough for five families when you didn’t plan to fill it? As a boy, he had liked being able to hear the murmur of adult voices after he’d gone to bed. He would have been scared to be alone in a bedroom two floors away from the main living space. Apparently, these houses were “wired” to compensate for the great distances between rooms. A little boy could call for Mommy using his intercom.

  He shook his head and went back to an article profiling the successful partners of G, G & S Construction. Tim Gregory and a second partner, Steven Stowe, were lean, handsome, tanned men with expensively cut blond hair and flashing smiles. In contrast, the third partner, Josh Griffen, had darker coloring and a bullish build. He came across as more blue-collar, which made sense since, in managing the job sites, he was the one who seemed to do the actual building. He hadn’t bothered to summon a smile for the camera. Daniel found a photo of Tim and Rebecca. Its caption mentioned but didn’t show Matthew. The other two men were described as “eligible bachelors,” often seen on the city social scene.