Plain Refuge

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The bloodred light of a ruby winked at them.

  * * *

  BACK IN THE SUV, Daniel set the small bag on the floor by Rebecca’s feet. Without saying a word, he reached to start the engine.

  Seat belt secured, Rebecca twined her fingers together on her lap and stared straight ahead. He wasn’t talking to her any more than he had to. This silent treatment was worse than being berated.

  He probably only saw her now as a witness requiring protection. Just think how much he’d have to tell Detective Estevez in the morning. Triumph was probably all he felt.

  But the engine didn’t start, and, after a moment, his hand fell to his thigh.

  “Please tell me you know how stupid it was to take those damn things.” His voice wasn’t quite a roar, but close.

  Watch what you wish for.

  “I know it was, but—” No, no, don’t argue.

  Too late.

  “But?” Frustration filled that deep voice. “Did having them keep you safe?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did it keep Matthew safe?”

  And then she lost it. “Yes! Yes, a thousand times, yes. Don’t you see? If I hadn’t had Steven’s wallet, not only would Tim have gone on fooling the police, he would have won joint custody. Which means Robert would have had Matthew most of that time! At least I got primary custody out of it. The rest of this... I never imagined...”

  His snort of disgust cut deep.

  “I had barely a minute to decide what to do when I heard Tim walk in,” she defended herself.

  “But you had months to decide you weren’t going to the police,” Daniel countered.

  Rebecca swallowed. He was right. Why was she arguing? She ought to be contrite.

  “You know my reasons. And...I’d given my word.”

  “To a man who conspired in a murder.” Daniel just kept scowling at her. “You know you could face charges of withholding evidence.”

  She swallowed and nodded. That had always been one of her terrors.

  If she had volunteered all this to Detective Estevez rather than having it dragged out of her, the investigator might have been more sympathetic. Daniel might have, too. She understood his abhorrence for lies. A deep core of him would always be Amish, plus he must get frustrated day in and day out with the ease with which people lied to the police. Like I did.

  He shook his head. “Blackmail wouldn’t have worked, any more than it did the first time around.”

  The attempts to kill her, the threat against Matthew, suggested he was right. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t keep endangering her family, and Tim no longer deserved anything from her.

  “I’ve been scared,” she said finally. “What other weapon did I have?”

  “The entire San Francisco Police Department!” Daniel snapped. “Tim and Josh would have been behind bars in no time.”

  To her astonishment, anger swelled inside her, blistering hot. How many times did she have to say this? “You mean, Tim would have been. My word wouldn’t be enough to provide grounds to arrest Josh, not without...without some corroborating evidence. You know that! And how long do you think Tim would have stayed in jail? Twenty-four hours? He’d have been out on bail before I had time to pack a suitcase. No matter how high it was set, he or his father would have paid it! And what if that detective had arrested me, too? What would have happened to Matthew?”

  A moment of silence descended. Daniel flexed his fingers a couple of times on the steering wheel before finally gusting a sigh.

  “You’re right.” His voice had softened, in a rumbly way. “I do understand why you made the choices early on.”

  Still stinging from the anger, Rebecca said, “But once I met you, I should have cast myself at your feet? Turned gratefully to you to get me out of this mess?”

  “I would have tried, you know.”

  She almost believed that. He had tried. But even though the anger had left her with a whoosh, she shook her head.

  “I do trust your intentions as a police officer, but... Thirty seconds more, and Tim would have had me in that car. You can’t provide twenty-four-hour-a-day security for me and a six-year-old who needs to play and have at least a little bit of freedom.”

  “Your trust doesn’t go very far, does it?”

  She couldn’t read his tone, but what did it matter?

  After a moment, he fired up the engine and released the emergency brake. “I need to get you back. Onkel Amos will be waiting up for you.”

  A lump in her throat, her vision blurred, she nodded.

  He drove in brooding silence, his brows drawn together. She averted her face so she could swipe surreptitiously at her damp cheeks.

  When he finally pulled off the road, she unclicked the seat belt. “You don’t have to come with me. I know the way.”

  Waste of breath.

  “I’ll see you to your door,” he said shortly.

  Even if they’d felt inclined, talking wasn’t an option as they passed through the neighboring farmyard and sneaked behind the hay field and through Barbara’s orchard. Daniel seemed to have eyes like a cat, or maybe he’d just learned this route by heart. She acquired a couple of new scratches and stubbed her toe painfully.

  Only when they approached the back door, where a light showed, did Daniel stop her with a hand on her arm.

  “Rebecca...”

  She didn’t let herself look at him, but she didn’t pull away, either.

  “Are there any more secrets?”

  “No.”

  “Whatever you think, I wanted to spend time with you, get to know you. It wasn’t all about this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  Rebecca gave a broken laugh. How could she believe him?

  His hand dropped from her arm. “Expect me tomorrow after I talk to Estevez.”

  She only nodded and let herself into the house, never looking back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “DETECTIVE ESTEVEZ HERE, San Francisco PD. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  Considering the caseload the guy probably had, Daniel was impressed to have gotten a call back by ten in the morning. Pacific time on a Monday morning.

  Daniel gave his usual silent thanks to God. Spinning his wheels waiting would have made this day hellish. He was already suffering with remorse for his attitude last night—and because Rebecca thought he had betrayed her. He felt like he had a splinter working its way so far beneath the skin it would require a scalpel to dig it out. He’d swear it was inching toward his heart, the sharp end deadly.

  Don’t think that way. He couldn’t in good conscience have kept her confession to himself. He was a cop. He had to believe God had called him to this job.

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Daniel swiveled to look at the branch of an old oak tree through his tall casement window. The leaves were already turning colors after the exceptionally hot late summer.

  “It’s more what I can do for you,” he said.

  “That so.” Estevez didn’t sound impressed.

  “Tim Gregory’s ex-wife has taken refuge here in my county with relatives of hers. Ms. Holt has some knowledge that implicates her ex-husband in the mess she says you’re investigating.”

  “What does she know?”

  Daniel told him, including the fact that he had Steven Stowe’s wallet and ring in an evidence locker.

  Estevez growled, “Do you know how much time she would have saved us?”

  Daniel had a good idea.

  “Why the hell didn’t she call me?”

  “I think that’s better coming from her.” Into the silence, Daniel continued, “She felt her life was in danger after she had a near miss in a drive-by shooting followed by a hit-and-run accident in your city, Detec
tive. After each incident, she received threatening phone calls.” He described both, feeling a change in the quality of the silence. “Since she left Gregory, she’s also dealt with pressure from his father-in-law, whom you may have encountered. Robert Gregory would like his son to have custody of Matthew.”

  After talking about the PI’s appearance, Daniel went on to describe Tim’s attempt to grab his boy and Rebecca, detailing the findings of the doctor who had treated her in the ER. “The guy has gone to ground here, unless he’s reappeared in your city.”

  “I’ve spoken to him on the phone, but he claimed to be out of town on business.” Estevez sounded intrigued. “Wasn’t sure when he’d be getting back.”

  “He had a little glitch getting his hands on Ms. Holt.”

  “If she’s decided to come forward, why use you as a go-between?”

  “She’s in hiding with an Amish family.” He explained her family history, the fact that they didn’t permit phones in the house and that she’d agreed to live plain while here. “I can take a phone to her. Anytime today, if you want.”

  Was her forgiveness even a remote possibility? If he extended it to her in turn? And what kind of idiot was he, to feel so much for a woman who had lied to him from their first meeting?

  The detective huffed out an exasperated breath, then said, “I just pulled up reports of the hit-and-run. Doesn’t appear she mentioned the drive-by when the police came after the hit-and-run.”

  “She took seriously the threat not to go to the cops.”

  Estevez grunted.

  “There’s something you should understand.” He rubbed the back of his neck. His explanation of Amish attitudes was necessarily brief, and he expected skepticism, but at least Estevez listened. “You mind telling me if you’ve gotten anywhere in your investigation? I admit to having developed a dislike of Ms. Holt’s ex-husband.”

  “The forensic accountant started digging deeper after Stowe dropped entirely from the radar and we began to wonder if he hadn’t been a scapegoat. One who’d been slaughtered,” he added drily.

  So Rebecca had succeeded in that much, Daniel thought.

  “Our guy is still hip-deep in numbers and who knows what,” Estevez continued. “He has pinned down a string of G, G & S’s supposed projects that never really existed. In each case, there are blueprints and sketches on file. Money appears to have been paid to suppliers and workers. There are just no buildings, or at least not ones that match the plans.”

  “And presumably the suppliers and workers are fictional, too.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I gather Stowe was the money man.”

  “Which was why we initially zeroed in on him as the embezzler. Along with his disappearance, of course. But once he disappeared from the radar, I started leaning on Gregory and Griffen a lot harder, as well as other employees at the company. I’ll be able to get a warrant for Gregory’s house now, at least, although what are the odds he has anything else incriminating there?”

  Daniel grimaced. “Not high. Make sure you include both safes in the warrant.”

  “Both?”

  “She says there’s one in his home office as well as the smaller one in a walk-in closet in the master bedroom.”

  “Good to know. Let’s make the phone call one o’clock my time,” Estevez asked abruptly.

  Daniel glanced at the wall clock. “Sure. I’ll call you once I have her available.”

  They signed off, leaving him apprehensive. He was biased toward Rebecca, whether or not she believed it, and she felt Estevez’s interrogation style was aggressive. Plus, the San Francisco cop had good reason to be frustrated with her. He might even press charges because she’d hidden critical evidence.

  Daniel told himself the best course was to step back, not stay stuck in the middle. His emotional entanglement appeared one-sided now, if it hadn’t been all along. And even if she felt anything but anger for him, Rebecca wouldn’t be staying in Henness County when this was all over.

  All his tension exploded. He hammered a fist on his desk, then shoved his chair back violently. Who was he kidding? Whether she appreciated it or not, he’d keep fighting for her. He couldn’t stand an arm’s length from her, absorbing those wide blue eyes or the generous curves beneath the theoretically plain Amish dress, the delicate lines of her face and the bruises that had yet to fade, and allow Estevez to threaten her.

  He groaned and rolled his tight shoulders, then grabbed his gun from a drawer, holstered it and strode out of the office.

  * * *

  REBECCA REFUSED TO look at Daniel as she defended herself to Detective Estevez. Daniel’s stance, while outwardly relaxed, still managed to be intimidating, so she focused on the dried bird’s nest tucked beneath the eaves. Because this was daytime, Daniel had parked out of sight and ushered her behind the house where they couldn’t be seen from the road.

  Since he’d already told the detective everything, Estevez had barely snapped out questions that she could only answer with a “Yes” or “That’s true” or an occasional “I don’t know.”

  Now, clutching Daniel’s phone to her ear, Rebecca said with what dignity she still had, “I know it seems foolish to you, but Tim will forever be the father of my son. I suppose I wanted to believe he’s at least close to being the man I thought he was when I married him.”

  Detective Estevez grunted.

  “He assured me he had nothing to do with Steven’s death,” she continued.

  “He admitted his partner is dead?” he asked sharply.

  “Well, not in so many words.”

  “What did he say?”

  Very conscious of Daniel’s presence despite her best effort to pretend he wasn’t there, she struggled to cast her mind back. “I said something like, ‘Tell me you wouldn’t hurt anybody,’ and he said, ‘It wasn’t me.’ Then he said misleading the cops—” specifically, the one to whom she was speaking “—was the only way to save the company.”

  “He just came out and told you that.”

  She closed her eyes. “He was angry. We were arguing. What was he supposed to do, insist I hadn’t seen Steven’s wallet?”

  “No one else heard him.”

  Stiffening, she said, “He’d just brought our son home from a visit, and Matthew had gone to his room.” Detective Estevez would interview Matthew over her dead body.

  “It was months before the shooting. If you’re telling the truth, nobody had threatened you at this point. You expect me to believe your tender feelings for the guy you’d just dumped kept you from giving me evidence you knew was critical to our investigation?” The sneer came through.

  This was the explanation she had dreaded most. She took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand, but Tim had been demanding joint custody of our son. He worked too many hours to be any kind of parent. I knew his father was behind it. Robert is a harsh, demanding man who never thinks Tim has performed up to his standards and tells him so frequently. He wanted control of Matthew. I suppose he thought he could mold him into the perfect grandson to replace his inadequate son.”

  If Tim had stolen money from his own company, she felt sure it was because he was so determined to appear wildly successful to his father.

  Daniel shifted, uncrossing his arms and rolling his shoulders. She sneaked a look. To her surprise, his expression wasn’t hard, as she’d seen it when he was all cop. Some small lines had formed on his forehead, and the deep blue of his eyes mesmerized her.

  “When he learned I had taken the wallet, he offered to back off and let me have primary custody as long as he got reasonable visitation. I’m not proud that I understood he was offering a bargain, or that I took it. But I believed I’d lose in court. My ex-husband’s family has a great deal of influence in San Francisco. My attorney thought the request for joint custody would seem rea
sonable to a judge. I was afraid to allow Robert to have any more access to my son than he had during the every-other weekends with Tim.”

  “So you abetted your husband’s cover-up in what’s very possibly a murder,” Estevez said, making no effort to hide his contempt.

  Past the lump in her throat, she said, “As I told Sheriff Byler, I do not believe Tim killed Steven. He’s just...not the kind of man who’d do something like that.”

  “And yet, not much later, you believed he was trying to kill you, either to silence you or to gain undisputed custody of his son.”

  She found herself shaking her head. “No. I never thought it was Tim. My best guess is that Josh Griffen was behind it. Tim apparently told Josh that I’d seen Steven’s wallet. Tim told me once that Josh felt threatened, that he didn’t trust me to—”

  “Keep your unsavory little bargain?”

  Feeling sick, Rebecca bent forward. “Think whatever you like about me,” she said in a shaky voice just above a whisper. “Protecting my son is the most important thing in the world to me.”

  The lengthy silence increased her nausea.

  “I’ll be out there to pick up the evidence as soon as I can arrange it. I want a face-to-face with you.” His growl sounded like a threat, and she took it as one.

  “Do you think I haven’t told you everything? You’re wrong. But I’ll see you whenever you come. Goodbye, Detective Estevez.” She thrust the phone at Daniel, whirled away and started walking, not caring where she ended up.

  Beyond the trellised green beans in the garden, she reached the rows of raspberries, soon to be pruned, the new shoots tied up. There, she plopped down on the grass, bent her head to her knees and listened to the rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker, seemingly answered by an odd cry that sounded like “Peter, peter, peter.” A bird—what had Grossmammi called it?

  A shadow fell across her. She didn’t look up.

  “He was doing his job,” Daniel said.

  “Is that how it’s done?” She didn’t look up. “If so, I doubt he ever elicits genuine cooperation from a witness. You, at least, pretended to understand.”