He crouched, bringing himself down to her level. From the corner of her eye, she saw the khaki of his trousers pulled tight over powerful thigh muscles. His bare forearm, lightly dusted with hair, was braced on his knee, his big hand dangling. Relaxed.
“Rebecca, you know he can ask for obstruction-of-justice charges to be filed against you.” Suddenly his voice sounded hard. Because she’d refused to continue buying into his slick manipulation? “You should be thankful he didn’t mention the possibility.”
Thankful? “Let him try,” she snapped, and finally did raise her head to glare at him. He wore dark glasses to hide his eyes. “Please leave. I’m not in the mood to answer any more questions.”
She didn’t let her glare waver. After a minute, he tipped his head and rose effortlessly to stand over her.
“I’ve tried to help,” he said quietly. “If you want to talk, I’ll be behind the barn at about eight tonight. Your choice.” And he turned and walked away.
Rebecca dropped her forehead to her knees again, her arms squeezing her shins, pulling her body into the classic fetal position.
You know he can ask for obstruction-of-justice charges to be filed against you.
Fresh terror ricocheted through her body. Knowing vaguely it was a possibility was one thing, the reality another. She could end up going to jail instead of Tim. Given how long she’d taken to tell what she knew, would a jury think the worst of her and refuse to believe her testimony about the wallet and the things Tim had said?
She heard Daniel’s voice, as if he still stood above her. I’ve tried to help.
Sure he had. Earn a woman’s trust—if she’s scared enough she’ll crack and spit out the whole story, right? What a shame nobody had ever taught Detective Estevez the technique, she thought bitterly.
She had to go inside, but not yet.
Her stomach roiled. How could she have been so stupid? So careless with her own integrity? When she had stuffed Steven’s things in her purse and walked out of the house, she’d thought she was striking a compromise between the public good and her private need to protect the man she had once loved, Matthew’s father. She’d meant to stop him from misleading the police. But then she’d made the whole thing ugly by accepting Tim’s custody deal.
For Matthew’s sake, not hers. Wasn’t it?
She pictured Onkel Samuel, so kind, so good, with his determination to live as his savior had asked. How would he look at her if he knew everything she’d done?
Her cheeks were wet now. When had she started to cry?
It was a long time before she could work around to thinking about the future. Hurt pride and the sting of betrayal made her want to take Matthew and run again—far, far beyond the reach of Sheriff Daniel Byler.
With puffy eyes, she watched an ant struggling to mount a blade of grass.
What right do I have to be hurt when I got myself into this mess? Rebecca asked herself harshly. Daniel was a cop; of course he’d felt compelled to do his job, to persuade her to tell him the truth. Even if being nice was just his technique, wasn’t that better than Detective Estevez’s belligerence?
Anger spiked again. Fine, but he shouldn’t have kissed her. Had he imagined he’d get her into bed before her legal troubles came to a climax?
If you want to talk. To him? Oh, sure. Top of her list of things to do tonight.
* * *
DANIEL GROWLED A word that hadn’t crossed his lips in three years even as his hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles showed white.
Estevez would have gotten a lot further if every word he spoke wasn’t tinged with contempt and aggression. Even standing several feet away, Daniel had heard enough. Making witnesses cringe was no way to persuade them to open up. A degree of empathy, understanding, were more effective.
Rebecca had accused him of pretended empathy and understanding.
He flinched, because he did pretend sometimes when he interviewed a suspect. With her, he had been sincere. She’d been in a tough spot, pulled too many ways. He did understand her early decisions, whatever she believed of him now. Women would kill to protect their children. In comparison, covering up someone else’s crime was nothing. He also recognized that her continuing insistence that Tim Gregory really was a good guy rubbed him the wrong way for personal reasons. Keeping her mouth shut about his sins in front of her kid, that was different. The right thing to do. His own mother would have made many of the same decisions had his father done something equally bad. She would have refused to lose faith in the man she felt she knew on a fundamental level. She certainly wouldn’t have gone to the police.
Daniel would have almost been grateful for the call that came in just then from Dispatch letting him know about a two-car accident on the highway, had the last thing Jennie said not been “possible fatality.”
* * *
MATTHEW SPUN IN circles in the middle of the lawn until dizziness toppled him, then stood up and did it again. Rebecca watched helplessly. Neither of them could go on much longer if she couldn’t find a way to distract him.
“You’ll throw up,” she warned, the next time he flopped on the grass.
“Uh-uh!” He staggered to his feet and started spinning again, his arms outstretched.
Once she’d tried catching him, but he had struggled wildly. This frenzy wasn’t like him. Her stomach churned, just watching him.
Again he fell. This time, she sank down beside him, staring up at the sky.
“Look,” she said, pointing. “There’s a red-tailed hawk. I think that smaller bird is chasing him.”
“How come?”
“The hawk might have gotten too close to a nest.” Except this wasn’t the right season, was it? But Matthew wouldn’t question her.
Because moms were supposed to be all-knowing, she thought sadly. It would never occur to him that she could be wrong about something.
She and Matthew stayed on their backs as the long shadow from one of the apple trees reached toward them.
“Why was Daddy so mad?” her little boy asked in a small voice.
She’d been dreading the question but couldn’t see a way out of telling him the truth.
“Your dad has been mad at me for months.” She turned her head so she could watch Matthew. “I saw something to do with his business that he thought he’d hidden. He was afraid I’d tell someone.”
Matthew’s forehead wrinkled and he met her eyes. “What did you see?”
“Right now, I don’t think you’re old enough to understand. Your dad’s business is pretty complicated, you know.”
“That’s what he says when I ask anything.”
She smiled a little. “He never liked it when I asked questions, either. That’s part of why your dad and I aren’t married anymore. Being married, you should be partners and best friends. I felt more like something pretty he’d bought to show off to his friends.”
“But you’re a person, not a thing,” he protested. “You’re a mom.”
“I am.” She ruffled his hair, a lighter blond now than when they had arrived in Missouri. His face and hands were tanned, his forearms less so. The strict Amish garb protected most of his body from the sun. His sleeves, he sometimes rolled up. The hat, Rebecca had almost given up on except on church Sundays. He managed to “misplace” it about two minutes after she set it on his head.
“Back to your dad being mad,” she said. “He didn’t like that I brought you here to visit family. I was starting to be scared about living there in the city. You know how I got hit by that car.”
“Yeah. And your face was all purple.”
She touched her cheek. “I guess my face turns purple pretty easy, huh?”
“He was mean.” Matthew’s voice had become small again.
“Your dad loves you, but he’s really angry at m
e, and upset with things happening at his company. I bet your grandfather especially wanted him to come get you.”
Matthew suddenly didn’t want to look at her. “I like Grossdaadi lots better than Grandpa Robert.”
“Me, too.”
They lay quiet for a minute.
“How come we couldn’t stay with Aenti Emma and Onkel Samuel? Abram was my friend.”
“I know.” She found his hand and squeezed. “We’re sort of hiding right now, from your dad and your grandpa Robert. I know it’s boring here, without any friends, but I can’t let your dad take you. Not until we work lots of things out.”
“I don’t want to see him ever again!” he said with sudden passion, rolling toward her to hug her. “I’ll scream and kick if he tries to make me go with him.”
Tears in her eyes, she said, “I’ll be screaming and kicking, too. But...just remember that you’ve always loved your dad, and he loves you. I think eventually you’ll want him to be your dad again.”
But he buried his face against her and didn’t say a word.
To her surprise, when she helped Matthew to his feet a while later, she saw Amos on the porch. He was watching them, his face shaded by his straw hat. He must have come down to the house for a cup of coffee and seen the two of them out on the grass. Otherwise, he would have used the back door, as he always did. In most Amish homes, front doors were for guests and to be used on formal occasions like weddings and funerals.
“I wish it was time for dinner,” Matthew mumbled, kicking a hummock of grass.
“You’re hungry already?”
He shrugged, which indicated discontent rather than a growling stomach. We can play a game, she thought desperately. If only they weren’t both sick of the few they had. They could work on reading and writing...
Amos came down the steps and said, “If Matthew is willing, I could use his help in the barn.”
Rebecca could have kissed him.
One of Amos’s sons had bought a farm down the road and now grew hay on his father’s acreage, in addition to the crops on his own place. Amos, she learned, had never been interested in farming. Barbara was the one to tend their large produce garden and small orchard. He built beautifully crafted cabinets in his barn workshop. Cabinetry and furniture stores in Hadburg and Byrum carried examples of his work.
“Me?” Hope in his eyes, Matthew looked up at the taciturn man.
“Ja, you.”
Amos returned Matthew to the house after an hour, his hand resting lightly on the boy’s head. “Big help he was. He swept and organized my bins of small pieces of wood.”
The six-year-old grinned. “I could help more.”
Amos shook his head. “I will be using saws that are dangerous to small fingers. And soon it will be dinnertime. I will have jobs for you other days.”
Rebecca smiled at him. “Denke.”
“No need for thanks,” he said gruffly, and went back out the door.
She took Matthew’s hand and said, “Now we need to help Barbara get dinner ready, ja?”
“Ja,” he said with a big grin.
And me, I need to decide whether I’m willing to stomp on my pride to meet Daniel. A man she had so recently wanted to hate.
Whether she remained angry or not, Daniel was the only person she really could talk to. Rebecca couldn’t deny that he still drew her. Was she brave enough to find out if everything he’d said and done really was about the job, or whether some of it might conceivably have been about her?
CHAPTER TWELVE
AT DINNER, REBECCA tried to push aside her tension and indecision. Only politeness made her lift her gaze from her plate when Barbara began to talk in her placid way.
“You know we have a grandson almost Matthew’s age. His mamm and daad don’t live as close as we’d like, ain’t so, Amos?”
She probably already had a dozen grandkids, Rebecca couldn’t help thinking.
Her husband’s response was a predictable grunt. Rebecca hid a smile as he shoved a forkful of pickled beets into his mouth.
“Is he six, too?” Matthew piped up.
“No, he is five. His birthday is in November, so he couldn’t start school. I’ve been thinking Caleb must be as bored as Matthew. So I wrote to Grace—she’s my daughter—and asked if Caleb could come stay with us for a little.” She beamed at them both. “Today her letter came. She is happy to have him visit. Amos is to go get him tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful of you to suggest. But...what if—” she stole a look at Matthew “—this isn’t a good time for him to be here?”
“Ach, who would think Rebecca and Matthew were here with us?” Amos asked. “Two boys here, not only one, that is better.”
Rebecca’s eyes stung. “It’s so kind of you to think of it.”
Barbara chuckled. “It makes no trouble.”
Matthew looked worried. “Does he talk like me?”
“No, but you will both learn, ja?”
Rebecca smiled at him. “Don’t be so doubtful. Wasn’t Abram learning some English? And you some Deitsch?”
“For sure you were,” Barbara said. “Do you remember what I said to you this morning?”
He shook his head.
“I said, ‘Setz der disch,’ and you did. You didn’t say, what does that mean?”
“Abram’s mamm always makes us set the table.”
“See? You are learning to speak like we do.” She nodded at his half-full plate. “Now, eat yourself full.”
Matthew applied himself to his dinner. Watching him, Rebecca noticed that he was a lot less picky than he used to be. Silver linings. One of many, she had to believe, starting with reconnecting with her family.
* * *
AN OWL HOOTED, providing companionship of a sort for Daniel.
Of course she hadn’t come out to meet him. He shouldn’t have bothered to come. Rebecca had been furious at him—and hurt. Picturing her face, he shifted uncomfortably on the crude bench behind Amos’s barn.
Weariness kept him leaning against the side of the barn. The woman he’d pulled from her totaled car and performed first aid on had died, leaving her baby motherless. That news had put the cap on his crappy day. Or was he doing that himself, sitting here pathetically waiting for a woman who had lied to him from day one, then was furious when he called her on it?
Tonight was noticeably darker than last night. The moon was waning, suiting his mood. He’d probably clobber his head on a tree branch or get caught in a barbed-wire fence on his way back to the car. Yeah, he was in a mood.
Daniel shoved himself to his feet—just as he heard a rustle. He grabbed the butt of his gun as he spun around.
A small gasp told him who was here even before he made her out.
“You came,” he said, stunned.
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Then why did you come out here?”
“I thought I would enjoy some solitude.”
“Then I’ll leave you alone,” he snapped.
He’d taken several steps when her low voice stopped him. “I wasn’t fair today. Or Saturday.”
Daniel squeezed the bridge of his nose, needing the pain to counteract the flood of relief. He took a minute before he slowly turned. “Given my oath of office, I didn’t see how I could delay passing on information regarding such a serious crime. Or cooperating with a detective from another jurisdiction.”
“I get that,” she said wearily. “Today, Matthew spun in circles until he made himself dizzy and fell down. Lately, I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“You’ve dealt with a lot.” She sat, and Daniel walked back toward the barn and settled a foot or two from her.
“That’s no excuse.” She looked at him, making him wish he could see
her face better.
“When I talk to Estevez again, I’ll lean on him to cut you some slack. If nothing worse comes to light, I think he’ll agree. He has bigger fish to fry.”
He sensed as much as saw her shiver, realizing belatedly that one of those “fish” was her ex-husband. The one she’d been protecting.
“You still don’t know where he is?” Rebecca sounded timid. “Tim, I mean?”
“No.” The muscles in his shoulders and neck were in knots. “I have to admit, I didn’t get much looking done today.”
“I don’t blame you,” she whispered.
“No.” He reached almost blindly and found her hand. “It wasn’t just you. Right after I left here this afternoon, I was called to a major vehicular accident out on the highway. Ended up with two fatalities.”
“Oh, no.” Her fingers twined with his, perhaps unconsciously. “But...why you?”
“I was closest, which made me first responder.” He started telling her about it but stopped before he got too graphic. “You don’t need to hear this.”
“I think you need to tell someone. I’d...like it to be me. It’s only fair, you know.”
The lump in his throat surprised him. He’d never had anyone he could talk to about the things he saw on the job. From what he’d gathered, even most married cops didn’t talk to their wives about the gory or brutal or senseless stuff. Why he had this compulsion, he didn’t know. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies before, and tried and failed to save lives.
After a minute, he said, “One of the drivers died almost instantly. It appears he was speeding. Don’t know yet if he was drinking or why he lost control. The other driver was a woman. I tried to control her bleeding while I waited for paramedics. She died on the way to the hospital.” He paused. “Her baby was in a car seat. She’s fine. Her grandparents picked her up because her dad—” Hell. The guy had been twenty-three. Practically a kid, his world turned on end.
“Was too grief stricken,” she said softly.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” Suddenly Rebecca scooted closer to him. Close enough to rest her head on his shoulder.
Afraid she’d flee if he so much as tried to put his arms around her, he savored what she did offer. They sat there for quite a while, providing and receiving comfort with the contact, no more words necessary.
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