“But . . .” Claire prompted.
“Wow. I’m here, what—just over a week—and you know there’s a but, already?” Megan flicked a hand through her hair then handed the second folder over to Claire. “Serenity Falls is just different—the walking trails, the fitness stations, the playground with the little wooden stage for the kids who’d rather be creative than physical . . . all of it. And it’s on the Amish side of town.”
“Why does that part appeal to you so much?”
Megan drew back. “You mean being on the Amish side? Have you seen how calm it is over there? How quiet? I need that. I want that.”
“I get that.” And Claire did. Feeling the doldrums lapping at the edges of her soul at the notion of having to leave Heavenly, Claire made herself take the second packet from Megan. Inside were the same pictures she’d seen just two days earlier. “Trey Sampson,” she read aloud. “Has he been building around here for a while, too?”
“He’s built condos closer to Breeze Point, but this would be his first real dip into single-family homes.”
“Sounds more like a full-fledged jump to me.” Claire pulled a magazine-quality pamphlet from the packet’s left-side pocket and stared down at the thirty-something man who smiled back at her from the full-color cover. “Nice looking guy.”
“He’s driven, too. He’s all about making Serenity Falls an almost-prototype for a new kind of neighborhood built around old-fashioned values.” Megan took the magazine, opened it to the third page, and then handed it back to Claire. “He even picked the brain of some fancy Italian architect when he was in the early planning stages of Serenity Falls. He wants to do this right. It’s how he wants to make his name in this business.”
Claire let her gaze play across the picture of children blowing bubbles on the steps of one beautiful home while a father and son shared a glass of iced tea on the front steps of another. “It certainly looks good.”
“Which is what Kyle keeps saying. It looks good, but he doesn’t want to view it all from inside a closed house.” Megan blew a frustrated breath of air through her otherwise closed lips. “Kyle is right. I’ve got to let this go.” Then, with the Keller and Sons folder firmly in her grasp, she stood and gestured toward the door. “I’ll leave you to the quiet daydreams you were enjoying before I crashed the party.”
“Trust me, you were a welcome distraction.” Then, realizing she was still holding the Serenity Falls packet in her hand, she held it up for Megan. “Don’t forget this one.”
The pull to take the information was powerful as it moved across Megan’s face. But, in the end, the young mother simply waved it off. “Why don’t you keep it? Maybe one day, if things change, you can build a house there and invite me over for a cup of coffee.”
“If I was able to do that, it would mean that . . .” Claire shook her head, determined to start living in reality instead of hanging on to the same wish-I-coulds and if-onlys that had her facing an uncertain future once again. “Let me know when you’ve signed the contract on the Roaring Brook house, okay? We can celebrate that over a cup of coffee before you have to head back to Chicago.”
“You’re on.” Megan took two steps inside the inn and then turned to wave good night. “Oh, and Claire? I know I’ve been rather preoccupied at dinner the past few nights, but I want you to know how much I love your shop. It’s so . . . you. So wonderfully, perfectly you.”
Claire was grateful when the door finally closed and she was alone with her thoughts and the tears that were less than a blink away. Megan was right. Heavenly Treasures was her. It was everything she’d ever wanted for herself in terms of a career.
And now, because she’d moved too quickly, she was about to lose her career and her home in one swoop . . .
“Claire?”
She did her best to hide her disappointment as she turned toward the familiar voice and scrambled to find the closest thing to a smile she could offer along with her greeting. “I’m sorry, Aunt Diane, I should have come in a long time ago to see if you needed anything.”
Diane stepped onto the porch. “You most certainly shouldn’t have come inside. I told you a week ago that tonight was your night off.”
Lifting her hand from the back of the swing, Claire pointed at the rectangular wooden box in her aunt’s left hand. “What do you have there?”
“It’s Harley’s.”
Claire stopped the swing and rose to her feet. “Harley’s?”
Diane started to nod but then stopped. “Technically, he made it for Patrick, but he hadn’t gotten around to giving it to him just yet. That’s what he planned to do that next day.”
A sweet smile crossed Diane’s face as Claire watched her aunt peer down at the box in her hand. “He was so excited for Patrick to have it. He even planned how he was going to give it to him.”
Claire waited for her aunt to continue then hung on each and every word that was said when she finally did. “That last day, he deliberately hung on to the hammer he’d given Patrick knowing full well he’d come back looking for it at some point over the weekend. He had me put it inside the toolbox and leave it, with a note, on the front porch for Patrick to find.” Diane lifted the box onto a small table to the left of the swing and shook her head, sadly. “When I heard about Harley’s death, I brought the box inside so nothing would happen to it. I remembered it again this evening, while I was making dinner.”
“So he really was looking for a hammer last night,” Claire whispered. “Jakob and I didn’t believe him.”
Diane released her hold on the toolbox and turned to study her niece. “Patrick was here? Last night? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why indeed . . .
“Jakob and I—we didn’t want to worry you.”
“Why would Patrick being here worry me, dear?”
Claire did her best to explain her decision, reaching out for her aunt’s hand as she did. “Because Patrick carries a lot of anger. And when I saw him sneaking around outside the inn at midnight, I was worried. Especially when he could very well be a suspect in Harley’s murder.”
Diane’s eyes widened with shock. “Patrick Duggan could never have hurt Harley. He cared far too deeply for that man.”
“Cared for him?” she echoed. “But from what he said last night, it sounded like he only started working with Harley as a way to get out from under his mother’s watchful eye.”
“In the beginning that may have been true. But Harley won him over because he had no expectations for Patrick. He simply wanted to be that young man’s friend in a way no one else really had since Carl was carted off to jail.”
Chapter 24
She stood sentry at the large front window, counting the buggies that followed one behind the other through the Amish countryside. For a man who had been preceded in death by his spouse, his parents, and his brother, there was no lack of a turnout when it came to Harley Zook’s funeral procession. Cousins and other family members had come from Amish communities to the west to pay their respects alongside the man’s many friends in Heavenly.
When she reached a count of sixty, she made herself turn away, the sad reality of Harley’s murder weighing on her heart. It was hard to understand how such a peaceful group of people could be the target of things like hatred and crime.
As a rule, the Amish weren’t confrontational or competitive, they didn’t seek revenge for wrongs inflicted on them, and they preferred to take care of things quietly. So why would Carl Duggan throw away his freedom to end the life of a man who would never have done him any harm? Why would his son, Patrick—
She shook the thought from her head as Diane’s words from the previous night all but pointed the finger of guilt solely back in Mose Fisher’s direction.
“Hey, Claire, you have a second?”
She paused, mid-step, and turned back toward the front of the store, Jakob’s presence just inside the doorway catching her by surprise. “Jakob! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He pointed at the string
of bells just above the door and managed a halfhearted smile as he did. “They rang . . .”
“Oh. I didn’t notice.”
“Yeah, I saw you standing at the window a few minutes ago.” Jakob stepped farther into the store. “For what it’s worth, if we’d been standing closer to the actual procession, you wouldn’t have had to count.”
“I’m not sure I could have helped myself. I’ve never seen that many buggies in one place at one time.”
Jakob nodded. “It’s not uncommon to have as many as three hundred lined up behind the body. Fortunately for those standing closer than we were just now, you can gauge how long the line is by the chalked number on the back of each buggy.”
She leaned against the counter and allowed herself a moment to take in the man standing less than two feet from her, the same man who’d been making more frequent appearances in her dreams at night and leaving her more confused than ever about the path she’d come to envision for her life. He tended to show up in her dreams anytime she was apprehensive or uncertain, like her subconscious mind knew he’d keep her safe.
And she could see why. The detective’s broad shoulders and confident stance emitted an aura of protectiveness that made a person feel secure. And the dimples she knew were hiding just below the surface only added to the overall warmth and honesty that was as much a tangible part of his makeup as his sandy blond hair and amber-flecked hazel eyes.
When she felt him eyeing her curiously, she made herself reengage in the conversation. “What do you mean by a chalked number?”
“Usually a few boys—in the twelve-to fourteen-year-old range—are tasked with writing numbers on the back of all the buggies. The number given correlates with the driver’s relation to the deceased. The closer the relationship, the lower the number.”
She tilted her head toward the window as a memory tickled its way to the front of her thoughts. “You know, now that you say that, I think I passed a buggy on a country road a few weeks ago with a fifteen written on the back. But there weren’t any other buggies around at the time.”
“That just means it hadn’t rained since they’d attended that funeral.” Jakob took a deep breath before continuing. “So we talked to Mose again last night. In a more official capacity this time.”
“He talked to you?”
His laugh was void of any humor. “Uh, no. But we knew that, didn’t we?” He breezed on in a wooden voice that did little to keep the pain from dulling his eyes. “So, rather than get nothing out of him, I had one of my fellow officers asking the questions while I watched and listened from the other side of the two-way mirror.”
She pushed away from the counter to stand closer to Jakob, her gaze searching every facet of his face for something to indicate the outcome of the questioning. But there was nothing. Just the same sadness she always saw whenever he talked of his family. “Did he say anything helpful?”
“He said only that he did nothing wrong.”
“Well, that’s good, right?”
“I guess that depends on whether he thinks killing Harley was wrong.”
The swallow he took in reaction to the feel of her hand on his face was unmistakable, but still, she didn’t stop. She cared about Jakob and, as a result, hated to see him in pain. “If he did this, Jakob, that’s on him. Not you. Remember that.”
He covered her hand with his own and allowed his eyes to close for a brief moment. “My father wasn’t always so bitter. When I was growing up, Dat wasn’t a demonstrative man, but few Amish are. His encouragement came in quiet ways—a quick pat on the shoulder, a slow nod of his head, that sort of thing. I remember wanting to see that nod come in my direction just so I could know I’d pleased him. But it didn’t come my way all that often.”
She thought of Benjamin and his admiration for Mose, their contrasting memories of the same man hard to hear let alone understand.
“For a long time, I believed it was just Dat’s way.” He used his hand to press hers more tightly against his skin. “When I saw him with Benjamin, I knew it wasn’t.”
“Jakob, don’t,” she whispered.
He moved his head just enough to whisper a gentle kiss across her palm, a slight smile skittering across his mouth at her responding sigh. “I guess I’m afraid that the outcome of this investigation will somehow prove to Mose that I wasn’t a good son.”
“How he could look at you as anything other than a blessing is a mystery to me.”
Her hand shook inside his as he met her gaze and held it tight. “Claire, when this is all over, when this case is behind me and you’ve found your replacement for Esther at the shop, I want us to talk.”
The shop . . .
The mere mention of the shop and the future it didn’t have was like a bucket of ice water atop Claire’s head. She staggered back, pulling her hand from his in the process. She knew she should tell him Heavenly Treasures would be closing in January, that she herself would probably be moving on shortly thereafter, but she couldn’t.
Not yet, anyway.
Somehow, saying the words aloud to Jakob would mean they were true, that her dream job in her dream town was about to go up in smoke.
“Claire? Is everything—”
The ring of her cell phone from its temporary spot beside the register saved her from having to tiptoe around the truth. She nearly sprinted to pick it up, ignoring the unfamiliar number on the display screen in favor of the reprieve it offered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Claire, it’s me, Megan. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Diane for your number just now and she said it would be okay to give you a quick call.”
She made a mental note to pick up a piece of Shoo Fly Pie for Diane on the way home just before she shrugged an apology in Jakob’s direction. “No, no, it’s fine, Megan. What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping I could entice you into meeting me you-know-where in, say, a half hour.”
“You-know-where?” she teased. “I thought you said you weren’t going to talk about that place anymore.”
“Well . . . things have changed.”
She tried to concentrate on the voice in her ear, but it was hard when Jakob was pointing toward the door in silent signal of his exit. The call had certainly brought a welcomed end to an uncomfortable conversation, but if the sudden heaviness of her heart was any indication, she wasn’t ready to see him go.
“I’ll check back in with you soon,” he whispered.
“I look forward to it.”
She followed him with her eyes as he disappeared through the door, the pull to follow him undeniable.
“Claire? Are you still there?”
“What—oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I was just saying good-bye to someone.” She wandered aimlessly around the shop, the listlessness she felt in the wake of Jakob’s presence impossible to miss. “So what’s going on?”
“I am going to burst—absolutely burst—I’m so excited! Kyle, of course, is in meetings all day today and probably won’t check his phone before he gets back to the inn tonight. But I need to tell somebody. Can you meet me out there again this one last time? Please?”
She checked the clock then peeked at her to-do list. “Make it an hour and you’re on.”
Chapter 25
This time, when Megan Reilly arrived on the grounds of Serenity Falls, Claire was waiting beside her car on the very lot that had a stranglehold on the Chicagoan’s heart. Shielding her eyes from the late-afternoon sun, Claire waved a greeting to the woman now picking her way across the hard-packed earth with a smile wide enough to offset the sinking sun.
“Hey, Megan,” Claire called as she, too, parted company with the side of her car to split the remaining distance. “I knew you were happy when we spoke on the phone a little while ago but, wow—that smile! What’s going on?”
“Remember how I told you that Kyle was leaving the final decision to me?”
“Yes . . .”
“Well, I’ve decided.” Megan threw her arms out to the side and slowly spun a
round in a little circle before coming to rest in her original spot with a little celebratory jump. “Welcome to our new home . . . or, rather, the site of our new home.”
“You bought here?” She heard the confusion in her voice and instantly felt remorse. “Wait. I didn’t mean to sound like that. It’s just that, well, I thought you decided last night to build in Roaring Brook. I thought you were going to put down your deposit today.”
The hum of work trucks on the other side of the development softened the edges of Megan’s squeal. “I did. But then, this morning, I came out here to say good-bye. I needed to make peace with my decision, as silly as I know that sounds.”
“No. I get that.” And Claire did. Because not too deep down inside, she suspected her aunt would have to drag her out of Heavenly Treasures the day she turned her key back over to Al Gussman.
Megan continued, her voice breathless. “Anyway, I came out here, got out of my car, and . . . nothing. It was gone!”
“What was—” She stopped, straightened her stance, and inhaled. “Oh. Wow. You’re right. What happened?”
“I don’t know. And I really don’t care. All I know is that Kyle can open his windows and I can live in that fairy tale that’s been torturing me almost nonstop this past week.” Megan’s smile disappeared momentarily as she gestured toward the truck sounds. “Now, all I want to do is make these last few months of the school year fly by this one time so we can bring the boys here. They’re going to love the house, the playground, the trails, the horse and buggies everywhere, and all of the construction vehicles that are a part of any new housing development of this magnitude.”
“Sounds like a perfect fit for two little boys.”
Megan’s smile returned, tenfold. “It does, doesn’t it?” The woman reached into her purse, fished out a camera, and held it out to Claire. “Would you mind taking a picture of me standing here? I know there’s not really anything to see except dried mud and a few utility hookups in the background, but still, I want to show them something when we get home.”
Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery) Page 18
