Hidden in Amish Country

by Dana R. Lynn

  His brows lowered, letting her know he was a little disturbed by her words. But he nodded. She waited until they were far enough from the buildings that she felt comfortable that no one would be able to tell what they were saying. Keeping her back facing the buildings, she drew her phone out of her pocket of her apron.

  “I was inside and I felt my phone vibrate.” She watched his expression as she spoke. “I had missed a call from Kurt. Actually, I should say that I missed a call from his phone. I have no idea if he was the one who really called me. The last time I called him, someone else answered it. Whoever it was, they left a voice mail message.”

  “Why didn’t you listen to the message?” His words were gruff, at odds with the concerned expression on his face.

  “I’m scared to listen to it.” It wasn’t easy to admit this weakness, but she felt he would understand. “At least, alone. I have no idea what this message will say. I am imagining all sorts of horrible things.”

  He stepped closer to her than was absolutely appropriate. A comforting hand settled on her shoulder. “I’m here with you. I know you’re scared, but we will listen to this message together.”

  She nodded. She touched her phone to unlock it, but paused.

  “Can we—Do you think—”

  “What do you need?”

  She pursed her lips and blew out a breath. “Could we pray?”

  She could hardly believe those words were coming out of her mouth, but they seemed like the right words to say. Ben’s face lit up with surprise, his eyes flared wide and his brows shot up. Then he smiled.

  “Jah. We will pray and ask Gott for His guidance and help.”

  Gratitude welled up within her. Then he bowed his head and she copied his pose.

  “Gott, You alone know what will come today and the day after that. You alone know the future and know what is truly in our hearts. We ask You to be with us, to guide us and to help us bring Kurt home and to help us all be safe.”

  When he said amen, Sadie echoed it, feeling a little awkward, but at the same time there was a sense of peace.

  It was time. Clenching her teeth together, she unlocked her phone and tapped in the four digit passcode. Then she opened up her voice mail and put it on speaker. Hearing her brother’s voice come out of the phone nearly brought her to her knees.

  “Sadie, it’s me. Kurt. Listen, don’t call me back. I managed to steal back my phone and get away. But they’re after me. I am going to try and sneak into my office. I can’t let anyone see me, though. I don’t know how, but I believe that my boss might be involved with whoever is after you. And the man who attacked me. I can’t go into any details right now. I’m safe for the moment, and if I can I will contact you later. I hope that you are with Ben. He’s the one person right now that I trust to keep you safe. I don’t know if you’ve remembered me yet, but I love you and I will do everything I can to finish this up and to get back to you soon. Don’t take any chances.”

  The message ended. Without thinking about it she hit the number to save the message on her phone. Then she looked up at Ben and bit her lip.

  “I saved the message, but what should we do with it? It hardly seems feasible for us to travel all the way back to the Waylan Grove Police Department. What do you think?”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. She knew from the look on his face he was trying to process all that they had heard and come up with the best solution.

  “I agree that I don’t think we should go back to Waylan Grove. Even dressed Plain like you are, you could still be recognized. Mason Green has seen me now, so he would recognize me, as well.” He tugged on his ear thoughtfully. “Your brother was right. We don’t know who we can trust. If his boss was responsible for leading him into a trap, who else might be involved in this? I know your brother fairly well. He has spoken of his boss, Ethan. I know that Ethan is a man that he respects and has always considered a friend. To know that such a man had betrayed him—” Ben shook his head.

  Sadie thought about what he had said and her heart broke a little more for her brother. Not only because of the physical danger he was in, but because of the pain he had to be suffering emotionally.

  “I’m worried, Ben. Kurt told me not to take any chances, but I think that he will. I’m so scared that he will get hurt, or worse.”

  He nodded. “Jah, I know what you are saying. We will keep praying. And we will do everything we can to help the police find the people responsible for this.”

  They continued to walk for a few minutes, allowing the silence to settle between them. It was a comfortable silence, one filled with mutual care and concern. Sadie knew that no matter what else happened, she could depend on Ben.

  She also knew that as soon as this whole debacle was finished, she would sever ties with him. Not because of anything he’d done. But because if she didn’t sever ties with him, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to see another man without comparing him to Ben.

  The steady clop, clop, clop of horse hooves trotting down the road in front of the house caught her attention. Her curiosity grew when the buggy pulled by a chestnut mare with a white blaze on her forehead turned and headed up the driveway. The driver halted the horse, bounded off the seat of the buggy and headed over to where she was standing with Ben.

  She turned to her companion. His mouth had fallen open, and joy and astonishment were battling for ownership on his face. This was no average visitor. Whoever this was coming toward them, it was someone who meant a lot to Ben.

  “Isaac? Isaac Yoder?” Ben breathed.

  Immediately her heart started to beat wildly within her chest. Isaac Yoder. Ben Mast.

  She had been wrong. She did know the Amish. Not only that, she knew these Amish.

  ELEVEN

  “Ben Mast!” In seconds, Isaac was standing before them, a wide grin spreading across his bearded face. His blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. “Your father told me you were home. I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t seen you in years!”

  Sadie looked up at Ben. His grin was easily a match for Isaac’s. If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes had a sudden sheen to them. He blinked and it was gone.

  “You can’t believe I’m home?” Ben laughed out loud. “You’re the one who left the Amish community altogether to go live with the Englisch. I only moved to a new area.”

  “I did. It’s true. I didn’t think I would ever come back.” Isaac’s grin widened. “Nor that I would find a lovely Amish girl who would be willing to marry me. Then I met my Lizzy. And here I am.”

  “Jah, here we both are. You seem happy.”

  “I am. God is good.”

  That brought out another grin. This time, she thought that Ben looked like he’d been handed a gift. Had Isaac lost his faith at one point? It was possible, since he’d left. She couldn’t get over the fact that she was again with these two, and they had no clue who she really was. Her throat clogged. She didn’t know if she’d be able to talk, emotion was choking her so hard.

  The two men seem to realize that they were leaving Sadie out of the conversation. Isaac turned to her with his easy grin.

  “I’m sorry. I knew you had a guest, Ben.”

  “Ack! I am being so rude. My apologies, Sadie. This is my old friend—”

  He never finished his sentence. It was too much for Sadie. The emotions that she had been holding back came spilling out of her all at once. The tears streamed down her cheeks and the sob that she had been trying to stifle burst free. Ben’s astonished face swam before her eyes briefly before she covered her face with her hands.

  “Sadie?” She heard the confusion in Ben’s voice. She struggled to answer.

  “I remember, Ben,” she managed to choke out.

  Shocked, Ben stared at her. Isaac’s face had gone flat. Not angry or disgusted. Observant. The face of someone used to facing hard situations and making quick de
cisions.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Before she knew it, Ben was urging her back toward the house.

  “Maybe... Should I leave?” Isaac asked.

  “Nee!” she said, the Amish word for no slipping past her lips instinctively. She ignored it. There was so much going on inside her at the moment, she could not focus on anything other than her recovered memories. “You need to come. You have to hear this.”

  Distractedly, she was aware of the look that flashed between the two men, but was too distraught to think much of it. Memories were bombarding her from all sides. Memories of being held in a woman’s lap while the buggy they were in swayed back and forth. Where had they been going? She had no idea. She had other memories. Memories of baking cookies with an older woman. Her grandmother? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought so.

  Again and again the images came. They came at her so fast she was having trouble processing them. At one point, she closed her eyes and let Ben lead her. She stumbled once but regained her balance when he caught her around the waist.

  “Easy, Sadie. I have you. Just a little farther.” Ben continued to support her as the trio walked. Isaac kept his thoughts to himself. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind right then.

  Then they were in the house, and he was leading her to a chair in the living room. His mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. When she saw the tears on Sadie’s cheeks, she rushed forward, making clicking noises with her tongue.

  “What’s this? What has happened?” She edged herself in next to Sadie, squeezing Ben out of the way. Ben caught himself before he could trip, then he moved to stand on Sadie’s other side. A giggle burbled up inside her, turning into a sob before she could get it out. Her vision blurred as more tears tumbled down. Sadie brushed them away impatiently. She hated crying. She’d done more in the past week than she had in a long time.

  “She said she was remembering,” Ben explained to his mother.

  Compassion filled her eyes. She placed her warm, motherly hand on Sadie’s cold one. “Dear child. What did you remember? Can you tell us?”

  She nodded. With an effort, she calmed herself and drew in a deep breath. “I—I remember sitting on my mother’s lap. I’m pretty sure it was my mother. We were going someplace but I don’t know where. I could feel the swaying motion as we traveled.” She looked up at Ben. He was her focal point. His warm eyes held on to hers, almost like an embrace. She was not alone. Focusing on him helped her to continue. “I think we were in a buggy.”

  Ben did not look surprised. “I wondered if you had spent some time with the Amish.”

  That got her attention. “What made you wonder such a thing?”

  Ben moved a little apart from her and settled himself on the chair across the way. He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “Several times you have used our language without even thinking about it. Which told me that you had some experience speaking it. Of course, that did not prove anything. It could have meant a number of things. Maybe you had Amish friends. You worked in a school. Oftentimes, we have Amish children with special needs who attend public school with the Englisch kids. There were other things, too. You told me yourself how you seemed to remember cooking certain foods with Ruth. Remember that?”

  She nodded. She’d forgotten all about that in the panic of the past few days. But he hadn’t. She wondered briefly what else he remembered about her.

  “Wow. Yes, I do remember that.”

  “I also noticed that you seem to have knowledge of certain traditions that we have. It made sense to me that you had a deep connection with the Amish at some point in your life but you didn’t remember it.”

  Esther broke in. “Your mother, do you remember her?”

  “Yes. I do remember her. And I remember how devastated I was when she and my stepfather were killed in a fire two years ago.” She grabbed onto Esther’s hands. “I don’t remember very much before I was seven years old. I do know that something happened and I was pretty traumatized for a while. I remember not speaking for a long time. Once I started speaking again, my mom and I never talked about what had happened. I do remember that I asked her about my life before, but she would just shake her head and say that some things needed to be forgotten. She always got this look on her face that scared me a bit. I stopped asking. So I’m still missing a chunk of my life. But I have some images.”

  Esther frowned, but nodded. Sadie could tell that the older woman was disappointed. She didn’t need to think very hard about why. She remembered Esther’s comments to her on the day that they met. How well had Esther known Hannah Bontrager? Had they been friends?

  “My mother,” she whispered to the older woman. “Her name was Hannah. Hannah Bontrager. And she was Amish.”

  Tears brightened Esther’s eyes. A smile wobbled on her lips. It was a smile filled with grief. “I knew it.”

  “Mamm?”

  Sadie and Esther both turned to see that Ben had half risen from his seat. No doubt he was concerned that seeing his mother brought tears.

  “Shush, Ben. It’s all right.”

  Sadie looked between Isaac and Ben. How could she not have remembered? She was swamped again by bittersweet emotions. Happiness at having her memories back, regret at having missed so much.

  “Sadie, why am I here?” Isaac asked her. She could tell it wasn’t a rude question. She had specifically told him she needed both him and Ben to be there when she went over what she was remembering.

  “My childhood is a blur for the most part. But there are a couple things that I do remember. I told you how I remembered my mother. I also remember playing games and following my two best friends, Ben Mast and Isaac Yoder, around everywhere we went.”

  Both men’s mouths dropped open, shocked, as they listened to the words tumbling from her.

  “Sadie Ann Bontrager.” The hoarse words dropped from his lips. Ben probably didn’t even realize that he had spoken her name aloud.

  She nodded in confirmation of her identity. “Yes. I was eight when my mother remarried. I remember that my last name was Bontrager, and my stepfather adopted me and gave me his last name. My mother told me I needed to never again call myself Sadie Bontrager. In fact, she strongly warned me to forget my last name. I had wondered why, but she was so stern, I never questioned it.”

  “You disappeared. One day you were there and the next day you were gone,” Ben mused, his gaze sharp on her face. Isaac’s eyes were on the floor.

  She nodded, watching them piece together the information.

  Isaac suddenly jerked upright, his face intent. “Your father—”

  Ben paled. “The flashback you had, the one about seeing the Amish man murdered?”

  She already didn’t like where this was going. But she had wondered the same thing. Knowing in her heart what the answer was, she asked the question they were all thinking.

  “He was my father, wasn’t he?” She had no memories of him other than that image, but she knew deep within her soul that she was right. Ben’s slow nod confirmed it. New anguish spread through her.

  “He was murdered, and a young teenager was sent to jail. Two days later, you were gone.”

  “You weren’t just raised in an Amish community,” Ben said. “You were raised in this Amish community.”

  “I don’t think you can say that I was raised here. I lived here until I was around seven, then I left. And we never looked back. Until all of this happened, I had forgotten completely about my Amish past.”

  “Wow.” Isaac sank into a chair. “Sadie Bontrager. I don’t even know what to say. Just wow.”

  That surprised a laugh out of her. He sounded so Englisch when he said that, his years away from the Amish showing. Ben chuckled, too, although it was a little strained.

  Isaac collected himself and looked at Sadie. “I won’t get into the whole story,
because it’s not important right now. But I will tell you that when I left the Amish community, I spent several years working as a cop for the Waylan Grove Police Department.”

  * * *

  Hearing that Isaac used to be a cop surprised Ben. Although maybe not so much. He remembered the fight Isaac had had with his father after his brother, Joshua, had been killed. Isaac had been all about finding justice. So maybe joining the police force had been his way to do that.

  A thought struck him. “Isaac, did you work with a Sergeant Ryder Howard?”

  Isaac laughed lightly. “Ryder? Sure. He’s a buddy of mine. He made sergeant just last spring. He has one of my dogs.”

  Ben didn’t quite understand that. “One of your dogs?”

  “Yeah. I had gotten into raising service dogs and training them to be K-9 officers. When I rejoined the community, the bishop told me I could keep training the dogs. Well, he gave me permission to train service dogs. I don’t train them for K-9 cop work anymore. The one I had trained, I gave to Ryder. It’s made him quite the envy of the other officers.”

  “I’m sure.” Ben shook his head, amused in spite of the seriousness of the conversation.

  The humor drained out of Isaac’s face. “Seriously. He’s a good guy. And he’s an outstanding cop. I trust him completely.”

  “Ben, we should tell him about the voice mail.”

  Ben had almost forgotten about the message. “Mamm, could you excuse us for a few minutes?”

  Ben rose, and Isaac and Sadie followed suit. This was not something he wanted to discuss while his mother was in the room. He led the others out onto the front porch. After he had shut the door firmly behind him, he looked at Sadie.

  Interpreting his look correctly, she pulled her cell phone out of her apron and replayed the message for Isaac. The former police officer listened to the message without speaking. When the message was finished however, he questioned the both of them thoroughly.

  “What do you think?” Ben ask him.