A Secret Identity (25 page)

“Don’t worry about Mom’s medicine,” he told me. “Hawk and I’ll go get it as soon as we’re finished here.”

I nodded gratefully. I’d discovered that if I spoke, I was having trouble controlling the quaver that insisted on wobbling uninvited through my words.

“A blown-up mailbox and slashed tires within three days,” the officer said.

The Amish men murmured their notice of that fact too. John and Elam looked especially concerned.

“You’re sure you don’t know anyone who has a grudge against you?”

“Me?” I shook my head. I felt very tired. “I just moved to Bird-in-Hand a little over a week ago. The only people I know are the Zooks, Todd Reasoner, my lawyer, and Amos Yost, a lawyer in Lancaster. Not much in the way of suspects, I’m afraid.”

Mick Yost’s sullen face flashed but I couldn’t give his name to the police just because he was an angry kid. I wished I knew what his rumored problem was. If he had a record for petty violence, I could suggest him as a suspect, but if he was just mad at the world…

The police were preparing to leave when the AAA service truck pulled into the drive. Jake, the Amish, and I watched as the serviceman began work on the first tire.

“Wow,” he whistled. “Somebody did a number on this!”

Somehow his awe at the cowardly attack made me feel ill. I turned and walked down the drive. I could feel eyes following me as I continued down the street and into the woods.

There were no problems here before you came. That was undoubtedly what they were thinking. The police never visited Mary and John before you came.

I pushed through the underbrush until I came to the stream. I collapsed on one of the rocks and felt vulnerable.

I didn’t like the idea of violence on the Zooks’ farm any more than their congregation did. John and Mary, Elam and Esther were part of a people who believed in nonviolence, and even worse, they had a house full of guests of the same persuasion. Nothing evil should happen near them—any of them—especially if it were because of my presence. Granted this was nothing compared to the Nickel Mines school shootings, but this was here and this involved me.

Is this my fault somehow, Lord? Does someone want to hurt me? Scare me? But why?

I knew Amos didn’t like me, but slashing tires was not the work of a man like him. He would never stoop to something so petty. If he decided I was in the way, he’d go all out. One of Lancaster County’s counterparts to Tony Soprano’s goons would show up to take care of me.

Not that I actually thought Amos would do something like that. He was used to political power and intimidation, to legal pressure and manipulation. If he decided to go after me, and it was a very big if, he’d go that route.

So maybe it was just random violence. My car, like the mailbox, was just a handy target for some kids who had no sense and a streak of malice.

I don’t know how long I sat staring at the burbling stream, the chattering rush of water soothing my tattered spirit with its gentle whispers. The tightness in my shoulders loosened somewhat. I closed my eyes and took deep, cleansing breaths. Still I was more than glad when I heard a concerned voice behind me.

“Cara, are you all right?”

I turned and watched Todd, solid and safe, come to me. He sank onto the rock beside me and reached for my hand.

As soon as his fingers closed around mine, tears burned my eyes, breeched my lower lids, and fell. He put his arm around me and pulled me to him until my head rested on his shoulder.

“Shush. It’s okay,” he whispered as he patted me gently on the back. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

I sniffed and smiled through my tears. For a guy who wasn’t used to emotion, he was doing all right. “Someone slashes my tires and you say it’s okay. Some lawyer you are.”

I felt as much as heard his little burst of laughter. “A smart-mouth remark. Why am I not surprised? I knew you were a gutsy lady.”

I didn’t feel very gutsy. “Why would someone do that to my tires, Todd?”

His arm tightened around me. “It wasn’t you, Cara. Never think it was you.”

“But it was my car!”

“Just because it was there.”

“Do you really think so?”

“What else could it be? You’re not the kind of person to have enemies.”

“You met me less than two weeks ago and you already know this?”

He ran his hand over my hair and said with quiet assurance, “I know this. So don’t cry, sweetheart. Don’t cry.”

I nodded and said, “I won’t.” But I did. Buckets. All over his blue shirt, turning one side into a mass of wrinkles. I looked at him apologetically. “I think I’m crying as much over Amos’s nastiness last night as I am over the tires.” I sniffed. “Up until now I was trying to be brave about it. But it hurts! I’m not used to people not liking me.”

I sat up, sniffed again, and wiped at my face in a mostly futile effort to erase the tears. My cheeks felt hot and puffy. I knelt and leaned over the stream. I took a handful of water and splashed my eyes, my cheeks. The coolness felt good. I took a quick drink.

I sat back on my rock, pulled my sandals off, and lowered my feet into the stream.

“Yo! Cold!” I pulled my feet out of the water and then tried again.

Todd reached forward and lowered his hand into the water. “It’s not cold.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “You’re only sticking your hand under. Hands are tough. They can take it. It’s feet that complain.”

“Not mine.” And so saying, he took off his shoes and socks and stuck his feet in the water. “Yo! Cold!”

We grinned at each other as we sat on the rocks with our feet dangling in the creek, slowly turning blue.

Todd cleared his throat. “I had an idea after I left you today,” he said. He fell silent and watched his feet slowly paddling.

I turned to him. “Do you think you’ll share it?”

He looked at me and then back to the stream.

“It’s about the adoption, isn’t it?” I said. “And you’re not sure you want to tell me?”

He took a deep, fortifying breath. “What if opening more doors somehow brings you another unpleasant episode like last night?”

I studied the shifting light playing across the flowing water. “I’ve thought about that possibility. It’s a matter of deciding whether the return is worth the risk.”

He arched his eyebrows at the unspoken question.

I grinned at him. “What do you think?”

He sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

I bent over and caught a handful of water. I flicked it in his direction.

He looked with great interest at the deep-blue splash mark on his jeans leg. His eyebrow quirked and his jaw hardened. “I don’t know after treatment like that.” And he sent a cascade of water my way with his foot.

I gasped as the deluge caught me in the chest. My shirt was drenched and clung to me.

“Sorry,” he said with a huge grin, obviously as sorry as a bully who’d taken the lunch money of some poor little kid. “I didn’t mean to kick quite that much.”

“Why, you!” I made my hand a scoop and gave him a face full. I was pleased to see him choke and sputter, but my pleasure turned to consternation as he sent another great spray my way. Now it was my turn to choke and splutter.

I jumped into the creek so I could aim head on. I cupped my hands and threw, water flying. I got him squarely in the chest and crowed with pleasure. How do pacifists feel, I wondered as I tried unsuccessfully to duck his retaliatory measures, about water battles? And on Sunday?

Next thing I knew we were both in the stream dashing water at each other at a furious pace. We were wet, cold, and laughing, and my tears were forgotten. I never even saw the mossy rock that my foot slipped on, but I felt myself start to fall.

“Ack!” To keep from tumbling I grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be Todd. Suddenly both of us were sitting in water to our waists.

“My wallet!” Todd moaned as he felt his back pocket.

“Look at it this way. You’re just laundering your money.”

“Ha ha.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it onto the rock where it leaked a steady stream. “Like that would ever happen.”

“I don’t know. Seems to me I’ve read about just such activity.”

“Attacking a whole profession because of a few. Unfair and unjust.” He dipped into the stream with joined hands and poured the captured water over my head like he was ladling soup. Water dripped from my nose and ran off my chin. “Why, I might as well say all writers are plagiarists.”

“A scurrilous attack!” I was laughing so hard I could barely get the words out. I cupped my hand and sliced it along the surface of the stream, sending a great arc of water into Todd’s face. It happened to get him with his mouth open in laughter and on an indrawn breath. He coughed and wheezed as the water flooded down his throat.

“Serves you right!” I said, though I began clapping him on the back in sympathy. The pats were pretty weak because of my laughter, but they helped curb his coughing.

I sat back, leaning on my hands, out of breath, and exhilarated. My braid trailed behind me in the stream. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done something so absolutely foolish and fun.

Todd slowly rotated until he was facing me, and I knew he had great plans for revenge. He reached around me and grabbed my braid.

I grabbed his hand. “Dunk me and you’re a dead man!”

I expected him to try to pull me under, but instead he pulled me slowly toward him. I looked up, surprised. Our eyes met and held.

In a flash the frivolity dissapated and the atmosphere between us was as laden with electricity as the air is with ozone after a lightning strike. I couldn’t have moved if my life depended on it. As it was, I could barely breathe. It was as if all the oxygen had been burned off by the atmospheric charge, and there was nothing left to draw into my lungs.

A fly buzzed between us and Todd blinked, reluctantly releasing my hair. “Come on, Cara,” he said softly. “We’d better get out of here before we catch pneumonia.”

He stood and pulled me to my feet. We climbed onto our rock, brightly lit and warmed by a shaft of sun streaming through an opening in the canopy of leaves. Water streamed from our clothes, forming pools that flowed into rivulets that became little waterfalls that fell back into the creek.

I was conscious of Todd’s every movement even without looking directly at him. I knew he bent one knee, curling the leg around himself. He raised his other knee and rested an elbow on it. He stared thoughtfully at the water for a minute and then turned to study me.

I pulled my braid over my shoulder with assumed nonchalance and squeezed. Water poured in a little torrent. I began working the rubber band that bound the plait, but it was wound about by hair and snarls. I felt myself go cross-eyed as I tried to unravel the tangled mess.

“Here, let me.” Todd pulled my braid back over my shoulder. “Turn sideways,” he ordered. I did and he struggled with my hair.

“Now tell me what you were going to tell me before we got sidetracked,” I said. We definitely needed something ordinary to talk about to discharge the surge of current arcing between us.

He cleared his throat. “Well, I was thinking about adoption papers and… Ow!” I heard the smack as the rubber band snapped him. “And you’d better not be smiling,” he said grouchily.

I wiped the grin from my face. “I’m not.”

“Right.” He went back to wrestling with the rubber band. “In the earlier part of the twentieth century, adoptions weren’t sealed like they were later, after 1924.”

Hope stole my breath. “What are you saying?”

“There’s a possibility that your pop’s papers might be filed along with all the other civil records from 1918 in the Prothonotary’s office.”

“You mean I could just walk in and ask to see the papers and they’d show me? I could find Pop’s birth and adoption records?” I was floored.

“Maybe,” Todd said. “I don’t know. It’s just something that occurred to me. You’d have to go find out.”

“Where?” I tried to turn to look at him, but my braid in his hands prevented it.

“The Prothonotary’s office is in the courthouse in Lancaster.”

I nodded. I knew where the courthouse was. “What in the world is a prothonotary?”

“You and Harry Truman. He’s reported to have asked the same thing, expletive added, when he met one in Pittsburgh at a campaign stop.”

Nice to know a president and I thought alike, expletive aside.

“We elect them here in Pennsylvania.”

“Good for you staunch citizens, but what in the world is one?”

“It’s the person who watches over all the civil records.” With a satisfied grunt he finally pulled the rubber band free. He began carefully unbraiding my hair.

“Then why don’t they call him the Keeper of Civil Records in the Civil Records Office?” I grumbled. “It’s as bad as Orphan’s Court.”

“Thank you, Todd,” Todd said. “That was very nice of you to come up with such a wonderful idea for me.”

I could feel him spreading my hair out to the sun. I smiled. “Thank you, Todd. It was very nice of you to come up with such a wonderful idea for me. You are absolutely the best lawyer a woman could want. I will go to the courthouse tomorrow and check it out.”

“Mmm,” he said. His strong fingers combed my hair, catching every so often on knots, but it felt wonderful regardless. Mom had often combed my hair for me when I was a child, and few things meant love and security more. I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the pleasant sensation.

The sun fell warmly on my face. The leaves hung hot and still above, and the stream frolicked beside us. I opened my eyes, looked into the branches overhead, and saw a catbird land on a branch. His melodious trill filled the air as he sang with all the joy within him. I smiled and my eyes slid shut again.

I woke when the sun had moved off me. I wasn’t chilled; it was impossible to be chilled in the heat. I was just aware that time had passed, though I had no idea how much. I was also aware of Todd’s touch still on my hair and of my head resting against his knee as he sat with his legs bracketing me.

“Enjoy your nap?” he asked softly as he brushed my hair back from my forehead.

I nodded. “Was I asleep long?”