Accidentally Amish (31 page)

Annie had a “regular” chair at the Beiler table now. In addition to the beets, Franey Beiler served a ham-and-potato casserole and a salad of fresh garden greens. Rain pattered during the main meal, eventually rising to a steady sleepy rhythm.

“I hope it keeps raining all night,” Lydia said.

“You just don’t want to water the garden,” Sophie said.

“It takes too many buckets. We need more rain.”

“For the fields, too.” Joel reached for the plate of bread. “Are you sure you cannot hire me, Rufus?”

“You have work on the farm,” Rufus answered.

Eli cleared his throat, and Joel grimaced. “I love the alfalfa fields,
Daed.
But it might be nice to have a bit of real money now and then.”

“God will provide,” Eli said.

There it was again. Annie looked from Eli to Joel, two generations of Beilers sorting out what those three words meant.

Occasionally Jacob leaned in close to Annie to interpret what the family was saying in Pennsylvania Dutch. Jacob’s English was very good for a small child who did not see all that much of the
English.
Rufus did not catch Annie’s eye.

By the time Lydia and Sophie carried twin peach pies to the table for dessert, thunder jolted them all. The rain was a lashing whip now.

“Annalise,” Franey said as she handed the visitor a slice of pie, “perhaps you should plan to spend the night.”

“I thought I would see if Mo had a room at the motel,” Annie said. “I plan to stay a few days.”

“No point in going out in the storm. Ruth’s room is just as you left it. You may stay as long as you like.”

Now Annie did look at Rufus to catch his eye. He gave a nod.
Yes, stay the night,
it seemed to say.

“I’d love to,” Annie said. “Let me help you do the dishes.”

In the morning, Annie made a point to be up in plenty of time for breakfast. The last thing she wanted was Franey Beiler thinking she was a lollygagging guest. When Franey knocked on her door, Annie was already dressed and straightening the quilt, made of deep purple, blue, and green.

“Did you sleep?” Franey asked.

“Very well.” Annie stroked the quilt, wondering how many years Ruth had slept under it. “The quilt is beautiful.”

“It was Ruth’s favorite,” Franey said quietly. “My mother made it forty years ago. I used to keep it in the cupboard, but Ruth nagged and nagged for me to let her use it. I finally gave in, and then she was gone.”

Annie swallowed hard. Would her next words bring comfort or sorrow? “I saw Ruth last weekend.”

Franey’s breath stopped as her eyes widened. “My Ruth?”

Annie nodded.

A second quilt hung over the foot of the satin black wrought-iron bedstead. Franey lifted it now and refolded it for no good reason. Annie hadn’t even used it. “How is she?”

“She misses you.”

“She knows where to find us.”

“Would you like for her to visit?”

“I would like for her to come home. That’s not the same thing, though, is it?”

Annie shook her head and held her tongue.

“It must seem to you that we are harsh toward Ruth.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Annie said. “I only know she loves you.”

Franey hung the quilt on the bedstead again with finality. “You’re right. You don’t know what happened.”

J
acob gave her an I’m-going-to-be-mad-if-you-leave look, but after a breakfast full of chatter, Annie gathered her bag and headed into town. In her car, compared to the buggy rides of her last visit, the five miles zipped by. She parked on Main Street in front of an antiques shop. The sign on the door read, B
ACK IN
30 M
INUTES
, which amused Annie both because in Colorado Springs no business would risk missing a customer by closing in the middle of the day, and because the sign did not indicate when the thirty minutes began.

She waved her phone around in the air to catch a signal then checked her e-mail while she walked slowly.

“What are you doing?”
Annie winced at her mother’s typed words.
“What is this fixation you have with Westcliffe? Call me so I can talk some sense into you.”

Jamie had a list of questions. Annie considered walking three blocks down to the coffee shop to sit down and answer them. Would the barista still remember her beverage of choice, or had she already fallen out of favor?

And then she saw it.

She wondered why she had not seen it three weeks ago. Perhaps it had not been there.

The F
OR
S
ALE
sign pointed down the side street, directing her to the narrow green house toward the end of the block. She turned the corner, paced past three houses, and stood across the street. The house was two stories but barely wide enough for a decent living room. Probably a living room at the front, with an eating space and something that passed as a kitchen at the back, with perhaps two small bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Annie could not immediately detect where the stairs were, but she had a couple of guesses.

She doubted the whole house was more than eight hundred square feet of usable space. Her condo was three times that big.

This place was waiting for the big bad wolf to breathe too hard and blow it down. Her condo was brand new.

This would be Annie’s idea of camping out, while her condo had every modern convenience.

The garage here looked like it was built to house a couple of bicycles. The condo had a reserved underground extrawide parking space.

Annie dialed the number on the sign and spoke to a real estate agent who assured her she could just go on in and look around. The back door was unlocked. The half-acre pasture behind the house was part of the property being offered. Water came from a well beneath the pasture. The realty office was at the other end of Main Street. Call if she had questions.

Annie’s heart rate sped up as she strode down the driveway and found the three cement steps up to the back door. A wooden railing she was afraid to lean on enclosed the tiny porch. She paused to glance at the fenced-in pasture. “Horse property,” they would call this on the outskirts of Colorado Springs.

The knob turned easily, and Annie stepped into the kitchen—she was right about the downstairs layout—and could see straight through the house to the place where she had stood on the street. The stairs, narrow and steep, rose from one side of the dining room. Downstairs, the walls were a cheery pale yellow. Though the place was empty, someone had obviously cleaned thoroughly and painted in hopes of persuading a buyer of the home’s worthiness.

It was working.

Annie climbed the steps, almost afraid to hope for what she would find upstairs. A larger bedroom at the front of the house mirrored the dimensions of the living room, and a smaller one—about the size of her closet at the condo—sat over the kitchen. Neither one of them had a real closet, but the previous owner had left tall wardrobes probably deemed too difficult to bother moving. In the back bedroom, Annie pulled the latch of the wardrobe and imagined it filled with clothes from the condo.

Off the hall in between the bedrooms—papered in green and yellow stripes—was a bathroom with a claw-foot tub.

A claw-foot tub.

Annie had always wanted a claw-foot tub.

Gingerly she reached for the sink’s faucet and turned a knob. The pipes rattled but produced clear water.

Rapidly, the picture began filling in. A copper pipe rose from the tub to a shower head. Annie would install a fixture from the ceiling to hang a shower curtain that enclosed the tub. She would do the bathroom in silver and pale pink. Eventually. Of course, the first job would be to make everything functional.

She was going to buy the place, not imagining there would be much competition if she offered just under the asking price. It was only two hours from the condo—a great weekend place. Something to fix up. A hobby. She needed a hobby. Everyone said she worked too hard, especially her mother.

Everyone. Who was everyone? Annie’s work habits had cut her off from most of her friends a long time ago. Barrett was her buddy, and now he was gone from her life, taking with him his outgoing wife with whom Annie had always enjoyed spending time.

Annie stood in the upstairs hall, a whisper blowing through her. She was meant to find this house on this day.

God’s will.
This house would be more than a hobby. She blinked against the picture taking form in her mind.

She walked through again, testing light switches and faucets. What she presumed was a broom closet off the kitchen opened to stone steps leading to a basement. Down the creaky stairs she found an ancient furnace and hot water heater. On the way back up, she noticed the shelf of cherry preserves and canned green beans. How long had they been there?

Yes, she was definitely going to buy the house. She would wait to tell anyone until her offer was accepted in writing. A cash offer would help speed the sale.

God’s will.

Tires screeched through her dreams, but it was the pounding that made Annie throw back Ruth’s quilt and leap out of bed. She was sleeping in her workout clothes. All the Beilers were in the upstairs hall at two in the morning, as Eli and Rufus scrambled down the stairs. Wearing shorts and a tee, Annie stood in the midst of the family waiting on the landing. When Rufus opened the front door, Tom’s flashlight lit his face.

“It’s your cabinets, Rufus,” Tom said. “Karl got to them. Mo already called the police.”

“I’m coming with you.” Annie pushed past Sophie.

“Oh Annie,” Tom said. “Do you have your car? Can you bring Rufus? I promised Mo I’d come right back.”

“Absolutely.”

Rufus was already on his way up the stairs to exchange a robe for real clothes. Annie ducked back into Ruth’s room for jeans, shoes, and a sweater. Seven minutes later, they were in the Prius.

“This sounds really bad, Rufus.” Annie backed up the car to turn around. “You just took those cabinets over there yesterday.”

“Let’s wait and see what happened.”

“The police are going to be involved.”

“That’s Mo’s decision, not mine.”

“They’re your cabinets. Your hard work.”

Annie turned into the lane leading to the motel. Lights blazed across the scene. She spotted Tom’s truck and two squad cars labeled C
USTER
C
OUNTY
S
HERIFF
. The other vehicles were unfamiliar—likely guests at the motel but perhaps also gawkers. She parked as close to the lobby entrance as she could.

Rufus was silent as he got out of the car and walked past a couple of women in shorts and sweatshirts. Annie followed closely, scanning for Mo.

An officer greeted Rufus. “I understand you are the carpenter doing the work here.”

Rufus nodded, his eyes looking past the officer with the clipboard to the cabinets. Twelve hours ago, he left them stacked neatly in a suggestion of their final arrangement. Then he had covered them with pads and tarps. Now the pads and tarps were bunched in one corner, and blue and green spray paint splattered and squiggled across the exposed panels.

Annie squatted beside Rufus as he ran his fingers though the paint, barely dry. “Will it come off?”

“It should, but I’ll have to sand and finish everything again.”

“What about this?” Annie stuck a finger in a hole at the bottom of one front panel. Rufus’s shoulders sagged.

“They used an auger,” he said on a sigh. “Took a plug right out.”

“Clearly it’s premeditated.” Annie pushed to a standing position, huffing in fury. “This is not the work of bored teenagers.”

Rufus stood up. “See how many holes you find. I’d better check the desk.”

Annie carefully examined all eight cabinets and found three more auger holes and one deep scratch, the kind a key made in the grip of determination. Rufus threw back the tarp from the new reception desk and found a long gouge across the top.

One officer was absorbed with taking Mo’s report. Annie listened in. Mo was asleep in her apartment behind the lobby. The lobby door was locked. Guests accessed their rooms from the outside. New guests arriving at odd hours could ring a doorbell that woke her, but it was uncommon for anyone to arrive past midnight. Mo heard nothing until an engine gunned. She called Tom, then the sheriff’s office.