Dark Crossings (5 page)

“Like you’re doing to me now?” Ben yelled back, dodging most of
the man’s blows. He turned his head, shocked to see Abby. “Get away!” he
shouted, but looked at her a second too long. The enraged man—it must be Burt
Commons, the brother of Steve Commons, who’d attacked Ben’s sister—landed a blow
on his face. Ten years back Abby had followed every word of Steve’s trial by
sneaking copies of the
Wooster Daily Record
.

She was tempted to trip or hit Commons with her spade, but she
realized she’d be doing exactly what Ben had done—explode in violence. But this
wasn’t fair. This was wrong.

“It’s okay, Ben!” she shouted. “Thanks for loaning me your cell
phone, because I called Sheriff Freeman, and he’s on his way!” It was a lie,
but, she figured, better than braining this beast.

For a moment, she thought Burt Commons would come after her. He
turned her way, a snarl on his bearded face. She darted up onto the porch. If
Ben came to her aid like he had his sister, it would be a replay of ten years
ago.

She could see Commons waver. He wasn’t sure whether to believe
her or not. But at last he turned tail and ran back to his truck, got in,
slammed the door and shouted out the window, “I’ll be back! You’re gonna pay for
what you done!” As he sped away, he spun his wheels so hard they spit
gravel.

Ben came up onto the porch, threw his sleeping bag down and
collapsed onto the swing. Abby could see he was bleeding from the nose.

“We’re both good at using Sheriff Freeman to ward off danger,”
he said. “Maybe the Amish are wrong to mistrust
Englische
law and its enforcers. At least you didn’t smack him with
that spade or use your knife. For a moment there, I wondered. Don’t mess with
Abby Baughman.”

“This is no time to joke. You heard what he said. He could be
dangerous. And for all we know, he’s been hanging around before. Do you have ice
in your freezer so I can get some for your nose?”

“I’ll take care of my nose,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry you got
involved in that. I had no clue he was even in the area now. Even though, back
then he was at his brother’s trial every day.” Ben heaved a huge sigh.

“What I’m thinking is, what if he and some woman were on that
bridge arguing, planning to attack you, and they’re the ones I overheard?”

“Listen, Abby,” Ben said, wiping away blood with his sleeve. “I
don’t think he’s a clever enough thief to sneak in and carefully steal a
diamond. He’s not the type to own a diamond in the first place. I’m pretty sure
your invoking the sheriff’s name will keep him away—like his brother, he’s
basically a sneak-attack coward. But when I go into town, I’ll tell Sheriff
Freeman and let him have a word with Commons.”

“But you can’t file charges. The bishop won’t permit—”

“I know. I’m going to see Bishop Esh, too, so I’ll level with
him—about Burt Commons. Please head on back now and stay put. I guess we’re
partners in helping each other out, but we can’t keep spending time together—not
until later, at least. Not unless things change. I’ll take care of this,” he
added, with another swipe at his nose. “Go on now, Abby—please.”

She yearned to tend to him, but when she saw he meant to stay
bleeding on his front porch until she was back across the bridge, she walked
away. As she emerged on her side of the river, she felt his eyes on her and
glanced back. She quickened her steps even more. She had a lot to do today and
was getting a late start on her chores, but not a late start in loving Ben
Kline.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HAT
MORNING
,
Abby set about inoculating her maple
chips with virgin spawn, remembering how Ben must have misheard her when they
were whispering in the basement. Evidently the word
virgin
had got his attention. As she worked in her familiar mushroom
patches, she felt good in the sun and brisk breeze, with the late hangers-on of
richly colored leaves floating down around her. But when she went into the house
for lunch, her once safe haven bothered her.

She hadn’t slept well the past two nights, so would she be able
to this night? Seeing Ben out there in his sleeping bag had helped, but she
still felt uneasy that someone had been in her house and taken the diamond. It
was almost as if she’d imagined its glittering beauty, as if she’d dreamed it or
made it up.

But no. All this was real, much too real.

And how badly she wanted to see more of the jewelry boxes Ben
made, maybe so she could understand him better. That one she’d looked at briefly
on market day was so beautiful. She’d been thinking of getting out of here for a
little while to clear her head, to stop looking across the river at Ben’s
house.

Besides, she had mushrooms to deliver by tomorrow to the
Yoders’ roadside stand, and that was close to where the Eden County Library
bookmobile would be today. She could take just a few minutes, ask for help to
find the Jeweled Treasures website of Cincinnati, and have a closer look at
Ben’s carved boxes. It wouldn’t take long. Then she’d come back and do a bit of
wildcrafting in the woods while the afternoon sun slanted in. No more after-dark
work. She’d promised, and right now it was for the best.

She ate a grilled cheese sandwich with a slice of mushroom.
When she saw Ben drive away, hopefully to see both the sheriff and the bishop,
she harnessed Fern to her buggy, locked up carefully and set out. As much as she
loved Killibuck Creek and her home there, it was good to get away.

* * *

B
EN
WALKED
OUT
OF
the sheriff’s office into the bright autumn
sunshine. Jack Freeman had said he’d “talk some sense” into Burt Commons and
would drive out after dark from time to time to the old Hanging Bridge to check
on things. And he’d told Ben, even if he was thinking of returning to the Amish,
to keep his cell phone for now and phone him day or night if anything “looked
fishy.” Ben hadn’t explained about returning to the church, but the sheriff had
guessed as much when Ben had refused to bring charges for assault and battery
against Burt. The sheriff was used to forgiveness from the Amish, at any
cost.

But Ben knew he’d held something back he should have told the
sheriff—that Abby had found a diamond on the bridge and then someone had stolen
it from her bedroom. Because Ben had to give his address to the Cincinnati
police and the insurance investigators, they had already informed Freeman about
the theft at Jeweled Treasures.

As he got in his truck, he wished he had a buggy instead, so he
could drive to see Bishop Esh and talk about possibly returning to the church.
Maybe he’d park out on the road and walk up the lane to the Esh farm. He did
miss his horse and buggy sometimes. It slowed life down, made the world seem
real and lovely, at a reasonable pace instead of rush, rush, rush.

He agonized, too, about whether his timing was right for
atonement and reinstatement among the brethren. Things sure weren’t settled in
his life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unset gems and designer
pieces had been carried out of the jewelry store either with or in his boxes. An
inside job, the police and insurance agency had decided. The theft had happened
after-hours and pointed to someone who knew his way around. Amish past or not,
Ben was the newest staff member, still the outsider, clever enough with his
hands and knives to jimmy locks. The theft had been so quick and clean, the
paper had called it a “cat burglary.”

And darn it, why didn’t Triana Tornelli, the co-owner of the
store, call him back so he could be certain that earring wasn’t hers? He hit the
steering wheel with a fist. Could she have driven out to see him? Cesar might
have followed and caught up with her, and they’d argued, maybe struggled on the
bridge? Triana had said Cesar sometimes played rough. Then when Abby’s
flashlight surprised them, Triana had lost an earring…. No, he was probably
just getting paranoid. A lot of women had diamond stud earrings, but the way it
had been taken from Abby’s drawer made him think of a cat burglar. And that was
Triana, sleek and smooth.

He tried to shake off the memory of the day she had come after
dark to his apartment, saying she wanted to see how he was doing on his first
seashell box, a special order for a rich customer who spent her winters in
Florida. He’d seen from the first that Triana had more in mind than looking at
his carving, which he would have brought in the next day.

It would have been so easy to sleep with her. But Cesar was his
boss, too. It was wrong, and she was wrong, but her perfume and her red
mouth…

He’d turned her down, literally held her off and talked her out
of it. She’d pretended not to care, had shrugged and flipped her jacket over her
shoulder and made a grand exit. But she’d treated him differently after that.
Like Melanie Campbell, she was always watching him, as if waiting to pounce.
Now, unlike Ms. Campbell, Triana seemed to be shunning him.

That was what Abby should be doing. Things were hardly settled
between them, and couldn’t be unless he returned to the church. Yeah, he
admitted, that was another factor pushing him to come clean with Bishop Esh.
Talk about a hidden gem—Abigail Baughman was that in the flesh. It might be a
short distance across the covered bridge that separated them, but a long road
stretched ahead before he could ever hope to court her openly.

Ben parked his truck in a pull-off on Oakridge Road about a
half mile from Bishop Esh’s farm, got out and locked up, then began the long
walk toward his future.

* * *

“S
O
YOU
JUST
TYPE
IN
the name of the store in this
space,” Nicole Anderson, the librarian in the bookmobile, said, pointing to the
top of the screen. “And we’d better put a plus sign and the word
Cincinnati,
too, in case there are other stores by
that name somewhere in the world.”

“Oh. This covers the whole world?” Abby whispered as she slowly
typed all that in. The front part of the bookmobile was fairly crowded with
people she knew, and she didn’t want to broadcast what she was doing. She
shouldn’t even be online.

Instantly, when she clicked on the scrolled words Visit Jeweled
Treasures Here or In Person, a colored picture sprang onto the screen of jewels
and pearl necklaces dripping from carved, half-open boxes, no doubt Ben’s. Each
one had something from nature carved on its top or handle—butterflies, leaves,
even seashells. Off to the side was a close-up photograph of the owners of the
store, Cesar and Triana Tornelli. They were both really trim. Obviously, they
hadn’t been anywhere near Amish food. Probably in his mid-fifties, Cesar was a
silver-haired, tanned man in a worldly suit, with sharp gray eyes and a
prominent nose. Triana Tornelli wore big, hanging emerald earrings and a
matching necklace against her bare throat and upper chest. She was pretty
despite her hair being chopped really short and slicked to her head and, Abby
guessed, dyed that silvery-white shade. Both of them reeked of wealth and
worldly power.

She was so intent on studying them that she jumped when Nicole
spoke again. “You just click the cursor on those buttons on the left to find
particular things on pages within this website. Let me know if you need help,”
she added, and moved away.

Oh,
ja,
she needed help, Abby
thought. She was in love with a man who said he wanted to return to the Plain
People, but had worked for a fancy, just-for-pretty jewelry store with amazing
things for sale. She searched each page, astounded at the variety and prices of
the jewelry. And then she saw what Nicole had called a button, labeled Custom
Jewelry Boxes.

She clicked on it, and there was picture after picture of Ben’s
work, some with him doing the carving or holding up a particular box. But one
thing gave her hope. In none of the pictures had he let the photographer show
his face, so maybe he was truly, at least a little, still Amish at heart.

When she got off the website so the next person in line would
not know what she’d been looking at, she saw something else listed, a kind of
headline: Jeweled Treasures—Theft of Millions Worth of Jewelry Called Inside
Job.

Wide-eyed, she skimmed the Cincinnati newspaper article that
came up. Listed among the “persons of interest” in that huge theft was Ben’s
name!

* * *

A
BBY
ATE
NEXT
TO
NOTHING
for lunch. Since it was
broad daylight and the falling leaves allowed a clear line of vision to the
house, she locked up and, taking a big hemp wildcrafting bag from her pile, went
on her familiar way to the edge of the forest. She had to do something besides
brood and cry over what she’d read about the jewelry “heist,” as they’d called
it. She’d had to look the word up.

So had Ben come back to the Home Valley to find his Amish life,
or escape his English one? Charges were pending; an investigation was still
going on. Surely, he could not be guilty. What if he’d dropped a diamond from
his stolen gems, and that’s why he was upset she’d found it? Maybe he’d even
figured out she had it—had seen her find it that night—and then stole it back.
She felt sick to her stomach with fear, but she still believed in him. Didn’t
she?

She knew Ben was not back yet, and if—when—he was, would she
confront him with what she’d learned? She hoped he’d talked to the sheriff, who
maybe knew all about this. But she prayed he’d also taken time to see Bishop
Esh. That was a conversation she would love to eavesdrop on.

Feeling depressed despite the pretty day, she gathered walnuts
first. When her bag got heavy, she trudged back to the house, dumped her bounty
in a bushel basket and returned to fill the sack again. With an edgy feeling
she’d never had in Wild Run Woods before, she glanced around a lot and didn’t go
clear into the shaded ravine, despite the fact that there were two more
good-size walnut trees there.

Abby felt not only sad, but nervous today in these woods she
knew so well. She treasured happy memories of wildcrafting here with her mother
and grandmother, but that hardly helped. She jumped when she startled a doe and
fawn from the underbrush, where they must have been sleeping or grazing by a big
hollow log that sported wild wood ear mushrooms she’d need to cut soon. She
called after the fleeing animals, “Sorry! It’s your home, too!” But the deer
just ran faster, as if Abby was a danger to them.

She lugged her load of walnuts back once more. Now, where had
she put those extra hemp sacks? Because this one had a tear in it. She saw Ben’s
truck was parked at his place now, but she didn’t see him outside. At least if
he glanced or came over—which she hoped for, but wasn’t expecting—he’d surely
see that she was out in the open and not taking risks. Even when she next cut
the branches of bittersweet growing along the old road that led to the bridge,
she would be in a clearing.
Ach,
how she hated to
have to fret for her safety now. Fret not, it warned in the book of Psalms. That
only causes harm.

The diamond thief had ruined everything, and she sure hoped it
wasn’t Ben. She couldn’t believe he would steal. But he’d had enough money for
his land, house and planned remodeling. And he’d suddenly fled back here when he
was surely doing well away. She could see why he hadn’t told her that people
thought he might be guilty, though.

Toting two large, empty baskets on her next trip down the old
road, Abby crunched through the carpet of leaves as others blew around her.
After she was done, she’d be tempted to go back for those wood ears near the
spot where she’d seen the deer. She took out her knife and began to cut bouquets
of the red-orange berries along the narrow road. Foliage on both sides,
including lots of tall weeds, choked the former route, almost making it a mere
pathway.

Why was bittersweet given its name? she wondered, examining the
vibrant berries close up. She’d never tasted them to see if they were bitter. Or
maybe it was named for the time of year. The berries bloomed in a glorious
burst, but soon dried. Bittersweet—that’s how she thought of her relationship
with Ben now.

The leaves rustled loudly in the breeze. Was the weather going
to change?

She froze, the new-cut branches in her hand, a nearly full
basket at her feet. The rhythmic sound grew closer. Footsteps? Hoping it was
Ben, she spun around, only to scream in horror. A man, or a tall person at
least, appeared wearing a big hempen bag—the one she’d left outside at the
house?—like a loose garment. More hemp covered his head like a hood. There were
slits for his eyes and nose, and the fabric was tied at his neck like a
scarecrow. He was coming straight at her, with her own spade in his gloved
hands. And he was swinging it before him as if he was reaping grain with a
scythe.

Grasping only her small cutting knife, Abby ran. She tore down
the road at first, but heard him behind her. Picking up her skirts to her knees,
she veered into the forest for a shortcut home. Whoever it was, she had to know
this area better than he did.

Thank heavens, she heard him fall and grunt. But still she was
terrified she wasn’t going to make it home in time. Someone was after her in
broad daylight. But why? Who?