Read In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2) Online
Authors: Ruth Hartzler
Tags: #amish, #amish romance, #christian fiction romance, #amish denomination, #amish romance fiction, #suspense christian, #christian romance suspense, #christian fiction suspense
In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2)
In Plain View
(Amish Safe House, Book 2)
Copyright © 2015 by Ruth Hartzler
All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition.
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* * *
Scripture quotations are
from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
®
(ESV
®
),
copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The personal
names have been invented by the author, and any likeness to the
name of any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book may contain references to specific
commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark,
manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and/or
trade names of products, which are trademarks or registered
trademarks and/or trade names, and these are property of their
respective owners. Ruth Hartzler or her associates, have no
association with any specific commercial products, process, or
service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise,
specific brand-name products and / or trade names of products.
* * *
Philippians 2:1-30
.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from
love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or
conceit, but in humility count others more significant than
yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but
also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves,
which is yours in Christ Jesus.
* * *
Malachi 4:1-6
.
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all
the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is
coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it
will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my
name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its
wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you
shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles
of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that
I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. “Behold, I will send you
Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord
comes.”
Table of Contents.
Galatians 6:14.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to
the world.
Chapter
1
.
High powered U.S. Marshal, Kate Briggs, was
in the back of a buggy, disguised as an Amish woman. She felt like
a child, sitting in the back seat, her knees pressed tightly
against the back of the driver’s seat in front of her. Isaac, of
course, was driving; the Amish were decidedly old school like that.
Isaac’s wife, Beth, made the dinner; she tended the garden, and
Isaac did the manly stuff, like drive, and patch the roof, and
whatever else needed doing.
Kate was grateful that her boss had sent her
to live undercover with the Amish, for her own protection, while he
tried to discover who intended her harm. At first, Kate had thought
that no one would ever accept that she was Amish, yet her cover as
an Amish woman with amnesia, a woman from an Amish community in
another state, had worked so far. The bishop and his wife were the
only ones party to the information.
Kate was staying in a
grossmammi haus
behind the large farmhouse of Isaac and Beth Kauffman, and while
she at first had found the situation daunting, she was now
accustomed to the Amish way of life.
The farmland sliding slowly past Kate looked
like the miles that had come before, and the miles that were still
to come. Green fields of corn, golden wheat standing high, the tips
swaying in the soft summer breeze slightly, so that it all looked
like a yellow sea where the waves were lazily being pulled up
toward the sun.
“Hey, who’s that?” Beth called from the
passenger seat, pointing her index finger.
Kate’s view had given way to something other
than farm fields. It was a long stretch of green grass behind a
small wire fence, and in the distance there was a shimmering
blue-green pond. Someone was standing at the edge of the pond
facing the road, waving their hands back and forth, obviously
hoping to get the buggy’s attention.
“Well, it’s Hugh White’s land, so I reckon
it’s him,” Isaac said with a chuckle.
“It looks like you’re right,” Beth said,
nodding her head, her bonnet bobbing slightly with the motion.
Kate did not understand how they could be so
sure. From this distance, she could tell it was someone waving
their hands, and that was about it. If she had to say anything
about the figure, she would guess that it was a man.
Isaac pulled the buggy over to the side of
the road and stopped it completely, the two wheels on the passenger
side sitting off the pavement and into the dirt that bordered the
wire fence.
Everyone climbed out of the buggy, and Kate
took the lead as they stepped down a slight dip to the fence.
“I can go see what he wants, if its easier
for you,” Kate said, climbing over the small fence and turning to
the older folk, but Isaac shook his head and climbed over the fence
himself, and then he turned and helped Beth over as well.
“Best to see what he wants,” Isaac said.
“Might be trouble, might need more hands. I’m guessing one of his
cows got stuck in his pond.”
And indeed as they walked, they passed a few
of the cows, big and black and white, their eyes large and dark and
swiveling in their sockets to keep a view of the humans as they
passed. Kate thought that the animals looked as if they were
curious, and she hoped they would not mind trespassers through
their home. One of the cows walked toward the small group of three,
mooing softly, her tail swinging behind her almost like a puppy.
Kate wondered if the cow would have come up and permit her to pet
her, but she was too anxious to get to Hugh and see what he
needed.
“I’ve called the police,” the man said, as
they got close enough to hear him, and Kate thought that was a
strange thing to say. “I just, err, I didn’t want to leave here,
but I wanted to go to the road and make sure they get flagged
down.”
“What are you going on about?” Isaac asked
Hugh, but Kate was the first one to the man, and she looked past
him to the edge of the pond and knew what he was talking about
pretty quickly.
On the shore, face down, the legs sticking
into the still water, and the torso and head and arms out, was a
body. It was a man with brown hair, and although she could not see
his face, Kate was reasonably sure he was no more than thirty five.
She took a step forward, but stopped herself from moving any more
than that - she had to remember not to give herself away.
“Oh my,” Beth said, clapping a hand over her
mouth when she saw the body. Isaac had seen it too, and he put a
protective hand on his wife’s arm.
“What happened?” Isaac asked. “Who is
that?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Hugh said, shaking
his head and pulling off his hat. He wiped his arm across his brow
and replaced the hat. “I was just coming to check on one of the
heifers; she hurt her leg yesterday. I cut through the woods there,
then came around here and saw him. I didn’t look too close. Then I
had to run to the barn to call the police.”
Isaac turned to his wife. “Beth, why don’t
you walk back to the road and make sure they see us?”
Beth nodded her head at her husband's
suggestion and turned away. She looked a bit green in the face, and
Kate was certain that Beth had never seen a dead person before.
“Hang on there, Beth,” Hugh called. “I’ll go
up with you.”
Beth nodded, and Hugh joined her. Isaac
waited until they were halfway back to the road before he spoke.
“You don’t seem bothered by it,” he said.
Kate shrugged her shoulders, turning to look
at the body once more.
Isaac kept the conversation going. “You’ve
seen someone die?”
Kate sighed; she wasn’t sure what she wanted
to say here. She turned to the Isaac and shook her head.
“Die? No. But a body. My cousin, when we
were younger.” That, at least, was the truth.
The old man nodded. “Well, I’m sorry to hear
it.”
“It’s all right. It was a long time
ago.”
Isaac nodded his head to the body on the
shore of the pond. “What happened to him, ya reckon?”
Although the question seemed to be addressed
more to himself than to Kate, she stepped forward a little. “I’m
not sure. He doesn’t look drowned, does he?”
Isaac came up beside her. “No, he
doesn’t.”
Isaac kept walking forward, so Kate fell
into step beside him. They stopped just shy of stepping onto the
muddy shore. Kate was glad of that; she did not want them to leave
footprints in the mud. As it was, there were no footprints around
the body, which was odd. Had the man fallen? Kate looked up, and
saw nothing but the blue sky of summer, and a few wispy white
clouds sliding slowly along. If he had fallen, what could have been
the cause?
“What’s that there?” Isaac asked, pointing
his finger.
Kate looked and saw what he was talking
about. She bent at the knees, coming down to sit on her haunches,
so she was more level with the body, but still not on the shore. On
the man’s right wrist was a tattoo. His arm was stretched upwards,
and his wrist just went past the top of his head. The tattoo was on
the inside of the wrist, a black snake with the jaws wide and the
fangs up high.
“A tattoo,” Isaac said, squinting. “Don’t
see many of them around here.”
Kate nodded. “No, you don’t.”
She stood back up and looked toward the road
across the field. A white and blue police car had pulled up. It sat
on the edge of the road behind Isaac’s buggy, the lights on top of
the car flashing red and blue. It appeared as if two cops were
climbing over the fence, following Hugh back to the pond. Kate
could see Beth standing near the fence, but making no effort to
move.
Isaac and Kate stood waiting for the cops to
make it to the pond, and when they finally did, they shook hands
and introduced themselves. The cops introduced themselves as
Officer Jones and Officer Saracen. Both were male and in their late
twenties, both of them lean and muscular, but Saracen was short,
and Jones had a brown mustache.
The cops asked everyone to step back as they
inspected the body, and Kate stood with Isaac and Hugh. Something
was eating at her, something in her mind pressing against her
brain, a memory of something. It had to do with the tattoo. She
kept thinking about it, watching as Saracen put on a white plastic
glove and moved the man’s arm.
And then, as memories so often do, it all
came flooding back to her. She had seen that tattoo before, on two
different people. Both of them were men she had worked with in
WITSEC. They had been men she had hidden away. And they both had
shared something else in common. They had been hitmen for the same
mobster, Logan White, a big time crime boss who was nicknamed
The Viper
.
