“Just give her the artwork,” the man said to Thomas. “Or she’s liable to dig up your whole community and she won’t care who’s in her way. And she especially won’t care about Finlay’s daughter. She knows the daughter has the key. And she knows you know where the daughter is.”
Thomas squared up his shoulders. His mind was reeling. His leg was bleeding. His brain was trying to make sense of what this man was telling him. “You’re Wissenberg’s son?”
“I’m nobody,” the man said. “A friend.”
“You’re on our side? Then why were you running away if you’re here to warn us? Why should I trust you?”
“You should trust no one.” With a sudden motion, the man pulled his arms together and took advantage of Thomas’s momentary surprise to break free. He pushed Thomas backward. Thomas caught his heel on a root and fell back to the snowy ground.
Before Thomas could recover, the man raised his knee high to his chest and with a look of pure evil on his face rammed his boot down into Thomas’s wound. Agony ripped through Thomas’s whole body, crippling him for a good few seconds. By the time he stood again, the man was in his car on the other side of the road. The wheels spun and he revved his engine until the car sped away across the new fallen snow.
Thomas tried to read the license plate. But he could only make out that it was Canadian and started with the number six. Thomas looked back to the stable. He didn’t know how much to believe of what the man had told him. He clearly had gotten Thomas to let his guard down so that he could get away. He hardly seemed trustworthy. On the other hand, Thomas didn’t want to completely dismiss the possibility of there being a second intruder still threatening the safety of the folks at the stable. If the man was telling even a bit of the truth, it meant that Darcy’s life was endangered over the key they had found. The key that wasn’t even in the stables. But, of course, the intruders didn’t know that.
Thomas looked for his horse. The animal had jogged several yards away from the scuffle, but now stood like a steed of war waiting for his rider to march back to battle. Thomas found a felled tree near the creek and used it to help him remount. It hurt to move his leg in any direction, but riding on a horse with four good legs would be a lot faster than a man walking on one with a gash in the side of it.
He clamped his teeth down and fought the pain. He should have listened to Darcy and gone back to the stable. He only hoped he wasn’t too late and that his mistake wouldn’t be the cause of injury to anyone else. Especially Darcy.
* * *
Darcy squealed as she went down flat on her back into the middle of the stable aisle. Amos raced out of the nearby feed room and saw the fleeing man in black.
“Are you hurt, miss?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I’m going to get that kid,” Amos said running after the man in black.
“Wait! No,” Darcy grunted, trying to refill her lungs with air. But Amos leaped over her and chased after the intruder.
Darcy pulled herself up off the ground and followed behind. Amos was stopped at the large front doors to the barn. “He disappeared. I chased him out of the stable, but when I got here...nothing.”
Darcy searched the ground. There should be footprints in the snow, right? But the ground revealed nothing but a confusion of boot prints going in every direction. There was nothing to glean from the snow.
“It’s okay,” Darcy said. “It probably wasn’t wise to run after him anyway. But thank you for helping. You’re a brave kid.”
“You think we were in actual danger?” He turned to her with a look of surprise.
“The stampede was a massive diversion so that they could search Thomas’s office,” she said. “They didn’t seem to care too much about hurting any of us. Yes, I would call that dangerous.”
“But what could Thomas have in his office worth all of that?” Amos asked.
A key to a pile of stolen art worth ten million dollars, Darcy thought to herself.
“Nothing,” she answered. “There is nothing in the world that could be worth that.”
And it was the whole reason she knew what she had to do next...
* * *
Darcy and Nana sat on one side of the kitchen table, each having a cup of herbal tea as they hoped to calm their nerves. Elijah and Chief McClendon sat on the opposite side of the table sipping coffee. Thomas was back on his stool with his wounded leg propped up high. Abigail had cleaned the wound again and redressed it. This time she told him that he was confined to the house and should sit or lie down for at least the next twenty-four hours. She had given him a shot of antibiotics in the hip, which had hurt almost as bad as the cleansing. She’d tried to talk him in to a mild painkiller, but he had refused. He needed to keep his head clear.
He did, however, ask Amos to take care of his horses and the stable for the rest of the week.
McClendon took notes in his little electronic pad. He wrote down descriptions of the intruders and he took multiple accounts of the activities from various community members before all of the guests had scattered.
Most of them had left believing the whole affair had been the work of some rotten and thoughtless teens. But a few of the visitors had started connecting Jesse’s beating, the fire and now the stampede with the possibility that something much more sinister was taking place. Thomas didn’t know what the bishop had told those few inquisitive folks, but at this point everyone had gone home and Thomas knew that meant the others were away and safe.
“I should have canceled the singing after the fire,” he said. “I didn’t think the trouble would follow us here.”
“What’s done is done,” said Nana as she pushed away from the table. “And Gott doesn’t want us to go around living our lives in fear and regret. No one was seriously hurt. No broken bones. No trips to the hospital. That’s all that matters. Now, I’m going to bed. I don’t think I’ll sleep a wink but I’m going to try. If you will all excuse me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” everyone said.
“Did you catch the model and color of the car?” McClendon asked.
“No, I didn’t catch the make,” Thomas said. “But it was a dark color. Maybe gray or blue. It had four doors. Looked new. Canadian plates—Ontario, I think. I only caught the first number. It was a six.”
Thomas shifted his weight on the stool. McClendon typed in a few more notes. Everyone looked exhausted and weighed down.
“Can anyone think of anything else?” McClendon asked.
They all shook their heads. They’d been over everything. Every detail of his encounter in the woods and the escape of the intruder in his office.
“Then I will take Eli and Miss Simmons back to the Millers’. Let’s call it a night,” McClendon said. He looked at Elijah. “We can phone Agent Ross from the car and get him up to speed. I’m going to post a car here, Thomas. From the sounds of your conversation in the woods, these people will be back looking for the key since they didn’t get it tonight.”
Thomas had the strangest sinking feeling as the three of them said goodbye. He dismissed it as emotions born out of exhaustion and confusion and the pain ramming through his leg. He wanted to say a private good-night to Darcy. He wanted to finish the conversation they’d had under the stars. He wanted to go back to that moment when he’d held her hand on the reins and she’d shared her heart with him.
But he knew he couldn’t. She wouldn’t even look back at him as she left the house.
Thomas knew it was better that way. But that didn’t matter. Knowing something is right doesn’t always make it feel better. Sometimes knowing what is right was just sad. Thomas made his way slowly up the stairs and into his bedroom. He lay across the quilted covers, too lost in his thoughts to draw them back. He turned out his lantern and closed his eyes. But, like Nana, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
* * *
Darcy sat quietly in the back of the chief’s car, knowing exactly what she needed to do. She listened to Elijah speak to Agent Ross over the phone. She knew they were all doing everything they could to help. But it wasn’t enough to stop the danger.
Her presence and this mess of her father’s were putting others in harm’s way. And Darcy was determined to put a stop to it.
Whether or not the attackers on her trail knew she was there dressed in Amish clothing was unclear. But it wasn’t something she was going to bank others’ lives on. If she left Willow Trace and made it obvious that she was back at her town house, then the focus of the hunt would resume there and she could know that these people were safe—that Thomas was safe. As they pulled into the Millers’ drive, she realized she needed to make her move now.
“I’m going to leave,” Darcy announced to Elijah and McClendon. “Please call a taxi for me.”
“What?” McClendon said. “I don’t think that’s going to help anything. Where are you going to go?”
“Home.”
“Alone? That’s not safe.”
“Am I free to go?” she asked.
“Well, of course you are,” the chief said. “I just don’t think it’s advisable. You are safer here.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. But for sure everyone else is safer without me here.”
Neither of them argued with that reasoning.
“I just need to go inside and change back into my own clothing. If you could call a taxi for me, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” McClendon said. “I’ll call one now.”
Darcy headed into the Millers’ house to get her things. Elijah raced after her.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. He knew why she was doing it. “Does Agent Ross have the letter and the key and the Bible that we found yesterday? And the box of photos?”
“Yes, he took all of it,” Elijah said. “Well, except for the box the photos were in. Why?”
“I just want to keep with me something that belonged to my father,” she said. “Could I have it?”
He nodded.
Darcy changed into her own things. She spread the frock she’d worn over the quilt-covered bed. She ran her fingers over the plain cotton fabric. She placed the black apron over the front and the prayer kapp at the collar. Heavy emotions welled inside her.
Her own clothing felt tight and restrictive against her limbs. She said a quick goodbye to Hannah and to Bishop and Mrs. Miller. Elijah waited for her outside. McClendon had already left and the taxi had arrived. In his hands, Elijah was holding the beautiful wooden box that Jesse had made. He handed it to her. As she grasped it in her hands, she felt peace. She was doing the right thing by leaving.
She smiled at Elijah. “Take care of Thomas,” she said.
“You’re not coming back, are you?” he asked.
Darcy put her hand on his shoulder. Emotions swelled in her, rising so high that all her thoughts and words swam in them. She couldn’t answer him except with her eyes. She climbed in the taxi and closed the door. She had one more goodbye to make. This one at the Lancaster General Hospital.
Then Darcy knew she would never be back to Willow Trace.