Hannah nodded her head up and down, trying to draw in deep breaths as Jesse instructed. She wasn’t used to running, and it felt as if something sharp were stuck in her side beneath her ribs. More than anything, she was seized by the fear of what might be happening to Amber and Tate. What she had seen, what might be happening as they spoke, was stealing her breath away.
She bent over, hands on her knees, and gasped, “He had them. He forced them into the woods and—”
“Who has them?” Andrew had moved closer.
“Uri.”
“He’s back?” Mary looked as if she might faint, or turn and run in the other direction.
“Ya. He’s back, and he has Tate and Amber.”
“Hannah, take two deep breaths and then tell us exactly what you saw.” Andrew’s words were calm and direct. Jesse’s hand was still rubbing circles on her back.
Hannah pulled in first one breath and then the other. Her heart rate began to return to normal, but her hands were sweating and she couldn’t stop the trembling up and down her arms. She straightened and looked directly at Jesse.
“I finished early. Wanted to meet you on the trail. I was a good distance back behind them.”
“Tate and Amber?” Jesse asked.
“Ya. Neither knew I was there, but I could tell it was them. They were close to one another, walking quickly down the trail as they do when they’re exercising. I thought to call out to them, but suddenly Uri jumped out of the brush. He was armed and—”
“With a bow?” Andrew moved to the left, looking down the trail past them, down back the way Hannah had come.
“Ya. Looked like a crossbow. I was too far away to hear what he said. Tate and Amber stopped suddenly. Uri waved the bow around and then they all left.”
“Did Uri see you?” Jesse’s voice resembled a growl.
“I don’t . . . I don’t think so. I ducked behind a tree as soon as I saw the bow. He pointed it at them and shouted something, and then they all walked off into the woods. Uri stepped off the trail last, still pointing the bow at them.”
“I expect he took them back to his place, maybe even to one of the barns or outbuildings.” Andrew peered down the trail, first in the direction they had come from and then in the direction Hannah had come running from. “I’m going over there.”
“It’s not safe.” Mary shifted from foot to foot and clutched her arms around her stomach. “He’s crazy. It’s why he left. It’s why he had two different families. Why would he come back?”
“I don’t know, but I plan to find out.” Andrew pulled Hannah toward Mary. “You two go to Hannah’s house. It’s not far. Mary, stay there until we come and get you.”
“I’ll run to the Village.” Jesse’s voice was grim, determined.
“Nein. Go toward town. If you pass anyone with a phone, flag them down and call 9-1-1. Tell the police what’s happened. Tell them to come to Uri’s farm. If they’re there and he tries to leave with Tate and Amber, I’ll think of a way to stall them.”
“We can’t let you two go alone. It’s dangerous.” Hannah looked from Andrew to Jesse. She realized, as if it were a fresh idea, how much she loved Jesse, and how important Andrew had become to her. Mary was like the older sister she’d never had. Since she’d returned home, they’d become fast friends.
Now this terrible tragedy was beginning again, and people she loved were in danger.
The one thought that echoed in her mind was that they were a family, the four of them. “Shouldn’t we stay together?”
“Go to your house, Hannah. Do as Andrew said.” Jesse squeezed her hands. “Go and wait and pray. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”
She wanted to argue with him, but he’d already let go of her hands and was sprinting down the trail. Andrew leaned in and kissed Mary on the cheek, and then he was gone, running through the field, running toward Uri’s.
Hannah and Mary clasped each other’s hands and watched the brothers until they were out of sight; then they turned and made their way to Hannah’s home.
Amber stumbled through the woods. Tate walked beside her, his hand holding tightly to hers. Uri followed, close enough that he could lurch forward and strike them with his weapon, far enough that Tate couldn’t wrestle him for the crossbow.
Tate’s gaze brushed over Amber like a fresh breeze on a summer morning. In that quick look she saw so many promises and so much love that she found herself gasping for a deep breath.
He loved her and would protect her.
They would be all right.
God was still in control.
Hold tight to the faith and do not fear.
She had the surreal experience of hearing his thoughts. There was no doubt in her mind that his meaning was coming through loud and clear. Tate didn’t look one bit afraid, though the wheels in his brain were turning.
He would find a way out of this.
And why was Uri after them, anyway? What had they ever done to him? She turned to look back and he snarled, “Keep moving.”
They crossed first one field and then another. When they came up through the back of someone’s property, and she saw that it was Uri’s home, she wasn’t exactly surprised.
Where else would he go?
His friends, his community, would turn him in.
His wife was gone.
Both of them, though the one in South Bend apparently would have helped him if she’d known how. Amber could almost see her—younger, full of hope, unwilling to believe the facts the police had laid out for her, clutching her dreams desperately to her breast.
Amber bumped into Tate when they reached the front of Uri’s house. The place looked as if Uri and Olivia had merely stepped away from it. The garden had been harvested and the rows sat waiting for winter. The front door was shut, but the window shades were raised with the late-afternoon light shining through into the rooms. There were no longer any canned goods on the porch.
This wasn’t a house that had been closed up and left. It reminded Amber of a family that had gone to town on an errand. The house looked as if it expected them to return at any moment. But Uri and Olivia wouldn’t be returning. Amber knew that as surely as she knew he meant to kill them. They were here, with him, and alone. There weren’t even animals in the pasture or the barn. She knew because they were headed toward it.
“Not the house. Keep walking.”
The door to the barn had been latched, but it was plain that someone had taken the livestock. She whispered a prayer of gratitude that the horses hadn’t suffered.
Uri motioned toward the older barn. “That one.”
Tate turned and faced him when they reached the front of the structure. “We’re not going in there, Uri. You have something to say to us, you say it out here.”
“You’ll go where I tell you to.”
Tate didn’t respond, but he didn’t move either, except to shift closer to Amber.
“You think you can withstand an arrow to the heart? You want to take that chance?”
“I think you should let us help you.”
“And how would you do that? By turning me in to the police? From what I read in the papers, your wife already identified me. She couldn’t stay out of something that was none of her business.”
Amber wanted to stomp her foot. Why was Uri talking about her as if she weren’t there? And why was he threatening them with a crossbow? Was it the same crossbow that had killed Owen?
“If I made a mistake, Uri, then tell Sergeant Avery. If you’re innocent, stand up for yourself. Straighten him out if you didn’t . . .” She stumbled to a halt as his face turned crimson, not wanting to anger him any more than she already had.
“Didn’t what? Kill Owen?” He stepped out of the shadows, directly into the final rays of sunlight. It was the first good look she’d had of him since he’d been walking behind them the entire way. Amber nearly gasped at the changes in this man she barely knew. He’d lost weight, even in so short a time, but more obvious than that was the haunted look he wore. Dark circles created a rim beneath his brown eyes, and his hair was practically matted to his head. Where had he hidden for two weeks? And what had caused him to return to Middlebury now?
“Did I kill him? Is that what you want to know? If he’d stayed out of my business, I wouldn’t have needed to. If he’d stayed away from home, stayed in the city where he belonged, he’d be alive right now.”
“Everyone has a right to go home.” The words slipped through Amber’s mind. She was surprised to hear them, surprised she’d found the courage to utter them.
“And I suppose you think home is a picture-perfect place that dropped out of your Englisch books? A wunderbaar place full of love and harmony.” The afternoon had cooled, but Uri reached up and wiped the sweat off his face. “Not every home is. When your wife can’t bear children, when she turns her back on you and everyone else, that’s not a home you would want to go to.”
Tate held out a hand. “We didn’t say—”
“Shut up! I don’t care what you do or don’t say. I did right by Olivia. I continued to support her in spite of the coldness in her soul. And that other life, the one in South Bend, the one you ripped from me . . .” He was clutching the crossbow so tightly that Amber feared he’d shoot it inadvertently. His finger was precariously close to the trigger.
“That life was the one thing I had to live for.”
Looking away from his intense stare, Amber saw movement down the lane, but she didn’t dare continue looking in that direction.
“So what are you going to do now?” Tate’s voice was calm and cool, but Amber heard the edge of anger behind his words. “You can’t stand there holding that bow all day.”
Tate would make his move soon. Amber could feel him pulling himself taut, judging the distance to Uri.
“Get in the barn. I won’t say it again.” Uri stepped forward, and at that moment whoever was in the lane dove into the bushes.
Uri jerked around, and Tate pounced.
Amber spied a metal bucket sitting on the ground near the barn door. She grabbed it, waited until she had a clear shot, and then rammed it into Uri’s skull.
She didn’t hear a crack, but she imagined that she felt one. Uri’s fingers released the bow, his eyes drawn down almost in surprise, and then he passed out cold.