Her parents, Eben and Anna, waved goodbye as did her sprightly grandmother Ruth, age 80, who lived with them. Mamm and Daad shouted advice in their Deutsche dialect as if Seth and Hannah—and their only grandchild, Marlena—were leaving for the ends of the earth.
Abel, age twenty-six, Ella’s second-oldest brother, not wed yet, who farmed the fields with Daad, looked sad. He would miss their oldest brother too. Barbara, sixteen, and Aaron, fourteen, the youngest, who was aching for his running around rumspringa time to begin, both turned quickly away and headed back toward the big farmhouse. Ella, at twenty-four, was the middle child of the five of them. She’d felt that way too—stuck in the middle, not quite companions of the two oldest boys or her two much younger siblings. That was probably why she’d made two close friends over the years—Hannah and Sarah, who had gone to the world and been shunned.
Ella was surprised to see an outsider watching from the porch as everyone hurried back inside. So when had he arrived, and where was his car? Who was he? Maybe that’s why everyone had disappeared inside for a while.
Yet she hesitated to follow her family back inside the house. Despite living with so many people, she often chose to be alone, especially when she felt the drowning darkness swirling toward her. No good to have someone see her that way, especially since an Amish girl, who trusted in her faith to pull her through, couldn’t escape its clutches. Going off on her own when that inner darkness came, she’d managed to keep her terrible secret from even those closest to her. Ever since she’d almost died ten years ago, she’d felt not only blessed but cursed....
“Ella, come here!” Her father’s voice pulled her from her agonizing. “Something for the whole family to hear!” Holding the porch door open, he windmilled his arm. As she hurried toward the house, she saw her mother’s white face in the window, peering out at her—or else watching the road, even though Seth’s wagon was out of sight. What was going on? It surely had something to do with that stranger.
Taking a shortcut down the row with her late-blooming French lavender, she broke into a run.
* * *
Alexander Caldwell was really a wreck. This area reminded him of an old Clint Eastwood Western rerun. He saw horses and buggies, people in hats and bonnets, big barns and farmhouses with no phone or electric wires, no satellite TV dishes. And he was to be a part of all this, he marveled, as the black buggy clip-clopped along at such a slow speed he could actually see what usually blurred past beside the road. Hopefully, somewhere up ahead, Gerald Branin, his link to the outside world, was laying the groundwork for this huge deception that could mean life or death to him, especially since the shooter in his attempted Atlanta assassination had not been caught.
Gerald, his WITSEC manager, had sounded so certain that the heart of Amish country was the best place for him to hide out until the trial. This was a one-eighty from his own life in Manhattan. This was Podunk, the boondocks, the sticks, aka Homestead, Ohio, in Eden County. Soon enough his testimony at the trial would splash his name across the country and the world. But since the attempt on his life and at the urging of his lawyer, Logan Reese, he had finally admitted he needed to hide out. The feds had convinced him to try Amish anonymity.
He could, he thought perversely, envision the headlines now: Former NYC Exec Exposes Corporate Espionage by CEO of Tech Firm Skybound, Inc.… Investors Left Devastated and Furious… Chinese Businesses Involved… Atlanta Assassination Attempt Financed by—Why, You Name It: Alexander Caldwell’s rich and powerful former boss? The Chinese who want to shut Caldwell up to avoid sanctions? Irate investors? Place your bets on who would most like to shut the whistle-blowing witness up for good.
“Best put that hat back on,” Bishop Joseph Esh, who was driving the buggy, told him. “It’s to wear, not bend in your hands. Make you harder to pick out among our people, ya, it will.”
“Oh, right,” Alex said, smoothing and replacing it on his head. He couldn’t get used to his Amish hairstyle, either, or the lack of zippers on his broadfall-style pants, the suspenders, or the five hundred dollars Branin had given him in small bills, when he was used to credit cards. No smartphone, which he missed horribly. Like an idiot he kept lifting his wrist to check his Rolex for the time when he didn’t and couldn’t wear a watch—and did time even matter in this place? At least he was playing a younger, unwed man, so he didn’t have to grow a beard. This elderly man had a long, white one.
“I do appreciate everything, sir,” he told his host.
“Sir is too worldly. Bishop or just Joseph is good for me. Be careful not to talk much in front of strangers and just nod when we speak the Deutsche but for those few words I told you. Too bad you got to use lies to protect the truth. Learned it the hard way myself, but the ends sometimes justify the means. You got your story straight?”
“Yes—ya. My manager rehearsed it with me, so I won’t rattle my bio—biography—off again. I guess this has never happened before, that your people have sheltered a kind of fugitive.”
“Nope. Did it because we owe FBI Agent Lincoln Armstrong a favor for helping solve a crime in these parts and your man Branin is a friend of his. And because Armstrong canceled a money debt my daughter Hannah owed him. I would take you in myself but too many people in and out of a bishop’s home. We all—you too, I know—hope this won’t last long.”
“That’s for sure. I’d like to get this over, sanely and safely.”
“Life is precious, each one. You got a lot to live for. Enjoy and treasure each day. We all do.”
Bishop Esh turned the buggy onto another curving, hilly road with a metal signpost that read Oakridge, and a hand-lettered one under it with an arrow. Lavender Plain Products, No Sunday Sales.
* * *
“We what?” Ella heard her brother Abel ask Daad as she hurried into the kitchen where her family and the stranger were gathered around the big table. She took off her bonnet, draped the tied strings over the back of her usual chair and sat. Pieces of shoofly pie and raspberry iced tea were at each place. Abel went on, “Take in an Englischer and say he’s our cousin? But why, Daad?”
Daad shot Abel a sharp look. Ella could tell their worldly visitor wanted to answer but deferred to their father.
“Partly in thanks,” Daad answered, “for what Agent Armstrong did for the Eshes. The bishop asked us to house this man we will call our cousin Andrew Lantz from Intercourse, Pennsylvania, though he is really an Auslander from a big Eastern American city. Andrew will work with us, work the fields. He will be with us until at least late summer, maybe longer. We will not question him about his true identity or his past. He is a good man. Now Mr. Branin here will say a bit more before our guest arrives.”
Ella noted Daad frowned at Aaron for rolling his eyes at the mention of Intercourse. She’d heard Aaron and a couple of guys from his buddy group snickering over the name of that town before. Ah, those almost-ready-for-rumspringa years, when Amish teens enjoyed running around and trying worldly things. She should have cut loose more, but after her accident, she was so afraid of doing anything wrong, of setting off the darkness again.
She studied the Auslander. Mr. Branin was a short, wiry man whose red hair was fading to gray and creeping up pretty high on his forehead. He had sunglasses sticking out of his pocket, both the pockets and glasses sure signs he was an Englischer. He was dressed half fancy, half country in a white-sleeved shirt with jeans and running shoes. He wore a gold watch and wedding ring, which stood out here. He leaned forward with his elbows on the kitchen table as he talked, gesturing so much he almost punched Barbara in the face and she scooted back in her chair.
“I know it won’t be easy to pretend a stranger is part of the family,” Mr. Branin said. “But when the bishop brought me here a while ago in his buggy, he assured me that you and your people will take good care of this man. I must