Amish Christmas Hideaway

“Nothing for now since they’re gone and we don’t know if they were just passing through or not.” He eyed the coffee.

“Go get a cup,” she said, reading his mind.

Soon, they were nestled in the dainty sitting room. The deep burgundy brocade covering the furniture looked old and comfortable, worn in all the right places but adorned with feminine things like doilies and crocheted blankets. He watched as Alisha curled up with one of the blankets, papers and folders scattered all around her.

Nathan inhaled a sip of the good coffee and then watched her while the brew burned all the way to his stomach. “What have you been working on?”

She gathered the papers and shoved them to the side. “A case regarding a divorce. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“And this?” He pointed to a bullet-point list and skimmed the information. “You’re building a case for what happened last night, right?”

“I’m jotting down things as I remember so I can sort through them, yes.”

“That’s very lawyerly of you.”

She took a long sip of her coffee. “Did you sleep at all, Nathan?”

“No, but the one time I did fall asleep someone decided to take an early morning stroll through the yard. Some bodyguard I am.”

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t expect you to watch me 24/7.”

For a brief instant, he wondered what it would be like to have her around day and night. But he pushed that dream away, like he always did at three in the morning when he ached with loneliness and hopelessness. “I told you already, I want to do this.”

Picking up her list, she studied it for a moment and then dropped it back on the couch. “I stopped there to get coffee last night. I wanted to shop since I’d been so busy. Everything looked so pretty. Like Christmas. I thought it would put me in the spirit.”

Nathan’s heart, so hardened and withered, crumbled a bit. She wasn’t ready or willing to collapse and she sure wouldn’t do it with him in the room. She’d always been strong, sure, secure. Now her world had been shattered.

Now he was back in her world and she would fight him every step of the way. “You can talk to me, you know.”

She bobbed her head in acceptance. “I don’t even know the names of the victims. I mean, I heard the crime scene people talking, but I don’t remember. I remember so many details, so why can’t I recall that? I need to find out who those people were.”

“We can do that,” Nathan said, thinking the shock was still messing with her head. “We’ll get a full report and compare what you told the police to what the police in Philadelphia have. You can stay in contact with all of them, but you don’t have to leave here to do that.”

“We won’t get anything done if we don’t go into action.”

“I say we lie low here today,” he told her. “You need some time with your grandmother. I’ll start digging into things.”

“I want to dig with you.”

“Well, we can do that but first, try to relax and enjoy being here, okay?”

“Is that possible after last night?”

“I said try.”

“I won’t put them in danger.”

“I’m going to map out a way for us to slip out of here if we need to do so. I’ll also coordinate with the police about beefing up security for them if we do run.”

“I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life on the run,” she said. Standing, she held her cup and watched the dawn breaking, careful to stay back from the opening in the drapery. “It looks so peaceful out there, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s the thing about life. The surface covers so much more. So many undercurrents and hidden things. That couple last night obviously had it all but they knew something—or were hiding something—that caused someone else to want to murder them.”

“Or they could have done things that made someone extremely angry.”

Nathan also wondered if the couple had witnessed events they didn’t need to see or if they’d managed to make dangerous people put a hit on them. Probably both.

Thinking about Alisha’s jaded view of life, he waded through the undercurrents in this room. His chest hurt with trying to breathe while being this close to Alisha again. As grim as it was, working on this murder would help him to clear his head. He’d barely had time to process being in her life again or having her back in his in such a shocking way. The last time he’d seen her here, they’d both wound up working on a missing person case involving an abandoned baby in the Amish community up the road. He’d found the young mother and reunited her with her older brother, who was now married and raising the girl’s baby with his new wife.

He and Alisha had worked together, grudgingly. But they both wanted the same things—justice and helping those in need.

“Are you hungry?” Alisha asked, her gaze touching on his face and moving on.

“Starving.”

“I can cook some eggs and toast. Maybe some bacon.”

“I’d like that.”

They moved to the kitchen and worked in a comfortable silence since Alisha didn’t want to wake her grandmother or Miss Judy. But the smell of coffee and bacon acted like an alarm clock.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Nathan turned to find Alisha’s grandmother smiling at them, hope in her crystal blue eyes. She wore the same robe that covered her from neck to feet and fuzzy reindeer slippers complete with red noses.

“Granny,” Alisha said, smiling for the first time since Nathan had entered the apartment. “Did we wake you?”

“Child, I have been getting up at five-thirty in the morning for most of my life,” Bettye said as she shuffled into the kitchen and found a mug. It read: Be Still and Know. The mug had a butterfly motif on it. “But I have to admit, that bacon smells good.”

Nathan smiled and flipped the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels. Used to eating solitary meals, he enjoyed the coziness of this kitchen. Too much.

Bettye filled her cup and glanced down the long hallway. “I usually wake Judy around six-thirty. She has a nurse who comes and helps her with her bath and makes sure she’s had her medication. She still insists on dressing for the day—usually in a pastel pantsuit. I fix her a tray for breakfast and make a light lunch, sit with her while I knit or crochet and then I cook supper. We watch television—she loves romantic movies—and I read to her in her room. We lead a pretty boring life.”

“Sounds good to me,” Nathan said while he delivered the bacon with a flourish to the small four-top breakfast table. “Your food is ready, madame.”

Bettye giggled like a schoolgirl and came to sit by him. “It’s so good to see you again, Nathan. I know we run into each other from time to time, but having you here is a blessing despite the reason for you being here.”

Nathan knew Bettye Willis to be a good, faithful woman even though she’d done the same as him—jumped the fence and left the Amish. He appreciated her sweet declaration. She’d found love and happiness in the outside world but she’d sacrificed seeing her Amish family since she’d moved here from another community. Her husband Herbert had been alive when Nathan first met Alisha. A great man with a larger-than-life personality. He had worked for the Camptons, too, as their maintenance man and groundskeeper.

“I’m glad to be here,” Nathan said, glancing at Alisha. “I hope we can find these people before they commit any more crimes.”

Bettye buttered her toast. “I’ll explain to Judy when I go in to wake her. She’s fuzzy in the mornings but once she gets going, she is still wise and spry.”

Alisha sat down beside her grandmother. “Nathan and I plan to work in the main office today, Granny. We want to crack this thing but we have to be watchful.”

“Of course you do,” Bettye said. “I have plenty of supplies for the holidays, so I’ll cook us a hearty supper. Judy loves company and she’s looking forward to seeing you, Sugar-bear.”