Vanish in Plain Sight

But she still couldn’t quite accept that she’d produced that staring figure out of her imagination, which left her…where, exactly?

She reached the downstairs hall. There was a closed door with a sign marked “Private,” which must lead to the Miller family’s side of the house. The aroma of fresh baking led her in the right direction. A long, sunny room stretched across the width of the house in the back, with an open kitchen on her left, divided from a bright dining room on the right by a long counter. Rhoda Miller was pulling something from the oven while the daughter she’d met briefly last night poured juice into glasses.

“Good morning.”

The pan Rhoda was lifting clattered onto the stove, as if the greeting had startled her.

“I hope I’m not too early,” Marisa began, but Rhoda smiled, shaking her head.

“Ach, no, not at all. We try to have everything ready by eight and it’s just that now. But I’m happy to serve breakfast earlier if need be.”

“Eight o’clock is fine.” She stifled a yawn. Should she mention the person she’d seen, or not?

“You didn’t sleep well?” Rhoda gestured to a long wooden table flanked by spindle-back chairs. A pink geranium bloomed vibrantly in an earthenware pot in the center of the table, and African violets lined glass shelves in one of the windows.

“Not the fault of the room,” she said quickly. “It was very comfortable. And this is lovely. You certainly have a gift with plants.” She sat down, setting her bag on the floor and nodding when the daughter—Mary, she thought the name was—gestured with a coffeepot.

“Ach, it’s nothing. I enjoy growing things already. But I am worried that you didn’t sleep well. Was it…was there some noise to keep you awake?”

Rhoda looked more concerned than seemed warranted. Was it only the feeling of any hostess, or did she know something about the man in the yard last night, assuming he actually existed?

“More like the quiet,” she said. “I’m used to city noises.”

Was that relief on Rhoda’s face? “I could never get used to that, that’s certain-sure.” She took a tray from her daughter. “Here is fruit cup to start and fresh-squeezed juice. The berries are ones I put up this summer, so they’re near as gut as fresh.”

“Thank you. It looks lovely.” She lifted a spoonful of huge blueberries, bigger than any she’d seen in the store. “I did wonder…”

Rhoda, turning away, seemed to freeze. “Ja?”

“Was your husband out in the yard during the night?”

She swung back around, her face closed. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought I saw someone out in the side yard when I got up to get something. Out by the willow tree. Maybe your husband had occasion to check something there?”

“I did not.”

The masculine voice startled her. Eli stood in the doorway, obviously having heard her. He moved into the kitchen, setting a pail he carried in the sink. Then he turned to face her.

“There was no one there.”

She had to force herself to go on. “If you weren’t there, how do you know no one else was?” Too bad she didn’t have Eileen Davies, her agent, here. Eileen would have the man turned inside out in a matter of seconds.

“There was no one.” His face bore no expression at all.

“Ach, what am I thinking?” Rhoda hurried into the kitchen. “The egg casserole is done. Komm. Sit. It’s time to eat.”

For a moment Marisa thought the man would turn and walk out. Then he came slowly to the table and pulled out the chair at the end. Mary put a basket of rolls and bread on the table and slid into her seat. Rhoda, carrying a steaming casserole dish with a towel, hurried to her place.

Marisa was reaching for a muffin when she realized that Eli had bowed his head, the others following suit. No words were spoken. After a moment he looked up, as did his wife and daughter.

How had they known he was finished with what she assumed was a silent blessing? Telepathy?

“You will have some breakfast casserole?” Rhoda asked, but before Marisa could respond she had put a giant, steaming serving on Marisa’s plate.

“Thank you. That’s plenty,” she added when Rhoda seemed about to give her more. “It smells wonderful.”

“Chust eggs and cheese and sausage,” Rhoda said.

Plates clattered as everyone was served. They began to eat, not talking. Apparently if there was going to be any conversation around the table, it would be up to her to start it. And maybe the only thing to do was to plunge right in.

“Do you know why I’m here in Springville?”

Rhoda glanced at her husband, and then she nodded. “Ja, we have heard about the suitcase Link Morgan found in his uncle’s house. Barbara’s, it was.”

She was taken aback for a moment. She’d expected some garbled story would be going around, but clearly they knew exactly what had happened. Someone in the police department must have been talking. Or someone in the Morgan family.

“Barbara Angelo is my mother.” Or was my mother. The not-knowing seized her in its grip, shaking her.

“Ja. We heard that, too.” Rhoda studied her for a moment, her round blue eyes curious. “You look more like your father, but there is something of Barbara in your face, too.”

Marisa found it difficult to tell the age of the Amish woman. With her brown hair pulled straight back from a center part and the lack of makeup, Rhoda might be as old as Marisa’s mother would be now or maybe younger.

“You knew her, then.”

Some silent communication passed between Rhoda and her husband, and she looked down at her plate.

“We remember,” Eli said. “She came to visit the Zooks one summer.” His mouth clamped shut on the words, as if he’d said all he intended.

She needed to ask another question, but there was such a huge blank in her knowledge that she wasn’t sure where to begin. “Were they relatives of hers?”

“Ja,” Rhoda said. “Cousins. She came from Indiana, I think.”

Another silence. Clearly they weren’t going to offer anything she didn’t ask. A month ago she’d have said she wasn’t interested in how and why her mother came to Lancaster County, but now she realized that wouldn’t have been true.

“Had she been here before to visit?”

“We don’t know much about it,” Eli said before his wife could answer. “If you want to know, you should talk to them. Not us.”

A look at his stern, closed face was enough to convince her that he wouldn’t tell her anything else. With the beard reaching to his chest, Eli looked like an Old Testament prophet.

He also looked like the man she’d seen from her window. But what point could there be in his standing out there?

“I can see that you don’t want to be involved,” she said carefully. “I hoped maybe you’d be willing to tell me what you remembered about my mother. There’s so much I don’t understand.”

“Poor child,” Rhoda said, her voice soft. “Don’t you remember her at all?” She asked the question despite the wave of disapproval emanating from Eli’s end of the table.

“Not very much.” Her throat tightened. “I was only five when she left. I have little bits of memory—of her making cookies, sewing a rag doll for me. Singing a little song in a language I didn’t know. Pennsylvania Dutch, I guess.”