Lancaster County Reckoning

“So...what? What does that mean?” Darcy dropped her arms by her sides, demanding the rest of the news.

“There is always some potential for brain damage. He may end up losing some or all of his cognitive and motor skills, and it’s very possible his memory will be affected.”

“So he won’t remember who he is? He won’t remember me? Or Thomas?”

“Every case is different,” Blake said, trying to console her. But Thomas knew what Blake was really saying was that he had no idea what was going to happen to Jesse. And Thomas could see Darcy’s tiny light of hope extinguishing. He couldn’t imagine how she felt, reconnecting with her father after all of these years only to run the risk of losing him again so soon.

“Doctors have to tell you all of the possibilities,” Thomas said, trying to sound casual. “It doesn’t mean that’s what will happen. God will decide what will happen to Jesse.”

“So you’ve said.” Darcy’s expression soured. “But isn’t there anything you can do medically to help him heal faster or better? To wake him from the coma?”

“Unfortunately no,” Blake said. “His body is already doing what it needs. It’s trying to heal, to live. He’s breathing on his own. We just have to wait now.”

“So he stays here? In this hospital? Can I move him to a hospital in the city? Closer to me?”

“Moving him right now...” Blake shook his head. “Well, that could set on a temporary decline in body function and when he’s already functioning at the lowest level, that would be taking a very unnecessary risk. We should avoid anything that would stress or strain his system more.”

“Can I see him?”

“Of course you can,” he said. “Anytime you like.”

Darcy nodded. “How about now?”

“He’s in the ICU,” Blake said. “Room 11.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” She started toward the door, but turned back to them. “Thomas, may I join you and your friends at Jesse’s later today? I’d like to help clean up.”

“You would be most welcome,” Thomas answered with a nod.

Blake and Thomas watched her move away toward the elevators.

“Why don’t you go home and get some rest?” Blake put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

“I was going to say the same to you.” Thomas tried to muster a smile but the heaviness on his heart wouldn’t allow it. “You are working yourself too hard, Blake, but thank you. Thank you for fighting so hard for my friend. I know you are doing all you can to help Jesse.”

“He’s a tough old bird,” Blake said. “But he was beaten up like I’ve rarely seen. And I’ve seen more than a fair share of beatings working in the ER.”

Thomas shut his eyes as he thought of the state they had found the old man in. The pain he must have been in. At least now Jesse could not feel the pain. He could be thankful to God for that.

“It’s good you found him when you did,” Blake continued. “Without blood and other fluids, I don’t think he would have lasted much longer...”

“Then he must live,” said Thomas. “And I pray that he does. Even apart from his value to the community and to me, it would be so sad for his daughter to lose him now, when she only just found him again.”

Blake’s eyes looked intrigued under the shadow of exhaustion. “What do you think of Miss Simmons?”

Darcy Simmons? Heat rose to Thomas’s cheeks as he remembered the feel of her soft hand and the way her long brown waves framed her sweet face. “I—I think she is scared and confused. And...I think she is in a lot of danger.”

* * *

Darcy stayed with Jesse for most of the morning. He looked so small and weak and old, lying there lifeless in the hospital bed, with tubes running in and out of him. The nurses said he was blessed to be alive. But he hardly looked it.

She wished he would wake up. She had so many questions. She no longer believed anything her grandparents had told her as a child about her parents. Was her mother really killed in a car crash? Why had Jesse started a life with the Amish? It was clear from all the photos of the past that Jesse had not been born Amish. Why hadn’t he stayed in the non-Amish world and raised her? Or at least taken her with him?

There had to be reasons for his choices. There had to be something that caused him to choose this path—a path that had not included her in his life. She tried not to let her questions and confusion cause anger toward her grandparents. But it was hard not to feel betrayed by them and all the lies. She’d probably be upset with Jesse, too, except that he looked so helpless lying there all but lifeless in the hospital bed.

Please wake up, Jesse. Please tell me what happened. Tell me who did this to you and what they want.

Darcy hated to leave Jesse but she was determined to get to the cottage and help clean up. Maybe, just maybe, there would be something there that would tell her more about her father—or at least give her a clue as to who was after him. And now her.

Darcy called a close friend and colleague who was kind enough to use a spare key to her town house and deliver a change of clothes and her makeup bag to the hospital. After breakfast, Darcy felt revived with a clean suit, fresh makeup and some food in her belly. She headed out to Willow Trace, driving through the beautiful back roads of Lancaster County. Her friend had asked her lots of questions when dropping off the clothes, which Darcy had answered merely by saying that a close family member was in a coma and she’d be away from work until further notice. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be long. Funny, though, she thought as she passed an Amish man driving a horse-drawn buggy that was moving at a snail’s pace compared to her, how time seemed to move slower here. Even with all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

When Darcy drove up in front of the cottage, there were already several Amish buggies parked in front. And there was Thomas. He was seated on the front porch, head down, a large book in his hand.

“Good morning,” she said.

He looked up at her. “Good day, Miss Simmons. You look all cleaned up and fancy.”

Heat rose to Darcy’s cheeks. She looked down at her designer suit. “I guess it’s a little dressy for cleaning.”

“We are just finishing up,” Thomas said. “It is time for lunch.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I should have come earlier.” Darcy was truly disappointed. She had really wanted to help. She had wanted to be a part of this. She had wanted to see Jesse’s home and feel closer to him and his friends. The wave of emotions made Darcy shift her weight over her heels. Life had taught her that depending on anyone made her vulnerable to getting hurt. She couldn’t allow herself to get attached to Thomas or the others in this community just because they were being kind. Maybe she should have just stayed at the hospital.

Thomas stood, folding the book closed. A Bible, from the looks of it, which he tucked under his elbow. “Come. There are people who would like to meet you.”

She followed him into the small living space, which was all tidied up. There were two women inside, along with Elijah, Thomas’s friend whom she had met at the hospital, and one other elderly man. All of them were Amish.

The two women were dressed similarly in homespun dresses, dark aprons and thin white caps set over their hair, which was parted straight down the middle, then tucked up and hidden away in a tight nest on the back of the neck. Darcy felt awkward in her stylish pantsuit and heels. But the ladies didn’t seem to pay her or her clothes any mind. They were all smiles, happily humming as they finished their work.

“Miss Simmons, how is Jesse?” Elijah asked as he approached her. “Any change?”

“No,” Darcy said, shaking her head. “Though that’s not necessarily a sign of trouble. Dr. Jamison said he didn’t expect there would be any change today. And he is stable. So that is good.”

“We will hold a prayer gathering for him,” the older of the women said as she turned to her. She was completely gray headed but had the same warm golden-brown eyes as Thomas. “I am Nana Ruth, Thomas’s grandmother. You must be Miss Darcy. I think it is wunderlich that Jesse has a daughter. I just—”

“Nana...” Thomas glared at the old woman.

“Ach, Thomas.” Nana held her nose up defiantly to her grandson, who towered over her by more than a foot.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Nolt.” Darcy offered her hand to Thomas’s grandmother.

“Just call me Nana. Everyone does. And this is Hannah, Elijah’s wife.”

“Nice to meet you,” Darcy said to the other woman, who was close to herself in age. Elijah’s wife had flawless skin, shimmering green eyes and a look of genuine sympathy in her expression.

“They were teenage sweethearts,” Nana explained. “Reunited by—”

“Nana,” Thomas interrupted again, this time whispering something to her in their Germanic language.

Again the old woman dismissed Thomas’s unsolicited guidance with a wave of her hand. “I was just going to invite her to the prayer gathering.”

A change in subject was definitely in order. “Wow. This place looks great,” Darcy interjected. She didn’t want to be rude to the woman who had worked so hard to clean Jesse’s home and who had been so kind to her already, but Darcy did not want to go to a prayer gathering. She didn’t even know how to pray or if she even could. Faith had never been a part of her life. In any case, even if changing the subject had been her goal, the compliment was sincere. The transformation of the cottage was stunning. The home had been completely cleaned and organized. “It’s so warm and homey.”

“Just like the man who lives here.” Nana glared back at her grandson. Darcy had to hold back the urge to laugh at the comical exchange between Thomas and his grandmother.

Darcy looked to the older man who sat nearby. He’d seemed uninterested in the conversation, but now rose and moved toward her.

“This is Bishop Miller. He’s one of the Elders, or leaders, of our Ordnung,” Nana explained. “He’s also Elijah’s father.”

Darcy nodded at the man who was slow to make eye contact with his piercing blue eyes. There were no smiles from this person. No handshake. Yet he did not seem harsh, simply solemn. He looked like a man who carried a lot of weight on his shoulders. He stopped just a few feet from her and stood silent.

“It’s very nice of you all to do this for Jesse,” she said. “So very kind. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help.”

“You had a long night. You must be exhausted,” said Nana.

“Which is why we’d like for you to join us at lunch at Nolt cottage,” said Hannah.

They didn’t wait for her answer, but swept through the front door as quick as a second. Only Thomas and the bishop stayed. Thomas still held the Bible in his hands. She wondered if he took it everywhere with him. And why did its presence in his hands make her so uncomfortable? She’d seen plenty of Bibles in her life.

“Bishop Miller would like to speak with you, if that’s okay,” Thomas said.

Darcy nodded to him as a wave of dread washed over her.

“Then just follow the bishop to our place,” Thomas said. “It’s not far. About a mile or so.”

She nodded again and tried to swallow down the dry lump that had formed in her throat.

The bishop remained behind as Thomas exited. It was obvious he had something to tell her. Had something changed in Jesse’s condition since she left the hospital? She knew it was unlikely—the hospital had her contact information—but she was too worried to be rational. Her pulse spiked as she feared the worst of news.

“You know something about Jesse?” Darcy asked, trying to be brave.

“About his past, yes,” the old man said. “Just a little. But I will share what I have been told as my son thinks it is important for you and the police to know.”

“The police?” Darcy could feel her heart pounding against her ribs. So this past might have something to do with Jesse’s beating and her phone call? Did he also know why Jesse had abandoned her? Did she even want to know?

Bishop Miller cleared his throat. “When Jesse came here he was a broken man. A man running from many things. He was very scared. But he was also searching—for God and for the forgiveness that can only come from the Lord. And he opened his heart and found peace.”

“Until yesterday?” Darcy asked.

He nodded.

“What was he running from? From the people who beat him? From the law? From...me?”

Darcy tried to swallow again, but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth.

“He was not running from you, child, but from himself. He made many mistakes, Miss Simmons. Although it is not for me to judge.” The bishop remained solemn but his tone was kind. “And please know that Jesse has had to pay dearly for his past decisions through great loss and sacrifice.”

“What sacrifice? Looks to me like he came here and lived a pretty great life...”

“His sacrifice was you. And your mother.”

“My mother? What do you know about my mother?” Darcy fell back into one of the upholstered chairs. None of this made her feel any better. Only more confused and sick inside.

Bishop Miller locked his sea-blue eyes on hers. “From what I was told, it all began when your father helped put a man in prison many years ago—a very bad man. Now that man has been released.”

The phone call. The voice. The man who was coming after her. The man who’d already viciously beaten Jesse. Darcy’s head was spinning. It felt as if all the blood had drained from her body. She tried to breathe and calm herself down, but it was like some invisible force had gripped her chest. “What did this man do? What has this got to do with my mother?”

“This man... He killed your mother.”

FIVE

“Why, Darcy, you’ve hardly touched your lunch,” said Nana Ruth as she cleared away the plates.

“I had a late breakfast,” she explained. Thomas watched Darcy stand and begin to help Nana and Hannah clean away the dishes. He knew the real reason she hadn’t touched her lunch. On the way from the cottage, when Darcy had stayed behind to talk to the bishop, Elijah had shared with Thomas what the Elders knew about Jesse Troyer’s past.

Thomas supposed he shouldn’t feel so mixed up about what he had learned. After the beating and the phone call to Darcy, he should have expected that Jesse had some dubious connections. Still, it created a cloud of mistrust to discover that Jesse had kept secrets for all these years. For Darcy those mixed emotions must have felt even heavier.

He glanced through the kitchen window. In his office in the stables, where he managed his business of raising and training horses, he’d stowed away Jesse’s Bible, which he’d taken from the cottage. He was going to take it to the hospital the next time he went to visit Jesse so he could read to him. But now, he felt compelled to share it with Darcy. She should be the one to take it to the hospital and share God’s word with her father. Maybe it would give her some peace in all of this confusion. By the look on her face, she could certainly use some.

“Your home is lovely.” Darcy brought him a cup of coffee that Nana had poured out.

“Danki.” Thomas felt a brief grin slide over his lips. He took the coffee from her hands, thinking how this woman was not quite what he had thought when he first saw her on Jesse’s front porch. Fancy and sharp-witted, yes. But there was something softer there, too, although Thomas guessed it wasn’t a side of her that she was comfortable revealing to many people, especially to a stranger like him.

“Well, if you like the old house, Miss Simmons, please allow me to show you the even older stables.” He glanced over to Elijah. “Eli and I were just heading there to look at the filly.”

Eli raised an eyebrow at the unexpected invitation, but followed Darcy and Thomas out of the white clapboard home toward the great red stable.

“So your grandmother lives on one side of the house and you on the other?” Darcy asked.

“When the house was more crowded, we definitely needed the space,” Thomas said, thinking back to a time not so long ago when his brother’s child and wife had lived there under his roof, dependent on his protection—protection he’d failed to give. “Now it’s just the two of us. Frankly, I don’t know how Nana keeps up the place all by herself.”

“That’s why Nana is always on the lookout for a new granddaughter-in-law.” Eli slapped him on the back.

Thomas clenched his teeth. He knew his friend meant no harm, but somehow the comment rubbed him wrong. To redirect the conversation, he started to explain to Darcy that Hannah—Elijah’s wife—used to live with him, along with her stepdaughter, Jessica, when Hannah was widowed by his older brother, who’d died in a buggy accident. And so it was really Eli’s fault that Nana had lost her helper, when he’d come back to town to investigate the case of Jessica’s murder and married Hannah. But the memory was so bittersweet. As happy as he was that his friend and his sister-in-law had found love together, the losses of his niece and brother weren’t happy topics. After all, the whole point of taking Darcy to the stable was to lift her spirits, not add to the weight of what she already carried.

Thomas led Darcy and Eli through the aisles. “These are the Morgan breeding mares. On the other side are the draft mares. I have two stallions, which are housed in a separate stable on the far side of the property. And this—this is Gilda. She was just born two weeks ago.”

Darcy looked over the stall door, down at the little bay filly, who tried to put her nose over the door to greet them.

“Oh, my, she’s so sweet.” Darcy smiled. And Thomas thought he saw at least a little of the weight from her shoulders lift. “Can I pet her?”

“Ja. Ja,” he said. “She’s very friendly. And already used to people. She’s going to make a great driver.”

He and Eli watched Darcy pet the playful filly, who snorted and nipped at Darcy’s hand. “I’ve never really been around animals much. My grandparents wouldn’t let me have a pet.”

“It’s sort of a mandatory experience around here.” Eli laughed.

Darcy’s smile slipped a little.

“I have something for you,” Thomas said. “It’s in the office.”

“For me?” Darcy looked stunned as she followed him into his small office.

He lifted the Bible from his desk and placed it into her hands. “This is Jesse’s. I found it on the table when we first started cleaning. I was going to take it to the hospital and read it to Jesse. But then I thought that he would want you to do that.”

“Oh.” Darcy looked frozen for a moment, then she finally extended her hands to take the great book. “I’m afraid, like the animals, I don’t know much about the Bible, either.”

She held it delicately in her hands, as if it was made of glass. Thomas felt a lump form in his throat. Had he gone too far? He had only meant to make things better.

“What would I read to him?” she asked.

“Just trust your heart.” Thomas smiled.

She nodded. “Jesse did share some verses with me in a letter. I guess I could look those up.”

Eli reached for the Bible. “Really, you can’t go wrong with any part of it. For example, sometimes I’ll just flip it open...”

As Elijah turned the pages, a note fluttered out from the book and fell to the floor.

Thomas reached for it and unfolded the small letter, his eyes glancing quickly over the message. Then his heart sank to stomach. He looked up at Darcy. “We need to call the chief.”

* * *

Darcy pulled at the ends of her hair. How much more could she take? She wasn’t sure. The note had been addressed to her to give to Jesse. It had been meant to terrorize them both. The man who had left it wanted her to know that he was coming for what Jesse had stolen. And if they wanted to live, they wouldn’t get in his way. It had been signed W.W. She agreed with Thomas that they needed to call McClendon. She needed to tell the chief what Bishop Miller had told her about Jesse’s past, too. Hopefully once he had all the information, the police chief would be able to piece together what was going on and stop this W.W. from hurting anyone else.

Darcy hurried from the stable to her car, where she’d left her phone in her bag. Her hands were shaking. Another threat and in a Bible of all places and... Where was her phone?

She searched her clutch bag, which was sitting in the passenger seat. The phone wasn’t there. She looked under the seats. It wasn’t there, either. She knew it wasn’t in the Nolts’ home. She hadn’t taken her purse or the phone inside.

Darcy’s mind flashed back to her enlightening conversation with the bishop. She remembered how the shock of his words had caused her to fall back. She had dropped her bag into the chair. Her phone must have fallen out then. It was probably right in the seat where he’d delivered the news that her mother had been murdered and the killer was now out of prison and on her trail. Now, thanks to the note in the Bible, she had yet another reminder of just how close that killer was.

She looked around, reminded of the isolation of the Amish farm. The cottage was only a mile away. It wouldn’t take long to go back and get it.

She hopped into the driver’s seat, her mind still spinning with all new information. Her grandparents had always blamed her father for her mother’s death—for the car crash that Darcy had always believed killed both of her parents. They had lied about her father dying. But were they telling the truth when they said it was her father’s fault? Had they known their daughter was murdered? And that her father had helped send the killer to prison? Murder... Killer... The words made her cringe. What else had everyone lied about? Had she ever known the truth about anything? Darcy felt like she didn’t even know who or what she was anymore.

Darcy passed through the woods separating Jesse’s land from Thomas’s. The cottage looked desolate as it came into view. Jesse’s horse wasn’t even in the field. Probably taken to a neighbor’s while Jesse was in the hospital. The thought of others pitching in to help in different ways touched Darcy. Jesse’s friends and neighbors were so loyal and devoted. Darcy wasn’t even sure who her neighbors were. And she was certain that if she’d been the one in the hospital, there would not have been a constant flow of visitors like there had been for Jesse.

She pulled up in front of the cottage, leaving her car running. Grabbing her phone wouldn’t take a second. She jiggled the door open and headed over to the chair where she’d been sitting. The phone was nestled between the arm and the seat cushion. That was a relief.

She tucked the phone into her jacket pocket. But as she began to turn, the front door suddenly slammed behind her.

Darcy jumped at the sudden sound, but tried to calm her nerves as she reasoned that it was simply a drafty house and that a change in pressure had caused the door to shut.

But a change in pressure where? And why? She turned toward the kitchen. Was there a back door that had opened? She spun back around. Everything looked in place. She was worried over nothing. She just needed to get back to Thomas’s. The sooner the better.

As she stepped toward the front door, something fell in the kitchen. The clank of a tin pot hitting the hardwood floor reverberated through the house.

Her heart froze. Darcy couldn’t breathe. Someone else was in the house. She took a step back. She looked left. She looked right. She saw nothing.

She hurried back toward the open door, but a figure appeared in her periphery.

She was not alone.