LITMIR.BIZ

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smoky. She’d had incense burning in her little apartment the one time Sarah and Ella had visited her in Cleveland. Or had she been over to her family’s burned barn?

      “Jacob phoned me,” Hannah told Sarah as they stepped awkwardly apart. “I couldn’t believe the barn was gone. It’s supposed to be in the Cleveland paper tomorrow, but I had to see it first, before all the gawkers in the world come flocking in.”

      “You didn’t have to come at night. Everyone would have been glad to see you.”

      “Give me a break. About like they’d be glad to have Satan himself drop by. But I knew I could come to you, that you’d go with me. I just can’t go see it alone, any more than I could face my father. I parked back down the road by the graveyard and walked here. He—Jacob—said you were the one who spotted the fire and he called it in, but that you weren’t back together yet.”

      “Yet? Never. He crashed our party for Gabe’s friends. That’s why he was here.”

      “Jacob also said there’s a superhero here to save the day, solve the crime—if it’s a crime.”

      “Word travels fast, because Jacob was asked to leave before the state arson investigator showed up.”

      “Will you go with me, Sarah? I can’t go to Ella. I don’t need her telling me I’ve got to mend my ways and come back. She never did quite get the ‘judge not lest ye be judged’ bit, did she?”

      “I guess accepting that comes with suffering, and she’s been all wrapped up in traveling the road of her perfect Amish life.”

      Sarah instantly regretted she’d said that with such a sharp tone. But sometimes she resented Ella’s sticking to the straight and narrow, when she herself would like to go her own way at times. How she yearned to paint entire landscapes instead of the geometric quilt squares that called for no more creative decision than what color of hardware store paint to use.

      “In other words,” Hannah said with a bitter laugh, “she still hasn’t found out ‘it’s not all cakes and pies.’”

      “I’ve been thinking lately that it’s not all quilts and pies.”

      “You never did like to stitch quilts. And you think I’m a freak? But your painting—that’s you. Jacob told me about the quilt square you did on our—my family’s—barn.”

      “A real font of information, isn’t he?” Sarah said, surprised again her voice was so sharp. Maybe Hannah’s rebellious nature was rubbing off on her. And was Nate right to be suspicious of Jacob? Nate had said that some firefighters loved the attention from a blaze, but did Jacob, too? Nate had also said that some arsonists returned to the scene of their crime, not only to watch the fire, but even later to relive the excitement. Maybe that’s why Jacob stopped at the very next farm. Or did he think his phoning in the fire would build bridges back to his people—and her?

      The two young women started down the Oakridge Road that linked their farms. Sarah was glad Hannah didn’t insist on a run through the fields, like she’d done last night. They didn’t worry that there would be buggies or cars on the rural road now, because traffic was rare even in the daytime, unless a buggy clip-clopped past or tourists pleasure-driving some back byways happened by.

      As they sneaked around Hannah’s childhood home, not going up the lane but skirting along the fence, Hannah cursed. “Damn! There’s a hole in the sky where it should be! Nothing but blackness and stars! It’s so—I can’t believe it, all of that destroyed to almost nothing!”

      Her family’s team of horses plodded over to the fence as if to commiserate about the loss of their stalls, feed troughs and harnessing gear, the wagons and equipment they used to pull. Hannah put her hand out to one’s muzzle, and he snuffled against her palm as if he were crying.

      “At least you guys still know me,” Hannah whispered.

      “Why don’t you write your family a note!” Sarah suggested. “They’d love to hear from you, know that you cared enough to come see it.”

      “It won’t help them to know I was here and saw this,” she insisted. Even in the darkness, with only the wan quarter moon rising, Sarah could see her friend’s tears track down her cheeks. “The heart of the farm, so many good times here… I’m so sorry, so sorry about what I’ve done,” Hannah cried, and began to sob so hard that some of her mascara ran down her face in dirty lines and smeared against Sarah’s cheek as she hugged her again.

      “Good evening, ladies.” The deep male voice came from behind them. “Sarah, I thought you were going to stay all night with your grandmother, and what is this person confessing she’s sorry she’s done?”

      4

      “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE IN THE DARK?” Sarah demanded.

      The other girl glared at Nate and tugged her arm free. He was so shocked by her appearance that he let her go. He read in her defiant stare that she wouldn’t run, but he kept a light hold of Sarah’s arm. It was the first time he’d touched her. She radiated warmth from what must have been a walk down the road from her farm.

      “I’m going to ask the questions, Sarah,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. “I’m Nate MacKenzie, state arson investigator,” he told the other young woman, riveting his gaze on her. “I want to know who you are and what you are doing here in the dark.”

      Since he’d been in a sleeping bag near the back of the barn, Nate knew they hadn’t come across the fields. He’d seen the Eshes turn off their house lamps over an hour ago, so he’d been startled to hear women’s voices. Earlier, the bishop had sat outside with him for a while, over milk and cookies, no less. Nate had explained to him that he had obtained a search warrant to examine the ruins of the barn, but the bishop had said he had his permission and didn’t need anything from the government to say so.

      Bishop Joseph Esh had also reminisced about the barn, which his father had bequeathed him. Amish barns were almost a part of the family, he’d learned, the cornerstone of their way of life, necessary not only for running their fifty-or-so-acre farms but for keeping the generations working and worshipping together.

      “This is Hannah Esh, from Cleveland,” Sarah said when the stranger continued to glare at him in silence. “She’s the Eshes’ third-oldest daughter, but she hasn’t lived here for three years because she’s away building her career.”

      “It’s okay, Sarah,” Hannah said. “I can talk for myself. He just surprised me. I thought, at first, it might be my… Never mind. Mr. MacKenzie, a friend phoned to tell me my family’s barn burned to the ground, and I wanted to see it without bothering them. I’m a big disappointment to them and am living in so-called worldly exile.”

      Hannah Esh, Nate noted, had a bitter tinge to her voice and a defiant expression on what could be—with that harsh makeup, he wasn’t sure—a pretty face.

      “She’s not being shunned like Jacob. She left home before joining the church—perfectly permissible,” Sarah said.

      “Then she’s able to be welcomed back with what you called open arms,” Nate said.

      “I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell my parents I was here,” Hannah said. “And I certainly don’t want to see them tonight.”

      She stared straight at him when she talked. Like Sarah, a strong woman—or were all Amish women?

      “I would think they would be happy to know you cared,” he said.

      “But only to visit to see a—a dead barn? I don’t think so.”

      “Hannah, I need to know where you were last night, when the barn burned.”

      “Why?” she countered instantly, and this time her steady gaze did dart away from him, back toward where the barn had been. He heard Sarah suck in a breath, so she no doubt recalled what he’d said about arsonists possibly returning to the scene of the crime. And

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