Trusting The Sheriff. Janice Kay Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ Donahue was clearly not convinced the sole witness hadn’t conjured the sight of a villain to make himself appear more heroic.

      Laura Walker never came. Abby called her a week after she’d regained consciousness.

      “Laura? This is Abby. I wanted to tell you—” She was talking to dead air. A woman she’d considered a good friend had learned of Sergeant Donahue’s suspicions and immediately bought into them. What other explanation was there?

      That was the first time in a very long while that Abby let herself cry—but only after the lights had gone out and she was alone. Better than falling asleep. Nightmares grabbed her the minute she dropped off. They were lurid and felt important. She’d wake gasping with shock and fear, but couldn’t remember any details.

      Visits from her coworkers tailed off. They were busy; she understood that. But she wondered if they had any idea how isolated she felt when she trudged up and down the halls of the hospital, trying to regain enough strength to go home. Nurses and orderlies fussed over her, but that was their job. Why hadn’t she made more friends? The kind who would stand by her?

      But she knew. She’d never quite fit in, wherever she was. Not as a child, migrating between her grandparents’ farm and a “normal” life with her silent, wounded father. Certainly not in college, where the sense of morality she’d absorbed from the deeply religious Amish part of her family separated her from other students. And then she became a cop, joining a small minority who were women.

      Maybe she hadn’t really tried. Was she more comfortable alone? she asked herself, troubled.

      Five days after she’d woken from the coma, Dr. Sanderlin told her she was ready to leave the hospital.

      “I’ll have a social worker stop by to help you form a plan,” he assured her. “If you live alone...?”

      “Yes.”

      “You need to have someone around to help you. I’d rather not extend your hospital stay if we can come up with a solution, but I’m not willing to send you off to pass out or fall or have a traumatic flashback where nobody will see. If you don’t have family you can go to, I recommend at least a week in a rehab facility.”

      Her father... No. They stayed in touch, but conversations were always stiff, awkward. She hadn’t even let him know yet that she’d been shot. He’d grown up in foster care, and now had no family but her. Her mother’s parents, who’d half raised her, were gone, too, but Aenti Nancy and Onkel Eli would take her in. She knew they would. The Amish were like that. They loved visitors, and they took care of the people they loved. Even people they didn’t love. If their church community included an irascible old woman who was difficult to like, they took care of her anyway, with generosity, humor and no grumbling. She’d heard her grandfather—her grossdaadi—say, “How would we learn to forgive, if the Lord didn’t give us cranky neighbors?” Then he’d grin. “And teenagers.”

      Of course, she wasn’t one of them, never had been, really, even though she’d attended Amish schools for weeks or even, once, several months at a time. She dressed “plain” when she was with her Amish family, grew so accustomed to having no television, she’d never watched much even as an adult. Her grandparents might have hoped she’d choose to be baptized to join their faith, but weren’t surprised when she didn’t. Especially after what happened to—

      No, the past had nothing to do with the here and now. She needed to focus on her next step. Physical recovery, Abby could already tell, was going to be slow. Plus, even if she bounced out of bed feeling great, going back to the job clearly wasn’t an option until she could explain what had happened that night in the alley.

      If she ever could. The doctor had explained that her memory of the missing week might return in its entirety, she might recall pieces of it...or it might never come back.

      Her aunt and uncle would take her in without question, pamper her even as they set her to doing chores she could handle. The idea of sitting at the long table in that big farm kitchen, peeling potatoes or rolling out pie dough while the women chattered and the younger children helped to the extent they were able sounded heavenly to Abby right now.

      Her smile felt rusty, but real. Heavenly? That might’ve been a pun, but it was also truth.

      She’d call and leave a message on the machine in the phone shanty out by the road that passed her family’s farm, and hope Onkel Eli checked it soon so that her arrival wasn’t a complete surprise.

      Unfortunately, she didn’t think she was up to the meandering pace, clouds of exhaust and swaying ride of a bus. Now all she needed was to find a ride.

      * * *

      “LEFT UP AHEAD.” All ten families who lived on this gravel road were Amish. Abby felt sure Aenti Nancy would have told her if someone had had to sell out. She wrote to Abby weekly, long, chatty missives that always made her feel as if she mattered.

      Despite the bands of pain tightening around her head, excitement fizzed inside her. Abby leaned forward until the seat belt put uncomfortable pressure on her shoulder and chest. She hadn’t been here since Thanksgiving, having volunteered to work over the Christmas holidays so that a detective who had children could take the time off. The farm felt like home, more so than her father’s house had since her mother died. Why hadn’t she visited in the spring? It had been nine, no, ten months since she’d made it to see her family here.

      Sam Kirk, the detective working her case, had offered to drive her. She’d fully expected him to grill her during the two-hour drive, but had decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, if he could ask the question that would unlock her memories, she’d be as glad as he would.

      Sam was in his late thirties or early forties and tended to be quiet, but when he spoke, people listened. He had a presence, she’d long since decided, even though he was lean and not above average height. Abby had always felt shy around him, and hadn’t yet had occasion to work closely with him.

      When he’d first picked her up, he drove her to her apartment and helped her pack a duffel bag full of clothes. Without complaint, he also carried a tote bag of books she kept meaning to read out to the car.

      Returning, he nodded at her laptop. “You’ll want that.”

      “No electricity where I’m going.” Seeing his puzzlement, she had to explain why the Amish refused to be on the grid, linked with people who didn’t share their faith.

      He looked stunned. “No TV? But...the Chiefs’ first regular-season game is next weekend.”

      She laughed at him, relaxing for the first time.

      When he offered to come back to dispose of any foods that would rot while she was away and empty the kitchen trash, Abby handed over her key. If he could figure out her laptop password, he was welcome to browse her emails and files. He’d probably search her apartment, but she didn’t care. She had nothing to hide. In fact...she didn’t have much at all.

      The first fifteen minutes of the drive had passed in silence. Then he broke it. “The sergeant is doing his job, you know.”

      She stiffened. “I know.”

      “I go with my gut more than he does, and my gut tells me whatever happened in that alley was a setup.”

      Good cop, bad cop was her first thought. She knew she СКАЧАТЬ