Janice Kay - Plain Refuge

Grandfather Gregory said some bad things about Mommy, and when Matthew objected, he had spanked him. Hard. And Daddy let him!

Furious, Rebecca hugged him. “Did he use his hand, or a belt, or...?”

Her little boy gaped at her. “A belt? Don’t people always spank with their hand?”

Well, that was something. “Is your bottom sore?”

He wriggled on his bed. “Uh-huh.”

She gave him another squeeze. “I’ll talk to your dad. Sometimes I think he’s a little afraid of your grandfather. He may have thought a spanking wasn’t that terrible. Especially if you were rude.”

“I wasn’t rude!” he exclaimed. “I just said my mom wasn’t a—” He sneaked a peek up at her. “He said a word you told me I can’t.”

She could imagine what Robert had called her. What she wondered was why. How much did he know about Tim’s part in Steven’s disappearance? And the leverage she held over Tim?

“Never mind,” she said. “Remember, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’” Even so, he shouldn’t have to listen to her being vilified.

Together, she and Matthew decided the best thing was for him to say with dignity, Grandfather, I don’t want to listen when you use bad words about my mom, and then walk out of the room.

Forehead crinkling, Matthew repeated the line several times, then nodded firmly. “That’s what I’ll say.”

As far as she knew, he wasn’t spanked again. Perhaps Tim had confronted his father when Matthew wasn’t there. She wanted to think so.

Two months after her confrontation with Tim over the ring, he attended Matthew’s graduation ceremony from kindergarten. The three of them even went out afterward for pizza and had fun. At least, she thought they had, but when Tim drove them back to the apartment, he insisted on walking them up, where he asked Matthew to go to his bedroom.

He did it nicely enough, and Matthew shrugged and obeyed. Six now, he was growing like a weed and occasionally giving her glimpses of what he’d look like a few years down the road. That shrug was almost teenage. Rebecca wondered if he’d learned it from his fifteen-year-old babysitter.

She quit wondering when she glanced back at her ex-husband and saw the way his expression had tightened.

Feeling a little wary, she said, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Rebecca, you have to give me Steven’s things.” Tim kept his voice low, but urgency threaded every word. “Josh is pissed about this arrangement. He feels threatened, too.”

“Too?” she echoed.

“You don’t know what it’s like.” Hostility darkened his eyes. “Josh is after me, and Dad is angry because I gave in and let you have my kid. Sometimes I feel like that guy in the movie. I’m walking a tightrope between two skyscrapers. The only way off is to fall. That’s a shitty way to live.”

He was right. It was.

“I’d...like to think I can trust you, but I don’t trust your father,” she admitted. “Or Josh. And I’ve kept my word. I haven’t told anyone.”

“You know Josh is my best friend.”

She did know. Josh and Tim had met during orientation for their freshman year of college and had been roommates. Steven Stowe had been a much later addition, needed for his financial acumen. Because Josh had spent his summers working construction, he supervised the job sites. Tim’s gift had been convincing clients to choose G, G & S over other contractors. It was because of Tim that half the architects in the city recommended G, G & S to their clients. And when the company needed financing, Tim worked his magic on bankers.

“He’s leaning hard on me. You need to bend a little, Bec.” He hadn’t called her that in a long time. But then he said, “I don’t know how long I can keep protecting you. Be smart and think about it.”

She was speechless, and he departed without saying anything else. Rebecca almost lunged to flip the dead bolt on the door. Had he been telling her she needed to be afraid?

She tried to reason through the cloud of fear. Even if she returned the ring and the wallet and cards, she knew about them—about Steven. Even if she gave Tim the benefit of the doubt, what if Josh had killed Steven during an argument? Would he kill again to protect his secret? But there was the chance she’d given them to someone else as insurance.

Whatever he said to the contrary, keeping that proof might be the only way she could protect herself.

She put her back to the door and shuddered.

* * *

A COUPLE OF weeks later, Rebecca lay sprawled on the sidewalk, grit stinging her cheek. Dazed, she knew only that she was the near victim of a drive-by shooting, and that some man had tackled her to the pavement right after the first crack of gunfire.

I would have stood there frozen, like an idiot, she thought.

She groaned and pushed herself to a sitting position. People all around were babbling in excitement and alarm. The middle-aged man who had knocked her down was picking himself up, too. She heard an approaching siren.

Her phone rang and she groped in her handbag for it. She had to be sure someone from Matthew’s day camp wasn’t calling. Rattled, she stared at the strange number displayed on the screen. Even the area code was unfamiliar.

“Hello?”

A metallic voice said, “Call that a warning. You have something we need. Return it, or next time we won’t miss. And if you go to the cops? Your son is dead.”

Knowing the caller was gone, Rebecca began to shake.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL BYLER PULLED his squad car to the curb to let a bus pass. Having already noticed several buggies and horses lining the street, he assumed an Amish visitor was expected. Come to think of it, weren’t Roy and Nancy Schwartz supposed to be arriving about now from Iowa?

Roy was a cousin of his, although Daniel had lost track of whether they were second cousins or first once removed or... It didn’t matter. The Amish tended to have a lot of children, and family networks sprawled and frequently tangled. Daniel and Roy had played together as boys. Too much had passed for them to reconnect as friends, but he did hope his parents would invite him to dinner sometime during the visit so he could say hello.

The bus groaned to a stop in front of the general store. Daniel got out of his car, careful not to jostle the people exiting the bus. He didn’t see anyone from his direct family among those waiting on the sidewalk. Apparently, this wasn’t the day Roy and his wife and children would arrive. Emma and Samuel Graber, members of his parents’ church district and their contemporaries in age, stood in front of this group. Leaning a shoulder against the brick building, Daniel exchanged nods with them.

As usual, it was the Englisch passengers who got off first. They had a way of assuming it was their right. That wasn’t fair, Daniel realized, thinking of his good friends among the non-Amish in his county. There was no way around it, though—they had a different way of thinking.

And me? How do I think? he asked himself, as he did daily. Betwixt and between, that was him.

Finally a slender Amish woman wearing the usual black bonnet stepped off, reaching back to help a young boy down. Looking tired and shy, the boy pressed himself to his mother. The woman lifted her head to scan her surroundings, her gaze stopping on Daniel in what he thought was alarm.

He straightened on a jolt of anger, followed by curiosity. One side of her face was discolored and swollen. The eye on that side opened only a slit. Had she been in an accident? Or was she a victim of spousal abuse?

Her scan had been wary, and something about him triggered her fear. Was it because, like most Amish, she was unwilling to report the assault and thought he might press her to do so?