Karen Harper - Finding Mercy

Shutting all that out, Alex spotted one of the maids across the parking lot, going from room to room with her cart of mops and brooms. She was either really pretty or he was getting desperate for female companionship.

He ran on. The next time around, the black pickup was still there with its motor running. Its side window was down and the driver was holding up some kind of mirror that snagged a piece of sunlight. No, not a mirror, maybe binocs. A telescope? Or maybe…

A crack resounded, echoed off the building behind him. Stucco and shards of shingles spit at him. He lunged forward and hit the concrete walk on his belly as a second shot sounded. It shattered the window he’d just run past.

Shooting at him! But how—no one knew where…

Somewhere a woman was screaming, then Jake’s voice. “Stay down! Gun. Gun!”

The pickup roared away. Jake, cursing, hauled Alex to his feet by the waistband of his slacks and shoved him toward their car, pushed him into the backseat on his face, slammed the door, got in the driver’s seat and roared away.

“That’s it for me!” Jake shouted as he sped up, then made a screeching turn. “You don’t play by the rules, and somehow they found you, Metro Man! I’m delivering you to the Atlanta cops and then I’m outta here! For them to track and find you, someone wants you bad. I’d bet city hall you got a nice expensive contract on your head!”

Alex felt shaken to his soul—bullets…hit man…contract. Traced hundreds of miles from Manhattan. He hated and feared having to become someone he wasn’t, but he couldn’t live like this or else he was going to die like this.

1

June 20, 2011

ELLA LANTZ’S FIELD of lavender, edging toward full bloom, stretched as far as her eyes could see. But, she admitted, peering out from under her bonnet brim, that was only because the humped, wide-set rows of the fragrant purple plants went up the hill and disappeared from sight. She had almost an acre of the sweet stuff and, as Grossmamm Ruth put it, with no man or marriage coming down the pike, her little garden of Eden here in Eden County was her future.

With her curved hand sickle, Ella cut an armful of the earliest, hardy English lavender, then rushed down to where her widowed brother, Seth, was loading the wagon with his household goods. Beside him in the wagon sat Hannah Esh, Ella’s good friend, whom he was going to marry this Friday, in just four days.

Even though Amish weddings usually avoided the farming months, everyone agreed they’d waited a long time. Their borrowed wagon was filled with the rest of Seth’s furniture, which was going into storage in the Troyer barn until his and Hannah’s house was done. Meanwhile, the newlyweds were going to live in the big Troyer house while Seth would build first his and Hannah’s home, then one for the youngest Troyer son, Josh, and his wife, Naomi. So many weddings, Ella thought, but none of them hers. Both Naomi and Hannah were her friends, and she wanted to send enough lavender with Seth to scent the Troyers’ house, then later the wedding itself at Hannah’s family home.

Ella was grateful to the Troyers for hiring her oldest brother in these tight times. And, she was getting a house of her own in the bargain. Seth was giving her his two-story home on this property. She planned to live upstairs and make the downstairs into a lavender workshop and store where she could oversee a small staff to make potpourri, candles and soap.

“Here, for Mrs. Troyer,” Ella said, and lifted the big bundle of blooms up to Hannah, who cradled them across her knees. On the wagon seat between her and Seth perched three-year-old Marlena, Seth’s little girl, who adored her new mother-to-be. The child smiled and waved down at her aunt Ella, who had helped to care for her since her mother died two years ago.

One of the four big Belgians hitched to the wagon snorted and stamped a huge hoof. They were anxious to be off. Ella knew Seth and Marlena were only going four miles away, but she would miss them. Suddenly, the small home she was inheriting here seemed miles from the big Lantz farmhouse where her parents and two younger siblings lived.

“Oh, they smell so good!” Hannah said, sniffing the spiky blooms with their purple tips. “Remember, I’ll help you when I can at your new store.”

“When you can won’t be much,” Ella told her with a playful punch on her leg. “Not with taking care of Marlena. Besides, you have a lot of catching up to do since you’ve been helping Ray-Lynn manage her restaurant.”

Ray-Lynn Logan was their Englische friend who owned and operated the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant in the nearby little town of Homestead. The kindly woman, who was recovering from an accident and a coma, shared ownership of the popular eating and meeting spot with Jack Freeman, the county sheriff and Ray-Lynn’s close friend. Hannah had been living with Ray-Lynn for a while, after Ray-Lynn’s accident, and would stay with her until her wedding.

“Gotta go now, Ella,” Seth called down to her. “Enjoy the house. If you need help building the shelves, just let me know.”

“Oh, ya, I’ll just get on your waiting list, you mean!” she kidded him. She smiled through her tears and bit her lower lip as he giddyapped the horses. To lose little Marlena from her care made her so sad… Before that last wagonful of Seth’s household goods rattled down the gravel driveway, the rest of the Lantz family, who had helped him load, came out into the front yard to wave goodbye. Ella wondered where they’d disappeared to while she’d picked the lavender.

Her parents, Eben and Anna, waved goodbye as did her sprightly grandmother Ruth, age 80, who lived with them. Mamm and Daad shouted advice in their Deutsche dialect as if Seth and Hannah—and their only grandchild, Marlena—were leaving for the ends of the earth.

Abel, age twenty-six, Ella’s second-oldest brother, not wed yet, who farmed the fields with Daad, looked sad. He would miss their oldest brother too. Barbara, sixteen, and Aaron, fourteen, the youngest, who was aching for his running around rumspringa time to begin, both turned quickly away and headed back toward the big farmhouse. Ella, at twenty-four, was the middle child of the five of them. She’d felt that way too—stuck in the middle, not quite companions of the two oldest boys or her two much younger siblings. That was probably why she’d made two close friends over the years—Hannah and Sarah, who had gone to the world and been shunned.

Ella was surprised to see an outsider watching from the porch as everyone hurried back inside. So when had he arrived, and where was his car? Who was he? Maybe that’s why everyone had disappeared inside for a while.

Yet she hesitated to follow her family back inside the house. Despite living with so many people, she often chose to be alone, especially when she felt the drowning darkness swirling toward her. No good to have someone see her that way, especially since an Amish girl, who trusted in her faith to pull her through, couldn’t escape its clutches. Going off on her own when that inner darkness came, she’d managed to keep her terrible secret from even those closest to her. Ever since she’d almost died ten years ago, she’d felt not only blessed but cursed....

“Ella, come here!” Her father’s voice pulled her from her agonizing. “Something for the whole family to hear!” Holding the porch door open, he windmilled his arm. As she hurried toward the house, she saw her mother’s white face in the window, peering out at her—or else watching the road, even though Seth’s wagon was out of sight. What was going on? It surely had something to do with that stranger.

Taking a shortcut down the row with her late-blooming French lavender, she broke into a run.