chapter 27
AS THEY RAN, Callie tugged on Deborah’s hand, pulling her to a stop on the path between Levi’s giant barn and a stand of shade trees. “Let me catch my breath,” she whispered.
“Ya, all right. But we can’t rest here for long.”
They stared at each other, eyes mirroring the same fears, the same questions. Deborah was the first to put it into words. “Who fired that shot?”
“Came from near the house. I think.” Callie sank back against a tree and closed her eyes. Though she’d left her cell phone in the car, she didn’t need it to guess the time. It had to be late afternoon. Darkness was still hours away, but she knew they needed to hurry, to do something. What were they doing here? What were they thinking? They should have stayed home like Shane had asked.
“Maybe it was an officer.”
“Why would an officer shoot at us? Besides, they’re all at the abandoned farm.” Callie opened her eyes and forced herself to stand up straighter. At least she knew Max and all her friends were safe. But she and Deborah were here, and they didn’t have very many options now. Two that she could think of. Hide or continue with their plan.
“Doubt whoever it was could even see us, unless they were perched in a tree,” Callie reasoned. “Probably they were shooting at Thomas.”
“Do you think they hit him?”
“They didn’t.” Thomas stepped onto the path, his rifle held ready. “Drop the quilt and turn around. Both of you turn around and raise your hands up high.”
Callie stared down at the quilt she’d forgotten she was holding, Mrs. Hochstetler’s quilt, the storybook quilt. They’d left the other two in the buggy. This one was the final story panel. They had decided the night before that this one held the answer to the location of the treasure, if there was a treasure. And she was supposed to drop it in the dirt?
“Hearing problems, Harper?” Thomas centered the barrel of the rifle on her chest.
She looked him in the eyes for the first time and saw a complete disconnect from the reality around them. This wasn’t a game for Thomas. It wasn’t a treasure hunt either. It was his last hope.
Something long buried in the ground?
That was what he was banking on?
She didn’t even realize she’d done as he directed and raised her hands until he smiled. “Now turn around.”
His voice was low, even, but there was no mistaking that it was a command. Boots sounded against dirt, then he was standing in front of her.
He dropped a backpack on the ground next to her feet. “Unzip the main compartment and pull out the duct tape. Bind Deborah’s hands behind her.”
Callie noticed a look pass between them, but Deborah didn’t speak.
Finally, Thomas said, “I’m sorry you involved yourself in this, Deborah.”
“Mistakes are like knives, Thomas —”
“Would you be quoting the plain proverbs to me?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “My mistakes will serve me today. If they cut, it will be because you two did not do as you were told.”
Callie looked to Deborah. She seemed awfully calm.
“Tape her hands together behind her. If she says anything else, put a piece across her mouth.”
Hands shaking, Callie did as Thomas directed. He knelt in front of the quilt, picked it up with one hand, and studied it. “Why did you bring this? I was watching you. Why were you carrying it around and looking at it?”
When they didn’t answer, he aimed the rifle at Deborah.
“It’s a map!” The words exploded out of Callie. “We think it’s a map your mother made. We were trying to follow it, to find the money.”
“And where was it leading you?”
When she didn’t answer immediately, he chambered a round.
“To the pond!” Callie shouted the first thing that came to mind. “We were going to the pond.”
Thomas crammed the quilt into his backpack, a grin splayed across his face. “Never know when I might need an extra blanket. I’ll just keep this now that we’re making progress. My bruder’s pond, huh? I guess you were lying to me earlier about already having the money. Now you’re finally going to give me what I came for.”
He directed Callie with his rifle, positioned her until she was standing directly behind Deborah, then he taped them together — back to back.
“Wait right here, ladies. I’ll be right back. Then we’ll go to the pond together.”
Shane was growing restless sitting on the platform of the windmill. No sign of Thomas.
Empty lane.
Empty house.
He’d expected the man to show a bit early.
He pulled out his cell phone to call Captain Taylor, but before he could punch in the number the display lit up. It was a number he didn’t recognize, and he almost let it roll over to voice mail.
Then he thought of his sister again, remembered the way Rhonda had looked that afternoon as she’d left for the mall with her friends — seventeen, long dark hair, and all her life in front of her.
“Black,” he growled into the phone.
“Shane?” The voice was a whisper, so small he clutched the phone against his ear. “This is Martha. Martha Yoder.”
“Martha? What’s wrong?”
“We’re at Levi’s place. Thomas is here.”
Shane slung his rifle over his shoulder and began climbing down the windmill immediately, carefully, with his one free hand. “I’m on my way, Martha. Does he know you’re there?”
“No. He went back into the barn, and we’re hidden — me and Matt and Aaron.”
Shane’s hands were sweaty, and he nearly slipped four feet from the ground. He needed to call the captain, and he needed to keep Martha on the phone. Running toward his Buick, he was glad he had parked behind the barn. It was close to the back gate. He always kept the escape route covered, even if it was a rutted dirt lane.
In this case, it provided a straight shot to Levi’s place, and he would thank God for that before he fell into his bed tonight. “Tell me what you’re seeing, Martha.”
“Matt wants to talk to you.” There was crackling on the line as the phone was passed from Martha’s hands to Matt’s.
“He showed up in a Jeep with a backpack and a duffle he pulled out from the passenger seat.” Matt’s voice was still angry, bitter, and still reminded Shane of himself.
“Did he go in the house?”
“No. At first he followed them around —”
“Followed who?” Shane started the Buick. Instead of slowing down for the old gate, he smashed through it and hooked a right. The officer who was supposed to be guarding the dirt road was nowhere to be seen. Where had he gone? “Followed who, Matt?”
“Callie and Deborah. We would have untied them, but we were afraid we’d be caught. We didn’t think we had time. It seemed smarter to just stay in front of them, and we heard Thomas say he was headed to the pond next.”
Shane prayed he’d misheard the kid. There was no way a case could go this wrong in such a short period of time.
“Did you say Callie and Deborah?”
“Ya. Hang on. Martha needs help with Aaron’s chair. I’m handing the phone to him.”
More crackling and it sounded like someone dropped the phone. Then it was picked up again.
“Why are Callie and Deborah there?” Shane asked as he fish-tailed out onto the two-lane road. “And what makes you think Thomas followed them?”
Aaron’s voice was smaller, quieter. “We heard Thomas tell Levi he put a bug in Callie’s bag.”
So that’s what Jolene was doing in Callie’s office. She had dropped a GPS tracking device in the bag filled with toys for Max, which Callie had carried to the farm. And the phone call from South Bend? Thomas could have paid any kid twenty bucks to place that last call. How had Shane underestimated this guy?
“What’s a bug, Shane?”
“Don’t worry about it, kid.”
“Are you on your way?”
Shane heard everything packed behind that question. The fear, the desire to trust, and the uncertainty of what to do next.
“I’ll be there in …” he looked at his wristwatch, “seven minutes. Can you three stay hidden for that long?”
Shane was barreling down the two-lane now, his siren blaring and his speedometer reading eighty. Hopefully one of the local law enforcement officers would pick up on the fact that it was him and radio Taylor for backup. He was not disconnecting from this call. He’d have to drop the cell phone to pick up his own radio, and he wasn’t going to do that either. At the moment, he was the only life line these kids had.
Why were the girls on Levi’s property?
“There’s something we have to do. He’s taking them to the pond. Do you know where that is?”
“I can find it, Aaron. But I want you three to stay hidden until I get there.”
“Someone else is here. We couldn’t see who it was. Thomas and Levi were arguing, then Callie and Deborah ran from the wagon to the barn, and then there was a gunshot.”
If Shane ever had Callie in his arms again he’d never let her go.
Did she have any idea how dangerous Thomas was?
Did she have any idea how much she meant to him?
The steering wheel of the Buick felt slippery in his hand, but he gripped it more firmly. The distance between them was growing shorter with every minute. He would make it there in time. He had to make it there in time.
This was beginning to resemble Shane’s worst nightmare. He was supposed to confront Thomas alone, with his men circled around the farm. How had so many people managed to involve themselves?
“Looked like the shot went wild,” Aaron was saying. “Deborah and Callie started running around the corner of the barn as soon as they heard it, so I don’t think they were hit. Levi rolled under the wagon and didn’t get up. I don’t know if he’s okay or not. We were going to go back to check on him …”
Aaron pulled in a deep breath, and that was when Shane remembered how sick the kid was, how hard this must be on him.
“But then we saw Thomas go after Deborah and Callie.”
“What?!”
“Ya, and he was hollering at them about the treasure.”
Shane realized this situation was going to be very complicated. Thomas was not worried about being caught. Apparently he also wasn’t worried about being killed. He had one objective — the money — and he was willing to die in order to recover it.
There was a beep on his phone followed by crackling on his radio. Shane figured it was Captain Taylor. Still he wouldn’t hang up on the kid.
“Why are you going to the pond, Aaron?”
“We have to get into position before Thomas gets there.”
“I want you to wait for me.”
“Can’t.” The reception on the call faded out, then back in again. “… we saw them.”
“Saw who?”
“Callie and Deborah. We were watching, and Thomas must have decided the money was back at the pond. Guess that’s why he’s taking them there. When we left …” Aaron pulled in another breath, and then Matt was back on the phone.
“When we left he was tying up their hands.” Matt sounded calm enough, but a little out of breath. Why was he winded? “That gave us enough time to get ahead of them. We’ll meet you at the pond. Hurry or —”
The line went dead before Shane heard the rest of Matt’s sentence, but Shane didn’t need to hear it.
Hurry or Thomas was going to kill Callie and Deborah.
He called Captain Taylor as he pulled onto Levi’s property. It had been Taylor who’d tried to beep in while Shane had been talking to the kids.
He gave the captain the sixty-second version, left it to Taylor to reposition their forces at Levi’s farm, to put his team where he wanted them, including Perla, who had earned the right to be there. Shane didn’t know what had happened to the girls, but he was convinced whatever was about to occur would be over by the time help arrived.
The girls and the children were in danger.
Unless Levi had found a way to intervene.
Shane suspected he knew the identity of the mystery shooter, but the odds of anything going their way in this operation were past calculating.
Shane wasn’t a hypocrite, but he wasn’t a fool either. As he made his way toward Thomas, as he hurried to help the people he cared about, he began to pray.
Thomas stepped out on the trail, pulled his knife, and cut the tape that bound Callie and Deborah together. He was careful to leave the tape around their wrists intact. Picking up his bag, he nodded toward the path. “Let’s go,” he muttered.
Callie almost stumbled as she hurried just ahead of Deborah. She wasn’t nearly as frightened as she was angry. This man had bossed her around for entirely too long. He was large, but he wasn’t a giant of a man like Reuben.
What made him intimidating was the rifle and the craziness in his eyes. The craziness she had dealt with before. Hadn’t Stakehorn, the original editor of the Gazette, been more than a tiny bit off? And Gordon Stone, the man who had killed him, hadn’t been entirely sane — though he’d insisted he was merely doing his job.
Then there was Ira Bontrager. He was a sweet old man, but he’d had moments that weren’t lucid.
Callie had plenty of experience dealing with folks who were one slat short of a fully functional rocker.
No, Thomas’ craziness wasn’t her main problem — the rifle was.
Good thing she’d taken a self-defense course.
She needed to wait for something to divert Thomas’ attention, then she could rush him, knock the rifle out of his hands, and keep it out of his reach.
Which would be hard to do with her wrists taped tightly together behind her back.
Hard, but not impossible.
She couldn’t help herself. She stole another glance at Deborah.
“Don’t look at her. She’s my insurance that you’ll do what I want. Now both of you — keep walking.”
As they stumbled along the path leading back toward the pond, Callie felt as if her senses were on high alert. She was aware of every bird settling in the brush, the way the sun’s light filtered through the western trees, and especially the hammering of her pulse in her eardrums.
No way she was going to die at Levi Hochstetler’s pond.
Her mind drifted to thoughts of Shane. Was he in love with her?
The question popped into her mind with the force of a firecracker blazing into the sky on a pitch-black July night.
She’d pushed the entire notion of love away because she thought she wasn’t ready.
Ready?
She suddenly realized you only had to be alive to be ready.
A beating heart qualified, and she had one — for now.
What had she been waiting for? Why hadn’t she told him how she felt? Why hadn’t she admitted she was scared? That she didn’t want to dive into life and be hurt again, be left alone again?
Why hadn’t she rested in his arms while she had the chance?
God had given her so many opportunities in her life, and she had pushed them all away. She had slapped at his hand like a spoiled child, never satisfied. If she called out to him now, would he hear?
She slowed on the path, just ahead of Deborah, Thomas behind them both. Slowed and glanced back in the direction of the barn and then toward Deborah.
“Keep. Walking.” He punctuated each word with a small shove. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
Deborah’s eyes met hers, and in that moment Callie knew her friend was praying.
In that moment, she also knew it was the one thing that could possibly save them, because Thomas Hochstetler was certifiably insane. He’d stop at nothing to recover his mother’s lost treasure.
They’d been over the quilts late last night and again this morning. And they’d confirmed the treasure was not at the pond before everything had fallen apart. A water source certainly did have something to do with the treasure — that was what they were looking for.
But one thing was certain.
The treasure wasn’t at the pond.