Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

“No, I mean … just now.” The words tumble out of me; I’m fumbling them, my brain is misfiring, and I warn myself to calm down.

“He set down the handgun. So what? It doesn’t matter. He’s down. The children are safe. It’s over.”

“I don’t think it’s over.…”

He looks at me as if he wants to lay into me. Instead, he scrubs a hand over his face and softens. “You’re not okay.”

Only then do I realize he’s right. I’m a mess. My entire body is shaking. My legs. Hands. My voice isn’t steady. Worst of all, I feel the threat of tears, the one thing I will not allow at this moment.

Setting his hand against the small of my back, he motions toward the command center. “Remind me later to bitch you out for going in there, will you? Kill hadn’t even been confirmed. If he’d been—”

“He wasn’t,” I cut in.

We arrive at the command center. A few yards from the stairs, I plant my feet and stop. “I don’t want to go in there.”

“You need a minute?”

“I’m not going in there. Not like … this.”

Glancing left and right, he takes me around to the rear of the vehicle and leans me against the side of the trailer. “I just want to sit you down, get a look at you. Make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m okay,” I tell him. “I’m just…”

“Hurting.” He sweeps a tuft of hair from my face, and then says more softly, “Yeah, I get that. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want this to happen,” I tell him. “Not like this.”

“No one did.”

I think about the children. Annie and Levi. Becky and Little Joe. And sweet Sadie … So young and innocent and yet they’ve endured so much, lost so much. I wonder who’ll explain this to them. If someone will be there to comfort them, to hold them, wipe away their tears.

Through the throng of cops from a dozen jurisdictions, I see the Holmes County Coroner’s van take the gravel lane toward the house.

I take a deep breath, blow it out, reach for a calm I can’t quite get to. “Are you going to stay?”

“I need to stick around until the CSU is finished. Probably going to be a few hours.”

“I need to go home,” I tell him.

“You’re still shaky.”

He’ll know if I lie, so I fess up. “I’m sick to my core about this.”

He tilts his head, looking at me a little too closely. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll get things tied up and drive you.”

“No. Finish up. I’m fine.” More than anything I want to lean into him, feel his arms around me, absorb some of his strength, because at this moment I need it desperately. Of course, I can’t do any of those things; there are too many people around.

Offering up a smile, I take a step back. “I’m not very good company right now, anyway.”

“You’re always good company.” He’s not buying into it, but I know he can’t get away.

“Don’t stay too late,” I tell him.

We touch hands, a brushing of fingertips, and then I turn away and start toward my Explorer.





PART II

Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion





CHAPTER 13

I’m twelve years old and it’s a beautiful summer day full of promise and adventure and, unfortunately for me, chores. My sister, Sarah, and I spent the morning picking raspberries down by the creek on the north end of our property. We ate nearly as many as we picked, but the berries were plentiful and we still managed to harvest eighteen pints. Yesterday, Mamm made a dozen loaves of yeast bread. Add to that the eggs I’ve collected over the last week—the brown ones that the tourists fawn over—and a dozen or so jars of apple butter, and I know it’s going to be a lucrative afternoon.

At ten A.M., my brother, Jacob, loaded all our goods into the buggy and drove Sarah and me to the stand Datt built down by Hogpath Road where the English tourists have to drive past to get into Painters Mill. While Sarah smooths the red-and-white-checked tablecloth over the plywood surface, Jacob and I carry the last of the bread and eggs and raspberries to the table.

“Stop your pouting, Katie,” Jacob says as he sets the last crate on the tabletop.

“I’m not pouting,” I tell him.

He pulls the wooden sign from the back of the buggy and sets it against the front of the stand so it’s visible from the road. “Pride in your work puts joy in your day,” he says in Deitsch.

A little free time would have put plenty of joy in my day. I don’t tell him that, of course. I simply hadn’t planned on spending my birthday working our produce stand. All I’d wanted to do was finish my chores and hoof it down to the creek to go swimming with my siblings. We’d recently discovered a deep spot just past the rapids where the water runs fast and clear and cold. Our neighbor, Joseph, who’s my brother’s age and oftentimes swims with us, claims to have spotted a wood trunk half buried in the gravel bottom. I’m not sure I believe it, but the story has aroused the explorer inside me.

“It’s my birthday,” I snap.

“It’s just another day to everyone else.”

“Shush, you two.” Sarah arranges the loaves alongside the pints of berries. “We’ll have all this stuff sold in no time,” she says. “We’ll get down to the creek this afternoon when it’s nice and hot.”

Sarah, always the diplomat. The peacemaker.

Jacob sets the box of change on the tabletop. “I think our Katie is just anxious to see Joseph.”

“I am not,” I say, but my face heats, revealing the truth.

“Or maybe she just wants to do something fun on her birthday,” Sarah soothes.

Smirking, Jacob goes to the buggy and climbs onto the seat. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Sarah waves. I don’t bother, instead leaving him with a glower.

Clucking to the horse, Jacob snaps the reins and starts toward home.

I make my way behind the table, trying not to notice the car that speeds by, the face in the passenger window staring at me as if I’m some kind of exotic livestock.

“At least there’s a breeze,” Sarah says as she rearranges the eggs and berries. “A cake or two would have been nice. Or some pies.”

“Nice to eat, maybe.” But I have to admit, she’s created an attractive display. The red berries. The rustic bread Mamm wrapped in cellophane. The brown eggs in the big wire basket. And those pretty little jars of apple butter.

“You did a good job on the sign, Katie. I like the blue.”

I look at the sign and, despite my sour mood, a sense of pride moves through me. I found the old piece of wood in the barn last week. Datt sawed it to size and I spent most of last evening penciling in the letters and then filling them in with the paint Mamm had left over from the kitchen cabinets.

Sarah pulls out the paperback novel she’s been reading and leans back in the lawn chair. Not for the first time I wonder how she can always be so content. It’s not yet noon and already the back of my neck is wet with sweat and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a mosquito bite or poison ivy on my ankle.