Vanish in Plain Sight (10 page)

Instead of the fear she expected, a wave of anger swept over her. Searching her room, watching her window while she slept—it was outrageous. She would not let them get away with it.

Without stopping to identify who that amorphous
“them” was, she snatched her robe from the foot of the bed and ran for the stairs. She didn’t stop to think until she’d switched on the outside light and opened the door.

The chill air hit her, bringing with it a sense of caution. Did she really want to do this? Could she do this? Still, what could the man do? If it was Ezra Weis, just knowing she’d identified him would surely make him stop this silent persecution.

And if not—well, she could scream, couldn’t she? Rouse the sleeping street if she had to. She would not huddle in her room afraid.

Crossing the porch, she stared into the darkness. The figure had been crossing the side yard. Headed for the front door? Or for the street?

Even as she thought it, she spotted him, walking down the street away from the B and B. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she darted down the walk, through the gate and down the grassy verge. When he reached the circle of illumination from the streetlamp, she caught him by the arm.

He swung around, face startled. It was Ezra Weis.

She experienced a moment’s hope that Geneva had been right about the man. “What were you doing out in the yard, watching my window? Well?” Her voice sounded braver than she felt.

He looked down at her, his arm stiff as iron under her hand. “I do not know what you mean.”

“You were in the yard just now. And before…a few nights ago. I saw you, watching my window.”

“You are mistaken.” He spoke with a flat assurance that was almost convincing.

“No. I’m not. You were there. You were my mother’s friend, but she married my father. You hated her for it.”

How stupid was she, blurting that out to a man who might be her mother’s killer? But how could she go on, stumbling in a maze and learning nothing?

For a long moment Ezra Weis said nothing. Then he gave a stiff nod. “I thought your mother and I would marry. She went with the Englischer instead, and I was angry. But I would not hurt her. Or you.”

“What are you doing here in the middle of the night then?” Her certainty ebbed, leaving her aware that she was cold and her bare feet wet from the grass.

“When I have trouble sleeping I walk,” he said. He pulled loose from her grasp, but then took her arm.

“What are you doing?” Fear shimmered through her.

“You are afraid of someone being in the yard. I am seeing you to the door.”

“I don’t need—”

But he hustled her along, ignoring her protest. In the gate, up the walk. When they reached the porch he released her and stepped back.

“You didn’t need to do that.” She tried to hang on
to her dignity, but it was a little hard in pajamas and bare feet.

“It is what I would wish for someone else to do for my daughter.” He paused, emotion moving in the stoic face. “And for Barbara’s daughter.”

Before she could respond, he turned and walked quickly away, disappearing into the dark.

F
INISHING THE BASEBOARD
in the family room was a back-breaking job, Link decided. Maybe he should have followed Trey’s suggestion to hire out some of the renovation work. It certainly would have been faster.

If he had, this whole business with Barbara Angelo’s disappearance would have been avoided. A hired crew might easily have tossed the suitcase out with the rest of the building debris.

Then he wouldn’t be involved. And he’d never have met Marisa.

Good or bad? He didn’t know.

Still, when he heard a vehicle pull into the drive way, his heart lifted. Marisa, maybe, come to continue the search. But when he moved to the window, he saw that it was Trey.

“Hey, big brother.” He took a second look at Trey’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

Trey shrugged. “Nothing. Just a few more answers that raise even more questions.”

He held the door. “There’s coffee on the counter.”

“Maybe I will.” Trey went into the kitchen, which was next on the renovation list.

Link followed. Right now the kitchen still contained the old glass-fronted cabinets and the gas range that he’d never dared turn on for fear of blowing the whole place up.

He waited until Trey had filled a cup. “So? What did you find out?”

“I went back through the old records at the office, trying to find an account. Seemed likely that Uncle Allen would have used Morgan Construction for building the addition, but knowing Allen, you could never be sure.”

“And?” Link leaned against the counter, forcing himself to be patient. Trey liked to tell things in his own methodical way.

“The work was done in September that year, which jibes with Barbara Angelo’s disappearance. She supposedly went missing on the fifteenth of the month, a Friday.”

Link nodded. At the moment he didn’t see how that would be helpful, but every little bit contributed. “That fits with what we thought. Adam says according to the police report, the mother wasn’t there when Marisa got off the school bus from kindergarten that day. Her father claimed he gave it the weekend, just in case Barbara had gone someplace to cool down after an argument. When Barbara hadn’t shown up by Monday, he reported it.”

“Allen did use Morgan Construction, so that
simplifies things.” Trey blew on his coffee. “Unfortunately, the job records aren’t very complete. They should have been working that day, but you know how it goes. The boss could have called the crew off for an emergency job.”

“Who was running construction then?”

“Tom Sylvester, same as he is now.”

Link remembered Tom—a bluff, hearty, red-faced man who always had a joke and a laugh for the boss’s kid. “He must be getting up there.”

“About ready to retire. Claims he’s going to head down to Florida and spend all his time fishing. His wife says she gives him two weeks before he’s fixed everything in the house and started on the neighbors.”

Somehow it didn’t surprise Link that Trey knew all that about someone who worked for Morgan Enterprises. Trey was like Dad in that respect, always taking responsibility for everyone else.

Unlike him. His mind winced away from that reminder. “Somebody should talk to Tom about it. He may be able to fill in the blanks. Will you?”

Trey shook his head. “Don’t you think it would come better from you? Marisa is sure to want in on it, and she seems to rely on you.”

His jaw hardened until it seemed it would crack. He didn’t want Marisa or anyone else relying on him. But Trey was right—she would definitely want in on this.

“Okay, I’ll do it. Maybe it will distract Marisa from searching this house.”

“To say nothing of Mom.” Trey grinned. “She’s now convinced that there’s a secret hidden somewhere in the book room.”

“If there is, it’ll be a bit hard to find, since we don’t know what we’re looking for.” That was worse than useless, in his opinion. Still, someone else had searched, so maybe Mom had a point.

Trey shoved himself away from the counter and set his coffee mug in the scarred sink. “Don’t tell Mom that. It would ruin the story she’s inventing. At least this might keep her out of worse trouble.”

Link doubted it, but let Trey keep his illusions for the moment.

“Guess I’ll leave you to it.” Trey went toward the door. “Let me know what else you need.”

“Thanks, Trey.” He followed him to the door.

“By the way…” Trey stopped, hand on the screen door. “Tom is retiring in a couple of months, like I said. I was thinking you might want to take his place.”

While Link was still gaping at him, Trey hurried on with what sounded like a prepared speech. “You know the business, and you’re more than capable of running the operation.”

“And besides, it would keep me here so Mom would be happy,” Link finished for him. “Thanks, Trey, but that’s not for me.”

“Think about it.” Trey rested his hand on Link’s
shoulder for a moment. “We sure like having you around, little brother.”

The gesture touched him, but he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“The offer’s open.” Trey went on out of the house, then stopped on the porch and looked back at him. “Sleep on it. Morgans belong here.”

He stepped off the porch and headed for his pickup. Link watched him go, choking down the tightness in his throat.

It was a nice offer. If the job were anywhere else, with anyone else, he might consider it.

But despite what Trey thought, this particular Morgan didn’t belong here. The only way he’d ever be able to forget the past was to go someplace where no one knew him. Or would expect anything from him that he couldn’t deliver.

A
S
M
ARISA APPROACHED
the turn to Allen’s house, a pickup truck spurted out the driveway. Trey, at the wheel, waved and continued toward town.

It was just as well he was leaving, not arriving. Not that she didn’t like Trey, but she’d prefer not to have two Morgans to contend with this morning. Her head was already splitting from loss of sleep.

She tapped on the back door and walked in at a call from the family room. Link was on the floor, tacking a strip of molding in place, but he rose when he saw her. “Morning. I thought you’d be along soon.”

“I hope it’s not too early. I want to get in some painting later this afternoon.”

“No problem,” he said easily. “The book room is waiting.”

She had a twinge of conscience at how much of his time she was taking. “You can get on with your work. I’ll be glad to go through the books alone.”

He stretched, hand on his lower back. “That’s okay. I’ll join you.”

“Are you sure?” Or did he just not trust her to
search alone for fear of what she might find? “I know you’re getting behind on your remodeling.”

But he was already leading the way into one of the other ground-floor rooms. Shelves lined three sides, all of them crammed with books. Arched windows looked out on an overgrown garden that might once have been lovely. The fourth wall was entirely taken up with a massive fireplace, its bricks blackened from years of wood fires.

“This was Uncle Allen’s favorite room. He’d close himself up in here for hours, working on some obscure item of county history or meeting with a few friends who were obsessed as he was.”

She could almost picture the man, sitting here alone for hour after hour. Maybe year after year. Had he been thinking about Barbara?

“It’s a lot of books. I guess we’d better get started.” She scooped up an armload of books and promptly sneezed at the dust. No furniture was left in the room, so she piled them on the floor and sat down beside them. “Would it help you if we sorted as we went?”

“I suppose, although how to go about it is beyond me.” Link grimaced before pulling his own stack of books off a shelf and sitting down beside her.

She leafed through an account of the area’s early landowners. “Maybe sort them by topic. Or age. I’d think the older books would be worth more.”

“Or I could just donate the lot to the county his
torical society. They could call it the Allen Morgan Memorial Collection.”

“It would be a fitting memorial, given what I’ve heard about him.” She kept her voice even. She couldn’t let her suspicions contaminate her thoughts when she didn’t know if they were true.

“A lonely, unproductive life,” Link said dryly. “Maybe so.”

She just looked at him, shaken by the bitterness in his voice. Did he even realize how he sounded?

He seemed to feel her gaze, because he looked back, his eyes meeting hers. He studied her face and frowned.

“You look as if you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Thanks.” She tried to turn it off lightly.

“Come on. What’s wrong?”

She’d evade the question, but what was the point? Adam would no doubt tell him what she’d reported anyway.

“When I got back last night, I found that my room had been searched.”

Link dropped the book he was holding, sending up a puff of dust. “What? How could anyone get in there with the Millers around?”

“It seems unlikely,” she admitted. “I suppose it’s possible that Rhoda or Mary disturbed things when they were cleaning the room, but that seems unlike them. Still, nothing was missing.”

Link’s frown deepened. “This place is searched—now your room. A person would have to stretch
coincidence pretty far to think the two events aren’t related.”

“I reported it to Adam. I don’t see what else I could do.”

“Right.” He didn’t look satisfied. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”

She nodded, taking a deep breath. She still wasn’t sure how to explain her uncharacteristic action last night.

“I was having bad dreams.” She paused, wishing she hadn’t said that. She certainly didn’t want to tell him what those dreams were. “I woke up—around three again, I guess. When I glanced out the window, I saw someone moving across the yard.”

She looked for skepticism in his face but didn’t find it. Instead, he leaned toward her.

“Was he watching your window again?”

“No.” In a way, she was glad of that. “He seemed to be crossing the yard from the back to the front. He could have been going either toward the street or toward the front door.”

“You called the police.”

“No. I…I went after him.”

For a full second he stared at her. Then he grasped her shoulders in his hands, his fingers so tight they must be leaving prints on her skin.

“Are you crazy? Why would you do such a thing? The danger—” He cut off, his eyes blazing into hers.

But not just with anger. With passion, longing…
She found herself leaning toward him, their faces so close she could feel his breath on her lips.

Something inside her…a longing she hadn’t even been aware of, seemed to yearn toward him in return. If only this could be so simple; if they could hold each other and every other issue would fade away…

He pulled back, his face tightening to a rigid mask. His hands dropped from her shoulders.

“Sorry.” Face averted, he sucked in an audible breath. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. But you should have better sense.”

“I know that.” Was it relief she felt or disappointment? “I can’t explain it. I was so upset already that I lost it when I saw him. I just wanted to know who it was. If I’d waited until the police got there, he’d have been long gone.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t long gone.” He muttered the words. “Did you? See who it was, I mean.”

“Yes. I caught up with him on the walk.” Her nerves jumped at the memory. “It was Ezra Weis.”

“Ezra again.” His jaw tightened. “You caught up with him. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that it would have been safer not to let him see you.”

The sarcasm was better than his anger had been. It helped her get her balance again. “It occurred to me, yes. About the time I accused him of watching my window.”

He ran a hand through his hair, looking as if he’d like to yank on it. “Not the smartest thing to do.”

“Well, I know that.” Did he think she was a
complete idiot? Probably. “He denied it, of course. Said he couldn’t sleep and decided to take a walk.”

Link considered that. “Would there have been time for the intruder to slip away while you were coming downstairs?”

“I guess. Although why would he, if he didn’t know I’d seen him?”

“I don’t know, but my point is that there’s at least a chance Ezra was telling the truth.” Link looked as if he weren’t sure and didn’t like the feeling.

“Yes.” Her hands went slack in her lap. She didn’t want to search through old books or ask people questions. She just wanted to crawl into a corner and close her eyes. “He insisted on walking me back to the door. He said it was what he’d want someone to do for his daughter. Or for Barbara’s daughter.”

Link rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know Ezra well enough to guess at his motives. I’d love to hear Bishop Amos’s honest opinion of the man, but I don’t suppose he’d give it.”

Bishop Amos would want to protect his own people, she supposed. “The bishop still hasn’t gotten back to me about setting up a meeting with my mother’s cousins. I’m beginning to think it won’t happen.”

She must have sounded bereft, because he reached across to clasp her hand firmly for a moment.

“Don’t give up on him. It’s just been a couple of days. And the Amish view of time isn’t as structured as ours. If he said he’d talk to them, he will.”

She nodded, too dispirited to argue.

Link picked up another book and shook it, sending more dust into the air, heedless of the binding. She grabbed it.

“You can’t treat what might be a rare book like that. The historical society will tar and feather you.”

He grinned. “They might try. If they’re all like Uncle Allen, they’d have to debate and write a few papers about it first.”

“I’m sure they’re not all like your uncle.”

“Maybe not.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I guess we’d better get on with this if you plan to paint this afternoon. Is the deadline pressing?”

“A bit. I overnighted a few sketches to my agent, and she called this morning, very enthusiastic. She said these were far better than the others. I had to admit that’s probably because they were done in real woodland, not a manicured park.”

“There, you see?”

“She also asked me to do a few drawings of the Amish while I’m here. It seems there are a couple of children’s books about the Amish coming out, and she wants to send my portfolio around to a few publishers.”

He arched an eyebrow, probably not understanding her lack of enthusiasm. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“If I can’t even get access to my mother’s people, what are the chances I’ll get any Amish to let me
make sketches of them? I can’t do Amish illustrations without models.”

He seemed to be considering that seriously. “Well, they probably wouldn’t let you draw their faces in any event, but I’m sure we could find a family who’d let you hang around and do some sketches, as long as you didn’t show the faces.”

One barrier fallen, it seemed, at the cost of simply telling Link about it. “That would be enormously helpful. I’m not very good at intruding on people at the best of times, and with the Amish—well, my experience so far hasn’t been encouraging.”

“My mother roped me into taking her to the Amish auction on Saturday. You could go along, if you want. You’ll see plenty of Amish, maybe get some ideas. And the Zook family will probably be there. Maybe we can contrive a meeting.”

She had to admit that it was better than just thinking about the problem. “It would be an interesting experience, anyway.”

“I can promise you that. Going anywhere around here with my mother always is. She knows every person in the township, and she’ll want to introduce you to them all, down to the last toddler and great-grandfather.”

“I think that’s nice.” She picked up another book.

“It is if you’re not the one on display,” he said. “She’s been trying to parade me around ever since I got home.”

“That’s natural, isn’t it? She’s just so glad you’re back safely that she wants to share it with everyone she knows.” It wasn’t hard to put herself in Geneva’s place. How she must have worried over him.

“I guess.” Link grabbed another book and then opened it carefully, mindful of her eyes on him.

“That’s better,” she said. She opened the cover of the book she held, to discover that it wasn’t a printed volume at all. The pages were covered with fine, dense writing.

She turned to the inside cover and drew in a breath. Allen Morgan’s journal. The date was after her mother’s disappearance, but still…

Her excitement must have shown in her face, because Link stopped what he was doing. “What’s that?”

She actually considered a lie before she came to her senses. “It seems to be a journal your uncle kept. It’s from the year after my mother vanished, but there might be some mention. I could go through it.”

“It’s family,” Link said flatly. He held out his hand.

She’d argue, but what would be the point? It belonged to Link, presumably, along with the house. All she could do was trust he’d share anything he found. She put the book in his hand.

L
INK MANAGED TO STAY
busy until mid-afternoon, but eventually he had to go home. And all the while those moments with Marisa clung to his thoughts,
entangling him in feelings he didn’t want to have. He couldn’t get involved—that was a given. He couldn’t put himself in a position where people relied on him and he let them down.

But Marisa’s face filled his mind…the way it had looked when he’d almost kissed her. And the way it had changed when he’d pulled away so abruptly.

He couldn’t get involved, but that didn’t mean he had the right to hurt someone in the process. Was it better to explain or to take the coward’s way out and ignore the feelings that hummed between them?

He was still arguing the point when he walked through the orchard and started up the path into the woods.

The sumacs were starting to change color, and already the sun slanted golden across the field, touching the wild blue asters that drifted like smoke through the tall grass. Signs of autumn, and he’d hoped to be gone by Christmas. That grew less and less likely the longer this mystery about Barbara Angelo dragged on.

Would it peter out eventually, with no real answers ever found? That might be best for everyone, with the exception of Marisa, who’d try to live with not knowing. And there was the little matter of justice. Oddly enough, he still cared about that.

The ground began to slope upward, and Link’s pace slowed. He pressed his hand to his side, trying not to limp. He’d been pushing hard the past few days. His body was complaining.

The green shirt Marisa wore blended so thoroughly into the background that he didn’t spot her until he reached the abandoned railroad bed. She was working in the same place she’d sketched the other day, but this time she’d brought a camp chair and a small easel.

She obviously didn’t hear him coming, and he slowed, watching her. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but strands had escaped to curl against the column of her neck. Her movements were swift and sure as she worked. If she doubted herself in any other area, she didn’t do so where her work was concerned.

A dry twig snapped under his foot, and she looked up, a startled expression giving way to a smile.

“Link. I didn’t expect to see you this afternoon. I thought you’d be trying to catch up on the work I interrupted.”

“I ran over to the house to pass that journal along to my mother. I thought she ought to have the first look at it. She said you were up here working.” Which didn’t really explain why he’d come to find her.

She nodded, gesturing toward the scene that had appeared under her hand—the colors the lightest of pastels, the lines delicate. “As you see.”