In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2) (6 page)

“It went well. I spent most of it walking
around.”

Beth nodded. “That’s wonderful dear. Getting
out and seeing people should be wonderful for your condition.”

Kate noticed that Beth seemed excited. “Did
anything happen while I was gone?” she asked.

“I found a letter from Rose,” Beth said in a
conspiratorial whisper. “To Samuel, that is. And knowing her,
she'll never send it to him.”

“I see.”

“Would you help me out, Kate?”

Kate blinked, puzzled over the sudden
request. “With what?”

Despite the fact that they were the only two
people there in at least half a mile, Beth smiled and leaned in
close. “I've invited Samuel over for dinner. I need you to help me
get Rose and Samuel together.”

Kate gave an uncomfortable smile. “Of course
I will. I don’t think I’m any good at matchmaking, though.”

The look of profound disappointment on
Beth’s face made Kate feel guilty. “You know what? Now that I think
about it, I’m sure I can be of some help,” Kate amended
quickly.

Her comment seemed to perk Beth up. Beth
chatted on about the details excitedly as she and Kate finished
folding the laundry.

Psalm 29:1-11.
A Psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the
glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory
thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is
powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of
the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of
Lebanon.

Chapter
8
.

Kate approached the tall, decrepit apartment
building where the homicide victim, Ethan Jackson
, was reported to live. The address was 206. Since that
probably meant his apartment was on the second floor, Kate walked
around the exterior until she saw a fire escape leading up one
level. Leaping into the air like a grasshopper in the fields, her
hands gripped the cold, wrought iron rung and she hoisted herself
up onto the ladder. She slowly climbed to the landing and
approached the window.

Kate hoped no one had
seen an Amish woman shimmying up the ladder.

Since the victim
wouldn’t be coming home, Kate expected the apartment to be vacant.
She attempted to open the window; it slid upward with ease. Weird.
In this type of neighborhood, she was sure the windows should
always be locked. She slipped inside, and when she turned around,
she noticed a half-full gallon of milk sitting beside a spilled
puddle of the liquid on the kitchen counter. Weird again. It was
almost like someone left in a hurry.

Deciding she had no
choice but to ignore the peculiarity of the situation, Kate chose
to focus on the goal at hand. She entered the living room and
noticed a laptop sitting atop a wooden computer desk. She plopped
into the comfortable chair and relived city life for a brief
moment. She opened the laptop and tried to log on.
Access denied
.

Frustration seeped in
as she tried to refocus. She pressed a few buttons in unison and a
prompt bleeped onto the bios screen. She tapped away at the keys
until another window opened, asking her to confirm that she wanted
to continue. She pressed
yes
. Suddenly, the screen
flashed before a green text littered the screen:
Access granted
. She was in.

Sifting through the
man’s files, Kate came across an assortment of photographs, music
files, pirated movies, and everything else one would expect to find
on the computer of a middle-aged hitman. She opened up his web
browser and clicked the mailbox icon from his homepage. She looked
more closely and noticed the email user’s account name:
EvilSnake143
. Odd. Kate did not pay a second thought to the matter and
began searching through his emails. One after another, she read
through spam mail, news from his favorite websites, and some
conversations with a girlfriend.

After a few more
sweeps of the computer, Kate realized it held nothing of
importance. It made sense to her that no information of his
extortions existed on his hard drive, as it was highly unlikely
that hitmen conducted their business online. Through her dealings
with those types of men in the past, she knew they were a highly
suspicious group. They left nothing to chance.

When Kate turned her
attention to the bedroom, she noticed several things seemed out of
place. The drawers of several dressers were left half opened, and
the closet was also left open, with clothes strewn all across the
floor. It was starting to make her think that maybe she wasn’t the
only one who had snooped around the victim’s
apartment.

Kate knew the police
had been there, of course, but they would not have been so careless
with the scene. Milk left sitting on the counter, tussled drawers
and clothing, and most likely coming in through the window: what
type of cop would do those things? None that she had ever worked
with.

Continuing her
inspection, Kate walked into the kitchen for the first time. She
had noticed the milk earlier, but failed to examine the area
closely at the time. The milk was still cold when she placed her
finger against the container. To her trained eyes, it looked like
someone had made themselves at home, ransacking the apartment,
looking for information, and even pouring a nice, refreshing glass
of whole milk before they were somehow interrupted.

Kate approached the
closet doorway, and peeked in to see a room littered with the
ultimate biker’s bedroom. Leather jackets were draped over a large
sofa, with posters of rock and roll favorites scrawled out along
the walls. As she looked around, she heard the sound of metals
scraping against each other in the direction of the front door.
Click - the door swung open and she pulled her head back inside the
bedroom.

Kate hid behind the
door, hoping the intruder wouldn’t come looking where she was.
Suddenly, Kate heard the chatter of a police radio as it cackled to
life. “This is dispatch, please go 55.”

An all too familiar
voice answered. “10-4, on location now.” The man continued walking
through the apartment, when his footsteps grew closer to Kate’s
location. One by one, each step grew louder, so she crept backward
toward a wooden door. It was an odd-looking door; it was thin, and
its face resembled window blinds, with countless slits in the wood,
allowing someone to look out from inside the room, but looking in,
you could see nothing but the solid, oak door. Kate grasped the
doorknob in her hand and without looking, withdrew into the narrow
room. Pitch darkness surrounded her.

Confused, Kate
realized the room had no windows, so the light from the sun could
not reach the inside. The smell of the room tickled at her nose; it
was odd and peculiar, something she had never smelled before. Her
curiosity ceased when she heard the steps outside the blinded door.
A flashlight shone in through the slots in the door, partially
illuminating the room. Kate involuntarily reached over silently and
locked the door from the inside. She then backed up and
waited.

The doorknob jiggled,
making the most terrifying noise she had heard in months. It caused
her to step backward clumsily. Her back cracked against what felt
like a solid block of stone. When she had steadied herself, the
doorknob shook even more violently and the door began to
creak.

As the fear of
discovery rose inside her, a strange sound started behind her. At
first it sounded like water spraying from a nozzle, and then it
sounded like hissing. Her eyes sharpened and her mind froze. She
turned around, and as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the
form of a large, tan snake with a triangular shaped head distinct
from the neck.

The cage was locked
from the top, but the snake watched her closely; the flashlight
outlined the predator as he stalked his prey from inside his glass
box. The doorknob stopped jittering as fear gripped her lungs. Not
even a breath was allowed to escape as she knew the cop was
listening closely. “Anyone in there? Oh, there it
is.”

Suddenly, the doorknob
sprang back to life and the door began to open. Kate slid between
the wall and tank and hid behind the large enclosure. She was out
of sight for now, but she was literally inches away from her newly
acquainted friend. The snake hissed at her before turning his
attention to the cop.

“
Oh
no!” Ryan exclaimed.

From Kate’s hiding
place she could see the outline of Ryan’s face as he grabbed his
radio and pressed it to his face. “Dispatch, it’s a 10-26. Just a
snake. Negative on the information retrieval; heading back to
10-20.”

“
10-4,” the radio replied.

“
And
what’s happening with the girlfriend?” Ryan barked, his voice now
receding. “She was supposed to come and collect the snake. Get onto
her, will you?” His voice trailed away.

What was Ryan doing
there? And what information was he trying to retrieve? Kate thought
carefully, wondering if he was after evidence of the victim’s crime
history as well. Without warning, the hissing of the snake startled
her from her thoughts, causing her to slightly jump. She hit
something with her shoulder, causing the shelf above her to clatter
loudly to life. Suddenly, something crashed onto the tank,
shattering the lock and releasing the top of the tank. The top
slowly opened, as Ryan opened the door again and trained the
flashlight on the snake.

“
Oh,
boy,” Ryan said, slowly stepping backward. With the flashlight
still highlighting the snake’s scaly presence, the snake slowly
slithered toward Kate, still contained inside its now-topless cage.
Ryan stepped forward while it crawled around the bottom of the
tank, trying to close the hinged cage top. As his fingers nearly
touched the lock, Kate watched when the snake quickly turned back,
scaring the cop into a temporary surrender.

Kate lightly tapped on
the glass. She made sure to keep it quiet to avoid Ryan’s
suspicion, but she knew the slimy predator heard the noise. It
slowly wrapped its body in a way to allow it to strike. As it
watched her intently, the snake got closer. Kate’s eyes followed
upward as the snake continued its ascent. Suddenly, the cover came
crashing down, and Ryan secured the lock. “Snakes, why’d it have to
be snakes?” he muttered as he exited the room.

Kate slouched to a
sitting position behind the tank. What a relief. She waited until
she was sure that Ryan had left. As she stood up, and tried to
stretch her aching, cramped limbs, something long and slimy fell
over her shoulders. Kate jumped to her feet, bumping her head on
the shelf above, knocking an assortment of fake snakes and pet toys
onto the top of the snake’s tank and all over the
floor.

I just experienced
enough fear to last a lifetime
,
Kate thought in dismay.

Kate walked back out
into the living room, and then saw that a yellow sticky note was
stuck to her shoe. She pulled it from her shoe and read it. The
scrawled writing read:
Lucy’s
Diner
.

“
Lucy’s Diner. I wonder if that place holds any clues, but I
doubt it,” Kate said softly. As she made her way to the window, she
noticed a calendar hanging from the wall near the window. It had a
large, red X circled on a particular date. Intrigued, she looked
closer. It read:
Moved
in
. It struck her as strange,
since the circled date was only a few months back, and this man’s
apartment and room indicated that the victim had likely lived there
for years. “Who moved in?” she asked herself.

Kate opened the window
again and slipped one leg out, when the victim’s phone started to
ring. It sounded like a house phone, so she pulled herself back
inside and walked into the living room. The phone buzzed and lights
flashed, and within a few seconds, an old-fashioned answering
machine beeped to life. “Please leave your message.” There was
silence, and then the sound of a disconnect. Then the machine kept
speaking. “Saved message,” it said. That was followed by a shaky
voice filled with fear. “Hey man, it’s me. Where have you been?
Ever since you told me what you were planning, I haven’t heard from
you or seen you at all. You have me worried. Please, call me back.
Maybe we can meet at that diner again. I just need to know you’re
okay.”

Lucy’s Diner. Maybe
it
would
be of some value after all. Kate grabbed the
sticky note. She slid down the ladder and climbed down into the
street, her Amish dress flapping around her.

Proverbs 1:33.
But whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease,
without dread of disaster.

Chapter
9
.

Kate approached Lucy’s Diner. She clicked on
the horse and took the first right into the parking lot. Surveying
the area, she noticed the amount of customers must be minimal;
there were only four cars in the large parking area.