Abiding Mercy Page 24

  She could work much faster if he went into the other room, or better yet, out to the workshop. “Olivia and I have things under control.” She gazed at her husband. As irritated as he made her about prearranging her sister to work at the restaurant, one look from him could still melt her heart. “Danki, though.”

  Mordecai smiled. “I have some chores to do in the barn.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Irma groaned. She wasn’t ready for company.

  “I’ll get it.” Mordecai left the room.

  Irma gathered the remaining ingredients for the cake, then pushed a kitchen chair up to the counter and motioned for Olivia to take her spot. Her daughter loved to bake. Irma looked forward to them working together in the restaurant one day. She measured the sugar and dumped it into the bowl as little Olivia readied the wooden spoon. Irma expected to hear her mother-in-law at the door, but heard a young woman’s voice instead.

  “Is there a lady of the house?” The unfamiliar voice sounded frantic.

  Irma set the measuring cup down. “Stay here, Olivia. I’ll be right back.” She stepped around the kitchen wall to find a young woman holding a small child. Her panic-stricken face alarmed Irma and she drew closer. “Do you need help?”

  “Yes, I do.” The Englischer pushed past Mordecai and thrust the toddler at Irma, who automatically reached for the little girl. “I’ll come back for her. I promise.”

  “What?” Irma gasped.

  The child held out her arms. “Mum.”

  Irma tried to hand the child back to her mother, but the stranger held up her hands in protest.

  “I can’t take her. Not now.” Her voice trembled. “You’re godly people, right? You’ll take good care of her. I can trust you, right?” The twentysomething woman seemed indifferent that her little girl was crying. The Englischer lowered her head and, shifting her feet from side to side in a nervous rocking motion, repeated, “You’re godly people. I can trust you.”

  Someone should take the child from this young mother who was so obviously distraught. “Don’t you have family you could leave her with?”

  “No!”

  The child couldn’t fend for herself. Unless the mother had a chance to clear her head, the little one wouldn’t be safe. Irma bounced the red-faced toddler to calm her down. “What’s her name?”

  “I—I call her Doll.” The young mother backed up until she bumped into the door. “You’ll take good care of her, right? I mean . . . until I come back.”

  Without looking at Mordecai, Irma nodded while trying to comprehend all that was happening. She estimated the toddler’s age based on her mouthful of teeth to be around two years old. Did postpartum depression last that long? Her younger sister, Mary, suffered a breakdown after giving birth and an imbalance of hormones had put her on edge, making her more irresponsible than ever. If this stranger was suffering a similar mental breakdown, she probably believed the child was in harm’s way. It made perfect sense that she would need time away—even if it meant leaving her child with strangers. But why did this Englischer choose to leave her daughter with them? Maybe the mother knew them from the restaurant. Irma studied the woman’s face, but couldn’t place her as having ever eaten at the diner. Irma stepped forward. “Do I know you?”

  “Mum.” The child lunged toward her mother, her little hand clasping the woman’s wrist.

  The stranger dropped the diaper bag on the floor. “I’ll be back for you, sweetie.” She bolted out the door.

  The toddler let out a curdling cry, arms flailing.

  Mordecai’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide. Then as if what had just happened registered for the first time, he sprung out the door.

  Olivia poked her head around the kitchen wall. Her eyes big and darting around the room, her little mind working to take in the scene.

  “Go back in the kitchen, Olivia, and sit down. I won’t be long,” Irma said, bouncing the unhappy toddler.

  Olivia scurried out of sight as the door opened and Mordecai returned, shaking his head in either disgust or disbelief. “She’s gone. She jumped into an automobile and sped off.”

  At the moment, Irma was more concerned about calming the crying toddler. Red blotches surrounded her tiny mouth, and her lips had a bluish cast to them. “She’s shivering,” Irma said. “Would you add another log to the wood stove?”

  Irma grabbed the log cabin quilt from off the chair and bundled the fussy child. “Are you hungry, Doll?” The girl’s face pinched and she cried harder. Irma rocked the frightened little one in her arms, but that didn’t seem to help. She carried her into the kitchen, and the moment Doll noticed Olivia seated at the table, she quieted down.

  “Schweschaler,” Olivia said, her eyes bright with wonder.

  Irma wished she could give Olivia a sister, or even a brother to grow up with. “This is Doll. Can you say hiya?”

  Olivia wiggled her fingers in a wave. “Hiya, boppli.”

  The child mimicked Olivia’s wave.

  Mordecai brought the diaper bag into the kitchen and placed it on the table. He ran his fingers through his hair and paced to the window. He looked outside a half second, then faced Irma. “We can’t keep this child.”

  Irma eyed him sternly. “Nett in front of the kinner,” she said, using her friendliest Pennsylvania Deitsch voice.

  He tugged her dress sleeve and she followed him to the other side of the room. “She’s nett our child. We have to take her to the authorities.”

  “Nay, please.” Irma’s voice strained. “Obviously, the mother is under some sort of stress. She probably hasn’t slept in months. I’m sure once she’s rested, she’ll kumm back.”

  He grunted, which was his way of not agreeing, but not totally disagreeing either.

  “We helped Mary in her distress.”

  Mordecai groaned, but held back from reprimanding Irma for mentioning her younger sister’s name. Since Mary chose to leave the faith and live in the world, it was forbidden to speak her name.

  Irma glanced at the sweet, innocent child in her arms. “By the grace of God she found us.”

  “Found you,” he corrected.

  Tears sprung out of nowhere. She couldn’t explain this emotional connection she felt toward the rejected child—and for the young, overwhelmed mother she didn’t even know. How lonely and unloved the child must feel. God have mercy.

  Mordecai touched Irma’s cheek. “Don’t cry.”

  “That woman trusted us—strangers—with her precious child. It shows how desperate she is. If the authorities get involved, they might send the child to a foster home. The woman might nett ever see her boppli again. I couldn’t live with that on mei conscious.”

  Mordecai let out a sigh under his breath that sounded more like a growl. The noise he usually made in surrender, when he was at a loss for words and couldn’t say no. “I stoked the wood stove. It should get warmer in a few minutes.”

  Irma smiled. “Danki.”

  “Danki,” the toddler repeated.

  Irma gazed at the child in wonderment. “Did you hear what she said?”

  Mordecai chuckled. “By the grace of God.”

  “Mama.” Olivia climbed down from the chair and crossed the room. “Can the boppli help us bake?”

  “Jah. Just as soon as we get her out of these wet clothes and fix her something to eat,” she said, using a singsong tone, which seemed to please the little one. Irma rotated the child over to her other hip, went to the table, and peeked into the diaper bag. One disposable diaper and a baggy full of wet wipes. She glanced over her shoulder at Mordecai, leaning against the doorframe. “Would you mind going to Thomas and Noreen’s place and ask to borrow a few cloth diapers, nacht clothes, and a dress?” Their farm was less than a mile down Leer Road, and their daughter was close to the same age and size as Doll.

  Mordecai’s eyes widened and he pushed off the doorframe. “How long do you think we’ll have her?”

  Irma didn’t want to raise more concerns by bringing up the vacant loo
k in the woman’s eyes when her daughter held up her arms, crying for her mother. The Englischer was certainly detached, perhaps even bordering on deranged. Then again, the young mother acted responsibly by finding someone to help when obviously she was in no condition to care for the child.

  Lord, have mercy.

  Irma wouldn’t dare talk about the mother’s unsettling nature anymore. Not after she detected another wave of nervousness building up in Mordecai’s voice. He would insist on going to the authorities if she didn’t calm him. “Even if the little one is only with us a few hours, she’ll still need to be changed. Her outfit is wet and she’s kalt. I don’t want her to get sick while she’s in our care.”

  He scratched his beard. “I don’t know, Irma. This doesn’t feel right. We don’t know anything about this child—or the mother.”

  Irma gazed lovingly at the girl. “God will see us through. All it takes is faith.”

  Following Irma’s mouth with her gaze, the toddler touched Irma’s lips, then smiled. “Faith,” she echoed.

  “Can we call her Faith?” Olivia waved at the child. “Hiya, boppli Faith.”

  “Faith,” the toddler repeated with a giggle.

  Mordecai grabbed his hat from the wall hook, took a few steps toward the door, and turned. “Don’t go getting attached to her, Irma.”

  But how could she not?

  Brittany yanked the Buick Skyhawk’s rusted door open, jumped into the passenger seat, and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”

  Carlos jammed the loaner car from his cousin into reverse and spun gravel until the tires screeched off the pavement.

  “What are you doing, trying to draw attention to us? Slow down!” She waved exhaust away from her face and coughed. Years of harsh road salt had eroded a hole in the floorboard, making it difficult to escape the toxic fumes.

  Carlos let up on the gas. “Are you sure they won’t call the police?”

  “Let’s hope they don’t.” She tugged the seat belt over her shoulder and clicked it in place.

  “You don’t sound very confident.”

  “It isn’t as if we had any choice. That lunatic at the lighthouse said some weird things. His eyes were freaky, too, the way he seemed to be able to look straight through me. He knows.”

  “There’s probably an all-points bulletin out. You should have waited longer before you called them.”

  “Don’t blame this on me. I wasn’t the one who knocked her out and left her for dead in the parking lot.”

  “What was I supposed to do, kidnap her too? Throw her in the trunk?” He accelerated. “What about the farmers once they see the news?”

  Brittany tapped out a cigarette from her pack. “They don’t watch TV or read newspapers.” Her hands shook as she flicked the lighter, the flame catching the tobacco. She took a quick puff and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Didn’t you see the buggy? They’re Amish.”

  Her city boyfriend crinkled his brows.

  She took another drag on her cigarette, then rolled down the window and exhaled. “They live like it’s the 1800s, no electricity, no phones, no modern comforts.”

  Carlos laughed, then reached over and ruffled her hair. “That’s my smart girl.”

  “Yee haw,” she howled, then took another drag on her cigarette. “We better remember what house we left that million-dollar baby at.” She turned to look out the back window.

  “One? Try two or three million.” He punched the accelerator to pass a string of cars on US Highway 23 North. “Let’s just see how greedy we feel once we’re in Canada.”

  “I still don’t know why we couldn’t have taken the Detroit Windsor Tunnel. We would already be in Canada now.”

  “I told you, I have connections in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Stop worrying.”

  That wasn’t an option. As the child’s nanny, there would be plenty of video footage detailing every move she’d ever made while employed for the Colepeppers. The lighthouse man’s albino face and red hair flashed before her eyes, sending an eerie chill through her body. “You think we should dump this car?”

  “I already planned for that.” Carlos kept his eyes on the road. “There’s a car waiting on the other side of Mackinac Bridge in Saint Ignace, or if something comes up, we’ll ditch this car in Cheboygan and hot-wire something.”

  A burst of adrenaline coursed in her veins as thoughts of national news coverage whirled in her mind. She trusted that the Amish couple believed her to be a distraught young mother, but with the Colepeppers’ connections in the overseas market, they would broadcast her image worldwide. Canada. Oh, what had she been thinking? They owned hotels in Canada.

  He glanced at her. “You’re acting strange. What’s wrong?”

  “Colepepper Hotels are throughout Canada.” For the first time since abducting Adriana, her palms went clammy.

  “You brought the new passports, right?”

  She nodded. “Still, we’ve got to go through border control.”

  “Don’t worry.” He reached for her hand. “They’re looking for that kid. Once we swap cars, they won’t have any evidence. Even if they search with dogs.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Jewel Monty, you’ll hire your own nanny one day.”

  Brittany cracked a smile hearing the name she’d picked for the fake identity. Jewel. Sounded like a millionaire’s name. Her thoughts drifted to all the luxury items she would soon be able to afford. And then a breaking news report interrupted the music.

  “Daughter of hotel mogul Brandon and Roslyn Colepepper of Bloomfield Hills has been kidnapped. The eighteen-month-old child was abducted from the parking lot of Best Choice Market on Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Hills. Her abductors are thought to be driving a dark-blue 1985 Buick Skyhawk. Anyone with information, please contact your local authorities.”

  Chapter 35

  Posen, Michigan

  Present day

  Roslyn could hardly believe her eyes. The young woman standing before her and Brandon looked identical to Chrisla’s drawings of Adriana, and was an even closer match to the computer-generated images produced by the age-progression software that Detective Henderson had provided.

  “Would you like me to tell you about the special?” the woman who had introduced herself as Faith asked.

  “Yes, please.” Roslyn wasn’t interested in eating; she wanted to listen to Adriana’s voice, watch her mouth move, articulating certain words. The girl looked almost seventeen. Wearing no makeup to enhance high cheekbones or to thin her rounded face, she glowed with raw beauty—pure innocence. Roslyn studied the girl’s hair, parted down the middle and pinned under a cap. She couldn’t get a full look to see if it was thick like Brandon’s or fine like her own. Then again, Roslyn couldn’t even remember what her own natural hair color was. She’d been coloring and highlighting it since high school.

  “. . . and for dessert, the special today is shoofly pie.”

  “Shoofly?” Brandon echoed. “What kind of pie is that?”

  “It’s made with molasses and tends to be gooey; it’s very gut,” Faith said.

  “Sounds interesting.” Brandon smiled politely. He would never trade a ten-mile run for a piece of pie, not one made with molasses.

  Roslyn avoided carbs, too, treating simple sugar as if she’d have an anaphylactic reaction if it landed on her tongue. That was how she kept her size-six figure. But today she wanted to know everything and anything about the menu in hopes of keeping the girl at their table. She unfolded the newspaper article written about the restaurant, which happened to run in the same edition as the story of Adriana’s abduction. “I understand from this article that you make your bread from scratch.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We make our own recipe of sourdough and wheat. Rye is available, too, but we don’t make it here.”

  Brandon tapped the menu. “I’ll try the roast beef sandwich with sourdough bread.”

  The young woman smiled. “It comes with mashed potatoes and one more side. Would you like green beans, corn, p
eas, house salad, or coleslaw?”

  “House salad with ranch.” Brandon closed the menu and handed it back without so much as blinking an eye. Could he not look beyond the Amish costume and see their daughter?

  “Are you still serving breakfast?” Roslyn asked.

  “Nay, I’m sorry. Breakfast ended at eleven.”

  “Then I’ll just have to come back tomorrow so I can try the potato pancakes the reporter raved about.”

  “I try nett to make a practice of bragging,” Faith said, leaning forward slightly as though wanting to share juicy gossip, “but our potato pancakes are worth coming back for. You won’t go away hungry, that is for certain. People say they’re the best.”

  “The reporter certainly thought so. Which says a lot, coming from him. He isn’t known to always give rave reviews.” Roslyn studied the girl’s reaction. The sparkle in her eyes, the wide, infectious smile spreading over her face, triggered memories of Adriana as a toddler. Her gaze clouded. She’d missed so many years. Let it go. Adriana was here. Alive. Dredging up lost years would only feed resentment. Roslyn put the years of counseling to practice and tried not to think about what she’d missed with her daughter, but instead, thought about the things she and Adriana would do, the places they would go, how they would make up for lost time.

  “You said your name was Faith?” Roslyn asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you like raspberries or strawberries, Faith? I mean, do you eat a lot of them when they’re in season?”

  “Roz, honey, she has other customers to wait on,” Brandon said.

  The young woman’s smile faltered, and her gaze darted over her shoulder. “If you need more time to decide,” she said, not giving them full attention. “I can kumm back.”

  “No, I’m ready,” Roslyn said. “I’ll have the chicken salad.”

  The girl’s expression softened and her smile returned. “The sandwich or salad?”

  “Salad, please.”

  “I’ll put your order in right away,” she said, collecting Roslyn’s menu. “If you need anything else, a refill on your drinks, please let me know.”