The Search (11 page)

Bess snorted. “Tell that to Mammi.”

Billy took a few steps and whirled around. “This is no joking matter, Bess. What’s the point of trying to find out who’s polluting the lake if we can’t turn them in?”

“Well, how are you going to protect the lake if you don’t find out what’s causing a problem?” She walked a few steps to catch up with him. “Maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself, assuming it’s a person doing wrong. Could be something else entirely.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like algae growing. In science class, I learned about some kinds of algae that grow so thick they wipe out any oxygen in a pond, so all the plants and fish die. That might explain what happened to the birds. No fish, no birds.” Bess liked science much better than math.

Billy took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. Then he put his hat back on. “I guess what you’re saying is not to get ahead of myself.” He started walking again, scanning the shore for some sign of human activity. Too soon, they had walked the rim of the lake and were back at the buggy. Mammi’s head was rolled back and she was sawing logs. Billy helped Bess up into the buggy, which startled Mammi out of her deep slumber.

“Sorry to wake you,” Bess said.

“I was just resting my eyes,” Mammi said. “Find anything suspicious-looking?”

“Nothing,” Billy said, untying the horse’s reins from the tree. “Not a thing.”

“What about that?” Mammi pointed behind Billy. There, on the ground, was a pile of sawdust in between two wheel ruts, as if it had spilled from the back of a vehicle.

Billy bent down and rubbed the sawdust between his fingers. “It’s fresh. I can smell the sap.” He picked up some more and looked up at the trees. “It’s not from these pines. It’s from a different wood. Someone brought it here.”

“Could sawdust ruin a lake?” Bess asked.

“If there’s enough of it,” he said.

“I’m feeling a little peckish.” Mammi rubbed her big red hands together. “And when I get hungry, I get cranky.”

And heaven knows
,
Bess thought, they couldn’t have
that.

Jonah got off of the bus in Stoney Ridge at five in the morning. He walked down Main Street straight to the sheriff’s office, but the doors were locked and it was pitch black inside. The town was silent. It drove him crazy knowing that Bess was just yards away from him, locked up in a dirty jail cell. Frustrated, he turned and bumped right into a young English woman as she came around the corner.

“I’m sorry,” Jonah apologized and picked up the purse she had dropped. “What are you doing out at this hour of the morning?” he asked. The birds weren’t even singing yet.

She looked at him cautiously, then seemed to relax as he handed her the purse. “I work at the bakery. This is when the workday starts. What about you?”

He pointed up the street toward the bus stop. “I just got off the bus. Waiting for the sheriff to arrive.”

“You might have a long wait. His hours can be very . . . casual.”

Her gaze took in his straw hat and his jawline beard. Her face was lit softly by the streetlight and she smiled. To his surprise, so did he.

“You look pretty harmless. Why don’t you wait for the sheriff in the bakery?” She crossed the street and unlocked the door to The Sweet Tooth, then turned on the lights.

He followed her inside but stood by the door. She put on her apron and turned on the lights in the kitchen. He hadn’t really noticed what she looked like out in the dark street. He didn’t usually pay much attention to English women, but there was something appealing about this one. That face . . . it seemed vaguely familiar. Where had he seen her? He studied the woman more closely as she bustled around in the kitchen. There was a cautious quality in her eyes that made him suspect she’d seen more of life than she wanted to. He felt as if he’d met her before, but of course that was impossible. She was quite a lovely woman, he realized, with fragile, finely carved features and a long, slender neck. And she had been kind to him, even after he nearly knocked her down in the street.

She poked her head out from the kitchen. “If you don’t mind waiting a minute, I’ll start the coffee.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. He was famished. He hadn’t eaten dinner last night; he was too busy trying to pack and get to the bus station in time. He sat down in a chair at a small table and stretched out his legs.

She set down a mug of coffee and a cinnamon roll on Jonah’s table. “Cream and sugar?” she asked, glancing at him. Then she got a startled look on her face and froze.

He felt a spike of concern, wondering what had caused her to suddenly look so alarmed. Had he done something wrong? She dropped her eyes to the floor and spun around, returning to the kitchen to get started on the day’s baking.

Jonah decided he should leave, that he must have made her uncomfortable, but she started to ply him with questions. Where had he come from? What was it like living there? She was mixing dough and rolling it out and the oven was starting to send out some delicious smells. Before he knew it, she was asking about his family and he found himself answering. He began to talk: slowly at first, like a rusted pump, then things started spilling out of him in a rush.

“Rebecca and I met when we were both only sixteen. She lived in a neighboring district. I courted her for four years, driving my buggy two hours each way to see her on Saturday nights. Sometimes, I would barely arrive home in time to help my father milk the cows on Sunday morning.” He gazed into his coffee mug as the bakery lady refilled it. She poured herself a cup and slipped into a chair across from him, listening carefully.

As Jonah lifted the coffee mug to his lips, his mind floated to a different time. “As soon as her father gave us his blessing, we married. Rebecca came to live at Rose Hill Farm and a year after that, our Bess arrived.” He glanced up at the bakery lady, wondering if she was listening to him only out of politeness, but the look on her face suggested otherwise, as if she was anxious for him to continue. “Most men wanted a son, but I was glad the Lord gave us a daughter. I knew Bess would be good company for Rebecca.” He stopped then and looked out the window at the empty street. “You see, I thought there would be plenty of time for sons. But there wasn’t.”

“Life can be that way. Things have a way of not turning out the way we expect.” She said it so softly, he wondered if it was more his thought than her voice he’d heard.

Jonah caught her gaze and gently smiled. “No, you’re right about that.”

Then, in a voice that hurt him with its gentleness, she asked, “How did she die?”

His smile faded and he took his time answering. He’d never spoken aloud of Rebecca’s accident, not with his parents or Bess, nor Mose. Not even with Sallie. Yet on this morning, the morning he returned to Stoney Ridge, he found himself wanting to talk about Rebecca. “It was a warm April night, just a week or so after Bess had been born. Rebecca wanted to go visit her folks—they were moving to Indiana—and truth be told, my mother was making Rebecca go a little stir crazy. She was always afraid of my mother, was Rebecca.” He gave up a slight smile. “My mother can be a little . . . overbearing.”

The bakery lady nodded sympathetically, as if she understood perfectly.

“The baby was in Rebecca’s arms, sound asleep, and Rebecca had nodded off. The baby’s blanket had slipped to the floor. I reached down to pick it up. I took my eyes off the road for just a moment . . .” His voice drizzled off and he closed his eyes tight. “It was the last thing I remember.” He covered his face with his hand, but just for a moment. He came to himself with a start and glanced cautiously at the bakery lady. She didn’t say a word, but the look in her eyes, it nearly took his breath away. It wasn’t pity, nor was it sorrow. It was . . . empathy. As if she understood what a horrific moment that was for him, and how that moment had changed his life.

He hadn’t meant to reveal so much to an English stranger. It shocked him, the things that spilled out of him in the predawn of that day. Maybe he was just overly tired and overly worried about Bess and his mother, but talking to that bakery lady felt like a tonic. His heart felt lighter than it had in years.

But this lady had work to do and he had stayed long enough. He stood to leave. “I don’t even know your name,” he said at the door. “I’m Jonah Riehl.”

“I know,” she said, giving him a level look. “I know who you are.” She put out her hand to shake his.

He took her hand in his. It surprised him, how soft and small it was.

She took a deep breath. “My name is Lainey O’Toole.”

Jonah’s dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Lainey? Lainey O’Toole. I remember you. You were just a slip of a girl. Simon’s stepdaughter.”

She nodded.

“You disappeared. After your mother died.”

She nodded again.

“What happened to you?”

“I became a long-term houseguest of the state of Pennsylvania.”

He must have looked confused because she hastened to add, “Foster care system. Until I was eighteen.”

He leaned against the doorjamb. “What then?” Jonah asked. He was sincerely interested.

“I worked at a department store in customer service. That’s a fancy way of saying I listened to people complain. I didn’t want to do that forever and a day, so I saved my money to go to culinary school.”

“I remember you and my mother baking together in the kitchen at Rose Hill Farm.” Those eyes of hers, they were mesmerizing. Full of wonder and wisdom for a woman barely twenty-five, if he counted back correctly. “Are you back home now, for good?”

She didn’t answer right away. “I’m trying to do good while I’m here.” She gave him an enigmatic smile then. She had flour on her cheek, and without thinking, he almost brushed it away. It shocked him that he would even consider touching a woman like that. There were ten years between them, and a world of differences in every way that mattered.

Still, something about Lainey O’Toole stirred him. He remembered her as a small, worried-looking girl. Simon was a bad-tempered man, lazy and cynical. Even though he lived down the street and passed the house almost daily, Jonah kept a wide path from Simon, and his parents shunned him completely. Jonah saw Lainey’s mother only a few times, tossing food out for chickens that lived under the front porch. He remembered her as a faded-looking woman who had probably been pretty in her youth. Lainey used to slip up to the fence that lined the house, quiet as a cat, and just watch him and his father work in the fields or around the barn. It wasn’t long before his mother coaxed Lainey into the kitchen, teaching her how to bake. Just taking an interest in her, because no one else seemed to.

And here Lainey O’Toole was, a grown woman, standing in front of him.

“Jonah . . . ,” Lainey started. Just as she opened her mouth to say something, the sheriff drove by in his patrol car. She snapped her mouth shut.

And now his thoughts shifted to Bess. “I’d better go. Thank you, Lainey O’Toole.” He held her eyes as he put his straw hat back on his head, then tipped his head to her and hurried down to the sheriff’s office.

Jonah Riehl had a crooked gait. The good leg did most of the work while the weaker one shuffled to keep up, twisting stiffly from the hip. Lainey knew, from Bertha, that was a lasting result of the accident. Her heart swelled with compassion for the man as she watched him walk down the street, leaning on his cane.

She had nearly told Jonah about Bess. That first Sunday afternoon, when Bertha told her she knew Bess wasn’t Jonah’s daughter, she had made Lainey promise not to tell him or to tell Bess, either. “I’m the one who needs to do the telling,” Bertha insisted. “And I will. When the time is right.”

Lainey had agreed, reluctantly. Now she regretted that promise. She hadn’t expected to be spending so much time with Bess, nor did she ever dream she would meet Jonah face-to-face.

It took her awhile to recognize him this morning, yet once she did, she saw him as he was fifteen years ago, with laughing eyes and a quick wit. When she was just a girl, he used to tease her like a big brother. Never mean-spirited, though. She remembered how kind he was . . . so very kind. He was still kind. And he still had that wavy dark hair, snapping brown eyes, and good-looking face, slightly disfigured by a broken nose. She remembered the day it was broken. He was pitching in a softball game and got hit in the face by a ball. She’d watched from afar and thought she’d never seen a nose bleed so much.