In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2) (11 page)

As Kate made her way through the maze of
mansion walls and rooms, she finally saw her chance at freedom. The
door was most likely guarded on the outside, and this worried her.
As she slowly stepped toward the exit, a set of footsteps crashed
down behind her.

Kate saw a guard on patrol making his way
down the steps directly behind her. Without thinking, she jumped
beside the staircase and waited. The man carried a large, automatic
rifle nestled in between both of his arms. After reaching the first
floor, the man slowly walked toward the door, glancing out the
windows that lined it. Silently, Kate crept backward up the stairs,
maintaining a constant eye on the guard. When he was out of sight,
she turned around on the second floor landing.

Suddenly, a pair of hands gripped her, and
the arms of her new captor grabbed her shoulders. “Where do you
think you’re going? White is gonna be very unhappy. How’d you get
up here anyway? Weren’t you locked in the hold?”

Kate refused to give the guard any
satisfaction, and kept silent.

The doors to the central office burst open
as the guard pushed Kate forward. The disturbance caused everyone
in the room to stop what they were doing and stare at the two
visitors. The only noise that she could hear came from Mr. White.
His fiery eyes looked up at her, as anger boiled over his visage.
“You know better than to walk into my office uninvited,” he snapped
at the guard.

“I’m sorry, sir. I caught this wench trying
to escape and thought you’d want to see her immediately.”

“You could have called it in over the
radio.” The anger seemed to dissipate slowly as he spoke to his
guard. “Well, I suppose you just did me a huge favor, so this time
you’ll walk out of here. Next time, however, make sure you call it
in first.” His stern voice appeared to strike fear into the guard.
The guard nodded to his boss and left the room, leaving Kate to
face the man by herself. Logan whipped his hand around in the air
at the others in the room, as if to tell them to leave. Everyone
except Kate and White silently left the room. The large doors
closely tightly behind her.

“So, how did you get in here?”

“I told you. I chased my dog.”

“No. How did you get in my office right
now?”

Kate put a confused expression on her face,
to imply that she was brought to his office against her will. “I
was dragged here.”

“No. Listen to me when I ask you a question.
You’re really starting to get on my nerves. How did you get out of
the holding cell and make it past all of the guards on the first
floor?”

Kate thought quickly. “The guard who brought
me my food said he felt bad for me, so he unlocked my chains and
helped me get to the front door, before he took off in a different
direction. Once I realized there were guards standing right outside
of it though, I unintentionally ran backward into the man who
brought me to you.”

“Very well. Looks like I have another weed
to yank out of my garden.” White stood up and slowly walked over to
her. “So, a farm girl wanders onto my property, interrupts my
business, and then tries to escape? What do you think an
appropriate punishment would be for that?”

The man looked at Kate and folded his arms,
as if undecided what to do.

In a flash, Kate lunged at White. She pulled
the stun-gun from her pocket with and thrust it at him. The two
fell backward together, and she ended up on top of him, keeping the
pressure against his skin. After a brief struggle, Logan’s body
fell limp, and Kate climbed back to her feet.

Now what?

At that moment, Kate heard a commotion
coming from outside. She rushed to the window, and saw several cop
cars lined up inside of the mansion’s gate. Kate looked around for
a way of escape, and saw that one of the windows had a fire escape
strapped to it. She lifted the window and then slowly shut it, just
as the doors to the office opened.

Safely hidden from view just outside the
window, Kate glanced down to see how high up she was. The ladder
would get her to freedom, but just as she was about to make her way
down, she heard a familiar voice from the room.

“What on earth happened in here?”

Kate peeked around the window and watched as
Ryan crouched near the body of White, feeling for a pulse. “He’s
alive,” Ryan said to another officer. “Looks like we might have
ourselves a vigilante. He must be a tough one too, if he took out
this guy.”

His radio buzzed. “Sir, we have three guards
unconscious in what looks like some sort of dungeon or
something.”

“All right, I’ll be right down. Let me cuff
this guy and make sure he finds his way to a cruiser.”

Kate smiled. She turned to the ladder and
slid down to safety. The grounds were covered with police, but she
was able to sneak toward the gates unnoticed. Kate slipped into the
darkness of night.

Acts 28:3-5
.

When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks
and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and
fastened on his hand. When the native people saw the creature
hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man
is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not
allowed him to live.” He, however, shook off the creature into the
fire and suffered no harm.

Chapter
15
.

Battered and likely to bruise, Kate limped a
little as she walked away from the hectic scene at Logan White’s
mansion. Sirens and chaos could still be heard in the distance as
she approached her hiding place. She pulled out the burner cell
phone she had bought recently for the purposing of calling taxis,
and called one now.

Kate let out a sigh of relief. It was all
over now. Logan would be arrested, and Kate was confident the
police had followed the cell phone trail all the way both to Lucas
Caden’s residence and then the mansion. All she had to do was get a
taxi into town, change back into Amish clothes, and call another
taxi, to hide her trail.

When the taxi drove past the vicinity of the
mansion, Kate glanced to her left to see numerous cop cars and news
vans littering the street. Someone was being escorted out in
handcuffs as the taxi waited at the lights. It was Logan White. He
looked to be resisting and arguing with Ryan, who appeared to be
struggling to hold the suspect in his custody. The light turned
green, but she continued watching as another police officer
assisted Ryan in throwing the kingpin into the back of a
cruiser.

All went smoothly, and Kate finally arrived
at her cabin under the cover of night, with the Kauffman household
none the wiser to her actions.

The next morning, Kate was working in the
garden. Rose was on a buggy ride with Samuel. The very thought made
Kate smile widely, even though her face ached – every part of her
body ached.

Kate watched with some trepidation as a
police cruiser drove toward the house. Ryan climbed out of the car,
a smile decorating his handsome face. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Kate responded, wondering
what Ryan was going to say.

Ryan’s smiled widened. “Are Isaac and Beth
here? I wanted to speak to you all at the same time.”

“No, they’re gone to town,” Kate said. “What
news do you have?”

“We solved the murder of Ethan Jackson
last night.”

Kate leaned forward
and did her best to look surprised. “Really? Who did
it?”

“
The
victim was a hitman for the suspect, Logan White. We received the
victim’s cell phone in the mail from an anonymous source, and used
that to track down a friend of his.”

“
Wow,
that’s wonderful,” Kate said. “What a lucky break with the phone.
Come to the porch, and I’ll make us some meadow
tea.”

Ryan followed Kate to
the porch, and he sat on one of the comfortable chairs. Kate soon
returned with some meadow tea and plate of whoopie pies, which she
set in front of Ryan, before taking her seat next to
him.

Ryan ate a whoopie pie
before speaking. “That was good.” He turned to smile at Kate. “The
friend led us to this guy, White, who has known affiliations in
organized crime. We have reason to believe he was opening up a
branch nearby. The evidence shows that the vic was embezzling or
extorting money from the boss, so he had his goons take him out for
his crimes. A hitman and crime boss are both off the streets, not
to mention all of his goons are going to be joining him in prison.
Plus, the station and the state will each get a split of the
resources he just left behind.”

“
That’s great; it really is. I feel so much safer already.”
Kate smiled, sincerely relieved to hear the news. “That was good of
the victim’s friend to help the police. Is he in
trouble?”

“
No,”
Ryan said, “but why the interest?”

Kate was relieved that
Lucas Caden would not be charged – after all, she had implied to
him that he wouldn’t be. Yet her question had aroused Ryan’s
suspicions. Kate thought fast. “It’s nice when people help the
police,” she said, silently chastising herself for not thinking of
something more convincing to say.

Nevertheless, Ryan
appeared to be distracted. His expression suddenly changed and he
seemed to be clouded in deep thought. “Hmm,” he said. “I didn’t
even put it together before.”

“
What?” Kate asked in surprise.

“
The
phone. I had chalked it up to just some random person finding the
phone and sending it to the police in lieu of a lost and found or
something.”

“
That
was probably the person’s intention,” she
added.

Ryan shook his head.
“No, it definitely wasn’t. It was the same person who knocked out
Logan White moments before we even arrived. They even used the fire
station as the returning address to throw us off. You should have
seen those firefighters when I showed up, and asked them who found
the murder victim’s cell phone.”

Kate’s brow furrowed
as her concern increased.

“
What
person? What are you talking about? The crime boss was already
unconscious when you arrived?”

Ryan nodded. “And
that’s not all. This man infiltrated a walled mansion, complete
with at least twenty armed guards, cameras, and a security booth at
the gate, and then he still managed to not be identified. Even
Logan White wouldn’t say who did this.”

The revelation
surprised her. “Maybe he doesn’t know who it was. The guy probably
knocked him upside the head pretty hard or
something.”

Ryan shook his head.
“No, I’m sure he remembers everything; I could tell when I
questioned him. I kept asking him how one man could sneak into his
mansion, take out some of his guards, and then escape without being
so much as seen. He laughed hard, like I’d said something overly
funny. Then, he said something even weirder.” Ryan paused and
repositioned himself on the rocker.

“
What
was that?” Kate asked.

“
He
said, ‘One man could never have done this.’ So, the logical follow
up was to ask how many people were involved. He kept saying only
one was involved. It made so sense at all.”

“
Maybe he did get a harder knock on the head than you
thought,” Kate said.

“
Perhaps.” Ryan shrugged.

“
I
don’t see why you’re taking it so hard though,” Kate said. “Did the
man steal some of the evidence or money or
something?”

“
No,
I’d say he’s a vigilante, and he’s a man in
trouble.”

Kate was confused.
“Why would he be in trouble? With the police, you
mean?”

Ryan shook his head.
“No. Logan White doesn’t suddenly have amnesia or something. He is
withholding the vigilante’s identity for one reason; so he can be
the one that finds him first.”

“
I’m
sure Mr. White will be in prison long enough to forget about it,”
Kate said, “and when he does get out, I’m sure you guys will be
keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t come back here
anyway.”

“
Of
course, but without knowing the identity of this vigilante, we
don’t know who his target will be. The only clue to the person’s
identity is a stun gun that was left behind at the
mansion.”

Kate’s heart sank into
her stomach. The stun gun: she had forgotten it. Kate had not worn
gloves to the mansion, and she was afraid that she had left
fingerprints behind. She was in the habit of wiping off
fingerprints, but everything had happened so fast, that she could
not even remember if she had wiped them off after Logan White had
gone down.

Kate took a deep
breath and closed her eyes. She had to compose herself and act
normal.

Ryan was still
talking. “I just got off the phone with the crime lab. They found a
partial print on the Taser gun. The tech’s examining it now. He
said he had two patterns matched in AFIS, but the rest has been
difficult due to the quality of the print left
behind.”

“
What
does that mean?” Kate asked, although she already knew the
answer.