Page 62 of The Hidden One

“You don’t wear a ring.” Jonas motions toward my ring finger. “Do you have someone at home? A husband who’s there alone and missing you?”

“I have someone at home,” I tell him.

“You are married?”

I want to believe these are questions between old friends catching up on all the life events that have happened in the years since we last spoke. But it’s too intimate, and I feel the creep of unease at the back of my neck. Maybe because Jonas and I were a lot closer than friends and I don’t want that to get in the way of the investigation.

“Not yet,” I tell him.

“Children?”

“We’re thinking about it,” I say simply.

If he’s aware of my discomfort, he doesn’t let on. “You seem happy.”

“I am.”

“And yet here you are. You’ve put your life on hold to come here and help me,” he says. “When I’m little more than a stranger to you.”

“We spent some of our formative years together.”

“Played a lot of baseball.”

Old man Delaney’s field flashes in my mind’s eye and I smile. Too late, I realize I’ve opened a door I would rather have remained closed. “Besides,” I tell him. “I’m a cop and formerly Amish.” I shrug. “That makes me qualified.”

“I think there’s a saying among the English,” Jonas says after a moment. “Something about the elephant in the room.”

I smile, but don’t meet his gaze. I know if I do, he’ll see my discomfort. He’ll wonder about its source, same as me.

“Sometimes it’s good to get things out in the open,” he says. “Clear the air.”

“Whatever happened between us was a long time ago, Jonas. We were kids.”

“But that’s why you’re here, no?”

“I’m here to help you.” I force my gaze to his, hold it. “I think it’s best if we concentrate on that and not dredge up ancient history. It’ll just muddle things up.”

He leans back in his chair and nods. “All right.”

Needing a moment, I rise and take our glasses to the sink. As I wash and rinse them, I relay Amanda Garber’s story about Ananias’s middle-of-the-night visit to Levi Schmucker.

“I knew Ananias was a hard man … but that?” Jonas shakes his head in disbelief. “Katie, the bishop striking a man with a cane? Beating him with enough force to break a bone? It’s almost too crazy to believe.”

“I’m going to find Schmucker.” Back on track. Safe ground. The past tucked back into its corner where it belongs. “If that actually happened, we’ll know something important about Ananias we didn’t know before.”

“That he was a violent man?”

“If that’s the case, I have to wonder if that behavior was a pattern. Did he dole out similarly harsh punishments to others? Did someone he hurt hold a grudge? Did someone decide they didn’t have to take it? Stop it?”

“Katie, do you want me to—”

“I want you to keep a low profile,” I tell him. “Stay here with your wife and kids. Let me do my job.”

Frowning, he crosses his arms over his chest. “You were always full of vinegar. Too much in the eyes of some. Too much fight even when you were outnumbered. Some things don’t change, eh?”

“You should know, Jonas. You were the one who stood up for me when no one else would.”

He looks away, but not before I see the memory etched into his features, the raw affection for me, the same discomfort I felt earlier.