A Simple Winter: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (9 page)

As the water cooled, Adam realized he hadn’t asked about the singing. “So how did your evening go? You never mention anyone, Jonah. Is there a girl you’re secretly keeping company with?”

Jonah shook his head. “I always leave with an empty buggy. But you should come next time. Annie Stoltzfus asked about you.”

Annie and her mouthful of berries. Adam groaned. “Mmm. Between the two of us? I wish she would leave me alone.”

“Annie’s a sweet girl,” Jonah said, methodically coiling the hot water hose as he spoke. “And you seem to have won her heart. Would it be such a terrible thing to take her for a buggy ride one night and see how you two get on?”

Rising to sit on the edge of the tub, Adam realized what a grump he was being. “You’re right,” he told his brother. “She’s a kind person, a good friend to Mary.” It was wrong to complain about a young woman when Jonah had not found a special girl, despite attending every singing.

Jonah scraped one side of his dark hair back, his eyelids heavy with weariness.

“You look tired.”

“A good tired,” Jonah said. “But then, I’m not the one carrying this family on his back.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can read it on your face, Adam. You’ve taken on more than any one person can handle.”

Adam gripped the edges of the tub. “But Dat carried the burden on his own.”

“Dat knew how to delegate chores and even things out.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing for everyone.”

“No one’s questioning your commitment, Adam. But you’re trying to do it all alone, and that’s not going to work.”

“Are you telling me to get a wife?”

“No. I’m telling you to lean on me. And Gabe and Uncle Nate and the rest of the congregation. You’re trying to deny a need, and the more you do it, the worse it will get. The quilting that Mary’s organizing for the Troyer family … the house that burned to the ground in Paradise. Do you see the Troyers telling people not to sew clothes for their children or rebuild their home?”

“That’s different—”

“Is it? Is it really?” When Jonah’s brows rose in a scowl, he resembled Dat. “You know, every day I pray to God that you’ll find it in your heart to let Him help you. I figure if you let Him in, the rest of us won’t be too far behind.”

Adam stared into the bathwater. It wasn’t pleasant, being called a control freak, and it bothered him to know Jonah was right.

“I hear you, brother. I get it.”

When Adam looked up, Jonah was kicking off his boots, one by one. He lined them up beside the kitchen doorway. “And I’m not the only one who’s tired,” Jonah said. “You sound like an old man.”

“I feel like an old man.”

Jonah poked him in the shoulder. “Get some rest, old man, and think about what I said. God gave you ten siblings for a reason.” With that he went into the kitchen, leaving Adam to stew, his feet beginning to prune in the cooling bathwater.

t was Sunday night, and Remy couldn’t sleep. She flipped over and faced the numbers that glowed blue on the nightstand beside her bed: 1:37.

Monday morning, actually.

She was tired, having stayed up late last night talking with Dakota about anything and everything, and yet sleep eluded her.

She threw back the covers, grabbed her laptop, and burrowed into the corner of the sofa. No stranger to insomnia, she knew that it was better to get up and do something than to beat yourself up in bed. She logged on to the Internet, skimmed the headlines, then closed her eyes with a groan.

She was in no mood to be sucked into the Internet vortex, the array of articles built on varying degrees of truth and writing skill. The nasty comments from readers, the meaningless postings from friends she barely knew—it was a cold, impersonal lifeline after her weekend with Dakota, chock-f of shopping and cooking and
animated conversation. Not to mention running into Adam King at the Saturday market.

What a pleasure it had been to see him, looking healthy and whole less than a year after his family tragedy. In his dark Amish attire, he had been attractive in that
American Gothic
way. With his long dark hair and old-fashioned clothes, Adam reminded her of Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights
, although unlike the hero of the Brontë classic, Adam’s deep brown eyes held compassion and insight. She’d been touched that he remembered small details about her. Yes, Adam King was a man with backbone, someone who cared about people.

With a small burst of interest, she did a search for King Family Dairy and found that the only reference was to their booth at the Reading Terminal Market. Hmm.

Next she tried to find information about how his family was doing—especially the little boy, Simon, who had witnessed his parents’ murders. There had been plenty of coverage in the weeks after the tragic event, but the story had been dropped eight months ago, with a brief report from a Lancaster TV affiliate saying that the murders were still unsolved.

How had the King family recovered over the last year? Remy tried to imagine a line of Amish boys and girls who resembled Adam as she set her laptop on the table and walked purposefully to the window. Despite the cultural differences, grief and sorrow were a universal response to losing someone you loved, and it must have rocked their world to lose both parents. Did they know who had committed the heinous crime? What if someone in the community had murdered Mr. and Mrs. King? What if it was someone Adam knew?

Outside, wind stirred the bare branches of the trees that lined the street. These were the dreary days of winter, the merry twinkle of Christmas lights stripped away to reveal skeletons of trees and walkways
riddled with ice hazards. Looking down toward Logan Square, she saw a slice of the lit fountain, and only two cars moving slowly through the traffic circle. Street lamps cast pools of light along the pavements, pin dots of loneliness. It was small comfort to live in a majestic, sophisticated place when you had no one to share it with.

In that, she envied Adam King, with his ten siblings. His life was probably crazy-hectic at times, but with so much family around, loneliness was an impossibility.

She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, stretching to look west, toward the river. Somewhere, fifty or so miles beyond Philadelphia’s buildings and lights, Adam’s family was at home in Lancaster County. Probably asleep. Probably bundled under blankets in this cold.

If only she knew more about them. And she wasn’t the only person who was curious; she suspected a lot of people would like to know how the King family was doing.

The idea glimmered in her mind like a twinkling gem.

A follow-up on the King family would make a good story … a great story for the
Post
. A look at how the family was faring a year after the eleven siblings had lost their parents. Considering the thorough coverage the paper had done on the tragic incident, Remy suspected that the editors would love her idea. She opened a file on her computer and started copying in scattered information about last winter’s murders.

She glanced at the time on the computer screen. The weekly editorial meeting was just hours away. If she pulled together some quick facts now, she could pitch the story today.

It was hard to sit still and listen while the other editors discussed the status of their current articles. Remy wiggled her toes inside
her boots, eager to share her pitch, impatient with Ed Green, who seemed to be rambling on about the unscrupulous heating contractor he’d been trying to expose.

“A timely story, with these freezing temperatures,” Arlene said, arching a dark brow. “Do we have enough to run it this week?”

When Ed shrugged, Miles Wister jumped in. “We have to run with it now, Ed, not in the spring. And we need to wrap up this meeting, as we all have places to be,” Miles said without looking up from his notepad. As managing editor, Miles’s job was to keep things moving, and Remy appreciated his taut but judicious demeanor.

“I have a few more leads,” Ed said.

“Great. Do it,” Arlene said brusquely. The paper’s editor in chief did not waste words. Rumor had it her early colleagues had dubbed her “Ms. Brevity.”

“Next item …” Miles glanced up at the editors. “New stories.”

Yasmina nudged her, and Remy’s hand slid across her folder. Yasmina, the only other junior assistant in the office, had “adored” Remy’s idea when they’d discussed it this morning, and though Remy was determined to make her pitch, she didn’t want to go first.

“There’s been a sighting of Evan Canby, the boy who went missing six months ago,” Carla Willis suggested. “He was spotted at Disney World with a woman who resembled his birth mother.”

Arlene folded her arms over the sizable bulk of her midriff. “See what you can find out.”

“Preferably without a trip to Orlando,” added Miles.

Remy’s palm flattened on the folder as she waited a moment, then sprang to the attack.

“How about a look at the aftermath of the Amish murders? Esther and Levi King, the Lancaster County couple killed while riding in their buggy.” Remy worked to keep her voice steady. She didn’t want to sound like a novice, and yet she felt the power in
her words. This was a solid story pitch. “I’d like to follow up on the family—the eleven children left behind—and check on the progress of the homicide investigation.”

“The Amish murders …” Arlene’s dark brows pulled together. “Tell me more.”

As if in unison, the other reporters bowed their heads to consult their BlackBerrys. This was a good sign.

Remy pushed her typed pitch across the table to Arlene, who lifted the bejeweled reading glasses that hung around her neck.

“Was that case ever solved?” Miles asked.

“No. They never found the killer. The
Post
followed the story for a few months, until the investigation fizzled without any strong leads.”

“I covered that story.” Alfonzo Nunez stroked the soul patch on his chin as he squinted at the small screen in his palm. “There was some talk of a bear attack. Also rumors that the little boy in the buggy went berserk. And the Amish don’t make the best witnesses. Apparently they don’t believe in the justice system.”

“Hmm.” Arlene tugged on one earlobe. “I like that one, too. See what you can find on it,” she told Remy. “And make sure your sources are solid. It would be nice to include an interview with the family.”

Everyone in the room knew that in Arlene-speak, “nice” meant “necessary” and “Don’t come back until you’ve at least tried it.” But that didn’t frighten Remy. She had an “in” with the family. And now, she had a professional reason to see Adam King again. The logic may have been as twisted as a pretzel, and yet she had a good feeling about this story. Finally, she had something to work toward, something to look forward to.

“I’ll start working on it today,” Remy said. She pretended to jot a note in her folder, but the tactic was really a diversion to keep herself from jumping up and bursting into a happy dance.

As the meeting broke up, Yasmina grabbed Remy’s wrist and shook it. “Look at you, pitching a first-rate story. This is going to be amazing, girl!”

“I hope so,” Remy said, shooting a glance over to be sure that Arlene and Miles had left the conference room. “I think so. It has the making of a good article, right?”

“A great article. Pulitzer material.”

“Well, let’s not go too crazy,” Remy said as they moved into the newsroom together. The room, dubbed the “ice cube tray” because of the configurations of work spaces, eight cubicles in two rows, thrummed with chatter and ringing phones.

Back in her cubicle, she immediately spotted a pink phone message slip placed squarely atop the proofs on her desk.

“Your father wants to see you … before noon.” The message was inked in his secretary Viola’s reliable penmanship.

Remy crumbled the note into one hand, wishing she could find a job that didn’t put her under her father’s thumb. Although everyone at the paper knew she was Herb’s daughter, she tried to be discreet about it and stayed away from his office during business hours. But today, the big boss had summoned her. She turned down the hallway containing the executive offices. Here the carpeting was plusher, the air colder. The brass nameplates on the doors were polished to a shine.