On Sunday
morning, Nick was woken, once again, at the crack of dawn. He fumbled through the morning milking with
Analiese and then sat down to breakfast with her family, as he had the day
before. He ate slowly, savoring the
hearty food, dreading another long day of work ahead, until Analiese looked
over at him and said, “We have church today.
Will you be joining us, Nick?”
Nick
swallowed. He should have figured people
as religious as these would devote Sunday to worship, rather than work. Although it was tempting to go back to bed
while they went on to church, he thought it would seem ungrateful not to accept
her offer and accompany them, so he reluctantly nodded and said, “Sure… I mean,
if that’s okay.”
Overhearing,
Analiese’s father offered a rather stiff smile and replied, “Of course, you are
welcome to worship with us.”
Nick hadn’t
been raised in a religious family, but he had been to Catholic church with
Howie and Baptist church with Brian before, so he thought he at least had some
idea of what he was getting into. But,
as usual, he was wrong. Amish church was
completely different from any other he’d experienced.
For one
thing, there was no actual
church. Nick, who had been expecting a building
with a steeple on top and pews inside, looked over at Analiese in confusion
when the buggy stopped instead outside a small, white house, almost identical
to her own. “This is church?” he asked,
as her little sisters and brother clambered out after their parents.
“Church is
held at a different house, every other Sunday,” Analiese explained, motioning
for him to get out. “This week, we will
worship at the Yoders’.” Nick climbed
out of the buggy and turned around, offering his hand to help her, but Analiese
ignored it and jumped neatly down to the ground. They walked together across the yard,
following the flock of Amish people into the house.
From the
back, everyone looked identical, in their dark clothing and matching black
bonnets and wide-brimmed hats. AJ would hate this, Nick thought,
smiling as he pictured his friend, who went out of his way to look different,
with his variety of hats and sunglasses, crazy hair colors and tattoos. The smile faded as he wondered when, or if,
he’d see AJ again. How could he face
him, or any of the guys, after what he’d allowed to happen?
“The men
and women sit separately for the service,” Analiese said as they entered the
house, interrupting his thoughts. “You’ll go with my father, into that
room. Lukas is helping put the horses in
the barn, but he’ll join you when he’s finished.” She pointed through a doorway, into a large
room where all the furniture had been cleared away, replaced with rows of
simple, backless wooden benches. The men
were clustered in small circles, mingling until it was time to sit down. Nick hung back, feeling awkward about going
in there alone, but when he turned to say something to Analiese, she was
already gone. He saw her entering the
next room, where circles of women had gathered.
He wasn’t about to follow her in there, so he sucked in a deep breath
and wandered in with the men instead.
He picked
out Analiese’s father, Joseph, among all the other long-bearded, broad-shouldered
men in the room and stood near him until it was time to sit down. He started to follow him to one of the
benches in the back, until Lukas appeared at his side and said, “The youth sit
at the front. This way.” Nick didn’t want to sit up front, but he went
with Lukas, who asked out of the blue, “How old are you, Nick?”
“Nineteen,”
Nick replied, caught off-guard by the question.
“Why?”
“The youth
sit in age order. Most plain people join
the church and are baptized at around age eighteen, but since you are not a
member, I suppose you should just sit beside me.” He pointed to a spot on one of the benches,
and Nick sat down. As Lukas sat down
next to him, Nick recognized the guy sitting on his other side as Emeric, the
Albrechts’ field hand.
“Hey,” he
said, offering a half smile. Emeric just
nodded his head in greeting, but Nick could see him studying him out the corner
of his eye, as the other boys filed in and sat down around them, preparing for
the church service to begin. He could
feel the eyes open him as they craned their necks to goggle at the stranger in
their midst. Even though Nick was
dressed Amish, having borrowed more of Analiese’s opa’s clothes, it must have
been obvious he wasn’t one of them.
Maybe it was his dyed blonde hair that gave him away, or maybe it was
his body language, the way he kept fidgeting on the bench, clearly
uncomfortable. Maybe it was just the
fact that no one in this small, close-knit community had ever seen him before. He was used to being stared at because he was
famous, because he’d been recognized.
Being stared at because no one knew who he was was an altogether new
experience for Nick. He wished they
wouldn’t stare at all. He wished he
could just blend in and be anonymous.
Things
settled down once it was time for the church service to begin, and as everyone
took their seats on the long, wooden benches, Nick saw thick books being passed
around. “What are those?” he asked Lukas
in a whisper. “Bibles?”
“The Ausbund,”
answered Lukas in his odd accent. “A
hymnal of songs.”
Nick
instantly felt more at ease. Finally,
something he knew about – singing.
“We can
share,” Lukas offered when he received one of the large hymnals, opening it on
his lap for Nick to see.
As quickly
as it had come, the relaxed feeling went away, as Nick looked down at one of
the hymns. He was dismayed to find that
there was no musical notation on its pages, only lyrics. Lyrics written completely in German. So much for singing, he thought,
suppressing a sigh.
The hymn
was the strangest song he’d ever heard.
Not that Nick was well-versed in religious music, but he knew his
Christmas songs, and he even knew a few German songs, if he counted “99
Luftballoons” and Rammstein’s “Du Hast,” and not even those were as strange as
this one. It had a melody that was slow
and sad and not at all catchy. The
congregation sang it in unison, almost like a chant, with no harmony and no
accompaniment. Their voices seemed to
drag on forever, plodding through stanza after stanza, each as unintelligible
to Nick as the next. The first song took
a full fifteen minutes to sing; Nick timed it on the grandfather clock in the
corner, thinking, Damn, this shit’s even longer than “Stairway to
Heaven!” And then they started a
second song.
Shoot me now, thought Nick, as the singing dragged on and on, but that was only
the beginning. It set the tone for the
rest of the service, which went on for three hours, according to the
grandfather clock. More than one person
stood up to deliver a sermon, and while those were presented in the same,
strange dialect of English that Analiese and Lukas used, the many Scripture
readings were done in German. Nick could
count to three in German. Beyond that,
he only knew how to say four things – hallo (hello), wie geht’s (how’s
it going?), danke schön (thank you very much), and Ich liebe dich
(I love you). Since the Scriptures
didn’t seem to be limited to these four phrases, he quickly spaced out.
Looking
around, while he waited for it to be over, Nick was glad to see that at least
he wasn’t the only one having a tough time sitting still through the
service. The younger boys in front of
him were as fidgety as he felt, and when he turned his head to sneak a peek
toward the back, he could have sworn some of the older men had nodded off to
sleep, under the guise of bowing their heads in prayer. He smirked to himself, ducking his own head
so no one would see.
Nick wasn’t
someone who prayed regularly, but after he’d given up on trying to understand
the Amish prayers and started tuning them out, he had his own private
conversation with God in his head.
What am I doing here? I mean, no
offense, God, but I don’t belong here with these people. I should be hanging out in my hotel room right
now. I should be gearing up to go
onstage tonight. But I guess I wouldn’t
be, even if I were still in Philadelphia, because Kevin’s dead…
The hard
reality hit him again like a wrecking ball straight to the gut. It knocked the wind out of him, and for a scary
few seconds, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
The room was stifling, packed with people, but even if he’d dared to get
up and go out for some fresh air, he didn’t see any way out without creating a
scene. He was stuck in the middle of the
bench, sandwiched between Lukas and Emeric.
There was no escaping. So he
sucked in a shallow breath and let it out slowly, trying to keep his composure.
Why did you let that happen, God? Nick asked
angrily, but he knew it wasn’t fair to blame God. If it was anyone’s fault, it was his own, for
being so naïve and stupid. Why hadn’t he
called the police as soon as he got back to the hotel that night, the night
he’d seen them dump the body? Why hadn’t
he confided in Kevin when he kept asking what was wrong? He hadn’t wanted to involve anyone else, but
like it or not, Kevin had gotten involved, in the worst way
imaginable. If Nick had just been honest
with him, Kevin might have been able to help him. Kevin would have handled it a lot better than
he had. Kevin always knew what to
do. But Kevin had been killed, because
Nick had done all the wrong things.
I’m so sorry, Kev, he thought, tears filling his
eyes. God, if he’s up there in Heaven
with you, will you tell him I said that?
Tell him I’m sorry? Tell him I
never meant for him to get hurt? He was
my brother… almost like a dad to me. I
loved him… like family…
Nick wasn’t
sure he really believed in Heaven, but if there was such a place, he knew Kevin
had to be there. Kevin was too good a
person not to be. He hoped there was,
and that God could hear him and pass his message on. He wondered if Kevin himself could be looking
down on him right now, to see his tears and know how sorry he was. Rather than comforting him, the idea made him
slightly uncomfortable, Kevin watching his every move, knowing his every
thought. What would Kevin say if he
could see him now? What would he tell
him to do?
He’d tell me to go home, Nick decided, or back to
Philadelphia, anyway. He’d tell me how
much I was hurting people, hiding out here.
He squirmed
guiltily on his seat, knowing he was right.
He had taken the path of least resistance, staying here with Analiese
instead of going back to face his fears.
But it wasn’t so easy, being here, either. His back ached from shoveling cow shit and
sitting so long on this hard bench. His
ass had gone numb an hour ago, and his legs felt stiff and cramped, but there
was no space to swing them or stretch them out.
His physical discomfort was nothing compared to the emotional anguish he
was feeling inside, though. Maybe
this is my punishment, he thought. Is
that it, God? Are you punishing me for
being so stupid?
He didn’t
know what to do. If he went back, he’d
be putting himself and others in danger, and he’d have to answer some tough
questions and face the hard reality head-on.
He didn’t want to do any of that.
But he didn’t want to stay here, either.
Analiese and her family had been helpful and kind to him, but he could
never be like them. He didn’t see how he
could get up before dawn each day to work on the farm, sit through three-hour
church services every other Sunday, and survive without electricity. He was just kidding himself, thinking this
could be a solution to his problems. It
was only creating new problems in place of the ones he was avoiding.
Furtively
wiping the tears from his eyes, he decided that when the church service was
over, he would thank Analiese’s family for their hospitality… and tell them he
was leaving.
***
Brian
brushed away tears as he left the hospital chapel. He knew it would be obvious he’d been crying,
and that was okay, but he wanted to regain at least some measure of his
composure before he went back upstairs to join the others in their ongoing
vigil outside the Neuro ICU.
“You okay?”
asked his bodyguard, Tom, who had been waiting outside the door for him.
Brian
shrugged. “Not really,” he
admitted. Although the swelling in
Kevin’s brain had gone down, his cousin was still in a coma, and his best
friend was still missing. How could he possibly
be okay?
Tom clamped
a meaty hand down on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Neither
can I,” muttered Brian, shaking his head.
It felt like a nightmare, but three days had passed, and he hadn’t woken
up. He rubbed his eyes again; they were
swollen and sticky with half-dried tears.
“Mr.
Littrell?”
When he
opened his eyes, Brian found himself looking up into the face of Police
Sergeant Bruce Malcolm, who was heading up the investigation into Nick’s
disappearance. “Sergeant Malcolm,” he
said in surprise.
“I was on
my way upstairs to talk to you,” said the sergeant.
Brian eyed
him curiously, wondering if he had any updates for them. “We were just heading back up.”
“I’ll walk
with you.” He fell into step next to
Brian, flanking him on the opposite side as Tom, and the three of them made
their way back to the elevator. Sergeant
Malcolm didn’t say anything more until they were in the privacy of the
elevator. Then he turned to Brian and
said, “I wanted to tell you, I was able to trace the phone number you got that
strange call from on Thursday night.”
Brian
nodded, remembering the silent caller he’d assumed to be paparazzi, until Howie
had brought up the notion of it being Nick.
They’d mentioned it to the police, who had copied down the number from
Brian’s cell phone log and promised to look into it.
“The call
was placed from a pay phone at a gas station in Paradise, a small town out in
Lancaster County, about sixty miles west of here. I sent a couple of my officers out to
investigate, but they weren’t able to find much. They talked to the gas station attendants who
were working that night, but no one remembered seeing anything, and they don’t
have surveillance cameras – a lot of them rural, rinky-dinky places don’t.”
“Surveillance
cameras,” Brian repeated, the phrase jogging a related question to the
forefront of his mind. “Did the hotel
have cameras?”
Sergeant
Malcolm nodded grimly. “Yes, but we
didn’t get anything useful off of them.
They only cover common areas – the main entrance, the lobby, the
elevators, the pool. Unfortunately, Nick
– or whoever took Nick – knew enough not to go through any of those areas. Based on the blood evidence we found on the
stairs, we’re fairly certain he exited through the stairwell and out a back
door.”
“Oh.” Brian didn’t bother to hide his
disappointment.
“Anyway,”
the sergeant went on, as the elevator went up, “my guys tried to dust the pay
phone for prints, but there were too many of ‘em to get anything
conclusive. You’d be surprised, but pay
phones in those parts still get a lot of use – that’s Amish country, and they
don’t have phones, see, so they use the public ones when they need to.”
“So there’s
no way to know if it was Nick calling?”
Sergeant
Malcolm shook his head. “Honestly, I
doubt it was Nick. More likely, it was
his abductor.”
Brian’s
eyes widened. “You think?”
The
sergeant shrugged. “Could have
been. Maybe he thought he’d try to get
some ransom money out of you and chickened out at the last second, or maybe he
just wanted to spook you. In any case,
it’s gonna be hard to track him, but if he called once, he might call
again. I doubt it’ll be from the same
phone – he was probably just passing through – but just to make sure we’ve got
all bases covered, I placed a plain-clothes officer on a stakeout near the gas
station, in case he comes back. I’d also
like permission to put a tap on your cell phone, so we can monitor any other
suspicious calls that come through.”
Brian
nodded. “Sure. Do whatever you need to do.” Then an unsettling thought occurred to
him. “But how did he get my number?”
“Would Nick
have had your number on him? Maybe
stored in his cell phone?”
Brian’s
heart sank. They hadn’t found Nick’s
phone in the hotel room. “Yeah,” he
said, his voice cracking. “That must be
how.” As much as the thought of this
psycho knowing his phone number disturbed him, it was even more disturbing to imagine
him taking Nick’s phone from his lifeless body and using it to leech personal
information from his contacts.
Sergeant
Malcolm must have seen the look on Brian’s face, reflected in the elevator
doors. As they slid open, he patted
Brian twice on the shoulder and said, “Don’t lose hope. The pay phone might be a dead end, but my
guys are still chasing lots of leads.
We’ll find him.”
Brian
hadn’t lost hope. He hoped the police
sergeant was right, that Nick would be found.
Even more so, he hoped Nick would be found alive.
***