Annie nodded. "I'm sure she would understand. I'll speak to her after everything calms down."

Myra drew her spine straight. "You two have lost your minds if you think I'm leaving now."

"But, Myra-"

Myra cut off her husband's thought. "I am not expecting supper, of course. But look what our daughter has been in the middle of. How can we just walk out before we know the outcome?"

"I'll call you," Annie said, "later tonight."

"And where is your phone?"

"I'll get it from Tom. I'll tell you everything."

Myra calmly pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table, sat down, and scooted the chair in.

Annie swallowed. "Okay, then. I'll start some coffee."

Annie found the pieces of the stainless steel stovetop drip coffeemaker in the dish rack and assembled it, placing it on the stove. She reached into a cupboard for the coffee.

"You seem to know your way around another woman's kitchen," Myra observed.

Annie opened the coffee. "They always tell me to make myself at home." I'm one of the family, she wanted to say but had the good sense not to.

The back door opened and Lydia, Sophie, and Jacob tumbled in.

"What's going on?" Sophie asked. "We just saw the Stutzmans leaving. Ike was driving a little fast, I thought."

"There are three English cars in front of the house," Jacob pointed out. He looked at Myra and Brad with wide eyes. "And two English people at the table."

"These are my parents, Jacob," Annie said. "Mr. and Mrs. Friesen. You've met them before."

"Oh. Nice to see you again."

"Mom, Dad, you remember Rufus's sisters, Sophie and Lydia. Jacob is their littlest brother."

Myra smiled pleasantly, and Brad offered a handshake to Jacob, who returned it with manly enthusiasm.

"Annalise," Sophie said, "what is all this commotion about?"

"There's no short answer," Annie said softly. "I'm sure you'll get the whole story."

"We've never had three English cars here before," Jacob observed. "Maybe it's a new world record for an Amish family. But it would be against Ordnung to be proud of it." He slid into a seat across from Myra and asked her, "Is one of those cars yours?"

"Yes," Myra said, "the silver sedan."

"Mr. Reynolds drives the red truck, right?" Jacob kicked a table leg in rhythmic repetition.

Sophie put a hand on his shoulder-a little tightly, Annie thought.

"Don't ask so many questions, Jacob," Sophie said. "And stop kicking the table."

"Sophie," Annie said, "would you mind making this pot of coffee for my parents? I'll take Jacob out to check on the chickens and see if we can get the wigglies out."

"Certainly." Sophie moved swiftly to the stove and lit it.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Annie assured her parents.

Out on the back porch, Annie gulped air. Too much was happening that she could not control.

Rufus listened patiently and managed to mollify Mo with the promise that they would speak again after he had been to visit Karl. With that assurance, she got behind the wheel of her dated green Chevy sedan and negotiated her way back to the road.

That left Rufus looking at Eli, Franey, Joel, Tom, and Carter.

"I smell coffee," he said. "Perhaps we should all have some."

"Good idea," Franey said. "I'll get it."

"I'll do it, Mamm. Just sit and relax."

He believed Carter's naivete. Giving him a cell phone was meant to make his parents feel more secure while they gave him more independence. Rufus doubted Carter would have thought to research bomb making if not prodded by someone else.

In the kitchen, he found Sophie sitting quietly with Myra and Brad Friesen, who were both drinking coffee.

"Where has Annalise gone?" he asked after greeting them.

"Out with Jacob," Sophie supplied. "He was not going to quit asking questions. I suppose she could see I'd had my fill of him for one afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Friesen have told me a little of what has been going on here."

"It's been quite an afternoon," Rufus said. "Sophie, if I could prevail on you to take the coffeepot out to the living room, I'd like to talk to Annalise's parents."

Rufus invited the Friesens to walk with him away from the house, away from the commotion. They walked across the open yard behind the Beiler home, and he led them on the wide path that meandered from the house and would eventually come out at the big rock. He did not plan to take them that far, though. There was no need to heighten their anxiety by taking them to the place where they all might have lost Annalise.

"I'm grateful to have a few minutes to spend with you," Rufus said. "I wanted to speak to you about Annalise."

"Yes?" Myra's response was guarded, perhaps even suspicious.

"I know her choices have seemed odd to you." Rufus chuckled. "They seem odd to me, too."

"I hope you are not pressuring her in any way." Myra batted at a dangling branch.

"I assure you I am not."

"She seems fond of you," Brad observed.

"I hope so. I am fond of her." Genuinely. Deeply.

"If she changes her whole life for you, and you reject her, how will she ever get over that?" Myra's tone splintered.

"I don't want to hurt Annalise." Rufus stopped on the path and turned to Brad and Myra. "I don't want her to change for me. I haven't asked her to do that. Please believe me."

"So you are going to reject her!"

"No, I-" Rufus began to respond, but Brad interrupted him.

"No, Myra, you've got it wrong." Brad fixed his gaze on Rufus. "This young man loves our daughter enough to stay out of the way of her choice. It's the only way she can be sure. Have I got that right?"

Rufus nodded.

"So she's not getting baptized because of you?" Myra asked.

Rufus swallowed hard. "I had not heard that she was getting baptized at all."

"We just found out ourselves," Brad said softly. "She's going to start the classes."

Annalise was planning for baptism? Rufus's heart beat faster as he smoothly turned the trio around and headed back toward the house. "The classes will be an opportunity to ask questions. It will be good for Annalise to listen to the answers."

"I don't want her to feel pressured," Myra said.

"Myra," Brad said, "have you ever known our daughter to do something she did not willingly set her mind to?"

Myra grunted. "No. She has always been headstrong."

Brad extended a hand, and Rufus shook it. "Rufus, I'm beginning to understand what Annalise sees in you. There is much to admire. If you two decide you have a future, I know you will have her best interest at heart."

Annie stood outside the chicken coop while Jacob sprinkled feed around and giggled at the hens that pecked the ground in response to his gift.

She blinked twice when she saw her parents and Rufus emerge from the path in the back. Her stomach clenched at the thought of the three of them together without her.

"Will I get to talk to your mamm and daed?" Jacob threw another handful of feed.

"I hope so. I know they would like you."

Annie looked again at Rufus and her parents. This time, she saw peace in her father's face, and the weight of anxiety was gone from her mother's posture.

"Jacob," she said. "How would you like to talk to my parents right now?"

Forty-Two.

Only once had Rufus been to Karl Kramer's office in the construction trailer that had been at the same location for at least five years. Twice Rufus visited Karl in the hospital. And now, after a quiet observance of the Sabbath the day before, he was on Karl's personal property for the first time in a rural area outside of Westcliffe. Rufus did not know Karl kept horses. When he saw them on Monday morning, he made Tom stop the truck so he could get out for a closer look. At least a dozen nosed around in the field before him, and he supposed more grazed in the pasture beyond his view.

"I wonder if Karl has ever thought about selling horses to the Amish." Rufus leaned on the top rail of the fence.

"It's a hobby, I think." Tom sat in his truck with the door open.

"I had no idea. It could be a profitable hobby. If Karl weren't so busy resenting us, he would see the opportunity under his own nose." Rufus paused. "I'm sorry. That was unkind."

"You're certainly doing your part to close the gap. Come on. Let's get this over with."

Inside the house a few minutes later, Karl was alone. After admitting them reluctantly, he moved with some care, but Rufus was encouraged to find him mobile and using his hands. They sat in a large central room, and Rufus told the story that had unfolded on Saturday.

"You're telling me we know exactly who is responsible for this?" Karl's face reddened under the healing burns. The set of his jaw made Rufus's stomach sink.

"We are telling you what the boys said," Rufus said.

Karl jammed a finger in the air toward Tom. "And your boy was in the middle of this?"

Rufus put his elbows on his knees and leaned toward Karl. "Carter did not understand everything that was happening."

Karl thrust his finger toward Rufus now. "If you're telling the truth, it's the Amish boys who knew what they were doing."

"Although they failed in their goal, yes, they seemed to have the best understanding of the science and math necessary." Rufus paused. "We're here today to ask your forgiveness."

"Forgiveness!"

Rufus nodded and glanced at Tom. "I'm sure the parents will want the boys to make their own apologies as well."

"Forgive this?" Karl held his arms out in front of him, burns still healing under dressings. "You can't be serious."

Annie twisted her lips to one side in thought. On a sheet of notebook paper on her dining room table, she wrote down all the facts that had emerged from two days before. Then she numbered them and rewrote the list in a way that accounted for events in the order in which they must have occurred. Next to each event, she jotted the initials of the boys involved at each stage.

In all the commotion, Luke Stutzman had raised a curious question. Why did Karl Kramer store construction and landscaping supplies so far from his office or the areas where he was actively building? Annie's experience with construction was limited, but it seemed to her that the collection was more systematic than left over.

Annie chewed on the top of her pen now. On another sheet of paper, she began to sketch what she remembered from her surreptitious visits. Neat rows of fence posts, cement bricks, carpet rolls, unopened five-gallon paint cans, tubs of grout, a stainless steel double kitchen sink, pallets of bricks, bags of cement, landscape edging.

Black market? she wrote. But that made no sense, given what was there.

Skimmed? Quite possibly.

Stolen? Annie circled this word. It would be just like Karl Kramer to steal from other contractors if he thought they were cutting in on his business. After all, last summer Karl arranged for someone to knock Rufus unconscious and then mutilated brand- new cabinetry Rufus was about to install.

"He's still up to his old tricks," she said aloud as she threw down her pen.

The sympathy she had been feeling for Karl Kramer over the last week dissipated in an instant. Maybe he got What he deserved after all. But what would happen to all the stolen goods now? Karl Kramer could still get away with his shenanigans.

Annie went upstairs and put on running shoes. What would she do for exercise, she wondered, when she adopted Amish dress all the time and could no longer wear running shorts and tennis shoes?

Rufus doubted it could be good for Karl to be this worked up. Perhaps they should have made sure a visiting nurse would be in the house when they brought this news to Karl. Rufus had heard that someone came every other day to check on Karl, and that his ex-wife even stopped by to help change dressings.

Karl winced in pain as he spread his fingers in haste. "I want the names of all those boys. Don't even think about trying to protect any of them."

"We don't seek protection," Rufus said. "The boys know what they did was wrong."