Free Dark Crossings by Marta Perry

into
the safe, so they thought I could have seen the combination.”
    Abby looked both angry and sad. “I see. I guess they don’t get
it—that even though you left the Amish, you would tell the truth.”
    “Thanks for that, but I’m not done. I think Mrs.
Tornelli—Triana—told the police detective and the insurance investigator to keep
an eye on me, even here.”
    “So that has to be it! The arguing on the bridge, the lost
diamond carefully taken back. Maybe the detective and investigator were watching
you that night I heard the voices. They got angry I shone a light on them, and
took off.”
    He thought it unlikely. But he might as well get everything
out, and then let the chips fall where they may. He took a swig of lukewarm
coffee and interrupted whatever she was going to say next with, “There’s
more.”
    Abby sucked in a sharp breath, then just stared at him, her
lush lower lip quivering.
    “This is going to sound prideful,” he told her, “but Triana
Tornelli came on to me, and—”
    “Came on to you? Came here, you mean?”
    “No. She tried to seduce me—suggested we have an affair, a
secret lovers’ meeting without her husband knowing it, and I turned her down. We
were not lovers. She held some power over me, and I needed her goodwill,
but—”
    “Ben,” Abby said, reaching across the table to cover his
clenched hands with one of hers, “I have a confession, too. I got on a computer
in the library bookmobile and saw the Tornellis’ picture.”
    She looked as if she’d just confessed to a mass murder. Despite
his own grief, he had to bite his lower lip to keep from smiling. How genuine
and generous his people were, and he’d had to jump the fence, then return, to
realize it. Open, honest, Abigail was more precious than pearls to him.
    “You did?” was all he could manage at first, since his voice
had choked up. “But were you going to ask or say something more about her—her
and me?”
    “Ben, I believe you. You think I don’t get it, after all the
times I hung around, that she could want to do more than kiss you? But the thing
is, if she did get those investigators after you, was it because you turned her
down or because she’s wanting you to take the blame for whoever took their
expensive stuff? It has to be someone else who worked there that stole the
jewelry!”
    Abby leaned across the table as if there were others around to
hear, and lowered her voice. “I also looked at the prices for jewelry on their
website—sky-high, completely crazy costs. But we now have some other
possibilities for who dropped the diamond and then stole it back. Can that
female insurance person afford diamond earrings?”
    “Never saw them on her, but—”
    “But maybe she’s been paid in some Tornelli goods instead of
just money. Now, in the really pretty picture of her online, Mrs. Tornelli wore
emeralds, but I’ll just bet she has diamond earrings, right?”
    He felt both relieved and elated. This Amish girl was on his
side. She was thinking clearly. She had accepted what he’d told her at face
value. Man, not that the Plain People’s ways were perfect, but he’d lived in the
big, bad outside world too long! Abigail Baughman would be called naive by the
modern folk, yet what was wrong with trust—trust and love?
    “Right,” he said. “But however great a picture she takes,
neither she nor any woman I have ever met could hold a candle to you.”
    Abby blinked back tears. They held hands, both hands, leaning
toward each other across the table. “And here I’ll never have a picture taken of
my face to prove that,” she said, her tone teasing, her fingers trembling
despite the little smile she wore.
    He could not believe how she was backing him up. Inner strength
radiated from her, warming him—heating him. But if he pulled her over here into
his lap, they’d never finish this conversation and decide what they must do,
especially tonight. It was getting dark outside, and he’d hardly