Free Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) by Laura Bradford Page B

with?”
    If it were any other adult, she may have found the inquiry nosy, but, considering it was Diane, she simply laughed. “You really are very transparent, you know that?”
    Diane’s hand stopped just short of cracking an egg against the side of the skillet. “Transparent? Me?”
    Claire cut the dough into slices and set them back on the floured board to rise one last time. “Don’t think I haven’t seen how dog-eared that bridal magazine is in the parlor. Because I have . . .”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear.”
    “Oh . . . okay. I suppose Wendy Finnegan has been looking at it and reminiscing about her marriage to Todd, right?”
    “Maybe.”
    When she had a dozen slices lined up on the board, she covered it with a dishcloth and noted the time on the clock. “Diane, we’re just trying to figure out what this is right now. See if we’re meant to date or remain friends.”
    Diane cracked a few more eggs and then adjusted the temperature on the burner. “That’s the problem with young people today. They spend too much time thinking and analyzing. Just live. Date. See what happens.”
    She bit back the urge to say Peter’s name, the mere memory of her ex-husband and their failed marriage a springboard for a bad day. Instead, she changed the subject and hoped it would stick. “I had dinner with Esther and Eli last night.”
    Diane bit. “Oh? How are they?”
    “They’re—” She stopped, inhaled, and searched for something to say that would finish her statement without divulging news of the couple’s impending new addition. Jakob needed to be the next to know.
    “They’re enjoying the house and, Diane, you should see what they’ve done with the place. Harley would be pleased, I’m sure.”
    “Was Benjamin there?”
    The question brought her up short as did the wooden tone in which it was posed. “No. He wasn’t. Not that that would have been a bad thing. We’re friends, Diane. Nothing more.”
    Diane glanced over her shoulder at Claire, the worry in her eyes impossible to miss. “I want to believe that, Claire, I really do. But I know that he stopped by Thursday evening and that he spent time with you on the porch.”
    She grabbed hold of the bowl and began to stir the glaze mixture, her thoughts quickly traveling back to the porch and the reason for Ben’s visit as she did. “He came because he was upset. He wanted to know if he was reading into her words.”
    “Her words?” Diane parroted just before she added a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper to the bubbling mixture in the skillet.
    “The last few weeks of Elizabeth’s life, she kept a journal. It was Ben’s idea. He’d hoped it would be a way for her to work through whatever was bothering her.”
    “Go on . . .”
    “He thought she was second-guessing their marriage. She insisted she wasn’t. But she wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. He figured it had something to do with Sadie, so he gave Elizabeth the notebook. When she died, he put it in her hope chest and didn’t read it until the other day, when he went into the chest after Jakob mentioned a bracelet found alongside Sadie’s remains.”
    Pushing aside the glaze bowl once again, Claire lifted the dishcloth from the board and inspected the puffy dough. “I think these are just about ready for the deep fryer.”
    Diane pointed a spatula at Claire. “Don’t stop. Keep talking.”
    She slipped off the cushioned stool and carried the floured board and dough slices over to the deep fryer and the waiting fat. “Unfortunately, it looks as if Elizabeth knew Sadie was dead.”
    The gasp from the other side of the kitchen wasn’t much different from the one she herself had made when she got to the page in Elizabeth’s journal that brought that fact home. “Trust me, I know. I feel so bad for Ben right now. This has to be eating him up inside.”
    A glance in the direction of the stove showed that Diane was wrapped up in the tale Claire was