Free Amish Breaking Point by Samantha Price

“Where is he, have you found him?”
    “No, but I’ve got a lead I’m working on. Hopefully, I’ll find out tomorrow.”
    Bailey’s mind wondered once more. On the last case on which he was working he had cause to go to a Correctional Facility, and he had found it was familiar. Could it have been the jail in which his father had worked? Or had he visited his father in prison while he was serving a jail term, perhaps for murder? “What correctional facility did he work at?”
    “Just a moment. Western State, Pittsburgh.”
    That was the same one that Bailey had been to where he had remembered the visitors’ room. “Thank you once again. Please let me know the moment you locate him.”
    Surely, if his daed had any criminal convictions that would have been the first thing that Crowley would have been able to find out and Crowley did not mention that his father had any criminal convictions.
    As Bailey hung up the phone, he remembered when he was fourteen and learned that his mother and father were getting a divorce. From there, Bailey lived with his mother, leaving home at eighteen. After that, Bailey was consumed by his job in the police force. It was not unusual for Bailey to go months without contacting his mother or without her contacting him. Bailey had not spoken to his father since the divorce and neither did he wish to. His sole purpose in contacting his father now was to have some questions answered.
    Bailey was on his way out of the barn when he heard the phone ring. He picked it up, wondering if it would be Crowley again. It was Elsa-May and Ettie calling him from the library. They asked him to meet with them at their haus tomorrow. They said they had other things to tell him other than what they had found out at the library. I was right, I knew they had been keeping something from me, Bailey thought.

Chapter 12.
    Good and upright is the Lord:
    therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
    The meek will he guide in judgment:
    and the meek will he teach his way.
    Psalm 25:8-9
     
    Bailey arrived at Elsa-May and Ettie’s haus . He had resisted pleading with them yesterday to tell him what they had found out over the phone. Something told him whatever they were going to tell him was best said face to face.
    “Come in, Bailey.”
    Bailey sat down, and Elsa-May and Ettie showed him the newspaper articles they had gotten from the library.
    Bailey scratched his chin. “So, it was self-defense. Says here that he was protecting his family and that the man he killed had threatened him and his family. He was protecting mom and me. It’s a lot to take in.”
    “There’s more,” Elsa-May said.
    “About your grossdaddi, Jonah,” Ettie added.
    “What? Tell me.”
    “Your grossdaddi didn’t leave the community; he ran away,” Elsa-May said.
    Ettie picked up the story. “He ran away with the bishop’s dochder, who was betrothed to someone else.”
    Bailey looked from one to the other. “Was the bishop’s daughter, my grandmother?”
    They both nodded.
    “So, they were both shunned?” Bailey asked.
    “Your grossmammi was shunned; she’d been baptized into the community, but your grossdaddi hadn’t,” Elsa-May said.
    “She was the bishop’s only dochder, and her mudder never recovered from her dochder leaving her and never being able to speak to her again,” Ettie said
    “What happened to my grossmammi?” Bailey had no memory of her and his grandfather had told him that she had died many years ago, but he never said how she died.
    “Died in childbirth while giving birth to your mudder,” Ettie said with a kindly hand on his shoulder.
    “When the bishop’s wife found out, she cursed your grossdaddi and his whole family,” Elsa-May said.
    Bailey frowned. “I thought the Amish were a forgiving people?”
    “She was consumed with uncontrollable grief. Some say that she went mad,” Elsa-May said.
    Bailey thought about the bishop who had helped ease him into the community and given him