Upon A Winter's Night Read Online Free Page B

every other week in a home or barn. Daad always said a special prayer after the large breakfast Mamm and Lydia made before they went their own ways for quiet time. But Lydia hadn’t slept last night. Her mind had not quit churning and she couldn’t sit still.
    In her bedroom, she stared again and again at the note she’d taken from Victoria Keller’s hand. Had it been meant for her, or at least was it about her? Then why was the woman evidently heading for Josh’s big acreage? Or, since she had what Connor called dementia, had she mixed up who lived where in the storm, stumbled on past the back of the Brand land and the woodlot and gone in Josh’s back gate by mistake? Surely she wouldn’t know Lydia worked for Josh. If the woman was one bit sane, she would not have gone out in that storm, or had it surprised and trapped her, too? And why now? Why had she waited twenty years after the Brand baby had been born—if it referred to Lydia—to deliver the note?
    Yet Lydia felt that finding the woman and the note must have been a sign from heaven, a sign that she should not only learn if the note was true but also find out more about her real parents. She’d had questions pent up inside her for years. She didn’t want to hurt her adoptive parents or make them think she didn’t love and respect them, yet she had to get to the bottom of this, maybe without telling anyone. But she knew she’d be better off getting help. She had to start somewhere.
    A car door slammed outside. She went to her second-story bedroom window and glanced down. It was Sheriff Freeman, in his uniform and with his cruiser this time. She slid the note she’d dried out between two tissues back into an envelope and put it under her bed next to the snow globe. When she was twelve, her father had given that to her and said not to tell Mamm, that it had belonged to her birth mother and had been left by someone at the store. No, he’d insisted, he knew no more about it.
    Lydia smoothed her hair under her prayer kapp and went downstairs as she heard the sheriff knock on the front door. His words floated to her before she got all the way down the staircase.
    “Afternoon, Sol, Mrs. Brand. Oh, good, Lydia. I knew there wasn’t Amish church today but wanted to give you some catch-up time after last night, and Ray-Lynn and I were at church. Lydia, Ray-Lynn’s on a committee for our Community Church doing a living manger scene, so we’re hoping to use some of the animals you help tend.”
    “Oh, that will be good. Josh will be happy to take the animals to a church that’s nearby. He and his driver, Hank, usually have to go much farther.”
    Daad gestured them into the living room and, to Lydia’s chagrin, sat in a big rocking chair near the one the sheriff took. Lydia perched on the sofa facing the sheriff while Mamm hovered at the door to the hall.
    “Always admire the furniture from your store,” the sheriff said, taking out a small notebook and flipping it open. “Hope to buy Ray-Lynn a corner cupboard there real soon. Now, since Lydia’s the one I need to talk to—won’t take long—I hope you won’t mind giving me a few minutes alone with her. Turns out the victim, Victoria Keller, suffered a blow to the back of her head. That could be significant—or not—since she wasn’t real steady on her feet. The coroner will rule on that. Meanwhile, I’m trying to put the pieces together.”
    Daad said, “I’d like to sit in. Won’t say a word, and Susan can fix us some coffee for after you’re done.”
    He shot his wife a look; Lydia sensed Mamm would refuse, but she went out.
    “I understand your protective instinct,” Sheriff Freeman said to Daad, “but your daughter’s able to answer on her own as an adult.”
    “That she is. I will be in the kitchen with my wife, then,” he said, slapping his hands on his knees. “I know Liddy will help you, though she doesn’t know much besides finding the woman and leaving her cape. And she