Material Witness (A Shipshewana Amish Mystery) by Vannetta Chapman

Author:Vannetta Chapman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780310415909
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-09-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

CALLIE SAT BACK DOWN, swallowed once, and closed her eyes as she uttered a silent prayer.

Then she opened her cell phone. “Hello.”

“Took you a long time to answer.” The voice was all business tonight.

Callie’s left hand went to her throat, and she forced herself to look at Shane’s eyes, to draw strength from his strength.

“I was in bed already. I’m not feeling well.”

“I might need to see a doctor’s note on that.”

“It’s a headache is all — a bad headache. Sometimes I get … stress headaches.”

“Uh-huh. You’re not playing games are you? Because my mood is tending toward lousy.”

“No games.”

“Turn a light on.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“What light do you want me to turn on?” Callie frantically waved a hand at Shane. He texted the instructions to Perla.

“Any light. I want to see that you’re really there.”

Shane nodded that it was done.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Now are you finished giving orders?”

“Walk to the window so I can see you.”

“Walk to the window?” She tried to put sass into her voice, when in fact she needed to stall, hoping Shane was a fast texter. They’d considered putting the call on speakerphone but were afraid the killer might pick up on a background noise. It was too risky. So instead she needed to give Shane clues as to any demands he made.

“Stop repeating everything I say and do it.”

She waited. Shane nodded that he’d relayed the directions to Perla. No one in the room moved, but they all stared at one another. In the distance, one of Reuben’s horses neighed.

Apparently Creeper was satisfied with Perla’s shadow, because he moved on to interrogating Callie. “Where’s my money?” he asked.

“It’s still there. I had someone confirm it for me today, but they didn’t know what they were checking. Of course I didn’t ask them to bring it to me.”

“Why not?” he growled.

“I was surrounded by people all day, plus that’s a fair amount of money to lug around. How conspicuous do you want me to be? I don’t think you want me to bring it back here. Do you?”

She tried to slow her heart rate as she waited for him to answer.

“So how are you going to get it?”

“I’m going to wait until Sunday morning. Sundays are dead around here, especially when there isn’t church. This Sunday everyone’s off, so —”

“I know the schedule.” The voice was seething now. Callie heard the woman in the background for the first time since the call had begun. They began arguing about something, but Creeper held his hand over the receiver, and Callie couldn’t make out his words, only his tone. “Sunday morning. You don’t get a minute longer.”

Then the line went dead.

Callie set the phone on the table and stared at it.

“What is it, Callie? What did he say? You look as if he might be lurking outside the building.” Deborah reached over and squeezed her hand.

“When I told him Sunday would be better like Shane suggested — because there is no church this week — he cut me off and said he knew the schedule.

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