In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2) by Ruth Hartzler Page B

to the front door and walked
in. As she approached the front desk, the old-fashioned hanging
lights flickered off for a brief moment. When the lights were back
on, Kate saw an old woman with an unkind expression on her face,
sitting at the counter. Kate was disappointed to see that it was
the same woman who had been here on her one and only previous
visit.
    The woman did not speak, but fixed Kate with
a cold glare as she approached the desk. “Excuse me, I was hoping
to look at some old records -”
    The woman silenced her with a quick finger
across her lips. “Shhhhhh.”
    Kate inched closer and whispered. “I need to
look through some of the old phonebooks for this area.”
    The woman jabbed her index finger to her
left. “Upstairs. Second hall,” she muttered.
    Kate nodded and followed the finger
upstairs. After the second isle of books, she noticed a large shelf
full of old, dusty phonebooks. Kate looked through the sections
until she found one of the more recent books. She flipped through
the pages, using her index finger to highlight the names until she
reached the Cadens. James A Caden, Thomas E. Caden, Bruce B. Caden,
and several others lined the section, but no Lucas was to be seen.
With a sigh, Kate set to work searching through the mountain of
phonebooks.
    Kate grew increasingly frustrated. She sat
in the middle of the isle, which was enclosed by two long walls of
books. Beside her sat at least twenty to thirty half-opened
phonebooks. She dropped her face into her hands and sat in silence.
How could this man not exist? Well, he did exist, she told herself,
but she was just having trouble finding him. With cell phones
eliminating landlines almost completely and what with so much more
privacy these days, it was beginning to get more and more difficult
for her to stay off the grid and still stick to this investigation.
As she pulled herself to her feet, she stumbled and fell backward
into the opposite wall of shelves.
    “Ouch!” she yelled as her elbow slammed into
the shelf, knocking some books loose, which simultaneously fell
over her head, nearly collapsing her back to a sitting
position.
    “Quiet up there!” the voice boomed.
    Kate muttered under her breath. The sting of
the elbow hurt, but the knock on her head was a bigger pain. Kate
started picking up the phonebooks, when she noticed one said,
“Bristol County.”
    That must be outside city limits, because
she had never even heard of that county before. Kate flipped
through the pages to the C section. Her finger touched the name, Caden . She went down the list of names that began with C
until she reached Lucas F. Caden.
    That was why she had been unable find his
name in any of the other phonebooks. The victim might have lived in
this town, but he wasn’t from here. He was from the next county,
and that’s where his friend Lucas must be. The record was only a
few months old, so she was holding onto the hope that Lucas Caden
still resided at 126 Walden Road. Kate had neither pen nor paper,
so she hurried downstairs to the librarian.
    The librarian’s eyes slowly rolled upward.
“Find what you need?” she whispered.
    “Yes, I did, actually. I was wondering if
you -”
    Again the stern librarian lifted her finger
to her lips. “Shhhhhh.”
    Kate whispered, “Pen and paper, please.” The
woman reached under her desk and slammed a small, blank sheet of
paper and a pencil on the counter. “Thank you,” Kate whispered
before returning upstairs.
    Kate jotted down the address and county, and
smiled. She knew she was now one step closer to finding out what
was going on and who killed Mr.
Jackson, and
why. Kate neatly returned each of the books to its shelf and made
her way back downstairs. She strolled up to the desk and smiled
politely, reaching out her hand to return the pencil. She nodded
and turned to leave.
    “ Wait,” the voice growled.
    Surprised, Kate turned
back to see the woman now standing in front of the desk. Both her
hands were resting