Lost in Plain Sight by Marta Perry

He could show up at the door at any moment, and then what would she do?
    Chief Byler wouldn’t believe her. Clearly Josiah hadn’t, when he’d walked out. She tried to keep the pain from cramping her heart. She couldn’t.
    She set the last dish in the cabinet and closed the door. “I’ll put Sarah to bed, Mamm, if you want.”
    “Denke, Leah. That would be gut.” Mamm’s eyes were shadowed with strain. “That will give me a chance to talk with your daadi.”
    Leah hugged her, feeling Mamm’s arms close around her as if she were a small child again. Her throat tightened, and she struggled to smile. “Denke,” she whispered.
    Hurrying upstairs, Leah opened the door to the room she and Sarah shared. Sarah was in her nightgown, sitting on the edge of her bed and swinging her feet. She looked up as Leah shut the door, a question in her face.
    “Are Mammi and Daadi still mad?” Her little face seemed to pinch at the question.
    “Mammi and Daadi aren’t mad.” She tried to sound confident but probably didn’t succeed very well. “They’re just worried.”
    Even with the door closed, she could hear the murmur of their voices, the singsong tones of Pennsylvania Dutch, as they talked in the living room. About her—she had no doubt, even though she couldn’t distinguish the words they said.
    She picked up the hairbrush from the dresser and went to sit next to her little sister on the bed. “Komm, I’ll brush your hair and braid it for the night. How do you feel?” She pressed the back of her hand against Sarah’s forehead, but Sarah’s skin wasn’t hot.
    “I’m all right.” Sarah sniffed a little. “My nose is stuffy, that’s all.”
    “Gut. You’ll probably be able to go outside tomorrow then.”
    “Why are Mammi and Daadi worried about you?” Sarah was nothing if not persistent. “Are you sick, too?” She put her small hand against Leah’s face, mimicking her action.
    “No, I’m fine.” Leah caught Sarah’s fingers and gave them a squeeze. “Turn around, and I’ll get the tangles out of your hair.”
    Sarah obeyed. Leah began to brush, enjoying the routine movements and the flow of her sister’s silky hair through her fingers. Sarah was silent for a few minutes, and Leah began to hope she’d dropped the subject.
    “You still didn’t say why Mammi and Daadi are worried,” Sarah prompted.
    She should have known Sarah wouldn’t give up that easily. She’d have to tell her little sister something before she heard a garbled version of the story from someone else.
    Leah parted the hair and began to braid. “You know that Mammi found some money in the sugar bin,” she said. “Well, they don’t know how it got there, so they’re worried about it.”
    “Maybe it was the robbers.” Sarah’s voice shivered a little.
    “Robbers take money. They don’t leave it.” Leah paused. “They’re gone, and they’ll never come back. You don’t need to think about the robbers anymore.”
    “I guess,” Sarah said. “But maybe they like to hide things. Like I hide things in my treasure box.”
    “You don’t have money in your treasure box,” Leah said absently, her mind back on the treadmill again. Who had put the money there? And why?
    “I have a lollipop, and a hair tie I found, and a toy ring that Abe gave me,” Sarah recited. “And the calendar you gave me.”
    The word caught in her mind. “The calendar?” she repeated.
    “Ja, the little one with the pretty pictures of mountains and oceans. You remember.”
    She did remember, of course. Two weeks ago, it had been, and she hadn’t thought of it since. She’d been working at the Graysons, and Mrs. Grayson had been unhappy that her husband hadn’t tidied up his desk for her to clean.
    So Mrs. Grayson had done it herself, sweeping some things into a drawer and others into the trash can Leah was about to empty.
    “There, you can go ahead and dump that,” she’d said.
    Leah had seen the calendar drop in, and she pulled it out.