Fraying at the Edge by Cindy Woodsmall Page B

run is to put life on hold for a while.”
    “Then don’t take your phone.”
    Quill kept the phone with him 24/7 in case Ariana called, which meant that he stayed keenly aware she wasn’t calling. His brother was right. “I’m at the Y in the road. I’ll be there in a minute.” He ended the call and turned left at the fork in the path, heading out of the woods and toward the trailer rather than taking the three-mile loop again.
    Dan was at the mailbox, shoving the phone into his pocket and holding a Priority Mail Express envelope.
    Quill slowed, breathing hard.
    “Sorry.” Dan walked toward him, closing the gap. “I saw ‘Mr. Quill’ on the envelope, and I forgot about your preference for solitude when running.” He passed him the envelope.
    “Not a problem.” He’d just leave the phone in his bedroom next time. As Dan and he walked toward the trailer, Quill peeled back the perforated strip on the thin cardboard envelope. A quick glance at the contents revealed a newspaper clipping of maybe two hundred words, three invoices of some sort, a photo, and a note. He opened the folded note.
Dear Mr. Quill,
    He needs your help before it’s too late.
    Sincerely,
    Jake
    The note appeared to be written by someone young, maybe under twelve. So who was the “he” and who was Jake? As he skimmed the short newspaper article, Quill followed Dan up the small steps and into the trailer. The key person in the article was Nate Lapp, who’d been found unconscious after falling from a hayloft.
    Lexi lifted her head and wagged her tail, but she didn’t budge from her spot on the couch. She’d run with him the first three miles, but then she started lagging behind, and he brought her home before hitting the trail again.
    The kitchen table had an array of business papers spread out, ones that hadn’t been there when Quill left for his run. “Been busy?” Quill looked at the many items on the table as he unfolded the invoices from the envelope. Love might make a person’s world go round, but paperwork made the business world go round.
    “Yeah.” Dan tapped a yellow legal pad that had a long list of items, most with a red check beside them. “Trying to get all the work orders, plans, bills of sale, and memos in order for today’s meeting with McLaren. Speaking of which, I can’t find the electrical plans you used for the new phase of the development. I searched the storage bin in your room, and they aren’t there. Could they be in your car?”
    Quill looked at the three invoices. “Maybe. I don’t think so.” He passed the newspaper clipping to Dan. “Read that.”
    “Quill.” Dan snapped his fingers. “I need you to look in your glove compartment and trunk and under the seats before the meeting. Okay?”
    Quill glanced up. “Yeah, sure.”
    Dan didn’t look convinced and for good reason. Quill would dump paperwork and receipts in his car for a year or more before sorting through everything, which often meant getting a garbage bag and throwing it all out. He hated paperwork.
    Dan dropped the topic and read the article while Quill studied the invoices again. They were bills from trips to an emergency room for Nate Lapp.
    “Nate Lapp.” Quill mulled over the name while looking at the postmark on the envelope. It had come from Glen Rock, a town about forty miles west of Summer Grove. From where he was in Mingo, Quill could drive there in less than two hours. “Why do the names Nate Lapp and Glen Rock sound so familiar?”
    “Because Glen Rock has a lot of Amish, and you must know a dozen Nate Lapps.”
    “True.” Quill studied the info, trying to draw a memory to the front of his mind.
    Dan turned the short article around to face Quill. “This is completely outside our abilities.”
    “Maybe.” Quill took it back and looked at the picture. A scrawny kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, was asleep in a hospital bed when someone took this picture, and he was as thin and frail as an old man. Something about the