Safe Hearts (Amish Safe House, Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

order to take
control. The cool breeze of the wind tickled her nose as the
thoughts raced through her head. Kate’s attention was only drawn
back to reality, when Beckie spoke.
    “ Excuse me, but since we’re
getting closer to this jail, is there anything we need to know
before we get there?”
    “ Not really,” Kate
answered. “There will probably be some security up front that we’ll
have to check in with, but then it should be smooth
sailing.”
    “ I’ve never been to such a
place, though. Should I be worried or scared?”
    Sometimes Kate seemed to forget what
it was like to know the evils of the world firsthand. “Prison can
surely be a scary place if you’re the one behind the bars, but
we’ll be fine, and so will Jeremiah. They’re holding him in a small
detention facility just until they decide on his bail. Ryan seemed
pretty sure that they wouldn’t post a high bail amount knowing that
he’s from the Amish community. They usually reserve high amounts
for the suspects who are deemed to be flight risks.”
    “ That’s a little bit of a
relief,” Beckie replied. She looked forward and stared out into the
deep blue sky. Kate could tell that the entire ordeal was weighing
heavily on the poor woman’s mind. “I just hope they fix this mess
soon. II know one thing about anyone, it’s that Jeremiah would
never hurt another person.”
    Kate glanced back out at
the trees. She felt goose bumps forming on her arms as the cool air
grew colder. As the greens and browns of the foliage flew by her
eyes, she saw a sign that read, Monroe
Correctional Facility: Next Right .
    “ There it is!” Becky said,
pointing into the distance. Kate looked up to see a large, fenced
off enclosure looming past the tree line. She was fairly certain
that they were still miles away from the Monroe Correctional
Facility, but she squinted anyway, hoping to get a look at the
building that sat behind the rows of barbed-wire fences.
Unfortunately, the twisting turns of the road, the dense trees, and
the emerging hills all combined to make it an impossible feat to
see anything of the prison from the road with naked
eyes.
    As the taxi approached the first
building, Kate looked out to see a small security shack with a
large boom gate blocking the way. A short, pudgy man in a dark gray
uniform emerged from the small booth. He held a clipboard in his
hand and a radio receiver in the other. “Good day,” he said. “What
brings you to the MCF today?”
    Kate rolled down her window. “We’re
here to visit one of the inmates, Jeremiah Steinbeck. Officer Ryan
Weaver called ahead about us. I’m Katie Lambright, and this is
Beckie Fisher.”
    The officer nodded, looking down at
his clipboard, and flipping through its pages. “Wait here a
moment.”
    Kate watched as the man walked inside
and picked up the phone. After speaking to someone for a few
moments, the man returned. “If you’ll just follow this road up
ahead, you’ll come to the parking area for visitors. Just grab any
spot there and head through the large brown doors.”
    “ Thank you so much,” Beckie
said with a smile as the boom gate rose to give them passage. The
taxi’s engine roared toward the visitor’s parking area.
    Kate looked out over the facility. She
could now see its little intricacies and the large fields of
nothing but grass and metal fences. The realization that poor
Jeremiah was trapped in such a place, with people that he had no
business being around, caused anguish to creep into her
heart.
    They pulled into the small parking lot
and asked the taxi to wait. Kate led the way and headed toward the
large brown doors that the guard had mentioned. She pulled one of
them open and walked in. Kate noticed a look of surprise forming on
Beckie’s face as she examined the room with wide eyes.
    The interior looked nothing like the
outside. A large, heavily secured desk sat in the far end of the
main room. Kate walked over to it and spoke through the glass.