In Plain Sight

Celia Crotteau

Description

In the late 1970s, idealistic college grad Charlotte met Amish bad boy Uri Stoltzfus while visiting relatives in small-town Pennsylvania. Her encounters with Uri changed her life. Seven years have now passed. Char, who joined the Navy, is a bored press officer serving on a remote island base. She hears rumors that a Special Operations sniper nicknamed the Amish Assassin is coming there to hide from his pursuers. Could this be Uri? Char’s career has stalled, she is having an affair, and her life seems to have reached a dead end. So, who better to keep company with than another lost soul? Forced to face her regrets and disappointments, Char wonders if life ever offers second chances, even to a misfit like her. Surprises await…

Sujets

• 1970s
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 24 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669874324
• Langue: English

Extrait

IN PLAIN SIGHT
 
 
 
 
 
 
CELIA CROTTEAU
 
 
Copyright © 2023 by Celia Crotteau.
 

Library of Congress Control Number:
2023907403
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-7431-7

Softcover
978-1-6698-7433-1

eBook
978-1-6698-7432-4
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 04/24/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
838637
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
 
 
 
 
1 Corinthians: 13:11-12: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. NIV®. COPYRIGHT © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
INTRODUCTION
This is a work of fiction. Period.
Nevertheless…
So began my introduction to Char, Charred , to which this book is the sequel. It too is fiction. Seven years have passed, and Char is a Navy officer. Imagine that!
A word about one establishment portrayed herein, namely, the United States military: Nowhere Atoll, or its equivalent, does not exist, insofar as I am aware. I based this fictitious island on the very real Diego Garcia and borrowed from tales told me by both men and women who spent time there. I have also recounted some of the anecdotes I heard during my years in the Navy about recruiters and how some operated to fill their quotas. As ever in second- and third-hand accounts, exaggeration should be considered.
Nevertheless, truth is stranger than fiction.
Thanks to Robert for his advice on all military matters, to Madeleine for her descriptions of her professional challenges as a woman in the male-dominated maritime industry, and to Simone for her insistence on my portraying Char realistically but sympathetically. “Do you want to make readers dislike her?” Simone would ask. Well, no…
As I did when writing Char, Charred , I researched reputable academic sources about the Amish and Mennonites. Occasionally those academic sources provided conflicting answers that freed me to choose the best fit for this book. Any errors are mine and mine alone.
To end, I do want to give a shoutout to the medical professionals who offer care to the Plain people – and others – at clinics specializing in genetic disorders. Theirs is a truly heroic mission, albeit a quiet and unassuming one.
CHAPTER ONE
A lackluster poetry reading conceived in desperation; Nowhere Atoll, or Nowhere at All, depending on the speaker’s mood; lastly, rumors that had circulated over the past near decade.
A near decade, because ten years loomed just beyond the current seven. The 1970s had passed into the 1980s, and, as her mother often reminded Char, who had celebrated the big 3-0, the days when she could consider herself young were flying by.
So – an event, a location, and half-truths which Char had discarded as pure nonsense. Working together, this trio brought him back into her life when she least expected it. Or needed it, she told herself. No, not the nonspecific it . The very specific him . Uri Stoltzfus.
Over the years she had heard references to him, usually at Friday Happy Hours in whatever Officers Club she was in. Because going to an O-Club after leaving the office at her current duty station was how Char always started her weekends. Didn’t every officer? At least, shouldn’t every officer? Showing up and drinking with the group, and being seen by one’s superiors, benefited a military career. Led to promotions, and so on. Or so Char had been told.
Looking back, she doubted that her regular attendance had benefited her career. Or else she wouldn’t have been plopped down where she now found herself, on this God-forsaken island in the middle of a body of water with a ridiculously long Polynesian name she couldn’t remember, let alone pronounce after a few drinks. That she couldn’t didn’t matter. Because her assignment was top secret.
Well, not her assignment, but the duty station where she was wasting her time and her mind. The island’s location she couldn’t disclose, not even to her parents. Why, Char didn’t know. She was too ashamed of her lack of knowledge to ask. But perhaps no one else knew either, which was how absolute secrecy was ensured. And it was.
Apathetic enlisted personnel who didn’t bother to disguise their heavy breathing monitored all phone calls, incoming and outgoing, and all incoming and outgoing mail was carefully read, and the outgoing censored, by the office to which Char herself was attached. She didn’t get to read any mail, however. Tyrone did that himself. He had assigned her to writing and editing the weekly base newspaper, this on a base where nothing ever happened. She had to scramble to find material to publish and was therefore considering adding an advice column. She secretly congratulated herself on her initiative and imagination but wondered how to peddle the idea to Tyrone, her departmental commander.
Shoveling salted peanuts into her mouth as she waited for him at their usual table in the O-Club, Char pondered. It would be best to approach him first thing on a Monday morning, when he sat down to a fresh stack of letters piled high on his desk. Engrossed, he would raise an eyebrow before giving a lackadaisical wave which she could interpret as permission. Tyrone resented being interrupted at his letter reading. The knowledge he gained, and the censorship he exercised, allowed him tremendous power over any and every person on this island. Tyrone shrugged it off. He didn’t agree with her assessment. Yes, he had power, but just until the next bozo relieved him of this job, he retorted. He threw her a searching look and added unnecessarily that everyone on the island had secrets. Char had stifled a smirk and turned back to her typewriter. Even you, sir, she thought.
Two weeks after her arrival, after a few too many drinks at the O-Club, she had staggered back to her room in the Bachelor Officers Quarters, a three-story cinder-block edifice which boasted the distinction of being the island’s tallest building. Half an hour later Char answered a knock at her door to find Tyrone standing there. She let him in, relieved to have someone to talk to besides the drooping plant the room’s previous occupant had left behind, which Char had christened Doris.
Tyrone quickly made it clear that he didn’t want to just talk. Why not, Char decided. She excused herself to go into the bathroom and insert her diaphragm. Doris drooped even further when Char emerged, as if disappointed in her new caregiver. Char ignored Doris and gave Tyrone a tight-lipped smile. Unlike Doris, he didn’t droop. He had pulled the sheet over his lower body and folded his arms under his pillowed head. Stretching so that she couldn’t help but notice how the sheet tented at his groin, he awaited the admiring comment that was not forthcoming. But his momentary confusion disappeared when Char whipped off the sheet and kneed him to the center of the bed.
They got down to business and, finished, lay side by side staring up at the dark ceiling.
In the middle of the night Char woke up, startled, before she remembered who snored beside her. She relaxed. In the morning he was gone, not to be seen or heard from until he nodded politely when she pushed open the office door Monday morning.
Since then, five months ago, their Friday nights had followed that exact routine. Except for his two weeks of off-island leave, planned with Bernice long before Char arrived. Bernice, Tyrone’s wife, was waiting patiently for him back in D.C. while he completed this unaccompanied tour.
Always Tyrone and Char used her room, never his. Char suspected that a framed photograph of a smiling Bernice sat on Tyrone’s bedside table and that he didn’t want to be reminded he was cheating while engaged in the actual act. Sort of an out of sight, out of mind kind of a situation. Even if she guessed wrong, Tyrone had never invited her to his room. They had yet to discuss their dicey relationship. Did they even have one? Privately Char thought of wha