She realized suddenly why her mind had veered onto this track. The possible loss of their baby brother had been yet another horrific blow to a family that had already lost so much. The Amish community was like one huge family, and they’d been struck again and again. And no family court hearing could restore their children to them.
It was up to her, and now her brother, to find them and bring them home.
* * *
“Thanks, sis,” Tate said again. “Any hassle?”
Emma glanced at her brother. He drove as he did anything physical, with an understated ease. He was six foot one, which meant she had to look up at him, even sitting in the passenger seat of his unmarked city car. He glanced at her when she didn’t immediately answer. His eyes were as gorgeous as ever, that almost turquoise-blue that had sent her female schoolmates into raptures, embarrassingly, when he’d stumble across them giggling in the kitchen of the big ranch house at the Double C.
“No,” she answered. “Not a bit.” She paused. Her brother, knowing her well, waited. “Of course, I left the message on his office voice mail. He would have gotten it while I was in the air.”
“So he couldn’t call and yell until he’d had time to calm down?” Tate grinned at her, then turned his eyes back to the busy street leaving the airport. “You always did know how to get your way.”
“You’re just saying that because you never figured out how to be subtle.”
“You mean devious?” Emma grinned back at him, not offended in the least, before he added, “But at least I learned it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”
They laughed with the ease of siblings who had grown into a comfortable, loving adult relationship, who looked back on their childhood with fondness. Their lives had been blessed, and even the horrible loss they’d suffered on September 11 couldn’t change that.
“Do you still think about them a lot?” Emma knew she didn’t have to explain.
“Every day,” Tate said quietly. “They saved us all, gave us a life we never, ever would have had.”
“And they gave us each other,” Emma said. “Brothers and sisters we never would have had.”
“Yes.” Tate glanced at her. “They saw to it we would never be alone again.”
Emma sighed. It had taken them a very long time to reach this point. Charlotte—for whom the ranch had been named—and Donovan Colton had been forces of nature, and Emma didn’t think any of them ever got past thinking of them as larger-than-life.
“At least they saw Butterfly Wings come to life.”
“That’s right,” Tate agreed. “They got to see that dream come true.”
The nonprofit organization dedicated to helping inner-city kids was flourishing, and each adult Colton put in their time to make sure it stayed that way. Each one of them knew too well they could have ended up in worse shape than some of these kids if not for the generous, loving couple who had adopted them all.
The thought of kids at risk jolted her back to the reason she was here in the first place. It was time to quit dwelling on her own happy childhood and concentrate on trying to get these innocent girls back to finish theirs.
Chapter 2
Emma had noticed the folders wedged next to the driver’s seat and reached for them.
“These are the full files?”
Tate nodded as he negotiated the transition to Interstate 95 leaving the airport. Emma began to read. Tate had emailed her the basics, but to her dismay there wasn’t much more here. The details on each case were sketchy; either no one had seen much or they weren’t talking.
Or the kidnappers were very, very thorough.
She felt the old chill start to creep up her spine. She fought it down. She knew the old memories colored her reactions, but she refused to let them affect her professional conduct. She’d passed her psych, been declared fit for duty, and she was going to see it stayed that way.
“You okay?”
Damn, did the man never miss a thing? Of course, he was probably haunted by his own memories of past cases, which perhaps made him a bit more sensitive than a non-cop would be. For a guy, Tate was pretty sensitive to begin with. For a brother, he had moments that stunned her.
“I’m fine. Perverted men who target women just make me angry.”
“I know. That’s why I wanted you here. You’ve got the fire for it like no one else. And you’ve got an understanding of the people no one else I know has.”
Emma gave her brother a sideways look. They rarely spoke of her nightmare ordeal anymore within the family—not directly anyway. And she preferred it that way. Those nine horrific days were history, and that’s where they were going to stay. She’d be damned if she’d let that piece of scum she refused to identify by name even in her mind have any
effect on her at all.
She’d worked hard for two years to get past what had happened to her. And had almost lost it all when some crazy judge who cared more for the rights of the criminal than the rights of the victims had found a piece of evidence logged in on the wrong place on a form and used it as justification to grant an appeal. So now she was looking at going through it all again, all the testifying, the nightmare of remembering.
But she would do it. She wasn’t a Colton for nothing, and she would put that monster away again. And again and again if she had to.
“Not to mention,” Tate added drily, “you know the countryside like the back of your hand.”
“Hey, hey,” she responded with an automatic protest born out of all the times Tate had been the one sent out to retrieve her from wherever she’d wandered. “It’s not my fault you were always hungry so you were the one in the house pestering Mom before dinner was ready.”
“I just never understood the fascination,” Tate said.
That much was true, she knew. She’d always had a fascination with the land itself that her siblings didn’t have. They did, however, appreciate the ranch and the life it gave them. As a child she’d spent hours studying plants and trees, wondering how they grew, how it was they reached for the sun, how, without a brain, they even knew where the sun was. She’d planned on continuing that study in her schooling, thinking a plant biologist might just be the coolest job ever.
And then, in her first year of college, everything changed. Those crazed men had destroyed so much more than buildings that day. And once she realized they didn’t care, and that there were countless others lined up, hoping for a chance to do more of the same, willing to die simply to murder those who didn’t follow their God, her path had become clear. She’d changed her major, determined then and there she would become part of the line that would stop such horror from ever occurring again on American soil.
She wasn’t sure she was accomplishing that from the field office in Cleveland, although it had on occasion whimsically occurred to her that with their feelings about music, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum could be a target, but her work was involving and satisfying.
And dangerous.
She realized her fingers had crept up to her throat, as if the knife were still there, drawing blood, and for an instant the old memories threatened to swamp her. She fought it down, forced herself to focus on the files in her lap, ordering herself to remember that her job now was to make sure these innocent girls didn’t go through anything like what she’d endured.
She would bring them home. Somehow she would bring them home.
* * *
Emma parked the ranch truck that had been the only vehicle available to use at the moment, on the main street of Paradise Ridge. Such as it was, she thought; the tiny village made Eden Falls, population nine hundred, seem like a booming metropolis. If all the tourists left, Emma thought, it would feel like the proverbial wide spot in the road. But the tourists were here, lots of them. Not as many as during the summer, but the holiday shopping season had begun, and many people came here to pick up handcrafted gifts. Most of them were nice and genuinely interested, some just curious, some bordering on being d
erisive of a culture so foreign to their own and a few just downright rude.
Nice cross section of humanity in general, Emma thought as she got out of the truck and locked it. To protect it from said tourists, since she knew the Amish citizens would never even think of stealing. She supposed there had to be a few bad apples, but they were truly far between.
At least the locals were easy to spot, with their distinctive dress. And while she could hardly ignore the visitors—it was, after all, entirely possible their perpetrator had come here in that guise—for now she would focus on the locals and what they knew or had seen.
The Amish trait of ignoring or spending little time thinking about the foibles of their English neighbors was going to make this difficult. Most of the time the behavior of outsiders truly was ignored as having no import. But what she needed was exactly that, information about anyone who had acted oddly, differently. That this description fit most English to this community wasn’t going to help matters.
Emma started to walk, observing, wanting to get the feel of things. This small commercial section of the village had grown a little since she’d last been here, nearly ten years ago. The bakery was still in the same place and still putting out those tempting aromas. A cheese shop had been set up between the bakery and the quilt shop. And beyond that, a flower shop that was full of beautiful, healthy-looking plants.
Everything looked normal. Prosperous.
And yet she felt the tension, barely under the surface. The tourists and shoppers were, naturally, oblivious, but the locals all seemed distracted, as if their thoughts were elsewhere. As she had expected, the abduction of three young girls had traumatized this small community.
She kept walking, looking around. She crossed a narrow alleyway, which, if she recalled correctly, had once marked the end of the small shop area. The next building was a large brick edifice that had, she thought, searching her memory, once been a mill of some kind. But now it appeared only one corner was occupied, remodeled to add a large corner window.
She slowed to a halt before that window. In the top part was, oddly, a birdhouse, she supposed for the martins farmers so prized. But what drew her was the sideboard displayed there. The piece fairly glowed in the late-fall sun, burnished to a smooth, flawless finish, no doubt by hand. Every corner, every angle was perfectly crafted. The wood was rich with grain and clearly selected with care. Each piece mirrored the one before, so that it was clear you were seeing the progression of the tree itself. The overall effect was an incredible melding of nature’s symmetry and man’s skill.
If there wasn’t a good, solid mid-four figures on that price tag, there should be, Emma thought. If not for a closed sign on the door, she’d go in for a closer look. This was the most gorgeous piece of furniture she’d ever seen, and she was already mentally rearranging her apartment to make room for it.
Her gaze shifted, and she realized there was someone in the shop despite the closed sign. A man, in the back, standing near what had to be another window. Probably, she guessed, looking out at the stand of trees to the rear. The sun was at a sharper angle this time of year and poured through that window like a floodlight. It illuminated him as if he were on a stage.
And he could well have been on a stage, for he was a strikingly handsome man. Tall, at least a couple of inches over six feet. Lean, yet well muscled. And the sunlight lit up his features, strong jaw and brow, perfectly cut nose, and a mouth that looked as if it would be softly sensual were it not drawn into a compressed line at that moment. His hair was dark and gleamed in the light streaming over him.
She didn’t know how long she just stood there, staring. She wished she had a camera in hand, or that she could draw or paint, for this was a scene worth preserving. Standing there, awash in the soft light of dusk, with that stern, almost pained expression, he stirred feelings in her that she didn’t understand yet couldn’t deny.
He was as beautiful as the piece in the window, and she knew instinctively he was the maker.
And she had turned into a ridiculous gaping female at the sight of him.
This was not a good way to start her investigation.
“May I help you?”
The polite, child-pitched voice had yanked her out of her silly reverie. She had looked down at the child standing beside her, sheepishly aware she hadn’t even noticed the girl’s approach. Bright blue eyes looked back at her, and she saw dark hair pulled under the traditional head covering.
“This is my father’s shop,” the girl had explained. “He makes the best furniture in the world.”
“Does he?” She couldn’t help smiling.
Color stained the girl’s cheeks, adding color to the pale porcelain of her skin. “He would never say such a thing—it’s vain—but I think I can say it for him.”
The simple words had reminded her better than anything else could that she was back among the people who had so fascinated her when she was this child’s age.
“And who is your father?”
“Caleb Troyer. He’s right in there.”
Emma’s breath caught. This man, who had so captivated her, who had her standing here in public staring as if she’d never seen a man before, was Caleb Troyer? The brother of the kidnapped Hannah Troyer?
“And you’re...?”
“Katie Troyer,” the girl said.
The oldest, Emma thought, remembering the file that had said Hannah Troyer had three young nieces through her brother Caleb. And that the girl’s mother, Annie Troyer, had died three years ago, leaving Hannah as the main maternal figure in their lives.
“Are you here about my aunt?”
Good guess, or had something given her away?
“What makes you think that?”
“You seem different than the others.”
“Different?”
“You dress plainer. More like us than them. Even if you do wear boy’s clothes.”
Ah, the honesty of children, Emma thought wryly.
“I am from the FBI,” she said. At the girl’s furrowed brow she added, “We’re like the police, only for the whole country.”
“Oh. You need my father, then.”
That simple statement, Emma thought, opened up a whole new set of crazy thoughts.
This, she thought ruefully, could get complicated.
Chapter 3
“Father?”
Caleb Troyer found it odd that here, where they were alone, Katie would use English. Perhaps it had been to get his attention; he could tell from his daughter’s voice that this wasn’t the first time she’d called him. With a smothered sigh he slapped his hat against his leg a couple of times, as if the slight blows could shake him out of this mood. He was losing patience with himself, slipping into useless, unproductive states of daydreaming, staring out the windows of his workshop, wasting precious hours that should be spent working.
But how could he work thinking of Hannah, lively, irrepressible Hannah, out there in the other world, not just in danger of losing her way but having already been grabbed up by the evil that resided there?
Caleb was a strong, competent man, and he’d felt truly helpless only once before in his life. And he couldn’t help thinking of that time as helplessness filled him again. He hadn’t been able to help Annie as she slipped away after laboring so hard and painfully to bring little Grace into the world three years ago. And there was nothing he could do now.
His instincts were to go himself, to search for his impulsive little sister, but he was wise enough to know he would be useless out there, in that vast expanse that was the world of the outsiders, the English. It was full of technology and other things he knew existed but knew little about. He knew nothing of their huge cities or how to deal with the wickedness that flourished there.
He knew nothing of the kind of person who would do such a thing, take a young, innocent girl off the street for purposes so nefarious Caleb couldn’t bear thinking about them. How any man, even an English, could do such things was beyond him.
> “Father, please?”
Shaking off the thoughts that had occupied his mind every waking hour since Hannah had been taken, he turned around to face his oldest daughter. As usual, her sweet face both soothed and unsettled him. It was a little easier than it used to be, looking at this beloved child who was such a painful reminder. With her dark hair and blue eyes, she was the living, breathing image of the woman who had been the center of his life since they had been children. The girl he had known he would marry since they had been eleven, the age Katie was now.
Annie had known it, too. When she’d approached him and said “You’re the one,” he’d known exactly what she’d meant. That someday when they were old enough, they would be together.
“What is it, Katie?” he asked, trying to mask the sudden tightness in his throat. And again impatience rose in him. He should be worried about his missing little sister, Hannah, not mooning over a woman who’d died three years ago.
“Someone’s here.”
His mouth quirked at her expression; his already shy daughter looked beyond uneasy. And again his mind shot back to her mother. Annie, too, had been quiet, shy, and only later did he realize what a tremendous certainty she must have had to have approached him that day.
“Deacon Stoltzfus here to chastise me about my beard again?”
The church elder had made it his mission in life to remind Caleb he was going against a basic tenet of Amish life for adult males. As if he didn’t know.
He’d grown his beard, as custom dictated, when he’d married Annie. And when she’d died, in a fit of rage and grief, he’d shaved it off, nearly slitting his own throat in the process. His wife had died because of him, trying to deliver his child. And he hadn’t been able to save her. He didn’t qualify on either front to wear the badge of adult maleness.
So every day he shaved his jaw, those minutes his silent, aching tribute to the woman he missed so much. Without her, he was not a man, and thus he would be without a beard, to the dismay of the entire community.
Colton Destiny Page 2