“I understand your concerns. Believe me, if I could, I’d send out that ‘Be On the Look Out’ right now, but it’s not my decision to make. In other states…” He held out his hands, palms up. “It can be even longer in other states. It’s because they’re adults, and adults sometimes do things we can’t understand but aren’t necessarily illegal or even dangerous.”
Silas had been sitting next to his brothers on the porch floor, his back against the house. Now he stood and said, “We can start looking, though.”
“Yes, you can, and I suggest you do. Talk to their friends. The other girl, Naomi. Has she been seeing anyone lately? Any new boyfriend, maybe?”
“Actually, she and I have… connected, I guess you can say.”
“Meaning?”
“I like her. I like her a lot.” Silas crossed his arms and scuffed the toe of his boot against the porch floor. Finally, he said, “I think maybe Katie Ann and Albert are courting.”
“Katie Ann?” This was news to Emma. She’d known someone brought Katie Ann home from the singing, but she hadn’t asked who it was. Emma always thought Albert Bontrager was a fine young man—a hard worker and very respectful to his elders. It had occurred to her that he should have a wife, but she’d never once envisioned Katie Ann in that role.
“I can go to his house now to see if Katie Ann said anything to him.”
“And I’ll go back to the phone shack,” Clyde said. “I’ll call those who have a phone in their shops. They won’t all pick up, but a few will. Enough to get the word out to the community.”
Grayson nodded in approval. “I’ll stop by in the morning and again tomorrow night. If we haven’t heard anything by then, we’ll issue the statewide alert.”
He turned to go, but then he pivoted back toward them. “I hope it goes without saying that I want each of you to be very careful. I sincerely hope this is an instance of two young women becoming caught up in something and forgetting the time, but should it have to do with Jeremiah’s death, should you stumble upon a dangerous situation, do not try to intervene.”
No one answered. Emma knew every person there would do whatever they needed to do to bring the girls back. She had the feeling Grayson knew that too, but he wanted to impress on them the need to be extra careful.
“I’ll keep my phone on and near me at all times. Our community is relatively small. Should you find something—anything—you think is pertinent, I can be wherever you are in a matter of minutes. But promise me you will not try to handle this yourself.”
He waited, and when no one spoke, he took their silence as agreement.
Emma and Henry walked him back out to his vehicle. They stood there, huddled together under umbrellas as the rain continued to pelt the ground.
“What about Justin Lane?” Henry asked.
“What about him?”
“You said he’d be released today. Was he?”
“He was, and I’m only sharing that because it’s public information.”
“Did he do this?” Emma asked. “Would he… could he have taken the girls?”
“There’s absolutely no reason for him to do such a thing. Plus, as I predicted, he’s wearing an ankle monitor.”
“You’ve been monitoring him?”
“Part of our job.” Grayson gave an understanding nod. “I know you want this to be solved and solved quickly, but we can’t jump to conclusions. Justin went straight home and hasn’t left his house in Del Norte since. He’s not responsible for whatever has happened.”
“But—”
“He’s not, Mrs. Fisher. He can’t be. And remember, the girls could just be off doing what young adults do these days. Maybe they went to an all-night movie or shopping at one of the twenty-four-hour discount stores.”
“How? Do you think they walked to a movie in Alamosa?”
“They might have boyfriends who have cars, friends they haven’t told you about. I know you don’t want to hear this… ”
But Emma had already turned away. She was no longer listening. Though she knew Sheriff Grayson meant well, she also knew Katie Ann would never fail to tell them where she was and why she’d gone there, let alone stay out half the night.
But then the thought pushed into her mind that her granddaughter had done exactly that very thing on Saturday night.
“But that was different,” she whispered.
And there was no one to answer.
Henry was still standing with Grayson beside his car, and Emma returned to the porch, alone with her thoughts and fears, praying that Naomi and Katie Ann would return home soon.
Forty-Nine
At first they’d driven west, away from Monte Vista and toward the storm, but then he changed his mind and turned south, circled around west and then back east. Or that’s how it seemed, but with the twists and turns, and the growing darkness, Naomi soon lost her sense of direction.
Katie Ann had tried reasoning with him at first, but that had only caused his face to tighten and his eyes to narrow, which might have been funny, only it wasn’t. It was terrifying and served to transform this person they knew into a complete stranger—a stranger who could and probably would destroy anyone who blocked his path.
As the rain pelted the roof of the truck and lightning crackled across the sky, they pulled up to an old motel—one abandoned long ago by the look of things. A rusted sign hung near the road, half of its letters faded so you couldn’t see them even in the headlights of the truck. Weeds grew knee-deep along the asphalt. The building itself was L-shaped, with an office in the front and then two wings of rooms. Naomi tried to imagine families staying here back when the place was new, but she couldn’t. In some places the roof had caved in. Windows were shattered. Part of a wall had crumbled. An old couch had been pulled from the office out into the parking area.
For reasons she couldn’t imagine, the owners had fastened a chain across the entrance to the parking area to prohibit anyone from entering. Several signs proclaimed, “Private Property. Keep Out.”
Grabbing a pair of bolt cutters from the back, their abductor said, “Don’t try anything.”
“What would we try?” Katie Ann asked.
“I know you two can’t drive, and if you wreck my truck, you’re going to make me very angry.”
The door had barely shut behind him when Katie Ann asked, “Should we run for it?”
“Run where?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t just sit here.”
“Yes, we can. And we should.”
“You think we should go along with this?” Katie Ann’s eyes were round and wide and incredulous. “We can’t just go along with this. There’s no telling what he has in mind.”
They both peered out the front windshield. Even through the falling rain they could make out his form, his back to them, oblivious to the pouring rain, bolt cutters in hand. He made quick work of the chain, allowed it to fall to the ground, and then he was back in the truck, pulling it and the horse trailer into the parking area.
He hopped back out to refasten the chain, or at least make it appear refastened.
“They’ll be looking for us,” Naomi reminded Katie Ann. “All we have to do is sit tight. They’ll come for us, Henry and the others. Grayson even. A whole string of police officers.”
“But we could run—”
“Into the storm?” Naomi swallowed past the ache in her throat. She would not cry. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. “We wouldn’t make it a mile, and he might… he might shoot us. Any direction we go, he could spotlight us, and as flat as this valley is, there would be nowhere to hide.”
She forced a smile she didn’t feel and clasped Katie Ann’s hand in hers. “We should wait.”
“Okay. For now we’ll do it your way. But when the storm breaks, when we get a good chance to slip away without him seeing us, or when the sun comes up… whichever comes first… we make a run for it.”
It wasn’t a good plan, but it was a plan.
With a prayer and a break in the w
eather, perhaps they could survive.
Fifty
Henry found himself repeatedly shaking his watch and then holding it up to his ear. The watch wasn’t broken. It was only that time had slowed to a crawl.
For several hours, the small group searched everywhere they could think of for Naomi and Katie Ann. There was no sign of the two. No one outside of the family had seen them since the day before at church. It was if they had vanished into the desert night.
Rain continued to fall lightly, but according to Stuart the worst of it was still approaching. An app on his smartphone said it would reach them about three in the morning.
It was shy of that, two thirty to be exact, when Emma walked Henry to his buggy.
“I’ll stay if you’d like.”
“No. There’s nothing you can do. Just keep praying.”
“You know I will.” Henry stood beside his buggy, his arms wrapped around Emma, his cheek pressed to hers. “We’re going to find her, Emma. We’re going to find both of them, and they’re going to be all right.”
Henry fervently believed that, and he hoped his confidence showed. In the deepest places of his heart, he trusted that God would not allow harm to come to Naomi or Katie Ann. He was convinced they would be saved.
Emma seemed to cling to his words and the hope he offered. Finally, she stepped back and swiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Get some rest. Tomorrow is likely to be long.”
But Henry shook his head at that. “I need to draw.”
“Draw?”
“I’ve missed something.” He glanced back toward the house. The lanterns set up around the porch sent beams of light out into the rain, like a lighthouse sending out a navigational beam through a gathering storm. Perhaps Naomi and Katie Ann would see the light and make their way home.
“What could you have missed?”
“I don’t know what, but it seems that’s what I should be doing until both girls are returned home.”
A soft glow from his battery-powered lantern encircled them. He’d opened the door to his buggy and set it on the seat, and now its beam spilled across them. He could see the worry and concern and love on Emma’s face. He put both of his hands to her cheeks, kissed her softly, and promised he’d be back at dawn.
As he drove down the lane, Henry focused on praying for Naomi and Katie Ann, for Emma and Rachel and Clyde and the entire family waiting back on the porch, for Abigail and Daniel. He also prayed that his mind would once again do the exceptional and draw the one thing that, at the moment, could save the life of Emma’s granddaughter and her best friend.
When he reached home, he went first to the back door. Lexi bounded out as soon as he opened it. She jumped into the buggy and rode with him to the barn, where he unhitched the buggy, dried off Oreo, and dumped a cup of oats into her feed bucket.
Lexi sat staring at him, well aware that this was not normal behavior for the middle of the night.
“We’ve work to do, girl.”
But still he didn’t go to his workshop. Instead, he went back into the house, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and poured it into a thermos. He wrapped a few of the widows’ cookies in a dish towel—they were forever bringing him whatever was left in the bakery at the end of the day. He’d find their gifts on the front porch, on his kitchen table, and occasionally in his mailbox.
Finally, he picked up Lexi’s bed, the one next to the old stove. The rain was falling in earnest, so he grabbed an umbrella, and together Henry and his little dog made their way through the storm and over to the workshop. He could have drawn in the house at the kitchen table, but he had always been able to focus better in the little room where he worked on his birdhouses and picture frames and mailboxes.
He set the dog bed next to his workbench. Lexi hopped onto it, circled three times, and collapsed with her head on her paws and her eyes watching him closely.
He put his flashlight down on his worktable and lit two lanterns. These he placed on the corners of the table. He found a mug on the shelf behind him, wiped it clean with his shirt, and poured coffee into it. He hadn’t realized he was cold until then, until he held the steaming mug in his hand. Taking a sip, he walked around the workshop and finally found an old bath towel, which he used to dry his arms and his pants legs and finally his dog.
He sat down then, but he didn’t pull pencil or paper toward him. Instead he resumed what he’d been doing in the buggy—he prayed.
Here me, LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Look on me and answer, LORD my God. Give light to my eyes… Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
The words of the psalmist poured from his heart. Henry prayed that God would use him, that God would bless his efforts, that his mind and his hand and his talent would somehow reveal what they needed to know.
Only then did he begin to draw.
If Emma had asked him what events he intended to concentrate on, he might have said the rodeo where Jeremiah was shot, or the funeral, or possibly events leading up to the fateful day when Jeremiah’s life had ended. But his hand, or his mind, didn’t focus on any of those.
Instead he drew their most recent Sunday service.
He drew his parishioners as they worshiped and ate and played.
He drew the crowd of folks gathered around to hear Sheriff Grayson’s report.
He drew the thinning crowd gathered at Seth’s for the meal as afternoon had given way to early evening.
His drawings covered one page after another. He’d pause only long enough to tack the completed sketch to the wall in front of him, and then he’d return to the workbench and pull another clean piece of paper close. He didn’t pause to study what he’d done, or to question if he was focusing on the correct things, or to despair over the futility of his task.
His hand began to cramp and his throat grew dry as rain began to pelt the roof in earnest. Lightning occasionally streaked across the night sky, and thunder rumbled ever closer, but he barely noticed. Lexi slept—yipping occasionally in her sleep, stretching so that all four feet pointed toward the ceiling, rolling over and pushing her nose deep into the cushion that was her bed.
But Henry didn’t let any of those things distract him.
As the storm grew fiercer and then moved on, as dawn crept up on the valley, Henry Lapp did the one thing he knew how to do better than anyone he’d ever met. He did the one thing God had especially equipped him to do. He drew.
Fifty-One
Naomi and Katie Ann were determined to run away from their captor. Their chance to escape came when he pulled the truck and trailer up to one of the tumbled-down motel units.
“There’s a bathroom inside,” he said. “No working plumbing, but it will do. And don’t try anything.”
The rain was still coming down in earnest, but they both knew they wouldn’t get a better opportunity. It was the only time he’d let them out of his sight.
He’d parked the truck and trailer so close to the building that Naomi could barely open the passenger door.
She squeezed out of the vehicle, and together she and Katie Ann walked into the motel’s room number twelve. The number was still visible beneath an outside light hanging from its cord. Naomi turned on the flashlight he’d given her. As they walked into the room, a rat scurried away. Trash littered the floor—fast-food wrappers, empty alcohol bottles, a pile of dirty clothes that looked like rags. Someone had used a metal pail to build a campfire in. The room smelled of wet wood and mold.
“Who left all of this stuff?” she asked.
“Homeless people, I guess.” Katie Ann tiptoed through to the bathroom, and they pushed the door shut for privacy, though it wouldn’t fasten. If anything, the small lavatory was more disgusting than the main room. They used the facilities, though there was no water connected to the plumbing, and then they looked around for a way out.
“Window’s cranked open, but it’s too high,” Naomi said.
“Not if you stand on my shoulders.”
“No way. Then you couldn’t get out, and I’m not leaving you.”
“You could run for help.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, then maybe you could pull me up.”
“I saw an old wooden crate out there.” Naomi opened the door a crack and peered out into the bedroom. She didn’t dare shine the flashlight that direction. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to make out the shapes of the discarded items and, more importantly, the shape of a person if anyone was there.
“I don’t see him.”
She crept across the room, grabbed the crate, and scurried back into the bathroom. It wasn’t tall enough to help them get out.
“The chair…”
Before Naomi could argue with her, Katie Ann had dashed out, grabbed a plastic office chair, and pulled it back into the bathroom.
“I can’t believe he’s letting us take this long.” Katie Ann positioned the chair under the window, on top of the wooden crate. It wasn’t steady, but if they were careful it might work.
Naomi went first, flashlight in her pocket. She climbed onto the chair and grabbed the lower edge of the window frame. Ducking her head a little, she hefted herself up and forward, and for a brief second, she feared she’d get stuck there with her head sticking out in the rain and her feet dangling in the bathroom. But Katie Ann pushed on the bottom of her feet, and then she was up and through, tumbling down onto the ground, scraping her arm in the process.
She hopped up as Katie Ann, the taller of the two, fell beside her, making a splash in the stream of water that had collected beneath the roof’s eave.
They both froze, wondering if he could have heard them over the rain and wind.
Darkness stretched out in front of them. Naomi tried to fix in her mind which way they should run. She longed to use the flashlight she was holding, but she didn’t dare. And she was acutely aware that the window of time when they could run was slipping away. A tremor caused her hands to shake, and she felt momentarily dizzy. This was their chance, their one opportunity. It was a now-or-never situation, and she became lost in visions of what might happen if they failed.
Who the Bishop Knows Page 23