Marrying Jake

by Beverly Bird

  She didn’t know why she turned to him so instinctively. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that he had come here in the first place to find the babies. Maybe because he knew that her babies were all she had. Maybe because he was strong, he was fierce, he was smart, and he was the only person she could imagine saving her from this nightmare.

  She couldn’t catch his eyes. When he swore, it was with words she had never heard, not even from Frank’s mouth. “Jacob,” she pleaded. And his gaze finally came to her.

  He heard his own voice as though from miles away. He recognized neither the tone nor the words—especially not the words. He was filled with something hot, then cold, as he took her in his arms. “I will. I’ll get him back. I promise.”

  Jake had no recollection of getting to the pond. It’s happening again. The words were thunder in his head, a litany. He wasn’t thinking about the babies who were disappearing. He was thinking about his own rotten, mistake-riddled life. He’d broken all her rules and his own, and now a child would pay for it. Katya’s child.

  He forced the guilt away, the panic. He needed to think like a cop. He began yelling, roaring at the top of his lungs. There were easily a hundred men milling around, their feet obliterating everything, and he’d had so precious little to go on so far.

  “Don’t move! Don’t anybody move!”

  Everyone froze. Then Adam’s fist came out of the darkness and landed squarely on Jake’s jaw. Jake went sprawling backward in the snow.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” Jake snarled.

  “Where were you? Where the hell have you been?” Adam growled right back.

  Jake wiped the blood from his mouth. He got to his feet very carefully. “The city. You know where we were.”

  “For five and a half hours? What did you do there? If you laid a hand on her, so help me God, Jake, I’ll kill you.”

  Jake’s voice became deadly, too calm. “Stay out of it,” he warned.

  “The hell I will.”

  Jake ignored that. “All I want to hear from you are facts. Where. When. How. What you know so far.”

  Adam watched him a moment, his eyes narrowing. Then, finally, he nodded. “When Katya didn’t come back, Bo and Levi took it upon themselves to take Sam to the pond,” he said.

  “What did they see?” Jake snapped. “Were they all here when it happened?”

  “Yeah,” Adam answered. “We’ve got something this time. A beat-up, gold Cadillac, maybe a Lincoln, pulled up on the road there. A man got out and grabbed Sam, then burned rubber getting away again. Bo spent just enough time in Texas earlier in the month to be able to describe the model. Levi hadn’t a clue.”

  Jake’s eyes became feral. He nodded and turned away.

  “One other thing,” Adam said. “The guy had a beard and he was wearing Amish clothing.”

  Jake snapped around to look back at him. Too much light suddenly filled his head. Yeah, yeah, of course! He should have realized it before. The guy had been dressed like an Amishman. It was the only way he could have gotten unnoticed into those church socials. It was the only way he could have gotten close to an Amish woman and her child in a farmers’ market without raising undue suspicion.

  “I’ve got you, you bastard. You screwed up this time,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Jake,” Adam said, “I don’t think he’s Amish. No Amishman I can imagine would have reason to steal someone else’s kid, not even Frank Essler. They all have kids enough of their own, and kidnapping is so much of a sin I can’t even imagine it.”

  Jake looked at him briefly. “No. He’s not Amish. But he’s been here and he knows how to act the part.”

  Now he had something to go on. He turned away from his brother again, hungry and desperate to do something, anything to set things right.

  He had promised. Sweet God, he had promised. He had promised his sister, and he hadn’t been able to save her. He had promised his mother, and he had done nothing to save her, either. But he wasn’t going to let this bastard hurt Sam. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him hurt Katya.

  Chapter 13

  It was like a nightmare, Katya thought, and she had no hope of waking up any time soon.

  The women waited in Mariah’s living room with her, attempting to console her, holding her hand. Katya didn’t want them. She felt claustrophobic. The feeling in her chest was unlike anything she had ever experienced before in her life. It was intolerable, unbearable. It was a breath-robbing pain that kept her eyes wet, that wouldn’t let her get air.

  Her baby. Someone had taken her baby.

  She wanted to scream it out. Instead, she stood up from the sofa. Someone reached out to touch her shoulder. Katya recoiled and fled into the kitchen. After a moment, Mariah followed her.

  “Katya, tell me what to do,” she said softly. “Tell me anything I can do to make it stop hurting just a little.”

  Katya pressed her knuckles against her mouth and went to look out the window into the dark night. Her baby was out there, scared and alone. “There’s nothing,” she murmured. Then she thought about it. “Talk about something else,” she decided faintly. “I need to try to keep my mind off it all while Jacob looks. If I think about it too much...”

  Mariah understood. And she heard the almost reverent way her friend said Adam’s brother’s name. She took in a shaky breath. “Okay, then,” she said finally. “There is something I want to say. Katya, I fear for you.”

  Katya turned away from the window. “Me? Why?”

  “Don’t love him!” Mariah burst out. “Please, don’t fall in love with Jacob. I know it would be easy. He’s charming and he’s handsome. And I think, no matter what Adam says, he’s a very good man. But Adam is right, too, and I see it. I sense it. Jacob never lets himself get too involved in anything he enjoys too much. If he wants something too badly, he turns away from it. That’s just the way he is. You’ll get hurt,” she finished. “One way or another, he’ll leave here.”

  Katya felt the strangest thing happen. For one brief heartbeat, her grief shrank. It didn’t vanish—that would never happen until she held her baby in her arms again. But it got smaller because there was only so much her heart could hold. And at this moment, her heart was full of rage.

  “Do you think I’m that silly?” she cried, then her voice took on a singsong quality. “Poor little Katya, we must protect her. I am not that stupid! I see my life. I see what it is. I am under no illusions. There’s nothing here for me, Mariah! There is never going to be anything here, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But Jacob makes me feel happy for a little while.

  “I know he’ll go,” she finished more quietly. “Of course he’ll go. He’s not meant for this country, and what would he ever want with a woman like me? He’s only shown me attention because he’s here, and there’s no one else. Everyone else is married. Really married. I’ve known that from the start. But I won’t deny myself these memories, these days, just because they won’t last. If I did that, I would really be dumb.”

  “I never thought you were dumb!” Mariah protested, stricken.

  Katya scarcely heard her. “I’ll tell you something else,” she went on fiercely. “I’m beginning to hate it here. I’m beginning to hate our church and our ways, and I’m not even sure how I feel about God right now! Because He takes everything away, all the pleasure, everything good. And He doesn’t give anything back! All I had was my children!” She was sobbing now and she hated that, too. She scrubbed her hands over her cheeks hard and fast. “All I had was my babies, and He couldn’t even protect them! Our mighty ordnung, all the sacrifices—what’s it for, Mariah? What good is it if it won’t even protect the little I have?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She fled into the living room and up the stairs.

  Jake shoved change into the pay phone and punched out a number he knew by heart. Not that he had called it often, but his mind just stored that sort of thing.

  “Lawrence Spina,” he snapped when
an operator at FBI headquarters answered. His voice shook a little with the strain of control. He could have called the local cops and let them drag the Feds back here. But he’d made a promise so he would go straight to the top himself.

  “He’s not in,” the bland voice replied. It might have been a recording except for the slight throat clearing that accompanied it.

  “Then patch me through to his home. I need to talk to him about the fifth kidnapping in a small, protected area in five months,” Jake snarled. “Your guys were here briefly, then they backed out when they didn’t get anywhere. Now another kid has been taken. I need some cooperation. I need information.”

  The voice said nothing, but he heard a series of clicks and hums as the call was transferred.

  “Jake Wallace,” Jake said as soon as the man answered. “Dallas P.D. I met you in Quantico a couple of years back. You tried to hire me. I need your help.” He outlined the problem.

  “Well, if our guys have left—” Spina began.

  “I need you to get them back here,” Jake interrupted harshly. “Tonight. Within the hour. Your guys have equipment that I don’t have access to.” And a promise left little room for pride when it came to admitting he needed help. “I need to cast some footprints.” By some blessed miracle, the men hadn’t trampled over some he’d found right near the road. They hadn’t been plain, flat, like Amish boots. “In snow,” he added.

  “Cover them,” Spina said immediately.

  “I have. It’s possible, right? To cast them?” He seemed to remember it was, though he hadn’t had much opportunity to tangle with snowy evidence in Dallas.

  “It’s difficult, but possible,” Spina agreed. “We’ve got some stuff called Snow Print Wax. We lay it into the tracks before we fill them with the liquid dental stone. Then if the stone is cool enough and the snow is frozen hard enough—”

  “It’s down to eleven degrees right now.”

  “Good. Then we shouldn’t melt any of the evidence. I’ll send a team out from Philly by helicopter. Should take no more than an hour.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said tersely, then he made another call. This one was to Toms River, New Jersey. “Ernie,” he said when the man answered, “it’s Jake Wallace.” Ernie O‘Brien had helped him out with Devon Mills earlier in the month. Ernie was a senior detective with the New Jersey State Police. He’d pulled Mills in for questioning when Jake had ID’ed the man through the settlement’s description of him and ChildSearch’s Web site on the Internet. Ernie donated time to ChildSearch cases, as well. “I’m back here in Pennsylvania,” he told him, “in the Amish settlement.”

  “Again?” Ernie asked. “I thought you had that business settled with your brother and his ex-wife and the kid.”

  “So did I,” Jake answered grimly. He paused to clear the words that wanted to get stuck in his throat. “Another kid has been snatched, Ernie. The fifth.” He filled him in. “I’m thinking there’s got to be a connection here,” he added. “It just seems like a bit too much to me, all this bad stuff happening to these pious folks all at once, after centuries of being stoic and trying to worship in peace and quiet.” He grimaced a little at that, his gut tightening again. “It smells.”

  “Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Pull Mills in again.”

  “Hey, buddy, I need some grounds. We all but wore out that kidnapping thing last month.”

  “I found Jannel Wallace’s body this afternoon.”

  Ernie whistled. “That would do it. You think he killed her?”

  “Yeah. We know now she didn’t run off to Tahiti. I’m thinking Mills caught up with her here after all and offed her. I’m thinking Mills got Adam’s money, and I’m thinking he figured out a way to get more.”

  “The guy ain’t living large,” Ernie replied thoughtfully. “If you’re right, my guess would be that he blew his first booty on drugs or drink. And maybe that gaudy Cadillac.”

  Jake’s heart stalled, then exploded. “Cadillac,” he repeated.

  “Gold. Silver trim and hubcaps. Pretty damned ugly, if you ask me. I got a good look at it when I picked him up the last time.”

  “Bingo,” Jake said quietly. He’d gotten him. He really had him. “Do me a favor. Put out a pick-up-and-hold on the vehicle in case he’s headed back that way. One of the boys with the kidnap victim saw a big gold car. Something tells me you’re not going to be able to find him at home tonight. And get me the license plate. I’ll turn it over to the FBI. They can put a multistate APB out, as well.”

  “You think Mills is acquiring more funds by kidnapping these kids? Have there been ransom demands?”

  “No.” And that was the heinous part. That was what was giving Jake nightmares, and he wasn’t an easy man to scare. “These folks don’t have much in the way of money. A ransom demand would have to be for a horse and a couple of cows. I think he’s selling them, Ernie.”

  “Oh, hell,” Ernie said tensely. His voice had taken on a kind of hum Jake recognized. Ernie was in on the hunt.

  “No older kids have been taken,” Jake explained tightly. “A seven- and eight-year-old were right there with the victim tonight. This guy ignored them in favor of a not-quite-twoyear-old. Because nobody wants to adopt older kids. The younger the better. But it’s tough as nails to get a baby anymore. There are just too few of them, and too long a waiting list. If you go through legal channels anyway.”

  . “The last legal thing Mills probably did was be born,” Ernie said flatly.

  Jake winced. “Exactly.”

  “And there’s a big demand for healthy white infants,” Ernie went on.

  “Yeah. And the Amish provide some of the healthiest around. There are no drugs here, Ernie. They’re damned near disease-free. The worst-case scenario is maybe they have a few quirks from inbreeding.”

  Ernie let out a sound of disgust.

  “Worse, they have this rule about not protesting God’s will. So if Mills picked up on that while he was here looking for Jannel, then he’d have realized that he could grab a baby whenever he wanted and get away with it. The Amish wouldn’t run howling to the law.”

  “But they did.”

  “No, not right away. Four kids vanished before they did that. It was a monumental decision on their part, Ernie. My brother’s new wife pushed them into it with the help of a guy named Joe Lapp.” Jake paused. “Mills is selling these poor kids. I’d bet my last dollar he came here chasing Jannel, took a look around and said, ‘Wow.’ There was never any sign of a real struggle because he dressed like they do. That’s why they’re sort of popping off into thin air like this. That’s why nobody noticed a stranger. That was bugging me, too. I kept thinking they should have seen a car or an anner Satt Leit coming too close. But he just blended right in. You know, they’ve got kin coming and going through here from other gemeides all the time. People would probably expect this guy was just someone else’s cousin. Then, ten to one, he lured the little ones with candy.” He told Ernie about the Snickers wrapper. “Katya says the mothers just don’t buy their kids that kind of stuff,” he finished.

  “Who’s Katya?” Ernie asked, startled.

  Jake’s heart spasmed. “Never mind.”

  “I’ll alert our highway patrols,” he said finally. “Listen, what’s the status on the skeleton you found today?”

  “I don’t know much yet. Why?”

  “How sure are you that it was Jannel?” Ernie asked.

  “Ninety-nine percent. My brother ID’ed her ring.”

  “Good enough. Based on that, I can probably get a court order to toss this dude’s house. We probably won’t find anything to tie him to the murder after all this time, but maybe we’ll find something that’ll lead you to where he’s placed these kids.”

  This, Jake thought suddenly, was where God waited. In the hearts of guys like this, guys he knew all over America, guys who would bend a few rules and step into a few gray areas for the sake of a child.

  His thro
at tightened. “Thanks, Ernie.”

  Jake hung up. He felt the slow, sick ebb of adrenaline. Temporarily, his hands were tied. There wasn’t much else he could do. So he’d do everything over a second time, he decided. One more time. Damned if he was going to sit idle.

  He had promised.

  “Katya?” Mariah knocked tentatively on the bedroom door. More than an hour had passed since her friend had fled upstairs.

  Katya hugged herself and went to the door. She felt like a fool, like she was pouting in her room. But the truth was that after her outburst, the ungodly pain had come back, pressing in on her chest. She couldn’t bear to be around anyone.

  She opened the door anyway, Rachel and Delilah crowding up behind her. “What is it?” she asked. “Have they found anything?” Please, God tell me they found something. But God didn’t answer her anymore. Had He ever, even once, since she had married Frank?

  “I don’t think so,” Mariah answered. “But Adam is here. He wants to talk to us. I imagine he’s here to give us an update.” They both knew that if Sam had been found, Adam would have said so immediately.

  Katya nodded and stepped around her, pulling Delilah by the hand, shepherding Rachel ahead of her. She had an irrational fear now of leaving them alone, even in Mariah’s home. Levi’s necessary absence was gnawing a hole in her stomach. He was still at the pond with the men.

  They went downstairs. The women were still there, seated in every available chair in the living room. They spilled over, filling in all the little spaces between the furniture. They pressed against the walls, and a couple were crowded in the kitchen doorway. They were all watching Adam. He stood by the door, looking pale and haggard.

  Mariah, Katya and the girls stopped on the stairs. They couldn’t go any farther. Women blocked their path.