by Dana R. Lynn
Amused, he chuckled. She was absolutely adorable. He took back his phone and synced it with his watch.
“I have never met anyone who left the Amish community before,” he signed. Then he wondered if that statement bordered on rude. Although, bluntness was all part and parcel of deaf culture, so maybe she’d take it in stride.
She shrugged, her face rueful. “Not many do. It was a tough decision, but in the end it was for the best.” She shifted her eyes past him, thinking. “I was the only deaf person in my family. My parents are great, but they never really learned to sign fluently. ASL is a hard language to learn, and there weren’t that many opportunities for them to learn it in the community. They speak Pennsylvania Dutch and English at home. I was caught between three languages. Out of my family, only my brother Levi and my sister Lizzy can really sign to me. In my classes every day, I’d have a few people I could speak with easily, but then I’d come home and have to struggle to understand and be understood. It grew worse after I left school. There were no interpreters. I think my parents accepted my leaving because they knew that I didn’t even understand what was happening at church. In the English world, though, I could be part of the deaf community. I had friends, and I was able to be a full participant.”
He nodded. “My grandparents and uncle are deaf. They are very involved with the deaf community.”
“So that’s why you sign so well! I had wondered.”
“Yeah. I grew up with it.” He tilted his head. “Do you regret leaving?”
“No. I love my family, and I am grateful to still have a relationship with them. In fact, my oldest brother, Levi, is getting married in a week. On Thursday. I will be there. But someday, I want to get married, and I want my husband to be able to communicate with me. And if I have deaf children, I want them to have full access to the deaf community.” She moved away a couple of feet. Restless. “Want to know what was really sad? Until a few years ago, I never even knew that Amish children say ‘mam and dat,’ instead of ‘mom and dad.’” She finger-spelled the Amish versions of the words. “I’ve never been good at lipreading, and wasn’t able to really see the difference when I watched my siblings say the words. In my head, I always see the sign for ‘mother and father,’ but when I wrote, I wrote ‘mom and dad.’ Like the other kids at school. Levi read something I had written a few years back and pointed it out to me. He also took the time to teach me the written words and meanings of some of the other Amish words that were used daily, but that I never knew. I have taken pains to try to think of them as mam and dat, knowing that’s how they would prefer to be called, but it wasn’t automatic for me.”
The urge to touch her hand, to offer comfort, sneaked up on him. He resisted. But it was difficult. The aloneness emanating from her posture as she signed just about killed him.
She’s not alone now, he reminded himself. She has friends in the deaf community. She has her faith. And her family does love her.
And she has me.
No. She doesn’t. I’m temporary. And I have stayed too long.
Lifting his wrist, he eyed the time on his digital watch. And whistled. It was later than he had thought.
“I need to go. Text me if you need anything,” he signed with one hand, pocketing the phone. “And lock the door behind you.”
She rolled her eyes, but complied without comment.
The second she had closed and locked the door, he was on his way to the station. It would take him twenty minutes to get there. If he worked fast, he should be able to have all his reports filed and all his duties completed by the time his shift ended at midnight. Unless, of course, another call came in. Wednesday nights were usually pretty quiet in LaMar Pond. He should be good.
An hour and a half later, he finished his reports.
With his work completed, his mind turned back to Rebecca. Had her roommate arrived home yet? Maybe he should send her a text to check on her. He quickly shot off a text.
Then he occupied himself while pretending he wasn’t watching for a responding text. None came. No doubt her roommate had returned. She was no longer alone. Wilting back against his seat, he let out a sigh. It was after eleven thirty. Chances were good that she was asleep, or that she and her roommate were talking about the night’s events and not paying attention to the phone.
Everything was fine.
But it wouldn’t hurt to check on her in the morning, just to be sure.
* * *
Rebecca came awake with a start, heart pounding. Her hands flew to her throat—she could still feel hands closing around it. But as awareness seeped back in, she realized it was just a dream. No one was attacking her. She sat up, knocking a pillow off the couch in the process. A wave of dizziness attacked her. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply until the dizziness passed. When she could open her eyes again, she frowned. She was still in her skirt from work. She had fallen asleep after texting with her brother.
He didn’t have a phone, so she had used the videophone to call one of her parents’ neighbors who had agreed to let Rebecca’s family know what had happened and that she was fine. Which had resulted in a long conversation with her brother. It took some doing, but she finally convinced him that she was okay and didn’t need anyone to come to LaMar Pond.
A quick glance at the clock showed it was just past six in the morning.
She hadn’t intended to spend the night on the couch. Why had Holly let her sleep? Her roommate usually woke her up if she fell asleep there. The couch was for sitting, not for sleeping. Holly had very definite views about that. So why change?
Rebecca stood and groaned as her back protested. Good grief, she was twenty-five, not seventy-five. She smiled at her silliness, then turned toward the bedrooms.
And every trace of her smile was wiped from her face.
Holly’s door was wide open. As if Holly wasn’t home.
Fear in her throat, Rebecca moved on leaden feet to the bedroom and flicked on the light.
The bed was made. Not a thing was out of place. The room was perfect. It made Rebecca’s blood run cold.
Holly had never come home.
Her phone! There could be a text waiting for her. Maybe Holly had decided to visit her sister again. She had done it before.
Rebecca knew she was reaching. Holly always came home when she had class the next day. She worked so hard to keep her grades up at the small liberal arts college she attended—she wouldn’t risk that to go visit her party-all-night sister. Except, sometimes Laurie hit rock bottom and pleaded with Holly until she felt guilty and went over. So there was a small chance. A very small chance, but it was the only hope Rebecca had to hold on to.
She hit the button on her phone and her heart thudded in her chest. One notification. She pressed the text icon. It was from Miles, sent late last night. Any warmth she might have felt that he had checked on her was drowned out by the knowledge that Holly hadn’t sent her a text. Holly always sent a text if she would be late. She knew how much Rebecca worried. Holly worried just as much about any situation where Rebecca might be in harm’s way. And why shouldn’t she? She’d been there. They both had. For days, they had sat together, shackled in the dark, locked in that same small room. Waiting, as terror fogged their minds while hunger gnawed at their bellies.
But Holly and Rebecca had survived. Not all of them had.
Jasmine Winters hadn’t made it out in time. She’d been strangled, mere hours before the police had broken through the basement door. They had all wondered who would be next...
No!
Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists as she pushed that memory out of her mind. The darkness that tried to ooze into her mind didn’t belong there. Not anymore. She’d banished that years ago, when she’d testified. When she and the other girls had put away their captor.
The memory of the trial made her s
hiver more. Would she never forget the face of their tormentor? He had been on his way to prison, and still he had held such control over the women he had terrorized. And he had known it.
He had control over her still—was still the face in her nightmares. What should she do?
Miles! He would probably check to see if she had responded to his earlier text. And he was a police officer. He’d know what to do about Holly.
Unlocking her phone, she pulled up his text. Her fingers trembled as she tapped out a message of her own, explaining the situation. She curled her lip as the auto correct kicked in, messing up a word of her message. She erased the word and started again. Many people would have sent the text anyway, trusting that he would understand. But this was too important. Plus, if she was honest with herself, she knew that people expected mistakes in her English, both because she had been Amish, and because she was deaf. It never failed to gall her. She hit Send.
Then waited.
And worried.
She tried to sit back down on the couch, but couldn’t stay still. She bounced back up on her feet. She felt icky. Glancing down at herself, she grimaced. Not only was she still wearing yesterday’s clothes, but her skirt was torn and wrinkled. And what if Miles decided to stop by when he got her text? She couldn’t be seen this way. Ignoring the part of her that questioned why it mattered how she looked, she showered and dressed in clean jeans and an oversized royal blue sweater.
She checked her phone again. Still no word from Miles.
It was almost seven. She sent him another text, just in case the first hadn’t gone through, then dragged out the Crock-Pot and started making chili. After she had the meat, beans and spices simmering, she stepped back and smirked at herself. What had she been thinking? She’d made enough to feed her parents and five sisters and brothers, when it was just she and Holly who lived in the apartment.
Holly.
Immediately, her mind was back in the middle of the current nightmare.
She glanced at her phone. The light was blinking. Maybe it was Miles. She clicked on the message, and his face appeared. The intensity of his blue eyes caught her unawares. Her breath caught in her throat. Those piercing eyes set in his honest face had attracted her from the first time she’d seen him. If only...
But it was no use. A man like him, strong and decent, wouldn’t be interested in someone damaged like herself. Some of the members of her own community had been disgusted by what had happened to her all those years ago, even though she hadn’t been to blame.
Besides, after what she had gone through, after what she had seen, she needed security in her life. A policeman who put himself in danger every day, no matter how handsome he was or how great he signed, was not on her list of possible mates.
Forcing her mind to accept the reality of her situation, she read his text.
Be there at 7:40. Jackson coming, too.
It was seven fifteen now. The sun was just starting to come up. She had almost half an hour. She’d go crazy just sitting here. To give herself something to do, she set about cleaning her already spotless apartment.
The light in the hall flashed. Someone was at the door. It had to be Miles and Jackson. The cautiousness she’d learned as a teenager wouldn’t let her open the door without checking the peephole. Two men dressed in dark blue uniforms stood in the hall. She recognized the LaMar Pond uniforms. Miles and Sergeant Jackson. With a sigh of relief, she swung open the door.
The relief drained out of her when she saw how they looked. The tension emanating from the two men crackled like a live wire. She instinctively stepped back from them. Keeping her distance, she searched for clues in Miles’s expression as he entered the apartment. The morning sunlight streaming in from the windows emphasized his serious expression. The downward curve of his mouth. The set of his strong jaw. Both spoke of a man on a mission. And an unpleasant one at that. Something bad had happened.
Fear lay in a leaden ball in her stomach. Please, Lord, let everything be all right. Even as she prayed, though, she knew everything was not all right. Something had happened to Holly. What? Sweat slicked her palms. She was about to find out.
THREE
Her throat was dry. “We can talk in the kitchen.”
Miles nodded, then turned to say something to Jackson. She was fairly certain he was relaying her message to the other officer. In the kitchen, she grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then held it up with a questioning look. Did they want one? Both officers shook their heads. Fine. She uncapped it and took a long swallow. It made her throat feel better, but nothing else felt any relief.
Her stomach hurt. Not sick hurt. Scared hurt. The way it always had as a child. The way it had when she’d been held against her will ten years ago.
She scraped back a chair at the table and sat down across from Miles.
“Can you understand okay if I switch to pidgin? That will make it easier to keep Jackson in the loop.”
She nodded. Pidgin sign language used mostly ASL signs, but put them in English word order. This way, the signer was able to speak and sign at the same time. Not optimal, but she could follow along.
“Rebecca, I got your text this morning. I drove by the parking lot of the restaurant Holly works at. Her car was in the lot. But she was nowhere to be found. The manager said that she had left after she’d finished her prep work for the morning shift. That was around ten thirty. She never came back in. When he saw her car this morning, he thought she must have had car trouble and had someone pick her up.”
What? That was absurd. If she’d left her car, she would have let them know so it wouldn’t get towed. How could they not have realized something was wrong?
But she knew she couldn’t really blame the manager. Holly’s behavior at times was a bit erratic. She had already lost two jobs in the past for being unreliable. Mostly because she’d drop everything if her sister needed her.
“Her car was in disarray. Like someone had been shuffling through her things. Would she have left a mess if she was trying to find something?”
Judging from the skepticism scrawled across his face and seeping into his signs, Miles didn’t think so. And Rebecca agreed. Her heart sank.
“Holly would never leave her things cluttered or messy,” Rebecca informed him. His mouth was moving as he told Jackson what she said. She continued, “Disorder of any kind bothered her. I sometimes tease her that if there was a fire she’d make her bed before leaving the building.”
The joke had made people laugh before. Not anymore.
“I want you to look at this picture,” Miles signed. “Is this the vehicle she would have driven to work yesterday?” He tapped the screen on his phone, then flipped it around so she could see the picture he brought up. It was a white Jeep. He swiped his finger across the screen. A second picture of the back of the vehicle. The familiar vanity license plate came into view.
She swallowed. Nodded. Any hope she’d entertained that there might have been some mistake disintegrated. Something caught her eye.
“Wait, what’s that?” She pointed to a large blot of color on the side of the car. It was a dark smear. It hadn’t been there the day before. It looked like paint. Or...
A wave of nausea hit her, causing her to sway. “Is that blood?”
Miles hesitated. But the answer was on his face even before he nodded.
Holly wasn’t just missing—she was hurt. Why, Lord? Hadn’t she suffered enough?
She pushed back from the table, stood and moved to the sink. She gripped the counter with both hands, so hard her fingers hurt. Her control was slipping. The trembling started in her insides and worked its way outward. The view out of the window above the sink blurred.
A warm hand settled on her shoulder. Miles’s fresh scent washed over her a second later. Without thought, she turned and burrowed into Mil
es’s shoulder, fighting back tears. He patted her awkwardly on the back.
What was she doing?
Stepping away, she wiped at her moist eyes. More to give herself a moment to regain control than because she was crying. As she wiped her sleeve across her eyes, she gathered up the courage to face him. The compassion she saw in his expression was almost her undoing. Almost. But she was made of stronger stuff.
“Sorry,” she signed.
He shrugged. “Not a problem. It’s a completely natural reaction. Here’s what we need to do. I need to bring you into the station to ask—”
“But I’ve done nothing wrong!”
He raised his hands, made a calm-down motion. “I know. We just have some questions for you, and they should be answered at the station so that we can bring in a certified interpreter to make sure there’s no confusion or misinterpretation.”
What? she thought. “You sign. Your ASL is beautiful.”
She watched, fascinated, as his ears turned bright red. It would have been cute in other circumstances. “Thanks. But it’s the law. You need a certified interpreter. Unless you agree to accept me as the interpreter for now.”
She sagged back against the counter. “Fine. I accept. I don’t want to go to the police station. What do you need to know?”
Miles took his seat back at the table. Reluctantly, she moved to sit down again.
The conversation started very generally. Age, birthday, job. Then it got more specific. Where did Holly grow up? Who did she live with?
“How did you meet Holly?”
“We went to the same school for years. Holly was a year ahead of me.”
Jackson said something to Miles, who interpreted, translating it into sign. “You grew up in Spartansburg, right?” She nodded. “You lived in different districts. How did you go to the same school?”
She cocked her head at the officer. “Holly is hard of hearing. We were both bused out of district so we could attend the deaf program.”