The Search

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  Tentatively, Frannie said, “And how do you feel when your mamm tries to protect you and not tell you when she’s feeling poorly?”

  Beth ran her finger over a row of stitches. “I do not like it much.” She glanced up and gave a watery smile. “When did you become so wise, Frannie Eicher?”

  She grinned and held up a cookie. “It must be the chocolate.” She brushed away crumbs and said, “Sometimes it’s impossible to pretend you’re not upset. Sometimes, it’s more important to share your feelings with friends.”

  She bit into the cookie. When the yummy combination of peanut butter and chocolate settled on her tongue, she smiled in bliss. “These are the best cookies ever.”

  “I agree,” Lydia said. “They are truly wunderbaar.”

  Beth’s expression lit up. “I’ll tell Mamm that!”

  Frannie laughed. It helped ease the hollowness in her chest. She glanced out the window and wondered where Luke was. What he was doing. Then she shook her head. She had no right to be thinking such things.

  After a few moments, Beth said, “Frannie, do you think we’ll ever truly know what happened with Perry?”

  “We might find out, but I doubt we’ll ever understand why he got mixed up with so many dangerous people.” He’d become such a lost soul—looking to find his way. Only he’d looked in all the wrong places.

  “I’m wondering if those men who hurt Chris had anything to do with Perry’s death.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.” Thinking about those sunglasses, Frannie figured Chris’s investigation had a lot to do with Perry. “Drug dealers in Marion.” Frannie shivered. “I never thought I’d see the day. That is one bit of news I would have been happy to never know.”

  “I agree.” Shifting, Beth wiped her hands, then picked up her needle and thread and focused her attention once again on the sheet she was mending.

  Obviously hoping to lighten things up, Lydia said, “Maybe you should think about finding another man?”

  Beth stuck her tongue out at Lydia.

  Feeling mischievous, Frannie said, “Micah is available now.”

  Beth raised two hands in mock horror and smiled wide. “No, but danke. I’m afraid he’d drive me crazy in a week.”

  Frannie laughed. “Maybe not that long. You have less in common with him than I do.”

  Beth grinned, then little by little her smile faded. “Oh, Frannie, I am just so sad . . . sad, and with a stomachache, too. Ach.” Carefully, she clipped her thread, then neatly folded the sheet she’d been mending and put the needle and spool of white thread away. “I think I’m going to head on home now.”

  “But it’s only two o’clock,” Lydia protested.

  “I’m watching a couple’s children tonight.”

  Frannie shared a knowing look with Lydia. “You’re now babysitting in the evening, too, Beth? You need some time for yourself.”

  “No I don’t,” she said quickly. “That is what I absolutely don’t need. If I think too much, I’ll hurt too much.”

  As Lydia frowned, Frannie nodded. She knew the feeling well.

  Lydia stayed a little bit longer, then soon left, too. She had a date with Walker.

  When she was alone again, Frannie sat in silence sewing for at least an hour, with Beth’s last comment ringing in her ears. She privately felt the same way as Beth, though wasn’t brave enough to admit it. At the moment, she was sad that only she and Jack were in the house. She ached for an inn full of people so she wouldn’t have time to be alone with her thoughts.

  She yawned, and let her eyes drift shut. Her insomnia had returned, and she hadn’t been sleeping well at all lately. She supposed it was time to accept that she was now going to sleep whenever her body demanded it—even if it was in the middle of the afternoon.

  She’d just drifted off into that first layer of rest when there was a pounding at the door. She sat upright with a start, but now knew enough to wait patiently for Jack to open the door first.

  He came down the steps and advanced toward the front door.

  She was shaking out the skirt of her dress when she noticed that Jack hadn’t checked the safety of his gun. Instead, he was unlocking the door and opening it with a broad smile. Just like he was a doorman!

  “How are you doing, Luke?” he asked.

  Luke? Was she dreaming?

  She peered around the corner. It wasn’t a dream at all. Luke Reynolds stood just inside the doorway, murmuring something to Jack when he looked in her direction and paused.

  It was as if all time stopped as they stared at each other, neither blinking.

  Her heart forgot its pain and was now beating a rapid rhythm that sent her pulse pounding. She didn’t know whether to laugh with joy at seeing him—or cry with the knowledge that she would have to say goodbye. Again.

  He cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Hey, Frannie.”

  “Luke.” She didn’t even try to be formal enough to say Detective. Her throat had gone dry as she looked at him with foreboding. “Has . . . has something happened with the case?”

  He smiled slowly. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Frannie darted a look in Jack’s direction. But instead of taking out a pad of paper or peppering Luke with questions, he was grabbing his coat off the hook by the door.

  “If you two don’t mind, I’m going to take off for a little while, to, ah, get some air.” He handed Luke a card. “Call me when you are ready to leave, and I’ll come back.”

  Frannie stared after Jack in confusion. “Well, that was mighty strange. He’s never done that before.”

  “I guess he thought you were in good hands?”

  She caught the flirty tone in his voice and wondered at it. “So I suppose you want to talk to me alone? Want some coffee?”

  “I do.” He followed her to the kitchen, and sat at the table and watched her pour water into the old percolator just like it was part of their daily routine. She really hoped he couldn’t see her hand shaking.

  “Luke, I thought we wouldn’t see each other again.” She really was proud of the way she was keeping her voice even.

  Looking sheepish, he said, “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Yet,” she said, “here you are.”

  “Yes. Here I am.”

  As she carefully measured out coffee, and wondered why he was here, he said, “Did I ever tell you about Renee?”

  Her hand shook, spilling coffee grounds everywhere. “Nee.” She grabbed a sponge.

  “Renee was a woman I was seeing off and on before I got here. We kind of had a ‘thing’, an understanding, between us.”

  She squeezed the sponge extra hard. “I see.” So that was why he had returned! To tell her in person about his girlfriend. She now wanted to throw the sponge at his head. There were some things she didn’t need to know.

  There was a hint of humor in his voice as he said, “No . . . I don’t think you do see. With Renee and me, when we were together, we got along fine. We never argued. But when we were apart, I hardly ever thought about her.” He laughed softly. “I felt kind of bad about that until I realized she felt the same way.”

  Carefully, she wiped the coffee grounds off the counter, closed the lid, and put the percolator on the burner.

  But still couldn’t summon the courage to face him. Absently, she noticed that her heart had begun to ache again.

  “Now you,” he said softly, “on the other hand . . . I can’t help but think about you.”

  She gripped the edges of her black apron tightly and stared at the coffeepot. “You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

  “I was kind of disturbed about it, if you want to know the truth. And I tried to blame my thoughts of you on the case.” He paused. “But it wasn’t the case that had me thinking about you. It was you.”

  Did that even make
sense? She sort of thought it did. Her lungs squeezed tight. “What did you think about? That is, when you thought about me?” Mentally, she braced herself for Luke to tell her the many reasons she wasn’t right for him. All the reasons she knew she wasn’t right for him.

  “Us.”

  “You said we needed to stay apart.”

  “I was wrong. I was completely, utterly wrong.”

  She exhaled and blinked. Then, when the silence between them lengthened, Frannie found herself turning and staring at him in wonder.

  His eyes were fixed on her and shining. Showing trust and happiness and a sureness. Yet, there was also a mischief lurking in their depths. That same look the boys used to have back in fifth grade when they pulled braids and ran away.

  Bracing her hands on the table, she drew in a shaky breath. “Luke, what are you saying?”

  His gaze didn’t waver. “I’m trying to say that I’ve fallen in love with you, Frannie.”

  “You have?” Tears welled in her eyes.

  “I have.” Slowly, he rose, and then bent down onto one knee.

  “Luke?”

  “Frannie, I love you, and I hope one day you will love me, too.”

  Happiness coursed through her like millions of tiny white lights, illuminating her heart. This was why she’d never been able to love Micah.

  This was why she’d been sad for Perry’s death but not heartbroken for their parting.

  She’d never felt this powerful pull of rightness toward another person.

  His boyish look returned, tenfold. “Francis, are you ever going to answer me?”

  “I’m trying to get my mind around what you are saying.”

  “It’s not too hard to understand. I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

  She knelt down next to him, looking at him eye to eye. “But what about your job? And my inn?” And everything else, too, she wanted to scream. She wanted to believe that love was easy, but she knew it was not. She’d learned that with Micah. Your heart didn’t always do what your head needed it to.

  He sighed as he swiped a tear from her cheek. “Only you would want things organized when I’m trying to tell you I love you.”

  “Luke,” she began, then abruptly stopped talking. What was she doing? Luke was the man she wanted.

  There was nothing more to say! Suddenly something she thought was so wrong felt very right. But there were still issues—problems . . .

  He chuckled, showing he wasn’t upset. On the contrary, he looked rather amused. He took her hands in his. “So, I started thinking that maybe I don’t have to work in the city any longer.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I thought I’d talk to Mose. Maybe work with him, if he wants help.”

  After all the waiting and worrying, everything was happening so fast! “You’d do that? You’d work for Mose?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll go into private practice. I inherited some money from my parents years ago, and invested it well. As long as I don’t do anything too crazy, I don’t need much as far as paychecks.”

  The idea of not worrying about an income was foreign to her. But so was what he was suggesting. “But what about us?”

  “I want to date you.”

  “What?” She hopped up.

  “You know what I mean . . . right?” He swallowed as he struggled to his feet. “I want to court you.” Looking resolved, he said, “Seriously. I mean . . . I want to court you seriously.”

  “But I’m Amish!”

  “Are you? Mose gave me some information about being Amish. He said you don’t get baptized and join the church until you’re ready to marry.” He looked at her searchingly. “Frannie, have you joined the church already? You didn’t, did you?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been waiting for the right time.” Actually, she’d been searching for a reason to stop waiting.

  “Frannie, I can’t be Amish. But I don’t mind a wife who embraces a lot of the ways she was brought up. I’m willing to live in your bed-and-breakfast, learn to adjust my way of life to yours.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I’d do just about anything for you, Frannie. I love you.”

  He’d said it again. Love.

  She leaned closer to him. Dared to believe. “Luke, you truly love me?”

  “More than you’ll ever know.” He drew her hands to his chest.

  She felt his heart beating under her palm and wondered if it had been aching like hers had. “What if I told you that I loved you, too?”

  He smiled as he tugged her closer, then linked his hands around her waist. “Then I would probably tell you that I’m the happiest man in the world right now.”

  She couldn’t help but loop her hands around his neck. “I must warn you, I don’t sleep.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t sleep at night. I worry too much.”

  But instead of being worried by her proclamation, he chuckled. “Frannie Eicher, you need to get married quickly. Because I happen to know that if you weren’t sleeping alone, you’d sleep like a baby.”

  She felt her cheeks heat at that talk. But she wondered if he was right. “What should we do now? Go talk to my daed?”

  “Frannie, you have a lot to learn,” he chided as he leaned closer. “When a man says he loves a woman—and she says she loves him too—they kiss, Frannie.”

  Their lips were only inches apart. “And then what?”

  “And then he holds her close,” he murmured after a very lengthy kiss. “And then he holds her close and never lets her go.”

  The last coherent thing Frannie remembered thinking . . . was that Luke was full of very good ideas.

  Epilogue

  “Once, when the rains came, the whole community gathered at the Yoders’ greenhouse. When the water got high, we all carried furniture to safety. Our clothes were soaked, two men caught pneumonia. When I got up the nerve to ask Perry where he’d been, he’d just shrugged.”

  JACOB SCHROCK

  Luke was walking along the well line again, thinking about the case, about how sure he’d been that the sunglasses were the link to Perry’s killer . . . and then how they’d only led him to a whole other investigation.

  Pulling out the file he’d brought with him to the Millers’ property, he reread the medical examiner’s findings—about how there had been traces of meth in Perry’s blood, but an overdose hadn’t killed him. His death had been caused by the trauma to his head.

  “Who killed you, Perry?” he asked and listened as his voice echoed across the empty field.

  He wanted to do right by the kid, the kid who’d caused so much trouble to so many people. But who had also been a victim. “Who did this?”

  He knew Mose was getting pressure from Perry’s parents to drop the investigation. The Borntragers wanted everything to be over. They wanted to move on with their lives. They were willing to accept the idea that a drug dealer from outside the county killed Perry.

  Mose hadn’t said it, but Luke knew the sheriff was leaning toward that route, too. They weren’t finding much, and seemed only to be hurting a lot of local people by continuing to ask questions.

  Everyone seemed to be in agreement that some things were better left alone.

  But that wasn’t the way to do it. Flipping through the pages again, he started skimming interview notes, looking for common phrases, discrepancies that a careful reading didn’t always register.

  Then he saw it.

  Times that didn’t match up. A mixed-up alibi. An obvious lie. A person several people happened to notice walking toward the Millers’ farm.

  And suddenly—to Luke at least—it all made sense.

  Finally, after thirty-two days in Crittenden County, the killer had been found.

  Now all he had to do
was figure out how to prove it.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Every so often, a particular character seems to take on a life of his or her own. In The Search, that person was Beth. When I began the novel, Beth’s whole purpose was to call for help when Frannie got hurt. That was it. She was supposed to be a minor, secondary character who would appear in one scene, maybe two at the most.

  But I guess Beth had other ideas! Before I knew it, Beth had a last name, a mother fighting a disease, a job caring for children, and had set up shop in Frannie’s kitchen. Then, when Chris Ellis walked in that kitchen, a whole new storyline emerged. I really had no choice but to accept that Beth and Chris needed to be a part of the book!

  Discovering a new character or storyline is what I love about writing, and especially what I love about writing these trilogies for Avon Inspire. I so appreciate that I’m given the freedom to include new characters that I hadn’t planned for, and I am thankful that I’m given the chance to see where those characters take me.

  I hope you’ve been enjoying this series, and this journey into Kentucky’s Crittenden County. As I write this, I’m putting the finishing touches on Found and have already started thinking about a new series. I can’t wait to research a new setting and develop a whole new plot and cast of characters!

  But first, no letter would be complete without me offering my thanks to the many, many people who work so hard to make these books the best they can be. Thank you to my editors Cindy and Julia, to my publicist Joanne, to the art department for the beautiful covers, and to all the folks at Harper who do so much for me. I feel so blessed to work with you all.

  And thank you, of course, to all of you who pick up my books and give them a try. Thank you for writing me about them, and for telling your sisters and aunts and neighbors about them, too! Thanks to all of you who’ve asked your librarians and local booksellers to carry my books as well. It’s because of all of you that I get to write every day. And for that, I am so very grateful.