by Debby Giusti
Becca had mentioned having to carry a cross. She had her cross. Colby had his, as well.
If only he could help her.
If only he could help himself.
If only God would help both of them.
FIFTEEN
The house sat dark against the night sky. Becca had closed her eyes earlier and rested during the drive to Harmony, but she still felt the heavy weight of fatigue, probably brought on by the stress of returning home.
Seeing the house, the memories rushed upon her like the heat from the explosion on post. The unlatched door, the shadowed darkness of the room, her father’s butchered body lying on the floor.
She climbed from the car, inhaling the cold, damp air and shivered. Colby placed his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, appreciating his warmth. He pulled her closer as if knowing the struggle raging inside her.
At this moment, she needed Colby more than she had ever needed anyone. He sensed that need and pulled her fully into his embrace.
A flicker of moonlight broke between the clouds and bathed them both in light. Colby hesitated and then slowly lowered his lips to hers. She clung to him like a lifeline, wanting to remain forever in his arms. The pain of her past eased momentarily, replaced with a hope for the future, something she had never allowed herself to consider since she had run away from Jacob.
Finding the inner courage to move forward, she pulled back ever so slightly. Colby’s voice was husky with emotion when he spoke.
“We don’t have to do this now,” he told her. “We can come back another time.”
She shook her head. “No. I won’t run away again. Plus I want the body exhumed as soon as possible to prove it isn’t Jacob.”
“Without a chain of custody, I doubt whatever DNA sample you have will hold up in a court of law.”
“Maybe not, but at least I’ll know the truth.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Colby said, his support reassuring.
An owl hooted from the trees.
Becca squared her shoulders and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Arm in arm they climbed the steps to the porch, testing each one before placing their weight on the rotten boards. Two of the supporting braces were broken, causing the wooden planks to sag at an angle.
Colby remained at her side, encouraging her to go on. “Don’t think about the past,” he cautioned. “Stay in the present. Don’t look back.”
He switched on his Maglite and opened the door. Becca stepped inside, her gaze drawn to the spot where her father had died. A wide stain from his pooled blood still darkened the floorboards.
Colby rubbed his free hand over her arm. “Where do we go now?”
“Upstairs.” She motioned him toward the narrow stairwell.
The old house creaked with each step.
Slowly and deliberately, she climbed to the second floor. Colby’s footfalls followed behind her. The steady pull of air in and out of his lungs assured her of his presence.
I’m not alone. Colby’s with me. This is now.
The dank and musty smell of the old house drew her back in time. For an instant, she was again the defiant youth. Too strong-willed, her father had often said.
How many nights had she retreated to her bedroom dreaming of what her life could be? In those days, she had believed in love and happiness and goodness. Perhaps it had been a way to escape the reality of her existence.
Her father’s room sat on the left. She walked past without glancing through the doorway. What did she need to see?
Instead, she was drawn to the open door at the end of the hall. Hesitating for a moment at the threshold, she pulled in a deep breath and stepped into the tiny room, smaller than she had remembered. Her gaze flicked over the single bed and faded quilt. In the corner, mouse droppings were evidence of the tiny creatures that lived here now.
Using both her hands, she pushed the bed aside and shooed away the thick cobwebs as she dropped to her knees. “Shine the light on the floor.”
Colby angled the Maglite over where she knelt. She ran the tips of her fingers across the floorboards, searching for the uneven plank.
Why couldn’t she find it?
She pushed the bed farther from the wall and expanded her search until her hand snagged against a sharp sliver of wood. She pulled back.
Colby leaned closer. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Becca shook her head. “A splinter, that’s all.”
Focused on the uneven plank, she dug at the wood. It failed to budge.
“Let me try.” Colby handed her the flashlight and knelt beside her on the floor. He picked at the irregular edge and was finally able to pry the plank loose. Using two hands, he eased the board free.
Becca aimed the light into space under the flooring. Empty!
She moaned ever so quietly and turned to Colby as if he’d known what she had expected to find. “It’s not here.”
He took the flashlight from her hand and angled it farther into the hollowed-out area until something metallic reflected in the darkness.
Her treasure box.
Relief swept over her. She clawed at the small container jammed in the back of the cubbyhole. Her fingers eased it forward until she could lift it free.
Her heart pounded in her chest, just as had often happened as a girl when she removed the tin box to look at her precious keepsakes.
Tonight was no different with the steady thump of her pulse and an overwhelming need to glance over her shoulder to ensure she was alone.
Only she wasn’t alone tonight. Colby was kneeling next to her. His presence brought a sense of security and dispelled the darkness that surrounded her youth. She leaned into him, feeling his strength.
He rubbed his hand over her shoulder and waited patiently as she stared at the tin, not quite ready to expose the past.
The bond between them had grown even stronger this evening. She smiled, remembering his kiss and the concern and understanding that was so evident in his gaze.
Colby seemed to care about her in a special way just as she was beginning to realize the depth of her feelings for him. Tonight she was all too aware of his willingness to enter into the pain of her past, yet when she opened the box, he would know what she had always wanted to remain hidden.
She closed her eyes for a long moment before she removed the lid. Glancing down, she saw the bits and pieces of her childhood, so seemingly insignificant, yet each an important facet of her life.
A pretty rock that sparkled like gold. Fool’s gold, her father called it, but special to a child who had nothing and wanted something of her own. A tiny fossil that opened her mind to the vastness of creation and what had been millenniums ago. A fake pearl necklace she found along the roadway. The clasp was broken and had, no doubt, dropped unnoticed from some woman’s neck. Becca had often draped the pearls around her own, knowing her father would call it an abomination if he ever saw her wearing jewelry.
“Your necklace?” Colby asked.
“Something I found and shouldn’t have kept.”
“What about the fossil and speckled rock?”
“They reminded me of the beauty of God’s creation.” She smiled ruefully. “I was a romantic as a youth.”
He touched her cheek, and she turned to face him. “But no longer?”
Regret tugged at her heart. “I learned too quickly about the reality of life.”
He nodded slowly. “Seeing the darkness of the world at too young an age can be painful.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, grateful for his presence, before she removed the other items from the box and lay them aside. An envelope sat at the bottom, brittle as parchment and almost as yellow.
Colby angled the light. “Is this what you came to find?”
She nodded. Ye
ars ago, she had used a knife to open the envelope, leaving the sealed flap intact. Slowly, she withdrew the note written in script with broad strokes by a black pen.
Meet me tonight at the covered bridge.
Yours affectionately, Jacob Yoder
How could she have been so gullible, so naive, so unaware of how a man could break a young girl’s heart? Jacob had never showed up that night, nor the next or the one following. Instead he had turned his charms on the widow Mary.
Becca hadn’t seen him again until she was forced to care for the woman Jacob, by that time, had married. Thrown together again, he had hoped to take up where they had left off. At least, Becca had learned from her earlier mistake.
Jacob, on the other hand, didn’t understand why Becca shunned his advances. How could he think she would succumb to his desires when he’d rejected her to marry another?
She still couldn’t forgive her youthful infatuation with the handsome stranger who had whispered words that filled her mind with the possibilities of a life together. Her innocent flirting and inability to see the consequences of her actions had led to so much pain, so many deaths. She had to stop Jacob so what she had started long ago could finally end.
* * *
Colby called Lewis Stone on the way back to town. “Special Agent Becca Miller and I are heading to your office. We have Jacob Yoder’s DNA on an envelope he licked some years ago.”
“I’ll meet you there,” the sheriff said.
Going home had weighed Becca down. Colby saw it in the hesitation in her step and the slump of her shoulders. Surely the memories of the night she had found her father and sister must be affecting her in addition to knowing that Jacob could be nearby.
She had been barely eighteen. How easy for an older man to tease a young, impressionable woman reared in the closed environment of an Amish community.
Jacob hadn’t thought of Becca’s feelings. More than likely he wanted to control every situation, never weighing how his actions could impact the young woman.
Lights from town appeared in the distance. Colby drove toward the main square and passed the turnoff to Elizabeth’s house. Becca glanced out the window at the side street of modest homes.
Her heart must be breaking as she thought of the woman who had assisted her in escaping Jacob’s control. A woman who was eventually killed by the very man she had helped Becca elude.
Colby turned left at the square. The sheriff’s office sat on the corner. He pulled into the parking area and rounded the car to help Becca with the door.
“Do you want to stay in the car and let me handle this?”
She shook her head. “It’s my story to tell, Colby, but thank you for trying to protect me.”
With the evidence bag in hand, they stepped into the glare of overhead fluorescent lights. Lewis met them in the hallway. They shook hands, and he ushered them into his office and invited them to sit.
“Tell me what you’ve got,” he said, settling into the swivel chair behind his desk.
Becca placed the paper bag in front of the sheriff. “A sealed note Jacob Yoder gave me approximately ten years ago. Forensics will be able to uncover his DNA from the saliva on the flap of the envelope.”
“There’s no chain of custody,” Lewis pointed out.
“I’m aware the evidence won’t be admissible in court.”
She moved forward in the chair and glanced at Colby, as if for support. “I...” She shook her head. “We want the body that was found in the Yoder farmhouse exhumed and DNA testing done. My suspicion is that it wasn’t Jacob Yoder, but rather his brother, Ezekiel.”
“Did Jacob kill his brother?” the sheriff asked.
“At this point, I don’t know, but I’d also like his wife Mary’s body exhumed and testing to be done for any trace of a poisonous substance.”
“He killed her?”
Becca nodded. “I think he was slowly poisoning his wife, which led to her declining health.”
Colby filled the chief in on the similar case in Tennessee. “We can’t be sure, but the man fit Jacob’s description, including a scar on his left cheek, and there seems to be a pattern.”
Lewis stared at both of them for a long moment. Colby couldn’t determine which direction the sheriff was leaning toward.
Finally he grabbed a pencil and sheet of paper from his desk drawer. “Give me the name of the police department you talked to up north. I’ll contact them and include that information in my request for both bodies to be exhumed.”
Lewis copied the information Colby provided and then said, “You realize the DNA testing will take time.”
Becca nodded. “But you’ll start the process, which is what I want.”
“I can’t guarantee that I’ll get the go-ahead on this, but there seem to be enough unanswered questions to warrant an exhumation.”
“Thank you.” Both agents stood.
“Becca, watch your back,” Lewis cautioned. “If what you’ve told me is true, Jacob will stop at nothing to complete the job he started long ago.”
Colby knew the chief was right, but hearing the danger expressed aloud cast a pall on both of them as they drove back to Fort Rickman.
Had Jacob killed Becca’s father and sister to get at her? If so, just as Lewis had mentioned, Jacob would stop at nothing to finish the job he had started years earlier.
SIXTEEN
After a fitful night’s sleep, Becca woke to reveille as the bugle call sounded over a loudspeaker on the nearby parade field. She quickly dressed for the new day and arrived at work just as a company of soldiers passed in formation. The singsong rhythm of their Jody calls floated through the crisp morning air.
Entering CID headquarters, she returned Sergeant Raynard Otis’s salute. His welcoming smile provided a positive lift from the darkness of last night.
“Do you ever go home, Ray?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. But I like to beat the boss to work and you know Chief Wilson is an early bird.”
“Is he in his office now?”
“Roger that, ma’am.” Ray checked his watch. “The chief arrived fifteen minutes ago, which was ten minutes after I logged on to my computer.”
“Anyone with him?”
“Not that I know of. You want me to let him know you’re headed his way?”
“Thanks, but I need to pull some information together first.”
Ray pointed over his shoulder. “Coffee’s hot, ma’am. I brought doughnuts. Help yourself.”
“I’ll forego the sugar, but coffee is just what I need. Thanks, Ray.”
After pouring a cup, she logged in to her computer and pulled up the list of Amish communities she had compiled. There were a few more towns in Kentucky she wanted to contact before she started looking at Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those states were heavily populated with Amish and would take longer to process.
The first two calls she made provided no information. The third police department said they were tied up with change of shift and would call her back after 8:00 a.m.
Disconnecting, she smiled, hearing Colby greet Sergeant Otis. She met Colby at the coffeepot and held out her cup for a refill.
“Kind of late getting to work this morning, aren’t you, Voss?” she teased.
He laughed as he filled her mug. “A little friendly office competition, eh, Miller?”
“Just thinking about the early bird and the worm.”
“I’m definitely the worm this morning.”
She raised her brow. “Rough night?”
“Just wondering when we’ll make progress with this investigation.”
She stirred creamer into her coffee and then took a sip. “I’m calling a few more police departments in Kentucky. Then I’d like to talk to the chief.”
“Remember
what he told you, Becca?”
“How could I forget? Stay in the office and let you do the legwork.”
Colby nodded. “That’s it. I should talk to him.”
“I want to be there.”
“Just let me take the lead. We need to know if that disgruntled contractor from Macon has turned into someone of interest.”
“Shall we mention that the Yoder gravesite may be exhumed?”
Colby returned the coffee carafe to the stand. “Let’s wait until we have the go-ahead from Harmony.”
“That works for me. I’ll let you know if the phone calls pay off this morning.”
Two hours later, Colby poked his head into her cubicle. “Anything yet?”
“I’m waiting for a return call.”
Before he could reply, her phone rang.
She raised the receiver. “Criminal Investigation Division, Fort Rickman, Georgia, Special Agent Miller.”
“This is Wanda at Post Transportation.”
Becca pushed the phone closer to her ear. “Has my shipment from Germany arrived on post?”
“We tried to contact you yesterday at your BOQ.”
“Didn’t you hear about the explosion? My BOQ was destroyed. You should have called my cell.”
Colby rolled his eyes. Transportation Departments were known for their less-than-stellar customer service.
“Your landline is the only number listed on the paperwork,” Wanda said over the phone. “I tracked you down through the post locator.”
Becca remembered specifically providing both her land and mobile numbers, but she didn’t want to argue with a clerk who was just trying to do her job. “Do you have information about my shipment, Wanda?”
“It’s scheduled to be delivered this afternoon.”
“Today?”
“Yes, ma’am. At two o’clock. I’ve got your address as Eisenhower Avenue.”
“That’s my old BOQ. The one that was destroyed.”
“Sorry to hear that, ma’am. Where shall we deliver your shipment?”
“Ah...” She looked at Colby for help. “I need to check with the housing department. Someone in your office told me it would be two more weeks before my things arrived.”