Amish Country Murder
Page 20
He met her gaze. His eyes looked honest, anyway. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.” He was still trying to catch his breath.
She wasn’t sure what to think about this stranger. She pulled through the trees and out onto the road. The heavy snowfall on the unplowed road meant she had to go slow. “I’ll take you as far as Lodgepole where I’m staying. There’s no law enforcement there. Tiny town, only two hundred people.” Her voice dropped half an octave. “Obviously, you have something to report. There’s a sheriff in Garnet about fifty miles from Lodgepole.”
He nodded but offered no further explanation. “Again, thank you.” He let out a breath. “I’m Jude, by the way.” His voice had a soft melodic quality.
“Lacey. I’m a biologist doing research on elk.” She hoped he would return the favor and explain what he was doing up in these mountains.
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
She maneuvered the truck through the heavy snow that had already piled up on the road. An object hit the truck with a violent thud. Her heart pounded as every muscle in her body tensed. The man with the rifle had thrown something at the truck.
“He must be out of bullets,” said Jude. “I think he threw a rock at us.”
Lacey glanced out of the driver’s side window. The man was close enough for her to see his face. He ran toward them, rifle raised to be used as a blunt instrument. She saw him clearly. He was maybe ten feet away, a hulking mass of a man. The white-and-gray hair, the beard, the eyes that were filled with a murderous rage. A face she would not easily forget. The man looked right at her. A chill skittered over her skin.
She pressed the gas even harder, accelerating to a dangerous speed. She swerved.
Another blow struck the back end of the truck. In the rearview mirror, she saw the man raising his rifle to hit the truck again with the rifle stock.
Lacey gripped the steering wheel and chose the path of least resistance where the snow wasn’t as deep. All the same, her truck drifted toward the edge of the road. She straightened her steering wheel, finally gaining control.
“Good job,” said Jude. “That takes some skill.” He still had a white-knuckle grip on the dashboard as he glanced nervously out the back window.
She had no idea what to think about this man sitting in her truck. He had a lot of explaining to do. She had never been a good judge of character. As her grandmother used to say, her people picker was broken. She did better with wilderness and animals.
“You handled the whole thing really well,” said Jude.
“Thanks. So was that guy some sort of crazed landowner or something?” She really wanted to give Jude the benefit of the doubt, but she needed to know whom she had just rescued.
He took a moment to answer. He ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’m a private investigator. That’s all you need to know.” He turned away and stared out the window.
Okay, so he wasn’t going to tell her much. At least he was on the right side of the law.
When she checked the rearview mirror, she could no longer see the man with the rifle. But his face was burned into her memory. Though she could not say why. She had the feeling she had looked into the face of a murderer.
Copyright © 2020 by Sharon Dunn
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ISBN: 9781488060991
Amish Country Murder
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Eason
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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