Forsaken (8 page)

Each step brought her closer and closer to him, her high heels clicking against the concrete like the tapping of a long, glossy fingernail. She seemed unhurried, like a tiger, sleek and lethal, toying with its dinner. Her curves mesmerized him. She had no weapon, and yet a cold knot twisted and tightened in Roc's belly. Her eyes, heavy-lidded in that just-had-the-best-sex-ever slant, glittered with intensity. Slowly, she reached toward him, dragging a nail down his chest to his belly and leaving goosebumps in her wake. “I even know what brought you here to Pennsylvania…to Promise. In time, Roc, you will know many things about me too.”

“Most you'll wish you didn't know.” Akiva's words were hard and cold.

Her smile spread wide but she kept her gaze on Roc. “Ah, you are jealous, Akiva.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

A low-rumbling laugh escaped her lips. “You know I would. It's intoxicating, isn't it?” she asked Roc, leaning toward him. “To know each action you make stirs something in another.” Her lips parted and released a sultry breath. “Not tonight,
ma cherie
, but soon, I promise you, Roc. Hmm.” Her tongue flicked out to lick her lips. “Soon.”

Then she stepped back from Roc, and in less than a blink, she disappeared. Just simply vanished. One second she was standing in front of him and the next she was gone.

Roc shook his head as if to unclutter his thoughts and fell back a step, then another. “What the—?” His heart pummeled his ribcage. He stared at Akiva. “What just happened here?”

“If you are smart, you will go home…before you cannot.”

Roc wasn't sure what happened first: him pulling his Glock or Akiva crouching low in an attack stance. “Who the hell are you people?”

Akiva's mouth pulled to one side and a rumble of laughter rolled out of him and filled up the alleyway, vibrating inside Roc's head, shaking him to his core. “You do not want to know.”

Then he too disappeared. But the laughter remained. Roc swung around, pointing the Glock right, left, at the windows staring blankly down upon him, at the entrance to the alley. But Akiva was gone.

Sunlight slanted onto the plain cloth, and Hannah traced the curve of a cross-stitched letter
a
in the word March, the threads smooth against the pad of her finger. “Is this your
best
work, Katie?”

Her younger sister nodded, her narrow throat working as she swallowed. Her sparkling blue eyes glanced from the stitching to Hannah, anxiety etched in their corners. How easily Hannah remembered what it was like to have Mamm critique her own work when she was but ten.

“Your work is greatly improved. The stitches are even and neat.”

A smile, like the dawn, emerged across the younger girl's face, brightening her cheeks to a healthy shade of pink. “
Danke
.”

The rumble of a car engine and the crunching of tires on the drive erased the smile, and Katie rushed toward the window, leaning over Dat's chair to see out. “
Englishers.
” Her tone rose with excitement. “What do you think they want?”

“If it's the milk truck, then it is late.”

“No, it's a car.”

Hannah carefully folded the cross-stitched material. “Dat will see to the
Englishers
. Come—”

“But what do you think they want?”

“To take pictures or some such. You know how they can be.”
Englishers
often wanted to use a camera to capture their image. Some called them names. Others honked and whipped past them on the roadways, making the horses shy and the buggy pull sideways. “Or maybe,” Hannah suggested, “they're lost. Come, Katie, let's set the table.”

But she remained rooted at the window. “What kind of a car is that?”

Hannah peered over Katie's shoulder. Toby trotted from the barn toward the car to greet the visitors; the yellow lab rarely barked, treating strangers with polite curiosity. The windows of the car were as dark as the metal sides. “A black one.”

“Have you ever driven one?”

“You know, the
Ordnung
forbids such.”

“Timothy Borntreger used to own a car.”

“That was before he was baptized.”

“I wanna drive one, make it go faster than the buggy.”

“Why not just ride in a car then? That's allowed by the bishop.”

Katie sighed longingly, then placed her fisted hands in front of her like she was steering the wheel. “But wouldn't it be fun to make it go? Just once.”

Hannah grasped her younger sister's arm and tugged at her to come away from the window. “It would give me a fright for sure.” She picked up Katie's doll and waggled the floppy arms and legs. It had no face, just a blank plumpness. “It would scare your baby doll too.”

Katie laughed and clasped her doll to her chest. “I think it would be fun.”

“And what would Bishop Stoltzfus say?”

“Maybe if there is a reason.”

“What reason would you have for owning one when you could hire a driver?”

“I don't know.” Katie's forehead creased. “Just once wouldn't hurt.” Then she brightened, her blue eyes lighting from within. “Do you think the
Englisher
will stay for supper? Where do you think they're going? Where did they come from?”

Hannah held out a hand for Katie to join her. With a heavy sigh, the little girl relinquished her perch and moved toward Hannah. She braided their fingers together. “You have too many questions, Katie.” The little girl reminded her in a small way of Jacob, and her heart swelled with love and patience. “Come now.”

It was just another Amish farm. After a while, they all looked the same with white-washed sides and green-shaded windows, like eyelids closed, blocking anyone from getting a glimpse of what was going on inside. The shades on this house, however, were raised and the windows open. Laundry hung on a line, legs and sleeves, socks and sheets, waving a greeting in the late autumn breeze.

Roc let the Mustang idle a few minutes, enjoying the last few seconds of heat before he killed the engine.
Might as well get this over with
.

Everything seemed in its place—neat, tidy, yet weathered a bit around the edges.
What would life be like in such a place as this? Boring, for sure
. Not as lively as the house he'd grown up in, where the sun popped the paint right off the wood and mosquitoes grew as big as bats. Nothing about his childhood home had been neat or clean, certainly not orderly or peaceful. His old man had kept clunkers on the driveway along with worn-out batteries, crunched bumpers, and bald tires. His mother had bought statues of saints, her Cajun and Catholic roots running deep, and planted them in the yard as if each one would banish his daddy's sins. Remembering she'd named Roc after a saint never failed to make him laugh.

A crunch on the gravel alerted him, and Roc spun around, his hand automatically reaching beneath his jacket for his gun. Old habits died hard. Still, Roc left the gun where it was and watched a slim woman walk toward him. Her cheeks and nose were pink in the cold weather, making her blue eyes even bluer. Wide-eyed innocence took on a whole new meaning for him when he looked at her. Like all the other women he'd seen in plain Amish attire, she wore a solid blue dress and white apron with a white bonnet covering her brown hair, which was pulled back in some traditional style he'd seen all over Promise—but it was her eyes that captured his attention.

“Good day to you.” Her voice sounded warm.

Roc stuck out a hand automatically. “Roc Girouard.”

She stared at it then slowly reached forward and clasped his hand. Her grip was strong and sure, her hands reddened from hard work, and her brief touch startled him in its perfunctory frankness. “Rachel Schmidt.”

In spite of the cold, her hand was as warm as toast, the skin soft as butter. Noting her unexpected last name, he released her hand quickly, crossed his arms over his chest, and cocked his head sideways. “This another Schmidt farm? I thought I was just there.” He thumbed over his shoulder eastward. “I met one of your neighbors, maybe a relative of yours then. Daniel…”

A thin veil of pink rose up along her neck and covered her face. “
Ja
, you're right. That is the Schmidt place just yonder. I am Rachel
Nussbaum
. I am not used to my name just yet.”

“You're newly married then?”

Her cheeks brightened even more. “My husband, Josef…this is his family's farm. Did my father, Daniel Schmidt, send you here?”

“Not exactly.”

She only blinked, waiting for him to explain. These Amish seemed comfortable with silence and his old trick backfired on him as he shifted in the cold and searched for something to say.

The wind bit at his neck, and he cursed, belatedly chomping down hard on the word. “Sorry.” Her blue eyes frosted around the edges, and he stamped his feet. “Is it always this cold here?”

“You're not from around here.”

“That's right.”

The woman sniffed at the air as if dissecting it. “Wait till winter arrives.”

“This isn't winter?” Roc glanced at the fields that should be blanketed in snow according to his southern thermometer.

“Oh no. 'Tis fall.”

“Great.” His tone held anything but enthusiasm. His gaze scanned the laundry on the line, the barn area, and the silo, which he'd learned held grain and corn for winter. “Nice place you have here, though. Real nice. If it weren't so…”

“Cold.” Rachel Nussbaum offered a soft, unapologetic smile.

The frigidity of the temperatures was suddenly upped a notch or two. Roc cleared his throat and jammed his hands in his front pockets. “I'll come right to the point, Mrs. Nussbaum.” He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet. “I'm looking for someone.”

“Amish?”

“I don't think so. But I don't know really.” The woman with the black eyes and Casper the ghost's disappearing abilities hadn't been Amish. But the man…well, he wasn't sure what he was either.

“Then I would not know him. Or was it a woman you are searching for?”

“A man and a woman actually.” He wasn't handling this well. His rehearsed lines jumbled in his brain, and he tried to block out Rachel Nussbaum's blue gaze and focus, remembering those dark, black, fathomless eyes and the fear that accompanied them.

“If they aren't Amish, then I doubt I can be of any help.”

Apparently around here, the distinction between
English
and Amish, or normal and plain, mattered. “Maybe they used to be. I'm not sure what the connection is. Yet.”

“What is their name?”

“Akiva. That's the man's name. But the woman…I don't know.”

“That does not sound Amish. Is that a common
Englisher
name?”

“Not so much. Not where I come from anyway.”

“And where is that?”

“Louisiana…New Orleans to be exact.”

Only the slightest change in her features alerted Roc. Her skin turned a shade paler. Her eyes widened. Her mouth tightened.

“Have you been there?”

She blinked several times then wiped her hands on her apron, crossing her arms over her middle. “Wh-what does this
Englisher
look like?”

Roc's smile disappeared at her insistence that the one he was hunting wasn't Amish. “I don't have a photo. He has dark hair, pale skin, and”—Anthony's insistence about vampires came back to him and he almost laughed—“dark…very dark eyes.”

Rachel glanced at the ground, rocked back slightly on her heels as if thinking about the description. “How do you know they are in Promise?”

“I saw them yesterday not far from here.”

She tilted her head sideways and one of the long ties of her bonnet lifted in the breeze.

“Look, I know none of this makes any sense, but it is important. If you know anything”—he pulled out a paper from his pocket and scribbled his cell phone number on it with a pen—“don't hesitate to call me. Okay?”

“We don't have a telephone.”

“You have access, right?” He'd heard this excuse, but he'd also learned the Amish often had a neighbor or business phone in the barn for emergencies. Or sometimes a teen in the family had a cell phone. “With a neighbor maybe?” When she gave a quick nod, he continued, “If you see a stranger, be wary. You have a nice family, I'm sure. You want to keep them safe. Yes?
Ja!
” He'd heard that often enough this week that he wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or adopting the Pennsylvania-Dutch dialect. “These folks I'm searching for are dangerous.”

At least until proven otherwise.

“Are you a policeman?”

Was. Past tense. Not anymore
. But he couldn't say that, so he tempered it with, “You might say I'm sorta like a private detective.”

“And this couple has broken the
English
laws?”

“If they did what I think, then it's one of God's laws too. Murder, that is.”

Rachel's gaze widened and her face paled decidedly this time. Suddenly he had an odd desire to protect this woman. Or maybe he simply wanted to protect her community. The folks he'd met were kind and thoughtful, and although they might be plain in speech and manner, they seemed rich in other ways—ways he'd never imagined possible with their close-knit community and bulging families that actually seemed to like each member. He didn't want them hurt in anyway. But before he could figure out his thoughts, he watched this small woman shift, straighten her spine, and steeliness deepened the blue of her eyes. “We are not afraid of strangers. Or of God's will here.
Em Gott Sei Friede
.”

That phrase got around. Each farmer in this district of Promise liked to bandy it about like children playing with a balloon. But this was no harmless toy. Their balloon, the security of their district, could easily be burst. Roc snagged Rachel's arm. “You'll need God's peace for what is coming. Believe you me.”