Lamb to the Slaughter (Serenity's Plain Secrets Book 1) (29 page)

“I wanted to talk to her in person. Why don’t you go ahead and call her and see where she is,” I suggested.

Todd picked his phone off the desk and made the call while I stood impatiently by the window, searching out into the night for nothing in particular. After an amount of time that was unreasonable for Serenity to not have answered her phone, I glanced at Todd, who responded with a confused shrug.

“That’s odd,” he said, running his hand over his buzzed hair.

I took a step and rested my hands on his desk, suddenly more anxious than ever to locate Serenity. It was probably ridiculous to be worrying about the feisty blond who I knew
was packing, but still, the fact that she seemed to be missing at the moment bugged the hell out of me.

“Isn’t there anyone else you can call to check on her—her sister maybe?”

“Yeah, that’s an idea,” Todd said before he spent a minute flipping through the directory and finally punching the number into his phone.

I stared at the Todd while he talked. By the one sided part of the conversation I was getting, I already knew that Serenity wasn’t with her family. Damn.

“No, Laura hasn’t heard from Serenity since this morning when she texted her about the paternity test,” Todd said. He rose from his seat and pulled his jacket off the chair.

“What are we going to do?” I wanted to make sure I got the
we
part in. Because there was no way I was going home without knowing Serenity’s whereabouts.

“Let me call Heather and see what she says. Maybe she can enlighten us about what she was talking to Serenity about earlier.”

A minute later as he shoved the phone into his pocket, he said, “She isn’t answering—probably has the phone charging. Our place is only a few blocks away. We can drive on over there and ask her in person.”

I followed Todd out to his patrol car, leaving my jeep behind. The blood pumped hard through my veins and my movements were overly quick. I felt the pressure to hurry. Hopefully, I was dead wrong, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that Serenity had gotten herself into a bigger mess than she could handle.

33

SERENITY

November 18th

T
he going wasn’t too bad since the path had obviously been stepped on recently, but still, the darkness under the trees was unsettling. Will must have thought so also, the way he stayed so close on my heels that anytime I slowed to stumble over an exposed root, he’d bump right into me.

The path meandered through woods, along hedgerows and out into small open meadows where the grass was so high, we had to push it aside with our hands. Somehow, we managed to stay with the unfamiliar trail, and after what was probably twenty minutes, I decided to pull out my cell and call Todd. I hadn’t spoken to him all day and even though it was officially my day off, I got the urge to check in and see how the town had been fairing without me.

“Dammit,” I cussed, slipping the phone back into my pocket.

“What’s up?” Will asked, moving quickly to position himself alongside of me.

“Can you believe that I don’t have reception here? I could have sworn that my phone worked in the entire Amish community,” I said in a grumbly sort of way, thinking how it was always when you needed the damn phone the most, you couldn’t use it.

Will laughed, “Are you going to have a melt down because you’re out of contact with the rest of the world, Aunt Rennie?”

“Naw, I’m just going to complain to you about it until I feel better.”

A few more silent steps and we cut through a gap in a fence row, and the sight of a huge old barn silhouetted against the night sky came into view. The building looked ancient, but its boards were still snugly nailed on as far as I could see from the distance. It was hard to tell with the way the vegetation was growing up the sides of the walls though.

The wind gusted and I zipped my jacket all the way up, for the first time feeling the bite of the autumn night. When the wind calmed, the breeze brought the sound of the trees scratching against the side of the barn. The noise drifted through the air like an eerie song.

“It looks as if the trail heads right into that barn.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said distractedly. Finally, after a minute more of studying the barn, I came to the conclusion that it was the same one that I’d passed earlier, and the one that the bishop turned into.

A high pitched whinny pierced the air and Will jumped beside me. We weren’t alone. I grabbed Will’s arm and pulled him into the bushes beside the path, not stopping until we were completely hidden.

“What’s going on?” Will breathed in to my ear with a brave voice. Good boy. I needed my nephew to keep his wits about him.

“I think that the Amish might actually be in that barn,” I whispered, trying to peer out of the branches the best I could to survey the barnyard area.

“But there’s no light. Why would they do such a thing?”

I looked up into Will’s shadowed face and couldn’t see much, but I imagined the confused look that he probably held.

“They’re Amish. Who the hell knows what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. But obviously they are being secretive about it.”

“Can you see any buggies?”

“Nope, they must be parked on the other side of the barn.” After thinking another few seconds, I turned to Will and touched his arm. “Look, Will, I want you to follow the path back to your truck and get to a place where you have cell service. Call Todd and have him meet you.”

“What are you going to do?” Will’s voice shook and I smiled into the darkness.

“I’m going to sneak around the barn and see what I can find out.” I knew he was getting ready to cut me off, so I shushed him and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse. They’ll never even know I’m there. Once I’ve figured out what’s going on, I’ll head back to my car and meet up with you there.”

Will stalled, and I grew impatient with him that he wouldn’t just do what I told him. When had he become so difficult?

“Why don’t we just go together, and then you and Todd can come back as a team. That sounds like a better idea to me.” His voice was coaxing, but I wasn’t buying.

“Because, who knows how long they’ll be in there, Will? And they might say something that will help me with Naomi’s investigation. You don’t want to miss an opportunity of learning the truth, do you?”

Will hesitated. “No…but I don’t want anything to happen to you either. You’re the only aunt I got.”

“Really, you’re being ridiculous. I’m the sheriff, remember? I can handle this. Besides, what do you think is going to happen? These are Amish people we’re talking about.”

Will shook his head and said, “It’s just really freaking me out. That barn looks like a place where people are murdered and cut up into tiny pieces. Aren’t you at all afraid to go over there, knowing there’s probably a bunch of crazy men in the building?”

“You watch too many horror movies. No, I’m not afraid at all. Actually, I’m excited at the prospect of learning something. I’ve come to the realization that the only way I might actually get any answers from the Amish is to spy on them. Now, get going, so I can get to work.”

Reluctantly, Will walked back the way we had come, looking over his shoulder several times before he skipped into a jog. He was probably hoping to get to his truck quickly, but I knew that even at a jog, he was probably at least twenty minutes from using his phone.

Once he was out of sight, I pushed the branches aside and slipped back out into the open. Luckily, I was wearing my black jacket and dark jeans so I blended into the night well enough. As I approached the barn, I moved silently and used trees and clumps of weeds as cover. Without a thought, my hand kept straying inside my jacket which I’d unzipped enough to touch the steel of my .38 revolver. The hell with the
cold, I wanted freedom to reach my gun more than I wanted warmth.

I had lied to Will. My heart was beating fast and adrenaline pumped madly through my veins. The whole scene was bizarre to say the least. I wasn’t convinced that it was dangerous, especially when I pictured the smiling faces of the Amish children, and the stoic looks of the mothers. But, even I had to admit, the men were another story altogether. They were definitely intimidating in their strangeness, and little visions of some crazy cult ceremony were swirling around in my head as I approached the barn.

As I closed in, I could hear the snorts and stomping of the horses. It sounded as if there were a herd of them on the other side of the building. I paused beside a rise in the ground where the weeds were tall. Hearing the human voices was not unexpected, but the sounds still sent a shiver through me as I strained to listen.

“Ah, shit,” I mumbled to myself, hearing that the words were all foreign to me. What good would it do to spy on these people when I wouldn’t understand a thing they were saying? It took only another second to make the decision that at least I might be able to see something through the narrow gaps in the aged wood. That was better than nothing at all.

Crouching low and moving swiftly, I crossed the ground to the barn in a few blinks. Once I was pressed against the coarse wood, I breathed a little easier and peeked into the gap that was only as wide as my eye. The clouds spread at that moment. The spray of light made me feel exposed, but I held my ground, searching between the boards.

There must have been a dozen men inside. I could barely make out their bodies in the pitch darkness, but I counted the
outlines and the movements to come up with a solid estimation of thirteen, total. There were no lights at all, not even a small lamp in the interior. I strained my eye, glad that the moon had made its arrival at that moment. The little streaks of light through the barn walls was enough to see that the bishop stood close to the center of the building, with his congregation of dark clad, bearded men before him. They were lined up orderly in rows of about four men each.

Bishop Esch was the one doing most of the talking. Even in German I could tell his voice easily. Strangely, there was a sprinkling of English words here and there, and when my ears caught them, they pricked up. I heard the words redemption, obedience, fellowship, English and
sheriff
. I could only surmise that these words didn’t have an easy translation into their language. Or perhaps, because these people spoke both languages, they mixed up the two languages sometimes.

Occasionally, another man would rattle off something, and the bishop would answer. The men were anxious and I pushed against the old barn boards tightly to see and hear better. Some of the men were becoming irate, their voices rising.

Then I saw the smaller one—a boy or maybe a young teen shoved into the moonlight shard by one of the men, and right in front of the bishop. My heart stuttered to a stop as my mouth began to open.

My fingers were almost to the revolver at my side when the cold hands went around my sides, griping my arms tightly. I was pulled back against a hard chest while I struggled against the superior strength. All too quickly my hands were pinned behind me.

“God damned, but you’re a persistent little bitch.”

I knew the voice well—and the smell of peppermints.

34

DANIEL

November 18th

“W
hoa. Wait a minute. You’re saying that the woman who brought the boy in with the leg injury was Esther Lapp?” I said, trying to remember something that was tickling at the back of my memory—a conversation that I’d only caught a slice of, not thinking it held any significance when I’d heard it.

“Yes, I won’t forget her or her name. Most of the Amish women that I’d met at the hospital in the past have been friendly and fairly talkative, but not this woman. She was in a nervous state, her eyes darting around as if she thought the boogey man was going to get her at any second,” Heather said.

Her face was animated in the light of the kitchen. A kitchen that was perfectly clean and organized—the same as the rest of the house she shared with Todd. I don’t know exactly what I’d been expecting when Todd told me we were heading to his house to talk to his girlfriend, but the immaculate arts and crafts home with its intricate woodwork was definitely not it.

“And what did she tell you had happened to her son?” I asked in a rushed voice. For no real reason, I was becoming increasingly more worried about Serenity. The desire to get back out on the road with a destination was pressing on me. From a glance at Todd, who hadn’t touched his cup of coffee, instead rubbing his chin with his fingers and staring at Heather, I gathered that he wanted to get moving too.

Heather took a breath, probably feeding off our tension, and said, “She told me that he’d fallen from a tree. And his injury was consistent with that kind of trauma.” She paused and looked between me and Todd, before saying, “Why, do you think he was abused in some way?”

That idea hadn’t even entered my mind, but as I gazed at the calendar beside the fridge, a sudden clarity came to me. I stood up, pushing the high backed chair away from me in a sudden movement that made Todd and Heather look up with wide eyes.

“She lied,” I said.

“About what?” Todd asked, standing with resolve.

I met his gaze. “We saw her at the school house benefit dinner—me and Serenity. Serenity noticed Mervin limping and asked Esther what had happened to him. Esther said that he’d fallen from a horse…a few days before.”

Todd shook his head slightly, “But, maybe he had fallen from a horse, after he fell from a tree. He’s an Amish kid, after all. They’re always having accidents. I can’t count how many calls I’ve had—”

I interrupted him. “Don’t you see—the timing is all wrong. Heather said that Esther brought Mervin in around the third week of October. The benefit dinner was just a week ago.”

I turned to Heather and leaned over the table. “How bad was his injury? Do you think he would have still been limping from it a month later?”

“Not only would he still have been limping, the doctor told his mother that he shouldn’t be riding horses or playing any sports for a couple of months or he’d have a real risk of needing surgical intervention on the knee.”