Return to Grace. Karen Harper

which one to pursue and get to courting so Marlena could have a mother and so he could stop this stupid longing.

      “You coming down for noon meal?” Bishop Esh’s voice sliced through his agonizing. He stood below with his hands cupped around his mouth. “Your little girl’s waiting with Naomi. I see any more of those media folks, I’ll get rid of them for you, sure I will.”

      “Coming right down. Just taking a breather.”

      How long has the bishop watched him sitting up here? And how long before Hannah—if she returned at all—would be brought here, so he could at least see her again?

      3

      ALTHOUGH FBI SPECIAL AGENT LINC ARMSTRONG’S taut mouth smiled, Hannah noted that his sharp gray eyes did not as he assessed her. He was sinewy, angular and seemed tightly coiled. His brown hair was only about an inch long, short compared to Amish and goth men. His ears were so close to his head that his face seemed even longer than it was, a serious, angular face. He was dressed in black slacks, white shirt, striped tie and a dark blue jacket with FBI scripted in gold thread over the pocket. Though Hannah, who had just turned twenty-five, was not good at guessing people’s ages, she figured him to be in his mid- to late thirties.

      “I appreciate your time while you’re recovering,” he told her, then introduced himself. He even held out his badge to her, in a sort of wallet he opened. The badge flaunted an eagle holding arrows in his talons over a line which read Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. Under that was Armstrong’s photo; his face had a serious, even pained look. When he still held the wallet open—perhaps he didn’t realize how fast an Amish woman could read—she reread the other words near his photo: “Lincoln Armstrong is a regularly appointed Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and as such is charged with the duty of investigating violations of the laws of the United States in cases in which the United States is a party of interest.”

      A party of interest? That sounded so cold, and the badge looked so … so commanding. No wonder the Amish never wanted to be involved with government agents, even though they were not arresting and executing the Plain People for their beliefs like in the old days in Europe.

      Lincoln Armstrong’s words were clipped; he talked fast. He said he was Assistant Special Agent in Charge assigned to investigate violent crimes in Northeast Ohio. He was from “the Cleveland office,” but would be staying at the Red Roof Inn on the interstate eight miles from Homestead until his investigation was finished.

      “I want to help in any way I can,” she told him. “Those were—are—my friends, though I shouldn’t have brought them here—there—that night.”

      The man made her very nervous. Even seeing a State Highway Patrol or police car when she was driving bugged her and she slowed way down, but then she’d never really liked driving the car she and Tiffany had shared. But she told herself again that this man was here to help, and she was going to help him.

      Still with bolt-upright posture, Agent Armstrong sat on the bedside chair and asked question after question, while she answered as best she could. She could tell that sometimes he was asking the same question but in a different way. No, she didn’t think they were followed that night. No, she’d told no one else where they were going.

      “To the best of your knowledge,” he said, looking up narrow-eyed from where he’d been taking notes, “did you or your friends have any enemies who might want to scare or harm you? For instance, I understand you broke up with your boyfriend, Jason Corbett, recently. Though he has an alibi, you never know that he didn’t send or hire someone.”

      She just stared at him. Mamm was right, this man had been checking into her past. And he’d had three days to interview everyone else.

      “He wouldn’t do that,” she insisted. “We really weren’t that serious to start with, a friend of a friend kind of thing, and breaking up was a mutual decision.”

      “Okay, that fits what he told me. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that Seth Lantz, your other former boyfriend, came along just after the shooting in time to find and help you? And I understand your breakup with him was not a mutual decision.”

      Hannah pushed the button that raised the top of her bed higher. She was fairly tall for an Amish woman and wanted to stand up to this man’s height and rigid posture, but in bed like this she felt at such a disadvantage.

      “Thank heavens, Seth came along!” she said, a bit too loudly. She lowered her voice. “Although I managed to call 9-1-1, he saved Tiffany and me, even if it was too late for Kevin. And he tried to spot the shooter, though he must have gone by then.”

      “He or she or they. It’s best not to assume or construe. But we can surmise the shooter went back into the woods above the graveyard, then down to wherever a vehicle or buggy was hidden. Unless the shooter lived close enough to walk home.”

      Buggy? Walk home? She’d never considered it could be someone Amish, but she and her friends had been disturbing the peace, desecrating hallowed ground. She had no doubt that Seth must have been upset by that.

      “We were in the dark, so he, she or they must have been a good shot.”

      “You didn’t glimpse any movement from higher on the hill, did you? I realize the music kept all of you from hearing anything until the shots.”

      “You know,” she said as the memory came back to her, “I did glance up the hill, just to calm myself because I was upset that Tiffany and then Kevin were dancing on the graves. But no, I saw nothing, no one.”

      “And then Seth rode up—though not on a white horse—from the other direction.”

      He had interviewed Seth, hadn’t he? “No. You must know he was in a buggy. And Blaze, his horse, is chestnut-colored with a white mark only on her face and chest.”

      Something she’d said amused him, but she wasn’t sure what. Had he been trying to trap her in something? Agent Armstrong—no way was she going to call him Lincoln or Linc—leaned closer and lowered his voice, too.

      “Considering your and Seth’s past, I’m sure he hurt you more than you did him when you broke up, Hannah, but I have to examine all possibilities, even that an apparent rescuer was the perpetrator.”

      She sniffed and shook her head.

      “It happens,” he went on. “Seth was out with a hunting rifle, but our forensics have shown that wasn’t the weapon involved. Still, I can tell from talking to him that he is upset that you ‘jumped the fence,’ as he put it, and hung out with the goths. He’s still upset with you about that.”

      She didn’t like the direction this was going, but it scared her even more how much she wanted to defend Seth. She blurted, “Then you’d better put about everyone in the Amish church under suspicion, Agent Armstrong! They were all pretty upset when the bishop’s daughter left, though of course we—they—are all pacifists and would never shoot someone!”

      “But that was a pretty big stretch for an Amish girl, wasn’t it? Not only leaving the only life you’d ever known, but going goth?”

      “That’s just the group of friends I fell in with when I went to my ‘Cleveland office,’ to try to start a singing career.”

      His eyes seemed to light, and the corner of his mouth twitched as if he would either grimace or smile at her subtle jab. “I like backbone in a witness and a victim,” he said, standing. “Good move to call 9-1-1, and good job giving all that information when you were shot and your friends were bleeding around you. I think you’re being released to go home tomorrow, Hannah, so I’ll see you then, because I want you to walk me through exactly what happened at the crime scene. It’s been secured, photographed, sketched and searched. I’ve questioned your remaining three goth friends, but I think your visiting the site with me would be invaluable. I take it I can find you at your parents’ place.”

      It was a statement, not a question. Did he imply she was being confined there