Secret Admirer. Karen Rose Smith

three of them got out and went inside.

      “Here, put these on,” Megan said and handed Rachel a pair of latex gloves. “We don’t want to contaminate any evidence the attacker may have left behind.”

      Rachel slowly nodded and took the gloves.

      “I’ll be right out here,” Noah assured her when she hesitated.

      The bedroom door closed behind them, and quiet returned to the house. Taking out his flashlight, he shined the light around the living room he remembered from his youth. The furnishings appeared the same. A couple of rockers flanked the woodstove, a sofa across from them. A small wooden desk placed under the window. He pictured Rachel sitting there, looking out at the breathtaking views of the mountains she loved so much with that awestruck gleam in her eyes that he remembered from the past. As kids, they used to play all over these mountains. Knew every square inch by heart.

      Seeing her home again flooded his heart with bittersweet memories. Rachel’s family had treated him like one of their own. His childhood home was a stone’s throw from theirs, at the edge of the West Kootenai Amish Community. At one time, before that final summer, he’d talked to Rachel about joining the Amish faith. When his father found out, he’d become furious. Being Amish was not what his dad had planned for Noah’s future. He’d go to college. Make something of himself.

      Noah swallowed deep and shoved those images aside. The past was over and done. Nothing he could do would change it now.

      He moved to the kitchen dominated by a wood-burning cook stove. To his left, the handmade table Rachel’s father, Ezra, created years earlier was covered in a plain white tablecloth, a kerosene lamp sitting in the middle. Two plain wooden benches flanked either side.

      A sound close by had him spinning on his heel. Rachel and Megan emerged from the bedroom. The somber black dress Rachel wore was a stark contrast to her white apron and prayer kapp. A reminder that she was in mourning. Noah’s good friend Isaac Yoder had told him Rachel lost her husband a little more than a year earlier. Another man had loved her. She’d loved him back. That was the hardest part, even though Noah had been the first to marry someone else.

      “Ready?” he asked. A tiny frown line appeared between her brows as she watched him. He couldn’t imagine the things his expression must be giving away.

      Once he’d dropped Megan at the search site, he and Rachel headed for the Lapps’ home.

      “Do you mind if we go through the events of tonight one more time?” he asked because he needed something to fill the poignant silence hanging between them, and he didn’t understand why someone was targeting her and Eva. The Amish were peaceful people.

      “I don’t mind,” she said and smiled at him for the first time. His chest constricted at the sight of it. He remembered the love they’d shared before it had all fallen apart.

      “I’d drifted asleep in the chair in my bedroom while reading,” she said, her voice but a whisper. Noah had no doubt she would have been poring over God’s Word, finding comfort there. He’d never understood that need until Olivia’s death. Losing his wife had changed things for him.

      Even experiencing death firsthand with Olivia, he couldn’t begin to understand how difficult the past four years had been for Rachel. Isaac told him about her father dying after he’d suffered a heart attack working in the field. If that wasn’t bad enough, her husband passed last year in a buggy accident...and now this.

      “I wanted to wait up for Eva, but I grew sleepy.” Her voice trailed off. Was she reliving the nightmare? “Noah, I couldn’t breathe. He held his hand over my mouth and nose. I thought he would kill me.”

      Noah had interviewed countless victims during his time on the force. He understood how difficult recounting the details of an attack could be. But Rachel wasn’t just any victim. He had a personal connection with her. Seeing her again made him feel like that young boy who had been crazy about her and desperate to find a way to defy his father and make her his.

      “What happened next?” he gently asked when she grew quiet.

      “He forced me out of the chair and tried to make me go with him.” She stopped for a breath. “Then he said, ‘He has plans for you.’”

      His brows slanted together after hearing this again. “Have you figured out what he might have meant by that?”

      Her beautiful gaze locked to his as realization dawned on her face. “Oh, no,” she whispered, her hand covering her mouth.

      “What is it?” He dreaded her answer.

      “I just remembered something that happened a few days ago when I was coming home from work at Christner’s Bulk Foods Store... I help Esther Christner out a couple of days a week,” she explained. “Noah, I think someone followed me from the town. When I was on my way home, a car sped past me and stopped suddenly halfway on the road. At the time, I thought the driver might have car trouble. But now, after what happened tonight...if another vehicle had not come along...” Her voice trailed off.

      Noah’s gut told him the driver of the car had planned to take her then. The second vehicle had foiled the attack. Someone was deliberately coming after Rachel, and he needed to find out who before it was too late. For Eva. For Rachel.

       TWO

      Eva, where are you? Rachel felt so helpless. All she could think about was what might be happening to her sister.

      Shutting out the dreadful thoughts was hard, but she had to keep it together for Eva.

      She shifted in her seat. “Do you remember the Lapps live up this road on the right?” As much as she hoped they’d find Eva fast asleep at Anna’s home, she did not expect it.

      “I do,” Noah said and glanced her way. “Until we catch this guy, the less you’re out in public, the better. The safest place for you now is at the station.”

      He was worried about her. She understood, but she had to do whatever she could to find her sister because the thought of losing Eva was unbearable.

      “I’m safe with you,” she said. “And Anna might tell me something she would be too nervous to say with just you alone.”

      Holding her gaze a long moment, he sighed and tapped the radio on his jacket. “Janine, I’m making a stop at the Lapp place on Spruce before heading to the station. I have Rachel Albrecht with me. Walker knows, but I wanted you to be aware, as well. I’ll radio you when we’re heading your way.”

      “Copy that,” the dispatcher said.

      While Noah concentrated on his driving, Rachel tried to imagine him as a deputy sheriff. He’d loved working on his family’s farm and helping her daed out whenever possible. She’d always assumed he’d one day own his own farm, yet something had changed him.

      Seeing him again after all these years felt unreal. When she’d first learned that his family had moved from the area, she’d been devastated. There had been no goodbye—no explanation. Her mamm was the one to break the news to her. All along, she’d known his family didn’t approve of their relationship, but she’d thought he would stand up for her. For them.

      Back then, her whole world revolved around the time they spent together. Even though Noah wasn’t Amish, her young heart believed they could find a way to work through all the problems facing them as long as they had each other.

      He caught her looking at him and she dropped her gaze to her hands. Her palms stung from the cuts there. The worry for Eva threatened to swallow her up. She was barely hanging on.

      Noah turned off Spruce and eased the patrol vehicle down the potholed dirt road leading to the Lapps’ home. Once they reached it, he killed the engine. The house was dark inside. The family of six would be sleeping. Morning came early in Amish country.