Guarding The Amish Midwife. Dana R. Lynn

sat up with a shriek, her fist flying out to defend herself.

      Belatedly, she realized where she was. When she saw Isaac rubbing the side of his head, she felt guilty.

      “Sorry.” She had never been so mortified.

      “Don’t worry about it.” He dropped his hand and smiled. “I should have known better than to jostle you awake like that.”

      “That’s no excuse. I tend to startle easy.”

      He nodded. “I will keep that in mind.”

      Isaac left his side of the car, loping around to open her door. “Let’s get this done.”

      The Waylan Grove Police Department was bigger than the LaMar Pond one, but not by much. The open desk area where the officers sat was similar, as well. They entered, and the conversation softened to a low buzz. Isaac led her past the desks and into a room near the back. He left briefly to talk with one of the other officers, then he returned. He flipped on a switch and indicated that she could hang up her cloak on the rack in the corner.

      “I doubt it will dry by the time you leave, but maybe it will a little.”

      It was sweet of him to be so concerned about her.

      A few minutes later, a female cop walked in. Lizzy looked at the bag she was carrying.

      “My bag!”

      The woman laughed. “Isaac said you had left it in the trunk. The chief okayed us to get it out and bring it to you. There’s a bathroom across the hall. Go ahead and change into something dry.”

      Not waiting to hear more, Lizzy rushed over and grabbed her bag. “Denke. It will be good to be warm again.”

      Isaac and the woman laughed softly. Hurrying to the bathroom, she searched through the bag, quickly locating the items she needed. She even found a clean kapp to put on her head. Never again would she take dry clothes, or being warm, for granted.

      When she returned to the room, Isaac pulled out a chair for her. She sat, then looked up at him expectantly.

      He sighed. “Okay. I want to know if you would be willing to look through the images we have to see if you can identify the man you saw. If you can, we’ll try to arrest him. Soon as that’s done, you could be on your way home to your family in no time.”

      “I hope so. I will look at your pictures.”

      What she hadn’t counted on was the sheer volume of pictures. It took her nearly two hours to go through each and every picture. And still, she did not find an image that matched.

      “Are you sure you would recognize him if you saw him?” Isaac stood to pace the room.

      “I would recognize him. I will probably have nightmares of his face for years to come. His picture is not here.”

      Moving back to the table, Isaac turned and leaned against it. “I believe you. I had hoped his picture would be in the database.”

      “Jah, me, too. Did I look at all the pictures?”

      “Yup. That was all of them.”

      “What do we do? I didn’t see him.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down them, shivering slightly, although not from being cold.

      “The visual artist will be in tomorrow morning. You will have to come back and give her a description, so she can make a copy of his image to circulate.”

      “What about going to my family?”

      Isaac did not answer right away, which meant she was not going to like his answer. “Here’s the deal, Lizzy. I want to take you there, but I also want to offer you police protection.”

      “That will not happen, Isaac. My uncle will never agree to that.”

      Irritation flashed across his face and then vanished. Had she imagined it? She didn’t think so. Something she had said had bothered him. A lot.

      “What was that expression for?”

      Rubbing his hand through his hair, he avoided her eyes for a few seconds.

      “Isaac?”

      Finally, he answered. “I’m sorry, Lizzy. Your safety is important. So is that of your family. I really think you should stay in town tonight where we can guard you. I can have someone go to your relatives’ house and explain where you are.”

      That was not what she wanted. Part of her wanted to stubbornly insist he drive her out to Addie’s house. But she would never forgive herself if her cousin or her other relatives were injured because of her.

      “Jah. I would appreciate that.”

      His jaw dropped open. “I was sure you’d argue with me.”

      The shock on his face amused her. She huffed out a quiet laugh. Her amusement didn’t last. “I have been in a similar situation before, Isaac. I know that sometimes it is best to work with the police.”

      He went still. Why had she said anything? She never talked about what had happened.

      Ryder entered the room a minute later, putting their conversation on hold. Lizzy took one look at his face and knew that the news had just gone from bad to worse. Isaac straightened away from the wall and faced his coworker.

      “What’s the bad news?” Isaac said.

      Ryder sat down at the table and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

      “The bad news is that I wasn’t able to get any identification on the logo. The shooter, however, might have been a different story. Did he have a scar on his forehead?” Ryder used his finger to imitate the jagged shape of the scar on his own forehead.

      Lizzy started. She had forgotten about that. “Jah. He had a scar. It was red still, as if it were recent.”

      He nodded. “My sources said the shooter could be a young man by the name of Zave. No last name. He has a rep for being a drug dealer, and a vicious one at that. Apparently, Zave has a nasty temper.”

      “Zave? That’s unusual,” Isaac mused. “Anything else?”

      Ryder shook his head. “No one wanted to talk. I was astonished to get this much. Whatever he looks like, he has people scared. The word on the street is that his enemies, those who get in his way, they tend to disappear.”

      “A drug dealer!” Lizzy covered her mouth with her hand, horrified. The idea had never occurred to her.

      Both men shot glances her way.

      “It makes sense.”

      “What does?” she asked Isaac, even as Ryder nodded in agreement.

      Isaac met her gaze squarely. “It makes sense that Zave would be a drug dealer. I think we’ll find that Bill was one of his customers.”

      Lizzy hadn’t thought the day could get much worse. She was wrong. She had fallen on the bad side of a drug dealer who had no last name, that no one could describe, but who had enough power to make people disappear.

      People like her. Who was she, after all, but an Amish girl from a very small community in a quiet part of Pennsylvania? If she disappeared, would her family go to the police? It was a possibility, especially since her kidnapping. She recalled her father had allowed police officers at her brother’s wedding four years ago because Rebecca had been in danger again.

      They hadn’t been so quick to go to the police the first time her sister had been taken, though. She remembered when Rebecca had been kidnapped with a few of her school friends so many years ago. Her parents had been hesitant to work with the police, but they had. To an extent. When it came to having Rebecca actually testify against her kidnapper, they had refused. Rebecca had gone against her parents’ and the bishop’s wishes and testified. It hadn’t been a difficult decision for her, though, because she’d already made the decision