Colton Destiny Read online

  “And,” she added, “seeing you armed just might stop them from shooting at you.”

  “I will carry it,” he agreed, “as long as we’re understood.”

  “We are,” Emma said softly.

  Again his expression shifted. And Emma told herself she was reading too much into it, that he couldn’t really feel the same little jolt of pleasure mixed with fear at the simple use of the word we. She desperately wanted there to be a “we” but feared the gulf between them, between their lives, was too wide.

  “Come, then. We’ll find a place for you to wait and watch. Don’t slam the door.”

  Only you, she thought, could end up hundreds of miles from home, working on a kidnapping case that isn’t even in your jurisdiction, with your only backup a committed pacifist you just happen to be in love with, from a religious community that would likely try and stop you two from ever being together.

  If her mission wasn’t so serious, she’d laugh at herself.

  They worked their way through the trees as silently as possible. For a big man, Caleb was light on his feet and seemed to know how to move through the woods making little noise. He carried the rifle easily, familiarly.

  Their conversation about hunting animals versus men ran through her head again. Were they too far apart? Could the gap between them never be bridged, no matter their feelings for each other?

  As she made her way toward the cabin, fearing what she might find, the idea grew in her mind. The idea of leaving all this, of never again having to look upon man’s depravity and cruelty, of not having to face evil day after day after evil day, was growing almost too appealing to resist.

  And the idea of having Caleb to comfort her when the nightmares came was enough to put it over the top.

  With one of the greatest efforts she’d ever had to make, she put it all out of her mind to focus on the job. When they reached a thin spot in the trees where there was a partial view of the cabin, she whispered to him to stay here and made him promise that he would. She didn’t worry about it after that; he’d given his word, and Caleb Troyer would keep it. She had absolutely no doubts about that, and her last unprofessional thought before she put on the mental armor she needed was that there were few people outside her family she could say that about.

  She turned her back on him. She couldn’t concentrate on what she had to do otherwise. She worked her way as silently as possible through the trees, paralleling but not taking the clear path that led to the cabin. This was a very different countryside than the flatland and gentle rises of home, but she’d trekked through some tougher places in her career, and she arrived at the cabin quickly.

  And once more she paused, watching, listening, for any sign of life. Leaves, pine needles and other debris had piled up here and there, yet the path was clear. Her heart rate kicked up when she saw what looked like drag marks along the softer edge of the hardened dirt path.

  But there wasn’t a sign of anyone around. No vehicle parked in the open carport or anywhere else close by. No sound came from the cabin. Still, she drew her weapon as she approached.

  She made a full circuit, stopping only when she came to the small patio on the back side of the building. In the middle was the fire pit Mr. Rinaldi had mentioned. And it did indeed match the rock that had been hurled through the window at dawn.

  She didn’t bother to check for any spots that looked as if they were missing a rock the right size, since she was fairly sure there wasn’t another pit like it close by. The shiny, sharp-edged black rock seemed jarringly out of place.

  She rounded the patio and saw that there was a door on that end of the cabin.

  It was open.

  Her pulse kicked up a notch, but her training kicked in, and she conducted her search in a methodical, precise way Tate would have been proud of. It didn’t take long; the cabin was small, without even enclosed closets.

  Nothing. Not even a stray fast-food wrapper or water

  bottle.

  Had this been a wild-goose chase?

  She exited the cabin via the same door, near the garish fire pit. She noticed then a pile of what was apparently leftover stones, over by a shed half-hidden by a big tree.

  A fairly large shed.

  Back on alert, she went that way. There was no window in the shed, so she paused with her ear to the door. Nothing.

  There was a padlock on the door, and it was shiny and new compared to most everything else here. That alone sparked suspicion. But a lock was only as strong as what it was fastened to, and this door looked as if a good breeze would take it down.

  As it turned out, it took only a good, solid foot plant near the hasp; the screws pulled right out of the rotting wood. The door swung open, then stopped as it hit something inside. She pushed and it moved a little, but not much. Another shove got it open enough that she could slide in.

  And then wished she hadn’t.

  She’d seen other sights like this, many bloodier and more gruesome, but this one seemed worse somehow. And the morning light streaming through the partially opened door made it seem even worse.

  She’d found two of the missing girls.

  Chapter 27

  Emma tried to stop Caleb, when he’d heard the noise of the breaking door and come running. But he pushed past her with a strength and determination she couldn’t match without taking action that might injure him, and she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Besides, she told herself, striving desperately for a shred of professionalism, he would be able to tell her if these two tragically young women were indeed who she thought they were.

  Caleb made a sound low in his throat. The two women—girls, really—lay sprawled on the dirt floor, their hands bound behind them, their dead eyes open and staring. He staggered backward. Emma caught him, eased him around to lean against the shed wall, his back to the horror within.

  “Hannah isn’t—”

  She broke off, wondering if she was somehow wrong. True, she’d done only a quick visual check, but neither of the two broken, tragic women matched Hannah’s description.

  “No.” Caleb confirmed it, his voice flat, hollow.

  “Miriam?” she asked. “And Rebecca?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Hannah may well still be alive.”

  He didn’t seem to react at all.

  “Caleb, she’s not here, not in the house. There’s a decent chance she—”

  “Decent? What is there that is decent in your world?”

  “Caleb—”

  “Your world is decadent, brutal and ruthless.”

  His voice was cold, harsher than she’d ever heard from him. She’d seen this before, in the families of victims. Caleb might not be a blood relative of these two women, but in his heart and mind they were his sisters just as Hannah was.

  “It can be, yes,” she said, seeing no point in arguing the obvious.

  “It has stolen the lives of two girls more innocent and pure than any seen in that world. How can you be a part of it?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder that myself.”

  The truth escaped her before she could stop it, and once it was out she stubbornly refused to wish she could call it back. She finally faced the fact that something had changed in her. The constant exposure to the quiet, simple life she’d experienced the past few days seemed to have seeped into her bones somehow, making this return to the reality of her life and work more jarring than anything she’d ever experienced.

  Then there was Caleb. Caleb with his pure, solid goodness, with the quick mind and the skilled hands, who produced items of such simple beauty and took such care of his three daughters.

  Caleb, who right now leaned against that wall, his head bowed, refusing to look at anything, especially her. Gone was the easy warmth that had burgeoned between them. Gone was the heat that had followed and the heady sense of wonder at what they’d found in the darkness of the little cabin. Caleb was shutting down, as if this reminder of the world she lived in proved she could never live in his.<
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  Emma went through the motions of what came next: calling local authorities to the scene, overseeing the processing of that scene as best she could without stepping on local toes and most of all warning them all of the need to be vigilant for any other evidence. Hannah was still out there somewhere, and anything they found here might be the difference between finding her alive and a third death added to the ugly total.

  It was late by the time the scene was processed and she had all information she could glean from the locals.

  “You’ll send the evidence and autopsy reports ASAP?” she asked the lieutenant who had come out to oversee the scene. He seemed very young to her, but he’d been military and handled everything with a promising efficiency. Not to mention that he had a little less wariness of the feds, given he’d sort of been one himself as an investigator in the MPs.

  “I’ll see you get everything as soon as it’s completed, Agent. And you’ll let me know if indeed this is connected to your other case in Ohio?”

  “I will.”

  It had been a long day, and it occurred to Emma that staying overnight and starting back in the morning might be easier. But one look at Caleb’s stiff, closed expression warned her that was a suggestion that would not be met with any agreement.

  Given what had happened between them last night, he was probably right. Although judging by the rigid expression and the stiff lines of his body, he had less than no interest in ever being alone with her again. As if somehow this was all her fault.

  It wasn’t fair, but then, life wasn’t fair. Hadn’t she learned that early on, when her parents, two of the best people to ever walk the planet, were taken out in a senseless, outrageous attack on innocents?

  It was a long, silent drive back from the mountains. She finally broke the silence as they neared the edge of Paradise Ridge.

  “I’ll take Mrs. Yoder home so she doesn’t have to walk in the dark.”

  “I will walk her home.”

  “Then I should stay with the girls while—”

  “No.” Caleb’s voice was so flat, so adamant it was all she could do not to physically recoil. “There has been enough of your world intruding here today.”

  Emma couldn’t help but be stung by what appeared to be his determination to keep her from seeing his daughters at all. She told herself she was reading too much into it, that he was reacting to the horror they’d found, and coupled with the tenuous hope that Hannah wasn’t somewhere else they hadn’t found yet, in the same condition as those girls, he had simply shut down.

  And shut her out. Coldly and completely. He’d clearly expressed he had a great distaste for her world and no interest in having her in his.

  When he got out of the truck, he walked into the house and never even looked back.

  She drove on, the truck seeming very empty. The light of day faded, dying away just as her silly dreams were.

  It was dark once again when she pulled through the gates of the Double C. But the lights were on at the main house, welcoming her home.

  Home.

  This was her home and always would be. And all the stolen moments she’d spent imagining creating a home with Caleb—imagining living the kind of quiet, peaceful life he led, the kind of life that had become more and more appealing to her the longer she spent dealing with the ugly cruelty of her own world—had been no more than a fool’s dream.

  It was ironic, she supposed, that she, who had always been such a rebel against the rules, now found herself longing for a stricter regimen of rules than she’d ever known. She saw the reasons for them now, in a way she’d never been able to as a kid. She saw the advantages, saw how they kept the community bound together, so that no one, whatever the circumstances, whatever tragedy struck their life, was ever truly alone. She’d seen enough cases of lone survivors where, when all was done and she went back to her office and her life, she was left wondering if they would make it, how anyone could make it when the last connection they had in the world was gone.

  In Caleb’s world, that never really happened. Whatever the tragedy or loss, there was always the community that pulled together and surrounded the wounded ones. Was that enough to compensate for the crushing of individuality, for the demand for utter conformity?

  Right now, she was leaning that way. Perhaps she’d had enough of the ugliness to make her appreciate the positives Caleb’s kind of life brought.

  As for Caleb himself...

  “Hey, lady Amazon, look who’s here!”

  Sawyer’s teasing, unendingly chipper voice made Emma smile, then sigh. And then Piper was there, chattering excitedly about having someone other than her annoying little brother to talk to over dinner. Which she was just in time for, Piper added, and wasn’t she lucky to be here tonight. Margie had gone all out with homemade lasagna—half of which would no doubt be frozen for a rematch later—garlic toast and salad, and as an extra bonus, Julia had made a pan of her delicious brownies for dessert.

  She couldn’t help smiling at her sister’s enthusiasm. The gorgeous girl was going to be a famous TV chef someday, or a supermodel, or, knowing her, maybe both.

  She let the chatter wash over her, enjoying it yet not really focused on it. The pain of Caleb’s sharp rejection wasn’t something to be eased even by the cheerful energy of her younger siblings.

  Nor did she have much appetite, even for Margie’s delicious meal. Promising to return later for one of the treasured brownies, Emma retreated to the room that had been her refuge throughout her life. If she could not find solace there, then it was not to be found.

  Yet instead of what she had half intended, to lie down and rest eyes that were protesting the long hours with a sandy grittiness, she found herself pacing. She tried to focus on the case, but thoughts of Caleb and her feelings for him kept intruding.

  Finally, she went to her laptop, booted it up and logged on to her home office system. She called up the images from the Ohio cases and made herself study each young, innocent face. This was why she was here, these girls, and any time she spent musing about her own silly wants was time stolen from them. They’d already had the lives they’d known stolen; wasn’t that enough?

  ...two girls more innocent and pure than any seen in that world.

  Caleb’s words echoed in her mind. Him again, she thought sourly. But since the words were about the case, she let them stay. And they were true.

  She thought about the motives for kidnapping. She discarded the most common, a grab by a noncustodial parent, because that obviously wasn’t the case here or in most of the Ohio cases, either.

  Ransom. Obviously not likely here, although she guessed the entire Paradise Ridge community would give everything each of them had to get those children back. Problem was, everything they had didn’t add up to the kind of numbers usually tossed around in such cases, and there had been no demands made, either here or back in Ohio.

  Child stealing triggered by some psychological trauma such as the loss of one’s own child usually involved younger children and babies.

  And then there was the most telling fact of all, and the probability of it was undeniable. Every victim was an attractive young woman.

  And innocent. Pure. As Caleb had said.

  They’d known in Ohio this was the likeliest scenario. That the perpetrators had chosen young Amish girls just added a twisted, perverse element to it.

  In the world Caleb had spoken so harshly against, innocence was sometimes a very valuable commodity.

  A very salable commodity.

  She knew Tate was working that end of things, while she continued to dig here. But until they’d found Miriam and Rebecca, she’d dared to hope the girls were too valuable to seriously harm.

  Something had changed. And it did not bode well for Hannah or any of the others.

  * * *

  The lights of the huge city spread out below the man lounging in the expensive leather chair. He liked this place and the way it put him above everything. Where he belonged, in his rightful p
lace. It was all in motion: he’d assured his position, made all the right connections; he had all the right people in his pocket, all the way to the hallowed halls of D.C. If President Colton wasn’t such a hard-ass, he’d have him in his pocket, too, but he didn’t need him. He had everyone else he needed, had a buffer around him that was unassailable.

  No one could ever touch him now. And anyone who tried would regret it for as long as they lived. Which might not be long if they refused to get the message.

  He smiled, and since he was alone here now, he let every bit of his twisted, warped pleasure show in the expression.

  Nothing could get in his way now. He could indulge his every appetite.

  And his appetite was growing again. He’d found two at a time, one to enjoy and one to force to watch, was quite stimulating. He’d grown bored with the simpler pleasures, but he thought two at a time might hold him for a while. And after that?

  Well, there were always more where those came from.

  Chapter 28

  “Emma, wake up.”

  She sat up groggily; she hadn’t dozed off until after three, and it was just before seven according to her phone. Her brother was making a habit of waking her up when she hadn’t had enough sleep.

  “Are you with me?”

  Something in his voice, and the absence of his usual teasing greeting, told her she’d better be wide-awake.

  “Go,” she said.

  “I’m sending you something. A video we found online. You’ll need to show it to Caleb Troyer.”

  Her heart slammed in her chest.

  “Hannah?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is she...alive?”

  “She was.”

  “How old?”

  “Couple of days.”

  “I’ll go right over. He’ll be at the shop by now.”

  There was a pause before her big brother said gently, “You okay, sis?”

  “Fine.”

  “You sure you’re not in over your head?”

  “I’m an FBI agent, Tate. I—”