Mary Alford - Amish Country Kidnapping

Expelling a breath, Noah accepted Walker’s suggestion despite his misgivings. “Okay. But I want you close at all times,” he told Rachel. While he understood the benefit of having her at the Lapp interview, he still worried about keeping her safe.

“I’ve called in Ryan and Cole. I know their shifts don’t begin for,” Walker glanced at his watch, “another six hours, but we need everyone on this.” He surveyed the desolate stretch of road. “We’ll set up some floodlights. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”

“What if she’s not here?” Rachel’s question was directed solely at Noah, and he didn’t have an answer.

“The best way you can help Eva now is to identify the man who attacked you.”

He noticed her shivering still and took off his coat and placed it over her shoulders. “It’s freezing out. Let’s get you inside the cruiser where it’s warm.”

He and Rachel headed toward his SUV along with Walker. Rachel braced against the biting wind that threatened to knock her down. The Montana weather could be brutal, and it appeared winter was setting in early in the shadow of the mountains. Though barely November, already they’d had several feet of snow.

He clutched her arm to keep her steady. Opening the door, he waited until she slid inside.

“Looks like the rest of the team is here.” Walker crooked a thumb behind them.

Noah mentioned the Beacheys coming to investigate. “It’s possible they saw the man.”

“I’ll have someone speak to them. We’ll start canvassing every square inch of the place,” Walker said. “I’ll let you know the minute we have anything.”

“Thanks.” Noah asked Megan to ride over with them to the house so she could stand guard while Rachel changed.

While Megan hopped in the back, Noah got in next to Rachel. She appeared in a daze. Noah prayed they would find Eva alive.

He touched her arm. “Don’t give up hope.” She twisted in her seat. The desperation on her face made him want to gather her close. He didn’t have that right anymore. He’d broken her heart once, and he doubted she’d want his comfort now. Instead, he put the SUV in Drive and slowly turned around and eased past the slew of police vehicles.

Driving the short distance to her house, Noah parked out front. He couldn’t imagine how terrified Rachel had been to awaken and find a masked stranger standing over her.

The 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.