Dana R. Lynn - Guarding The Amish Midwife

He pursed his lips. Lizzy sensed that he wanted to ask more questions. For whatever reason, he did not ask. Maybe he didn’t want to scare her off. Or maybe he wanted to see what they found before he got more information from her. Whatever his reasoning, she was glad that he restrained himself. She didn’t have any more information, and right now, she was feeling close to screaming.

When he reached out to turn the heat up, his hand accidentally brushed against hers. She jumped and jerked her hand away. Heat crawled up her cheeks as he frowned, his brows furrowed. No doubt he was wondering at her extreme reaction.

This was why she would never get married. Even the most innocent interactions with men set her on edge. To have a normal conversation with a man who came to court her... nee , it would not happen. Lizzy had long ago resigned herself to the fact that what Chad Weller had done to her had left her with too many emotional scars to ever consider courting and later marrying any man. She just did not have the ability to get past her fears.

It was likely she never would.

The car turned. Lizzy became aware that they were entering the parking lot that she had fled less than two hours earlier. The building came into view as they drove into the lot. The broken windows. The whole forlorn look of the place. When she had first seen the building, she had thought it looked pitiful and broken. Now, seeing it through the eyes of the horrible situation, she thought she could detect a menacing feel to the structure and the empty lot.

She shuddered.

“Are you all right?” Isaac’s concerned voice broke through the thoughts. She had almost forgotten that she wasn’t alone.

“ Jah. I am well,” she whispered, even though she felt far from well. A man had died before her eyes. How was she supposed to feel?

The other officer pulled in and parked next to Isaac.

Lizzy got out when the men did. Her plain boots made a crunching sound. She flicked a glance down. She was stepping on glass.

“I think this is the glass from Bill’s car window. It shattered when the other man shot at me as I was leaving.”

Immediately, Isaac took a picture of the glass with his phone, then carefully picked up a shard and put it in a plastic bag with a zip seal top.

“Hopefully, we can match this to the car you were in. Although glass is pretty similar.”

She shrugged, not familiar with any of the technology.

Dread started to build inside her as they moved toward the back of the building. She didn’t want to see Bill’s body. The thought of how he would look dead was enough to make her ill.

She turned the corner and blinked.

“Where did Bill fall?” Isaac asked, glancing around with a frown.

She pointed her finger at the spot ahead of her.

The body was gone.

Isaac walked forward to where the body should have been. It was hard to tell if a body had been there. The black pavement was slick, and the rain had probably washed most of the traces of blood away. His gut instinct told him that there had been a body here, that Lizzy really had witnessed someone getting shot.

“Maybe Bill wasn’t killed?” There was a lilt in Lizzy’s voice that spoke of hope. “Maybe he is hiding from the man who shot him.”

He hated to dampen her hope, but he refused to downplay the danger she could be in. “Lizzy, I doubt he survived. How close were they standing when Bill was shot?”

The hope drained from her face. She sighed, a sound that seemed to be dragged up from the depth of her soul. “They were only a couple of feet apart. Maybe from me to where the other officer is standing.”

About three feet, then.

“This other officer is Officer Ryder Howard.” Isaac indicated his friend and colleague. “At that close range, I don’t think he would miss.”

“Bill is dead.” The lilt was gone and her voice was a flat statement.

“Most likely.”

“Are you sure that this is the place?” Ryder asked, his face skeptical.

Lizzy flushed. Isaac would have thought she was embarrassed except he had seen the way her eyes had flashed. She did not like being questioned like that. No wonder. Ryder hadn’t meant anything by it, but his voice did have a sarcastic edge to it. Lizzy had no way of knowing, but Ryder’s voice always sounded that way. He doubted if the man even realized how harsh his tone was. It was just the way he talked.

“Jah!” Lizzy replied, lifting her chin, her own voice cold. “This is the place. I did not make up a story about my driver getting shot.”

Ryder’s eyes widened. Too late the man seemed to realize that his question had been taken the wrong way. “Oh! Hey! I didn’t mean that to sound like I thought you were lying. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a mistake.”

He threw Isaac a “Help me, buddy” glance.

“It’s okay, Lizzy. We’ll keep looking. Maybe we will find some other signs of what happened here.”

Ryder grunted, his head bobbing once. Isaac held back a smirk. His friend had gotten himself into trouble on more than one occasion for attitude. The man had a good heart. He just had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Isaac knew that he had had a very rough time growing up with alcoholic parents. Although he had never asked, wanting to respect his friend’s privacy, he had always figured there was some sort of abuse or neglect that went along with it. Ryder had developed a veneer to keep people at bay.

Isaac could not fault the man for it. Not when he had his own past to overcome.

“Lizzy, we are going to have a look around to see if we can find any evidence of what happened. I need you to either stay there or wait in the car.” He zeroed his gaze in on her oval face. “I mean it. If you walk around, you might trample on something. Ryder and I have done this enough to know what we are doing.”

“I will wait right here.” She pointed down at her feet.

He smiled. Something about her earnestness touched him, despite the terrifying situation she was in.

“Okay, then.” Turning to his friend, he gestured to the right. “Why don’t you search from here toward the property line, and I will go toward the building.”

“Sounds like a plan.” All amusement faded as he and Ryder both focused on the job before them.

The men set off in their separate directions, alert for any clue that a murder took place in the parking lot. Every once in a while, Isaac cast a concerned glance at Lizzy. Her arms were tight across her middle, and he could clearly see that she was shivering. April in Ohio was capricious. On this particular day, the temperature hadn’t risen much higher than sixty and the rain was cold. He was wet clear through after a quarter of an hour. She’d been out in the weather several times that morning. And though he knew that one did not catch a cold from being wet, it was still a miserable feeling.

At one point, he had gone over to her to suggest that she wait in the car. “I can turn the heat up. There’s a blanket in the trunk. It would not be much, but it might warm you up a bit.”

Lizzy had looked at him for a moment. Her lips had curled at the corners in a small smile. Her eyes, though, those deep blue eyes, had remained haunted. “ Denke , Isaac. I appreciate it. But I would not feel as safe so far away. I might be cold here, but I have two police officers close by. No one would try to harm me here.”

How did one argue with that? Isaac jogged back to continue searching. In his mind, though, her words played over and over again. If he had any doubts about her telling the truth, which he hadn’t, they fled. No one would stand out in the cold to feel safer if it weren’t the truth, he reasoned. Plus, her eyes held far too much knowledge of the dark side of the world.