Dana R. Lynn - Plain Retribution

AMISH ABDUCTION

Ten years ago while on rumspringa, Rebecca Miller and her friends were kidnapped and held captive...and now, living in the English world, she’s nearly abducted again. One by one her friends who once helped send their abductor to jail are targeted, and she is next...unless police officer Miles Olsen can stop a killer. Deaf since birth, the only person on the force that Rebecca can communicate with is Miles, and he needs this case to redeem himself of past mistakes. When the relentless killer tracks them deep into the heart of Amish country, protecting Rebecca must be Miles’s sole focus. Because a mistake this time will cost something worth more to him than his job—the woman he’s falling for.

The fear was so strong, it choked her.

Forcing herself to shake it off, she focused on fixing dinner. But when another officer approached Miles, putting something on the table, she froze. He looked up, his face full of dread. “Rebecca, no,” he signed. He spoke to the officer, gesturing at a wrinkled picture on the table.

Lipreading had never been her forte. For the first time she wished it was.

What was in that picture that had Miles so shook up?

She stepped closer to get a look...and her world tilted. Bile surged in her throat, choking off her breath. The glass slipped from her fingers, shattering.

“That picture was in a frame on my desk,” she signed to Miles. “It was taken last year.”

His arms tightened around her. Despite the comfort they offered, she’d never forget the image of her and her friends laughing at the camera. Or the red X slashed through her friend’s face.

And the circle around her own.

She understood the message. Her friend was dead...and she was next.

Dear Reader,

I am so happy to be able to share Miles and Rebecca’s story with you! This is the second book in my Amish Country Justice series, and it was both a joy and a challenge to write.

When I first started writing Presumed Guilty in 2014, Miles was one of those characters who tugged at my heart. He had so many issues to reconcile, and had gotten off track a bit. He had lost his way. Yet, God was with him. And I knew I wanted to write his story, to show that he had changed and found redemption. I was touched by the readers who wrote to me asking for his story.

Rebecca was first introduced in Plain Target. She was so much fun to write about! She had been through so much, yet still managed to keep God at the heart of her life.

I hope you enjoyed Miles and Rebecca’s story. I have one more to go in this trilogy, and I am really excited about it. It has been amazing following my characters into the Amish community.

Thank you for journeying with me. I love to hear from readers. You can email me at WriterDanaLynn@gmail.com. Or visit me online at www.danarlynn.com. I am also on Facebook and Twitter ( @DanaRLynn).

Blessings,

Dana R. Lynn

DANA R. LYNN grew up in Illinois. She met her husband at a wedding and told her parents she had met her future husband. Nineteen months later, they were married. Today they live in rural Pennsylvania with their three children, two dogs, one cat, one rabbit, one horse and six chickens. In addition to writing, she works as an educational interpreter for the deaf and is active in several ministries in her church.

Plain Retribution

Dana R. Lynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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What shall we then say to these things?

If God be for us, who can be against us?

—Romans 8:31

This book is dedicated to my family, who supported me through all the craziness. Love you. And to my Lord, in awe of His many blessings.

Acknowledgments

Thank you so much to everyone who helped with this book. To my friends in the Deaf community, thank you for helping me to get into my heroine’s head and understand her better. To Shelley Shepard Gray, thanks for sharing your experience and love of the Amish community. It made such a difference! To my critique partners and friends, thank you for reading and pointing out problems, lending a shoulder to cry on, or just sharing a cup of coffee and letting me vent.

Thanks to my editor, Elizabeth Mazer, and Love Inspired Books for all the hard work and support. You are amazing and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with you.

A special thanks to my agent, Tamela Hancock Murray. Even though you are not the agent of record for this book, your advice and friendship have been invaluable.

Special thanks to my late agent, Mary Sue Seymour, a wonderful mentor and friend.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Acknowledgments

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

ONE

She hated this time of night.

Rebecca Miller stepped outside and shut the shop’s door behind her, taking care to lock it. The air was thick with the smell of wood smoke from the houses nearby. She rubbed her arms to ward off a chill—not all of it from the cool fall air. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Was she being watched? Holding the key out in front of her like a weapon, she peered into the darkness. Nothing. Her brother Levi would have cautioned her against letting her imagination run wild. Her Amish mother would chide her for her lack of faith in the Lord’s protection. Well, she had faith. But she had also learned the hard way that having faith did not prevent horrible things from happening. And she had the scars, mentally and physically, to prove it.

Her breathing quickened. She forced herself to breathe slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Better. Was she panting? Could anyone hear it? Levi had told her that hearing people could hear the sound of her rapid breaths when she was frightened. How accurate that was, she didn’t know. She’d never heard breathing, or any other sound, in her entire life. Rebecca had been profoundly deaf since she had been born into her large Amish family. They hadn’t put hearing aids on her. When she had left her Amish community instead of being baptized at seventeen, she had tried them, but didn’t notice any difference. Now at twenty-five, she had no interest in trying them again.

She rarely allowed her deafness to hold her back, having spent years striving for independence in the hearing world, but sometimes she felt the lack of hearing keenly. Like now, knowing if someone was stepping closer to her, she’d never hear them coming.

She wondered again what had possessed her to agree—for the first time since she’d taken the job—to close by herself the bookstore she worked in. Every other time she’d worked this late, she’d had someone else closing with her. Granted, it was only a little after eight thirty in the evening, but in October, it was so dark out that it might as well have been ten o’clock at night. She shivered. Whether from cold or apprehension, she wasn’t sure.