LITMIR.BIZ

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the tiny village made Eden Falls, population nine hundred, seem like a booming metropolis. If all the tourists left, Emma thought, it would feel like the proverbial wide spot in the road. But the tourists were here, lots of them. Not as many as during the summer, but the holiday shopping season had begun, and many people came here to pick up handcrafted gifts. Most of them were nice and genuinely interested, some just curious, some bordering on being derisive of a culture so foreign to their own and a few just downright rude.

      Nice cross section of humanity in general, Emma thought as she got out of the truck and locked it. To protect it from said tourists, since she knew the Amish citizens would never even think of stealing. She supposed there had to be a few bad apples, but they were truly far between.

      At least the locals were easy to spot, with their distinctive dress. And while she could hardly ignore the visitors—it was, after all, entirely possible their perpetrator had come here in that guise—for now she would focus on the locals and what they knew or had seen.

      The Amish trait of ignoring or spending little time thinking about the foibles of their English neighbors was going to make this difficult. Most of the time the behavior of outsiders truly was ignored as having no import. But what she needed was exactly that, information about anyone who had acted oddly, differently. That this description fit most English to this community wasn’t going to help matters.

      Emma started to walk, observing, wanting to get the feel of things. This small commercial section of the village had grown a little since she’d last been here, nearly ten years ago. The bakery was still in the same place and still putting out those tempting aromas. A cheese shop had been set up between the bakery and the quilt shop. And beyond that, a flower shop that was full of beautiful, healthy-looking plants.

      Everything looked normal. Prosperous.

      And yet she felt the tension, barely under the surface. The tourists and shoppers were, naturally, oblivious, but the locals all seemed distracted, as if their thoughts were elsewhere. As she had expected, the abduction of three young girls had traumatized this small community.

      She kept walking, looking around. She crossed a narrow alleyway, which, if she recalled correctly, had once marked the end of the small shop area. The next building was a large brick edifice that had, she thought, searching her memory, once been a mill of some kind. But now it appeared only one corner was occupied, remodeled to add a large corner window.

      She slowed to a halt before that window. In the top part was, oddly, a birdhouse, she supposed for the martins farmers so prized. But what drew her was the sideboard displayed there. The piece fairly glowed in the late-fall sun, burnished to a smooth, flawless finish, no doubt by hand. Every corner, every angle was perfectly crafted. The wood was rich with grain and clearly selected with care. Each piece mirrored the one before, so that it was clear you were seeing the progression of the tree itself. The overall effect was an incredible melding of nature’s symmetry and man’s skill.

      If there wasn’t a good, solid mid-four figures on that price tag, there should be, Emma thought. If not for a closed sign on the door, she’d go in for a closer look. This was the most gorgeous piece of furniture she’d ever seen, and she was already mentally rearranging her apartment to make room for it.

      Her gaze shifted, and she realized there was someone in the shop despite the closed sign. A man, in the back, standing near what had to be another window. Probably, she guessed, looking out at the stand of trees to the rear. The sun was at a sharper angle this time of year and poured through that window like a floodlight. It illuminated him as if he were on a stage.

      And he could well have been on a stage, for he was a strikingly handsome man. Tall, at least a couple of inches over six feet. Lean, yet well muscled. And the sunlight lit up his features, strong jaw and brow, perfectly cut nose, and a mouth that looked as if it would be softly sensual were it not drawn into a compressed line at that moment. His hair was dark and gleamed in the light streaming over him.

      She didn’t know how long she just stood there, staring. She wished she had a camera in hand, or that she could draw or paint, for this was a scene worth preserving. Standing there, awash in the soft light of dusk, with that stern, almost pained expression, he stirred feelings in her that she didn’t understand yet couldn’t deny.

      He was as beautiful as the piece in the window, and she knew instinctively he was the maker.

      And she had turned into a ridiculous gaping female at the sight of him.

      This was not a good way to start her investigation.

      “May I help you?”

      The polite, child-pitched voice had yanked her out of her silly reverie. She had looked down at the child standing beside her, sheepishly aware she hadn’t even noticed the girl’s approach. Bright blue eyes looked back at her, and she saw dark hair pulled under the traditional head covering.

      “This is my father’s shop,” the girl had explained. “He makes the best furniture in the world.”

      “Does he?” She couldn’t help smiling.

      Color stained the girl’s cheeks, adding color to the pale porcelain of her skin. “He would never say such a thing—it’s vain—but I think I can say it for him.”

      The simple words had reminded her better than anything else could that she was back among the people who had so fascinated her when she was this child’s age.

      “And who is your father?”

      “Caleb Troyer. He’s right in there.”

      Emma’s breath caught. This man, who had so captivated her, who had her standing here in public staring as if she’d never seen a man before, was Caleb Troyer? The brother of the kidnapped Hannah Troyer?

      “And you’re …?”

      “Katie Troyer,” the girl said.

      The oldest, Emma thought, remembering the file that had said Hannah Troyer had three young nieces through her brother Caleb. And that the girl’s mother, Annie Troyer, had died three years ago, leaving Hannah as the main maternal figure in their lives.

      “Are you here about my aunt?”

      Good guess, or had something given her away?

      “What makes you think that?”

      “You seem different than the others.”

      “Different?”

      “You dress plainer. More like us than them. Even if you do wear boy’s clothes.”

      Ah, the honesty of children, Emma thought wryly.

      “I am from the FBI,” she said. At the girl’s furrowed brow she added, “We’re like the police, only for the whole country.”

      “Oh. You need my father, then.”

      That simple statement, Emma thought, opened up a whole new set of crazy thoughts.

      This, she thought ruefully, could get complicated.

       Chapter 3

      “Father?”

      Caleb Troyer found it odd that here, where they were alone, Katie would use English. Perhaps it had been to get his attention; he could tell from his daughter’s voice that this wasn’t the first time she’d called him. With a smothered sigh he slapped his hat against his leg a couple of times, as if the slight blows could shake him out of this mood. He was losing patience with himself, slipping into useless, unproductive states of daydreaming, staring out the windows of his workshop, wasting precious hours that should be spent working.

      But how could he work thinking of Hannah, lively, irrepressible Hannah, out there in the other world, not just in danger of losing her way but having already been grabbed up by the evil that resided there?

      Caleb was a strong, competent man, and he’d felt truly helpless only once before in his life. And he couldn’t help thinking of that time as helplessness

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