LITMIR.BIZ

      Dear Reader,

      Thank you for choosing to read the first book in my new Amish suspense series set in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, which I know and love. I enjoy writing about the unique traditions of my native Pennsylvania, especially since I’m able to draw on my own Pennsylvania Dutch background.

      The difficulties the Plain People face in dealing with the outside world’s legal institutions aren’t readily understood by our litigious society. It would be hard to find more law-abiding people than the Amish, but they do not easily turn to the law when things go wrong, perhaps because of their history of persecution by the law in Europe. They fled to Pennsylvania to escape that, forming communities that rarely have anything to do with the legal system. They don’t sue each other and are reluctant to seek legal help even when accused. It’s something that I’ve seen close-up from time to time in my area, and that experience, when outsiders had to step in to form a defense, has inspired this story.

      I hope you’ll let me know how you feel about my book, and I’d love to send you a signed bookmark or my brochure of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. You can write to me at HQN Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, email me at [email protected], or visit me on the web at www.martaperry.com.

      Blessings,

      Marta

      The course of the righteous is like morning light, growing brighter until it is broad day; but the ways of the wicked are like darkness at night, and they do not know what has been their downfall.

      —Proverbs 4:18–19

      CONTENTS

      PROLOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      PROLOGUE

      Amish Youth Arrested in Murder

      SPRINGVILLE, PA—The body of a local woman was discovered early Sunday morning in a remote barn in rural Lancaster County. The woman, whom police say had apparently been beaten to death, has been identified as Cherry Wilson, 24, of Springville. Police have detained a young man who was found at the scene. Thomas Esch, 19, of Spring Township, son of a local Amish family, is being questioned in connection with the death. Police declined to say what the motive might have been in the grisly crime.

      In what appears to be a related incident, an unidentified older woman was warned away from the suspect by police. She apparently attempted to interfere when the suspect was being taken into police headquarters. No further information about this incident was released by the police spokesperson.

      CHAPTER ONE

      A SUMMONS TO THE OFFICE of Dwight Henderson, senior partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Henderson, Dawes and Henderson, seldom resulted in good news for a junior associate, but Jessica Langdon didn’t intend to let her apprehension show. Assuming her most professional expression, she straightened her suit jacket with icy fingers then tapped lightly and opened the door.

      “You wanted to see me, Mr. Henderson?”

      Henderson frowned across the expanse of a massive mahogany desk, balancing a gold fountain pen between his forefingers. He let the engraved pen drop to the desktop and nodded to the chair across from him.

      The penalty box. That was how she’d thought of that seat recently. She sat, smoothing her skirt down over her knees.

      Center City’s skyline, seen through a wide window, made an impressive backdrop, not that Henderson needed any help to impress. Over sixty, he had a heavily lined face that no expensive facial treatments could make resemble anything but a bulldog’s, a shining bald dome that reflected the light from the window, and a pair of remote, piercing dark eyes. Whatever his appearance said, he was a highly successful attorney whose clients could afford, and got, the best.

      Jessica waited out the frowning silence that had such a demoralizing effect on reluctant witnesses on the few occasions when Henderson Senior deigned to appear in court himself. Henderson had summoned her. It was for him to speak first.

      “Your time here has not been particularly successful, has it, Ms. Langdon?”

      That didn’t seem to require an answer. Her heart sank. This was it, then. Termination. She tried not to think of her father’s reaction. A superior-court judge tended to expect better of his only child.

      “After the business with the Clements boy…”

      The Clements boy, as Henderson called him, was the sixteen-year-old scion of one of the firm’s wealthiest clients, currently embarked on an escalating pattern of vandalism and violence. Her comment that perhaps he should for once have to face the consequences of his actions had not been well received.

      “…to say nothing of your failure in the Altmiller matter…”

      She

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