She had wanted a simpler life in Amish country...

The caring community in her new Missouri small town was a healing salve for Nadia Markovic’s wounded spirit...until someone broke into her apartment above her Amish quilt shop and robbed her while she was sleeping. The thief made off with all the funds they’d just raised through the sale of her neighbours’ handmade quilts. And police chief Ben Slater can’t rule her out as the prime suspect. Only her Amish friends are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. People are angry enough to even target her with violence... But while Ben might not trust her, he’s committed to protecting her, confusing her feelings for this man who’s pulling her apart!

“I regret having had to put you through this search,” he said stiffly. “I can only tell you I was doing my job.”

“I’ve lost everything.” She looked at the store’s disarray in despair.

“You haven’t.” Ben wanted to grip her upper arms and make her meet his eyes, but knew better. “You have supporters. People will realize you would never have stolen that money. Just...give them time.”

“I can’t afford to give them time,” Nadia said drily. “And...do I want people who condemned me without a second thought to become good customers? They would have to pretend, and I’d have to pretend...” She shook her head. “I can’t stay in Byrum, not after this. And I’ll never dare call the police again, I know that.”

“Nadia—”

She took a step back. “You’ve worn out your welcome.”

He hesitated, but recognized he couldn’t make this better. Not now, maybe not ever.

He dipped his head. “Things will look better tomorrow.”

She didn’t dignify that with a response.

When he walked out, she immediately locked the door behind him.

Dear Reader,

The story that became Her Amish Protectors sneaked up on me while I was writing Plain Refuge. First I became intrigued by a character, then by an idea.

Ben Slater came to life only because Daniel, the hero in Plain Refuge, needed a friend, someone he connected with on a deep level. Thus we got Ben, who had inexplicably left an urban police department in New Jersey to take a job as chief of a small-town department in rural Missouri. The “why” didn’t matter in Plain Refuge, but it began to bug me. I’d created the guy. Why would he do something like that?

And then there was the quilt auction. I chaired a large charity auction (benefiting a no-kill animal shelter) for fifteen years. It was a huge amount of work. The week leading up to the auction was insane. Auction day, I started with setup first thing in the morning and kept going through wrap-up at eleven o’clock or so at night. Then the drive home, and I’d topple into bed, so exhausted I slept like the dead for twelve hours. And here’s the thing: someone had to take all that money home. Of course, that was me. It always made me just a teeny bit nervous to keep it from Saturday night through Monday morning. What I had in a box in the bedroom were mostly credit-card slips. But the Amish deal primarily in cash, so the proceeds of the quilt auction...are a temptation!

Janice

Her Amish Protectors

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An author of more than ninety books for children and adults (seventy-five for Harlequin), JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. A USA TODAY bestselling author and an eight-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008 for her Harlequin Superromance novel Snowbound. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

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

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

HEARING HIM TALKING on the phone behind her, she risked opening her eyes a slit. Her best friend still looked back at her with the shock and vacancy of death, a line of blood drying where it had trickled from her mouth. Without moving, she could see only Colin’s legs and feet where he lay sprawled on creamy plush carpet. Carpet splashed with scarlet splotches, as was the glass-topped coffee table. Keenan, now...

His fingers twitched. His shoulders rose and fell slightly with a breath. In. Out.

Her terror swelled. If his father saw any hint of life, he’d pump another bullet into his eight-year-old son. He thought they were all dead—Paige, eleven-year-old Colin, Keenan and the baby of the family, six-year-old Molly.

And Paige’s friend, who had happened to drop by this evening with a book of quilt patterns that Paige had wanted to look through. Wrong time, wrong place.

Except, she’d managed to inch over when Damon’s back was turned so that she could shield Molly’s small body. Molly was breathing. Damon couldn’t be allowed to see. Once she’d laid a hand over the little girl’s mouth to stifle a moan.

She ached to whisper reassurance to Keenan, who wasn’t within reach. To beg him to stay absolutely still.

Every breath was agony, searing pain flaring from her abdomen. Blood had spurted when the bullet struck and she had gone down with that first shot. She vaguely remembered hearing Colin’s terrified scream. Damon had turned away to shoot his son and forgotten her. Probably, she thought dully, her wound would be fatal. But she desperately wanted Molly and Keenan to live. All three of them might survive if the police stormed the house soon.

There’d been a bullhorn earlier, before Damon answered his cell phone. That could have been fifteen minutes ago, or two hours ago. She floated in a dreamlike state. Only the pain anchored her here.

No. Not only pain. Molly and Keenan.

It took an enormous effort to comprehend what Damon was saying.

“Hell, no, I’m not going to let that bitch talk to you! If you don’t quit asking, that’s it. Do you hear me?” The savagely angry voice bore little resemblance to the smooth baritone she knew from phone calls and the times Paige had invited her to dinner with her family.

Pause. “They’re with their mother. No, I’m not going to upset them by putting them on the phone, either.”

They’re dead or dying. Paige is dead. Please, please. We need you.

Time drifted. Occasionally, she heard him talking.

“I lose my job and she’s going to leave me?”

Molly was still breathing. Keenan...she wasn’t sure.

Whoever was on the phone with Damon listened, sympathized, gave him all the time he wanted to air his furious grievances.

While we die.

She quit listening, quit peeking at a dying boy. She let herself float away.

CHAPTER ONE

“NOW, WE BOTH know you want that quilt.” The auctioneer had strolled down the aisle between folding chairs until he was only a few feet from one of the two bidders on a spectacular album quilt. “And for a cause this important, you can spend a little extra. Isn’t that right?” He thrust the microphone toward the woman next to the man holding the bid card.

She giggled.

Nadia Markovic held her breath. She’d put in a huge amount of work to make tonight’s charity auction at Brevitt House happen, and it was paying off beyond her wildest dreams. The ballroom in this restored pre–Civil War house was packed, and bidding had been lively on the least-coveted quilts, intense on the stars of the evening. Watching from beside the temporary stage, she felt giddy. Profound relief had struck when the trickle of first arrivals had appeared two hours earlier then had gathered strength, until her current ebullience made her wonder if she’d bob gently toward the ceiling any minute.

“We’re at twenty-eight hundred dollars right now,” the auctioneer coaxed. “What do you say to twenty-nine hundred?”

The poor guy glanced at the woman, sighed and raised his bid card again.

The crowd roared.

The other bidder’s number shot up.

The silver-haired auctioneer, lean in his tuxedo and possessing a deep, powerful voice, looked around at the crowd. “Three thousand dollars, all for the victims of the recent tornadoes!”

This time, he couldn’t persuade the second bidder to go on. He declared the album quilt sold to the gentleman holding bid number 203.

Sturdy, middle-aged Katie-Ann Chupp, the Amish woman who had been Nadia’s assistant chair, exclaimed, “Three thousand dollars! Colleen will be so glad.”

Colleen Hoefling was a superb quilter. Standing at the back of the room and smiling at what was presumably congratulations from others clustered in her vicinity, she did look pleased, but not surprised. Nadia had recently sold another of Colleen’s quilts through her shop, that one in the classic Checkers and Rails pattern, for $2,800.

As the bidding began for a lap-size Sunshine and Shadows quilt, Nadia found herself trying to add up what they’d already earned but failed. She should have made notes in the catalog—

A woman in the ballroom doorway signaled for her, and Nadia slipped out to the foyer where the reception and cashiers’ tables had been set up. The auction software program being used tonight was new to all of them. Nadia had entered the original information—the quilts, estimated values and the names and addresses of all registered bidders—which made her the de facto expert.

A woman who had won the bidding on two quilts was trying to check out, but her name didn’t appear on the computer. Realizing the woman was an unexpected walk-in, Nadia added her to the software, took her money then printed a receipt.

“Quite an event you’ve put on,” the woman said, smiling. “I don’t really need any more quilts, but one of those April tornadoes missed us by less than a mile. Could have hit our house.”

Nadia thanked her again, realizing anew that she’d hardly had to sell the cause to the people who lived in northern Missouri. They saw the devastation, year after year.

The good news was that at least a third of tonight’s attendees had come from outside Missouri, either as a way to help or because they were passionate collectors excited by the mix of antique and new quilts being offered tonight. The Amish-made were among the most prized.

Nadia added the check to the gray metal lockbox. At her suggestion, they’d offered an express pay option, but surprisingly few auctiongoers had taken advantage of it. At charity events she’d helped with in Colorado, hardly anyone had paid cash. Here, apparently people were used to the fact that few Amish businesses accepted credit cards. The piles of actual cash already in the lockbox, much of it from the earlier sales tables, bemused her. It awakened something a tiny bit greedy, too. She itched to start counting the bills, even though the software would supply totals.

Able to hear furious bidding on a queen-size quilt from an elderly Amish woman, Ruth Graber, Nadia lifted her head. She expected this one to surpass the $3,000 that had been the evening’s high so far. The Carpenter’s Square pattern was intriguing but not complex; it was the elaborate hand quilting with incredibly tiny stitches that made this one stand out.

“Do you mind covering for me while I race to the bathroom?” one of the volunteer cashiers asked.

Nadia smiled. “No, I’ll be glad to sit down for a minute.” With a sigh, she sank into the chair behind one of the three networked laptop computers, not so sure she’d be able to get up again.

Of course, she’d have to make herself. Closing out and cleaning up after the auction would be a job in itself, all those display racks to be dismantled, chairs to be folded and stacked onto the rolling carts, the vast ballroom to be swept. It had to be pristine by morning. This gorgeous historic home was open to the public from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. daily except Sundays. Tomorrow was Saturday.

She couldn’t crash until she got home, however late that turned out to be. Lucky adrenaline was still carrying her.

The cause was what mattered, of course—she’d seen for herself some of the devastation left in the paths of giant twisters. She had hoped, too, that her willingness to take on organizing the event would help earn her a place in this town that was her new home.

And, okay, she was selfish enough to also hope that the success would bring in more business to A Stitch in Time, the fabric and quilt shop she had bought and was updating. If the quilters in Henness County adopted her and came first to her store both for their fabric and to offer their quilts on consignment, she would survive financially. Otherwise...she’d gone out way too far on a brittle limb when she moved to the county seat of Byrum in a part of the country she’d never been until she decided she needed to begin a new life.

She had quickly discovered the local Amish kept a distance from everyone else—the Englischers—that was difficult to erase. Their goal was to live apart from the world, to keep themselves separate. But Nadia felt she was making friends among them now, Katie-Ann being one.

Just then, Rachel Schwartz appeared, hurrying from the direction of the bathrooms. She was another Amish woman Nadia counted as a friend. When she saw Nadia, she headed toward her instead of the ballroom door. Tonight she wore a calf-length lilac dress and apron of a slightly darker shade as well as the gauzy white kapp that distinguished Amish women.

“Have they gotten to Ruth’s quilt yet?”

“They’re bidding on it right now,” Nadia said.

A swell of applause coming from the ballroom made her realize she’d missed hearing a total for Ruth’s quilt. But the cashier beside her leaned closer. “Thirty-five hundred dollars! Boy, I wish I had that kind of money to throw around.”

Nadia laughed. “I’m with you, but what a blessing so many people who do showed up tonight.”

Rachel beamed. “Ja! Didn’t we tell you? Trust in God, you should.”

Her Amish volunteers had all insisted that any endeavor was in God’s hands. They hadn’t insisted the night would therefore be a success, which was quite different. They’d all worked hard on making tonight happen, but they were unwilling to worry about the outcome. If a thunderstorm struck so that the auctiongoers stayed home, that would be God’s will. A person couldn’t be expected to understand His purpose, only to accept that He had a purpose.

No thunderstorm, thank goodness.

But Nadia only smiled. “You did tell me.”

Rachel rushed toward the ballroom, brushing against a man who happened to be strolling out at just that minute.

He drew Nadia’s immediate attention, in part because of his elegant dark suit, a contrast to what everyone else was wearing tonight. The Amish, of course, wore their usual garb. Otherwise, most of the people who’d come to bid or volunteer were dressed casually, some in khakis, some even in jeans.

Along with being beautifully dressed—although he’d skipped the tie, leaving his crisp white shirt open at the neck—this guy personified tall, dark and handsome. His every move suggested leashed power. From a distance, his eyes appeared black, but as he approached she saw that they were a deep, espresso brown. And those eyes missed nothing. Nadia had caught occasional glimpses of him all evening, strolling or holding up a wall with one of those broad shoulders. His gaze swept the crowd ceaselessly.

She had yet to meet him, but another volunteer had identified him when she asked. Byrum police chief Ben Slater was a Northerner, Jennifer Bronske had murmured, as if the fact was scandalous. From New Jersey. No one knew why he’d sought the job here or accepted it when it was offered.

Apparently, Chief Slater felt an event of this size and importance demanded his watchful presence. Or else he was suspicious of all the outsiders. Who knew? She hadn’t had so much as a shoplifter in her store, but he might have been conditioned to expect the worst.

His dark eyes met hers for the first time. It felt like an electrical shock, raising the tiny hairs on her arms. Nadia couldn’t imagine why she’d responded that way. His expression was so guarded, she didn’t have the slightest idea what he was thinking as he walked toward her.

She was peripherally aware she wasn’t the only one transfixed by his approach. The other two cashiers were staring, too, although she couldn’t tear her own gaze from him long enough to tell if they were admiring a gorgeous male specimen, or frozen the way a small mammal is when a predator locks onto it. Nadia wasn’t even sure which she felt.

He stopped on the other side of the table from her, his lips curved but his eyes remaining watchful. And he held out a hand. “Ms. Markovic, we haven’t met. I’m Ben Slater, chief of the Byrum police department.”

She focused on that hand, long-fingered and powerful enough to crush a man’s throat—and she knew what her reaction meant. That was a spike of fear she’d felt. When she made herself accept his handshake and looked into his eyes again, she saw a flicker that told her he hadn’t liked whatever he’d seen on her face.

“Chief Slater. Several people have pointed you out,” she said pleasantly, suppressing her completely irrational response. The antipathy she felt toward law enforcement officers was one thing, this something else altogether. Although she had to wonder if he wore a holster beneath that perfectly fitted jacket. The sight of a handgun could send a shudder of remembered pain and terror through her. “Thank you for coming tonight. I don’t suppose you’re planning to bid on one of those quilts, are you?”

She was pretty sure he was amused now. “As beautiful as they are,” he said, in a velvet deep voice, “I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to spend thousands of dollars on a bed covering.”

“They’re more than that,” she protested. “They’re works of art.”

“I won’t argue.” His smile was devastating in a lean, beautiful face. “Unfortunately, I don’t spend thousands of dollars for wall art, either.”

“A Philistine,” she teased, even as she marveled at her daring.

He laughed. “I’d call myself a man who lives on a modest paycheck.”

She heaved a sigh. “Oh, well. I guess you’re excused, then.”

“What about you? I didn’t see you bidding, either.”

This time, she made a face. “I can’t afford what the quilts are going for, either. I do own several beautiful ones already, though.” She hesitated. “Actually, I’m a quilter. I donated one of the lap-size quilts that already sold. That was all I had time to do, what with getting a business up and running.”

“The fabric store.”

“That’s right.”

“Not someplace I’m likely to shop.”

She chuckled. No, he would be wildly out of place amidst the riot of color and femininity in her store.

But then she had an odd thought. The previous owner of her building had died in a fall. She’d heard a rumor that the police suspected the elderly woman had been pushed down the stairs, but rumors had a way of sprouting from the smallest of seeds. Still, even when an accident resulted in a death, the police responded, didn’t they?

“You must have been in my building before.”

His gaze became opaque. “I have.”

“Did you...know Mrs. Jefferson?”

“No. I was new on the job when she died.” One side of his mouth tipped up. “And, you know, she did run a fabric store. As we’ve established, not my kind of place.”

Nadia smiled again, but it took a bit of an effort. When she heard the rumor, she’d seriously considered backing out of the sale. She’d have been within her rights, if there was any real reason to believe Mrs. Jefferson had been murdered. That was the kind of information the Realtor should have disclosed immediately. But then she’d told herself not to be an idiot. The location was perfect for her business, and she loved the idea of being able to live upstairs from it. What, did she think no one had ever died in the town of Byrum?

But she heard herself say, “I came here thinking this was a peaceful community. Learning about Mrs. Jefferson’s death really disturbed me.”

More thunderous applause from the ballroom had the police chief glancing over his shoulder, but his dark gaze returned to her. “No place is completely peaceful, Ms. Markovic. Humanity being what it is.”

“I know that.” Wait. Was he confirming that awful rumor?

No, he was speaking in generalities, of course. And, no, she absolutely would not ask him what he thought about the elderly woman’s death. Since she went up and down those stairs several times a day, the last thing she needed was to obsess about the older woman who had plummeted to her death on them.

Or to think about how intimately she had seen death.

Nadia was rescued from trying to think of something pleasant to say by renewed excitement from the ballroom. Even the police chief looked around. Nadia noticed the third cashier hovering, the one whose seat she was occupying. A stream of people started out of the ballroom, so she stood and said, “Looks like it’s time to go to work.”

Chief Slater had stepped back, but was waiting when Nadia came around the table. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said.

She forced a smile and lied. “Likewise. Except I hope I never need to call you.”

“There are other reasons for two people to talk,” he murmured, nodded—and walked away.

* * *

INTRIGUING WOMAN, BEN REFLECTED, as he stood at the back of the ballroom and watched the last few quilts be auctioned for staggering prices.

Sexy woman, too. Hair as dark as his, white, white skin that would give her trouble in the hot Missouri sun and haunting eyes he’d label as hazel, inadequate as the word was to describe the seemingly shifting colors: green, gold, whiskey brown. And lush curves. The woman was built. Breasts that would more than fill his large hands, tiny waist, womanly hips and long legs that weren’t sticks. Scrawny women had never done it for him.

For just a second, he’d thought she returned his interest. But something else had darkened her eyes. Wariness? Okay, he was a cop. Some people reacted that way to him, although usually they had a guilty conscience. She didn’t look like the type.

He frowned. He wasn’t so sure what he’d seen was wariness. She’d almost looked...afraid.

The minute the thought crossed Ben’s mind, he knew it was right. She’d moved here because she’d believed the community to be peaceful, which suggested wherever she’d come from wasn’t. Still, you’d think if she’d been the victim of a crime, law enforcement presence tonight would have reassured her.

For a moment, he didn’t see the still-full ballroom, the auctioneer, the spotters. He saw only her face, gently rounded rather than model beautiful. And he saw that flare in her eyes, and knew whatever she’d felt had been for him, not what he represented. Or, at least, not only what he represented.

He grimaced. Maybe he bore an unfortunate resemblance to some scumbag who’d beaten her. Mugged her. Stalked her. Or what if she’d had an ex who’d been a cop and violent?

Bad luck. What Ben would like to do was drop by the fabric store and persuade Ms. Nadia Markovic to take a break for a cup of coffee. But scaring women...that wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed. He’d keep his distance, at least for now.

He abruptly refocused on the stage, because Nadia had taken the microphone and was thanking everyone for coming and letting them know how much money had been raised. Over $100,000 just from the auction, plus an additional $20,000 from the sale hall open today, where many more quilts had been available as well as other textile arts. A drop in the bucket compared to the need, but a nice sum of money nonetheless.

“And, finally,” she said, “we all owe thanks to the artists who donated the work of thousands of hours, their skill and their vision, to help people whose lives were devastated by nature’s fury.”

The applause was long and heartfelt. Ben joined in, watching as Nadia made her way from the stage and through the crowd, stopping to exchange a few words here, a hug there. She was glowing. Nothing like the way she’d shut down at the sight of him.

Even so, he hung around until the end, thinking about how much money was stashed in that metal box behind the cashiers. He couldn’t shake the big-city mentality. Hard to picture anyone here trying to snatch it—but better safe than sorry.

He clenched his teeth. That had been one of his mother’s favorite sayings. She had, once upon a time, been firm in her belief she could keep her family safe by adequate precautions. Until the day she found out shit happens to everyone.

Keeping that in mind, he stepped outside and waited in the darkness beneath some ancient oak trees until he’d seen Nadia Markovic safely in her car and on her way.

* * *

THE FOURTH STAIR always creaked, and it always made her start. Which was silly. Older buildings made noises. Nadia had had an inspection done before she bought this one, and there wasn’t a thing wrong with the structure. Yet the creak made her think of clanking chains, moans and movement seen out of the corner of her eye.

Had the stair creaked before Mrs. Jefferson’s fatal fall? Nadia wrinkled her nose at her own gothic imagination. Only then she got to wondering if the police had noticed that one step creaked. Because nobody could sneak up those stairs—unless they knew to skip that step. Or the person hadn’t bothered, because he or she was expected, even welcome. Either way, it suggested the killer wasn’t a stranger.

She rolled her eyes as she set the money box on the dresser in her bedroom. If Mrs. Jefferson had the TV on, she wouldn’t have heard anyone coming. Or she could have been in the bathroom, or maybe she was going a little deaf. No one had said.

Or, oh, gee, she’d stumbled at the head of the stairs and fallen. There was a concept. A neighbor had said that the poor woman had suffered from osteoporosis. Tiny, she had become stooped with a growing hunch. She should have moved to an apartment or house where she didn’t have to deal with stairs.

And Nadia did not want to think about tragedy of any kind, not tonight. If she hadn’t encountered Ben Slater, she wouldn’t have felt nervous for a minute going upstairs in her own home.

While she was at it, she’d refrain from so much as thinking about him, too. She’d forget that odd moment of fear, or her surprising physical response to the man. Instead, she’d let herself enjoy satisfaction and even a teeny bit of triumph, because tonight they’d exceeded their original goal by a good margin. She could hardly wait to deposit the money in the bank tomorrow morning.

Normally, she didn’t like to have money lying around. She made regular deposits to limit how much cash she had on hand in the store. But whatever Chief Slater said, Byrum seemed to be a peaceful small town. She read the local paper, and most of the crimes mentioned in it were trivial or had to do with teenagers or the weekend crowd at bars.

Nadia had locked up as soon as she was inside, checking and rechecking both the building’s front and back doors as well as the one at the foot of the staircase leading to her apartment.

Worrying came naturally to her, and the tendency had worsened drastically after—Nope, not gonna think about that, either.

Instead, she removed her heels and sighed with relief. Most people hadn’t had to dress up at all, the event having been advertised as Missouri summer casual, but since she’d opened the evening and closed it, she’d felt obligated to wear a favorite silk dress with cap sleeves while hoping it wasn’t obvious her legs were bare.

She took a cool shower, brushed her teeth and went to bed wearing only panties and a cotton camisole. She threw even the top sheet aside. The small air-conditioning unit in the window helped, but she usually turned it off at some point during the night. It didn’t just hum, it rattled, which was really annoying.

Maybe that’s why Mrs. Jefferson didn’t hear someone coming up the stairs.

Nadia groaned, but even as exhausted as she was, it was bound to wake her up later. Replacing it was on her wish list.

So, as she often did, she basked in the scant flow of chilly air until her eyelids grew heavy, then forced herself to crawl out of bed and turn off the air conditioner. Tonight, not even a sultry ninety degrees would keep her awake.

* * *

THE SCREECH OF the alarm jolted Nadia to enough consciousness to slap the button to shut it off. Then she moaned and buried her face in the pillow. Why hadn’t she planned to close the shop today?

Dumb question. Saturday was her busiest day in a typical week, and she bet lots of people would stop by just to share the excitement generated by last night’s event. Plus, she needed to slip out before noon to deposit the money, since the bank’s Saturday hours were so limited.

“Ugh.” Her eyelids felt as if they were glued shut, or maybe weighted down with a thin coating of cement. She had crashed last night. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t ready to reboot.

Another cool, or even icy-cold, shower would help, she decided. She just had to get up and make it that far.

With a whimper, she rolled out of bed. It only took a minute to gather clothes. Heading for the bathroom, she tried to decide why her entire body ached. Yes, she’d worked hard yesterday doing setup, and she’d been on her feet for hours on end, but she wasn’t in that bad shape.

Nadia had gotten all the way into the bathroom before her brain stuttered. No, no. I just didn’t see because I wasn’t looking.

So she set the neat pile of clothes on the countertop, then very slowly turned around. Through the open bathroom door, she could see her dresser. She could even see her reflection in the beveled mirror above the antique chest of drawers.

She just didn’t see the money box.

CHAPTER TWO

HAVING SLEPT POORLY last night, Ben was not happy when his phone rang while he was in the bathroom trying to scrape off the whiskers he’d grown since he last shaved at approximately 6:00 p.m. yesterday. He glared at himself in the mirror and groped for the phone. Half his face still covered with foam, he snapped, “Yeah?”

“Um...Chief?”

Recognizing the voice, he sighed. “Sergeant. Sorry. What’s up?”

“Ah, just had a call I thought you’d want to know about. Since you said you were going to that event last night.”

Tension crawled up his spine. “The quilt auction.”

“Yeah. The lady who organized it says somebody stole the money. She’s next thing to hysterical.”

How in hell...? “I know where she lives. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Incredulity and worry spinning in his head, he finished shaving, got dressed and went out the door without his usual second cup of coffee. In front of her building, he parked directly behind a squad car.

After he rapped lightly on the door that had a closed sign and no one came, he went in. An astonishing array of colors filled the space. Rows and rows of fabric on bolts flowed naturally from one shade to another, while quilts hung on every wall. At the rear was a door leading into another space that had been a storeroom in the past, but he knew Ms. Markovic was offering classes now, so maybe she’d converted it. The store was a whole lot more appealing than it had been the last time he’d been here, after Mrs. Jefferson’s death.

To his right, a wide doorway opened to a hall that gave access to a restroom for customers, ending at a back door. He was all too familiar with the layout, including the oddly shaped closet beneath the staircase. Ben stopped long enough now to examine the lock on the apartment door.

Voices came from above as he mounted the stairs. One step still creaked, resulting in abrupt silence above. Sure enough, Officer Grumbach appeared at the head of the staircase.

“Chief.” He looked relieved.

Ben nodded a greeting and entered the apartment.

Nadia sat in an easy chair, arms crossed and held tight to her body. Her mass of dark hair was loose and unbrushed. She wore a stretchy camisole with no bra beneath—he had to make a conscious effort not to let his gaze drop to those generous breasts—and what looked like thin sweatpants. Her face was pinched, even paler than last night. And her eyes fixed on him, unblinking.

He sat on the coffee table right in front of her. “Okay,” he said in a deliberately gentle voice, “tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what happened!” she cried. “Like I’ve told him over and over.”

Hovering by the doorway, the young redheaded officer flushed.

“Let’s put it another way,” Ben said. “I saw you drive out of the parking lot last night.”

Her eyes widened. “You were still there?”

“I was. That was an awful lot of money you had.”

Her teeth chattered. “It never occurred to any of us that something like this could happen.”

“Now I wish I’d escorted you home, too,” he said.

Nadia shook her head. “I got home fine. I had the box. I thought of hiding it downstairs, but I decided to keep it close by instead. So I put it on the dresser in my bedroom.”

He went very still, not liking the implication.

Officer Grumbach cleared his throat. “When I checked, the back door was unlocked. And Ms. Markovic says the door at the foot of the stairs was unlocked this morning, too.”

“But I checked both last night!” Nadia’s voice rose. “I locked my apartment door and verified that I had. I did!”

Unable to help himself, Ben reached out and laid a hand over hers, now writhing in her lap. She froze, took a couple of deep breaths and continued in a quieter voice, “I worried a little, because I always do, but how could anyone get in?”

He frowned. “Are you a heavy sleeper?”

“Not usually, but I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been as tired as I was when I got home last night.”

“That’s understandable.” He took his hand back. “So you were locked up tight last night. The money box was sitting on your dresser when you fell asleep.”

“I had to have slept more deeply than usual. I never even got up to use the bathroom. I turned my air conditioner off because it’s so noisy, but for once it might not have bothered me. If not for my alarm, I wouldn’t have woken up when I did. I was still tired.”

He nodded his understanding. He gave passing thought to whether she could have been drugged, but her eyes were clear, she was unlikely to have been drinking anything during cleanup at the end of the evening, and he’d heard from more than one person that she’d been at the mansion from the beginning of setup early in the morning to the very end, at close to eleven. She had to have been dead on her feet.

Her teeth closed on her lower lip, the eyes that met his desperate. “Without the air conditioner, it was hot up here.”

An upstairs apartment like this would be, even though it was still early summer.

“All I had on was this—” she plucked at her camisole “—and panties. I didn’t even have a sheet over me.”

Horror to match hers filled him. No, she hadn’t been raped, but she’d been violated anyway.

“He—” her voice shook, and she swallowed “—he could have stood there and looked at me. And I never knew it.” She went back to trying to hug herself.

“Officer Grumbach, please go find Ms. Markovic a sweater or sweatshirt.”

He nodded and disappeared into her bedroom. She didn’t even seem to notice until Grumbach handed her a zip-front, hooded sweatshirt. After a moment, she put it on and hunched inside it.

“This morning?” he nudged.

She accepted the cue. “This morning, I got up, grabbed clothes and started into the bathroom. That’s when I realized the box was gone. I knew where I’d left it, but I ran around searching anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking. That I sleepwalked? Hallucinated last night? Anyway, I searched this whole damn place, then I ran down to my car to make sure I didn’t leave it on the seat. I parked in front last night,” she added.

“That was smart.” He nodded his approval. “Do you lock the car?” Not everyone in Henness County did. Law enforcement kept busy enough, but the crime rate per capita was substantially lower in what was usually a peaceful town and rural surroundings than it had been in urban Camden, New Jersey.

“I always do. And it was still locked, so I knew—” She gulped to a stop.

Ben straightened, careful not to let her see what he was thinking. Because there were two possibilities here, and the most obvious was that she was lying through her teeth. If so, she was one hell of a liar, but he didn’t know her well. Nobody in these parts did. The first thing he’d do when he got to the station was run a thorough search on Nadia Markovic’s background.

Possibility two was that somebody had somehow unlocked two doors without leaving a scratch or making a lot of noise—because however sound her sleep, Ben was betting she’d have woken if she heard a strange sound right there in her apartment—and walked out with the money. And if that was the case...odds were good the thief had been a participant or volunteer at the auction. Who else would know who had the money?

What would have happened if she had awakened to see someone looming in her bedroom? Had the thief been prepared to kill if necessary?

A question he didn’t need to ask himself until he eliminated the possibility that she had either planned the entire event with the intention of profiting from it, or had succumbed to temptation at some point and decided to keep the money.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink yet this morning?” he asked abruptly.

Comprehension was a little slow coming. “No. No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat.”

“You can,” he said firmly. “Let’s go in the kitchen, and I can at least pour you a cup of coffee.”

“Tea. I drink tea.”

“Tea it is.” He rose and held out a hand. Just like last night, she stared at his hand for a split second longer than would be usual before taking it. He boosted her to her feet. “Officer Grumbach, I think you can go back to patrol now.” On a twinge of memory, Ben glanced at her. “Unless you’d be more comfortable not being alone with me, Ms. Markovic.”

“What? Oh, no. That’s fine.” She summoned a weak smile for the young officer. “Thank you. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“You were understandably upset, ma’am.” Grumbach nodded and departed in what Ben suspected was more relief. He was a new hire, barely experienced enough to be out on his own. He’d done fine, though; Ben made a mental note to tell him so.

Nadia wanted to make her own tea, but he persuaded her to sit and let him do it. Waiting for the water to boil, he investigated her refrigerator and cupboards, finally settling on a croissant he heated in the microwave before splitting it open and slapping on raspberry jam from a local Amish woman. He recognized the label. He added extra sugar to the tea before setting the cup in front of her, then the croissant.

Under his stern gaze, she did eat and sipped at her English breakfast tea. Finally, she admitted to feeling better.

“Then let’s talk.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket. He thought being recorded might stifle her. “Who knew you were taking the proceeds home?” he asked bluntly.

She blinked. “I can’t imagine...”

He cocked an eyebrow. “But the thief had to know.”

“Oh, dear God,” Nadia whispered. She stared into space for a minute. “Well, Katie-Ann Chupp, of course. Julie Baird, Karen Llewellyn, probably Rachel Schwartz.”

Two Amish, two Englischers. Even he’d come to divide his citizenry that way. From what he’d learned since moving to Byrum, it would be a cold day in hell before either of the warmhearted Amish women would so much as give a passing thought to stealing, never mind carrying out a heist like this. They’d have no need. If either woman’s family was struggling financially, all they’d have to do was ask for help, and it would pour forth. That’s how the Amish worked; they took care of each other. On the other hand, he knew both the other women, at least in passing, and felt reasonably sure neither made a likely suspect, either. Julie Baird’s husband was a doctor, Karen’s a representative for a farm equipment company. Still, he noted all four names.

Nadia reeled off a few more, then admitted that anyone helping with cleanup might have heard or guessed that she would be taking the money.

Yes, it would have been logical to suppose the event chair would deal with the evening’s take, which could widen the suspect pool considerably. But would somebody really break in to look for the cash box without being 100 percent certain Nadia had taken it home? Ben didn’t think so.

Of course, that somebody could have been lurking outside to see who carried the box out, and even though Ben had been watching for just that eventuality, landscaping around the historic mansion included a lot of dark bushes and trees.

“Did you see anyone around last evening who wasn’t involved with the auction?” he asked.

Her forehead crinkled. “I don’t think... Only Mr. Warren, wanting to be sure everything was going smoothly. He left after I promised to lock up and then return the keys sometime today, but I bet he went by after we were gone last night to make sure I had.”

Ben would bet the same. Lyle Warren, head of the historical society that maintained and showed the house, was anal to an extreme. He fussed.

“Anybody ask questions about the money?” Ben asked.

She stared at him. “Well...of course they did.”

“No, I was thinking about interest in how much cash you had versus checks or credit card slips.”

Nadia moaned, and he didn’t blame her. Once word got out, people would have to contact their credit card companies, maybe wait for new cards, put a stop on checks. Those among them with a strong conscience would then reimburse the auction committee, meaning the total sum wasn’t lost. But if the thief made use of credit card numbers or altered and cashed checks, everyone would be pissed, whether the credit card companies and banks took the loss or not.

Unfortunately, some inks were easy to “wash” from a check, allowing the thief to change the recipient’s name and even the amount the check was made out for. Depending on what info the auction cashiers had written down, checks could be an aid to identity theft, too.

And anyone who had not just a credit card number, but also the expiration date, name on the card and the code from the back was home free to spend up to the limit.

When she finally answered, he could tell her thoughts had gone a different direction.

“Nobody asked,” she said, her voice thin. “I think...most of them are so used to transactions with the Amish being primarily cash, nothing about the evening would surprise them. You know? But every time I opened the box, I was surprised. I mean, there were wads of money. So many of the sellers during the day were Amish, I bet three-fourths or more of that twenty thousand dollars was cash. And last night... I’ll have to find out, but even if it was only half...”

In other words, somebody might have gotten his or her hands on between sixty and seventy thousand dollars in cash. Even if the thief didn’t make use of the credit card numbers, the loss was substantial, even cataclysmic.

“Have you told anyone yet?”

She shuddered. “No.”

He decided to ease into the personal stuff. “Will you tell me why you moved here, Ms. Markovic?”

That had her staring. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Was she really that obtuse? He studied her face and couldn’t decide.

“I’m wondering whether you left behind somebody who dislikes you enough to want to do you a bad turn, and profit from it, too.”

“Oh. You mean an ex-husband or something?”

“A stalker, anyone who feels wronged by you.”

She started to shake her head again.

“Have you ever taken out a restraining order?”

“No. Never.”

“Were you married?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been in a relationship that ended badly?”

“No. Really.”

He rolled his shoulders. “That takes us back to my original question. Why did you move and why here? And where did you come from?”

“Colorado Springs. I grew up in Colorado, even stayed there for college.”

Big change, Ben mused, to leave a town of half a million residents at the foot of the Rockies for Byrum, with its flat terrain and 3,809 residents. He’d guess Colorado Springs to be politically liberal, too, while this part of Missouri was anything but. Of course, he was one to talk, coming from the urban jungle of Camden, New Jersey.

Nadia drew a deep breath. “I wanted—I needed—” The words seemed to be hitting a blockade.

Once again, he reached across the table and took her hand, which felt damn cold in his, considering the air temperature.

“I was running away,” she whispered.

* * *

SHE COULDN’T HAVE just said, I needed a change? But, no, the down-deep truth had slipped out. Nadia wanted to bury her face in her hands. Except one of hers was engulfed in his big, warm, comforting hand.

“From my family,” she added hastily. Like that helped. There was no getting out of this now, even if her past couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the money being stolen.

“I...had something traumatic happen. I couldn’t get past it. I thought making a change would help.”

The intensity in his dark eyes made it hard to look away. “You wanted a peaceful small town.”

“Yes.”

“Surely there are nice small towns in Colorado.”

His speculative tone unnerved her. Evading the question wouldn’t be smart. “I wanted to get farther away from home. Everyone I knew either babied me, or they kept thinking of fun things we could do. And I know they were trying to cheer me up, but...”

“If I do some research, would I find out what happened?”

Had he even noticed his thumb was circling in her palm, which was way more sensitive than she’d ever realized?

“Probably,” Nadia said. “But it really didn’t have anything to do with this. I mean, the money.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched her. Why had she opened her big mouth?

She bent her head and looked at the tabletop. “It was a domestic violence thing I got caught up in by chance.”

“Not your family.”

“No. And...I have to tell you, I really hate to talk about it.” Even trying to get out of talking about it caused the memories to rush over her, still shockingly vivid, colored in blood.

He saw more than he should, because his hand tightened. Or maybe it was because in his job he saw the horrifying aftermath of similar scenes. On a swelling of remembered bitterness, she wondered whether he would have made the same decisions those cops had.

“Will you give me the bare bones anyway?”

“You don’t need to hear this,” she said stubbornly.

He waited, his eyes never leaving her face.

“I stopped by a friend’s house.” Oh, heavens—she was going to do this. “I’d obviously arrived at a tense moment. My friend—Paige—tried to hustle me out, but too late. Her husband had gone to get his gun. He shot all three kids, me and Paige. I...pretended to be dead. It was, um...”

Ben Slater made a low, guttural sound. The next thing she knew, he’d circled the table and crouched beside her chair. So close. He laid a hand on her back. Nadia was shocked by how much she wanted his arms around her, to bury her face against his neck, but she made herself stay where she was, focused on the grain of the oak table.

“Did anyone but you survive?”

“Their daughter. She was six. She’s seven now.” The little girl’s recovery was the only spark of hope emerging from the horror. “Otherwise...even he killed himself at the end.”

Ben breathed a profanity. “How badly were you injured?”

“I was lucky.” She touched the spot where she knew the scar was on her abdomen. “The bullet came at an angle and missed everything important. I bled enough that I guess my acting was believable.” She even managed a sort of smile.

“How long ago was this?”

“A year and a half. It left me really jumpy, and I had bad dreams. And, like I said, my friends and family were driving me nuts. Plus, I’d been teaching quilting classes and selling my own quilts, but also working for the assessor’s office. My dream was to have my own store. Property values and rents are lower here, so I could swing it with what I’d saved. And interest in quilts is high anywhere the Amish live.” She might very well lose her store now. The reminder was chilling. If people didn’t think she’d stolen the money herself, they’d see her as careless.

Not just people. Chief Slater. Of course he had to suspect her! Nadia couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized that sooner. He didn’t think someone from her past had pursued her here to Byrum; he needed to investigate her, and she’d just given him a jump start.

So much for wanting to sink into the safety of his embrace.

Her spine stiffened and she felt his hand drop from her back. “As I said, what happened is irrelevant.”

A flicker in his eyes told her he’d noted her withdrawal. He rose and looked down at her. “To the heist? Probably. But in other ways? Of course it isn’t.”

Pulled by the power of that velvety voice, roughened now, she couldn’t help but look at him. His eyes were nearly black, the bones in his face prominent, his mouth tight.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, and waited.

“Aren’t there a couple of other apartments on this block?”

He was thinking someone might have been awake to see an intruder. She wished that was possible.

“The one next door is empty right now. The florist went out of business.”

He frowned. “Right.”

“I heard a group of Amish furniture makers may have taken the lease. I hope so.”

“It would work well with your business,” he agreed. “And we don’t want vacancies downtown.”

“No. The next closest apartment is above the barber shop.”

Slater grimaced. “Lester Orton.”

Mr. Orton had to be eighty years old. He seemed to cut hair fine, and must handle the stairs to his apartment, but he was going deaf and she’d noticed his lights went out every evening by nine o’clock at the very latest.

“There are several upstairs apartments across the street, too, but it was my back door that was unlocked. Even if one of those neighbors had been looking out the window, they couldn’t have seen anything.”

“Unless he was using a flashlight.”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t tell you anything.”

He did the neutral cop expression well, but she was already shaking her head.

“That’s not true. It would...corroborate my story, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that the word police always use?”

“It is, and yes, it would.” No discernible emotion there.

Nadia would have liked to resent his suspicion, his ability to shift from cool questions to compassion and back again. Maybe he’d held her hand because he was basically a nice man who really had felt for her. More likely, he’d been trying to make her believe they had a connection. Which was deceitful, but...he was doing his job. She couldn’t dislike him for that.

He went back to his seat, and they looked at each other, him appraising her, Nadia gazing coolly back.

Finally she asked, “What should I do now?”

He hesitated. “I think you need to start letting your committee members know what happened. I’ll be talking to them, too. One of them may have noticed someone expressing unexpected curiosity about the event, or someone hanging around who shouldn’t have been there.” He paused. “Do you have a list of attendees?”

“I can pull up a report from the software on people who preregistered and the walk-ins who made a purchase.” She closed her eyes. “I need to let them know, too, don’t I?”

“Certainly the ones who wrote checks or paid by credit card. They’ll need to put stops on those payments. I’m guessing most of them will then make a new payment, so you won’t be out the entire amount.” The lines in his forehead deepened. “Ask them to let us know if their card number is run or their check already cashed, too.”

“Isn’t that awfully hard to do?”

“You mean the checks? Yeah, it’s tougher than it used to be,” he agreed. “I doubt that will happen. Credit card numbers...you know what a big business stealing those has turned into. Even so, my suspicion is that the thief was solely after the cash.”

As much as two-thirds of the money so many people had worked hard to raise for victims who needed it desperately.

Well, the only cowardly thing she’d done in her life was pack up and set out across country to start over. She wouldn’t add another now. Shower, she told herself, get dressed and begin.

Slater asked if there had been walk-ins who hadn’t made a purchase, and she could only say, “I assume so, but I have no way of knowing. Also...most people came in pairs.” Spouses were one thing, but some bidders had probably brought a friend instead.

He gave her his email address so that she could send him a list of attendees and the contact info. Even then, he wasn’t done. He asked if she’d changed the locks since buying the building—no—and suggested she have it done immediately.

He gave her one last penetrating look with those disconcertingly dark eyes and said, “Think, Ms. Markovic. This wasn’t a stranger. He or she had to know not only who had the money, but how to get into your apartment without making a sound. He could have had a penlight—probably did—but it’s also possible our thief already knew the layout.”

He also asked her to walk him to the foot of the stairs and lock behind him. Which, like replacing the locks, was closing the barn door after the horses were out... Except, what if last night’s intruder had been thinking about her, and decided to come back?

Alone, Nadia scuttled upstairs to an apartment that no longer felt like a refuge.

CHAPTER THREE

NADIA HAD BEEN to the Bairds’ house several times, because Julie had hosted some auction committee planning sessions. Sprawling and open, it was the fanciest house in town except possibly for a couple of the huge nineteenth-century mansions. The interior was light and airy, the colors all pastels. Nadia had noticed before that Julie only purchased quilts in soft colors. She was currently taking a beginner-level class, having decided to take up quilting herself, and—no surprise—she’d chosen a creamy yellow fabric as centerpiece, to be accented with paler creams and delicate pinks.

Not much older than Nadia’s thirty-two, Julie was an attractive, slender woman with a shining cap of blond hair. Nadia had wondered if she went to a salon in St. Louis or Kansas City. No other women around here had hair as skillfully cut.

Leading Nadia to the living room, Julie said, “I’ll have Mary bring us iced tea. Or would you prefer lemonade?” Mary Gingerich was a young Amish woman who kept the house spotless and served as maid when Julie had guests.

“Oh, thank you, but no. I can only stay a minute,” Nadia said, smiling apologetically. The smile probably looked as forced as it felt. “I...have something I need to tell you.”

Looking concerned, Julie faced her. “What is it?”

Nadia blurted it out, just as she had half an hour ago to Katie-Ann. “The money from last night was stolen.”

Julie stared, comprehension coming slowly. “What?” She gave her head a small shake. “How?”

Fingernails biting into her palms, Nadia told her.

“You’ve informed the police.”

“Yes, of course. I called 911 as soon as I discovered the money box was gone. Sheriff Slater seems to be taking charge of the investigation himself.”

“And what does he say?” Julie sounded...cool. She hadn’t suggested Nadia sit down.

“He’ll be talking to everyone working on the auction. I’m sure you’ll hear from him. He’s interested in who might have been hanging around without an obvious reason, and whether anyone was asking questions about the evening’s proceeds.”

Her perfectly arched eyebrows rose. “You mean, about who was taking charge of the money?”

“Yes, or seeming curious about how much of it was cash versus checks and credit card slips.”

“I see.” The pause was a little too long. “I don’t really know what to say. I’m certainly...shocked.”

And she wasn’t going to be supportive, Nadia could tell that already. “I’m devastated,” Nadia said frankly. “I don’t know what I can do other than help Chief Slater to the best of my ability.”

“Perhaps you should consider making some financial recompense,” Julie said, her voice having chilled even more.

“Julie, I’m a small-business owner. I have no cushion that would allow me to do anything like that.” Feeling the burn in her cheeks, Nadia said, “I must be going. I need to tell everyone who was on the committee what happened in person.”

“I appreciate you doing that. I’ll walk you to the door.”

In other words, if she didn’t hustle, the door would slap her in the butt. She had no doubt that the moment she was gone Julie would start calling everyone but the Amish volunteers, who didn’t have telephones. Nadia thought of asking her to wait, but keeping herself together was a strain already. She said, “Goodbye,” without adding her usual, See you Wednesday for the class. Somehow, she felt sure Julie Baird would have an excuse for dropping out. Or she might not even bother with one.

Nadia drove half a mile from the Baird home, which was on landscaped acreage on the outskirts of Byrum, before she pulled over, set the emergency brake and closed her eyes. She had known—feared—that some people might react like that, but Katie-Ann’s warmth and sympathy had given her hope that these women she had started to think were friends would believe in her. She wanted to go home, climb into bed and pull the covers over her head.

The image startled and dismayed her. This wasn’t close to the worst thing that had happened to her. Nobody was threatening to hurt or kill her. This was all about shame and her sense of responsibility. So suck it up, she told herself.

Her appointment with the locksmith wasn’t until four. She still had time, and she had to do this.

Karen Llewellyn next, then... Nadia made a mental list of who she needed to see and in what order, talked herself through some slow, deep breathing, then put the car back into gear.

* * *

WHEN LYLE WARREN saw Ben, alarm flared in his eyes. Now, why would that be? Ben asked himself, his instincts going on alert.

“Mr. Warren.” He held out a hand.

The older man, tall and bony, eyed that hand dubiously before extending his own. Ben was reminded of Nadia Markovic doing the same last night. The shake was brief. Lyle said, “I’m surprised to see you here, Chief Slater. What can I do for you?”

Ben had first visited the Brevitt mansion, where Warren maintained an office, then tried him at home. At last he’d tracked him down to what he’d been told were the remains of a gristmill a few miles outside of town. Walking the distance from where he’d had to park, Ben had begun to think he should have waited until Warren returned to town. He’d done some hiking in Upstate New York and New England, but he wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, and he’d had the unfortunate experience of encountering poison ivy not long after moving to Missouri. He thought that was Virginia creeper growing thick among the trees here, but wasn’t positive. It and poison ivy looked too much alike. One of them had three leaves, the other... He couldn’t remember. Five? But the answer was irrelevant, since he also didn’t remember which was which.

He’d found Lyle Warren prepared for the trek in heavy canvas pants and boots, in contrast to Ben’s dressier shoes and slacks. Warren hadn’t seemed like the woodsy type.

Now Ben surveyed the ruins. “You’re thinking you can do something with this?”

“If we can purchase the property. We could restore the building.”

Okay, the brick walls still stood, although Ben wouldn’t have risked leaning on one. Graffiti had been sprayed on a couple of those walls, and when he walked a few feet to peer inside, he saw cigarette butts and discarded condoms. Nice.

“According to records, the original mill on this site was built in eighteen thirty-seven,” Lyle said, in his precise way. “It was burned down in the Civil War. This one was erected using the original foundation in eighteen sixty-nine, shut down at one point, then restarted in the eighteen nineties. The steel rollers were, unfortunately, removed during World War II to be melted down. We do have some of the other equipment in storage.”

“Huh.”

Lyle’s mouth tightened, making him look as if he was sucking on a lemon. “This land is owned by Aaron Hershberger, who is Amish. Although he isn’t farming this strip, he is reluctant to sell any part of the land. He doesn’t want a tourist site right next door, he says.”

Ben wasn’t about to say so, but he could sympathize. The Amish were tourist attractions themselves. They might take advantage of that fact commercially—their fine furniture, quilts and other products were profitable—but they had to be annoyed by the outright nosiness of visitors who didn’t respect personal boundaries. Ben didn’t know Hershberger, but he’d noticed the farm as he passed, with dairy cows grazing in a pasture, an extensive orchard, several acres of what Ben thought might be raspberries, neatly tied in rows, and a handsome huge barn with a gambrel roof and stone foundation. If the mill became starred on maps, he’d have a steady stream of cars passing his place and a lot of strangers tramping through these woods. Maybe through his fields, too, in a quest to get an up close look at a “real” Amish farm.

Lyle planted his hands on his hips and gazed yearningly at the crumbling brick walls and burbling creek overhung with maples, sycamore trees, dogwoods and some others Ben didn’t recognize. “The fool is too shortsighted to recognize how critical historic preservation is. If we dawdle another five or ten years, this site might be lost to intrusive vegetation and the teenagers who obviously use it for...for...” Apparently, sex wasn’t a word he was actually willing to speak.

Ben hadn’t noticed any drug paraphernalia, only cigarette butts and beer cans, or he would have planned to speak to the Henness County sheriff, Daniel Byler. But what was going on here... Kids would be kids. He’d had sex for the first time himself in a boarded-up house.

Of course, all he’d had to worry about was an unstable transient climbing in the same broken window he had. Here, the mill looked like a great hangout for cottonmouths and rattlesnakes.

“I don’t suppose you came out here to look at the mill,” Lyle said, shoving his hands in his pants pockets.

“You’re right. I didn’t. I need to ask you some questions about yesterday’s event.”

He frowned. “I was told it went well.”

“It did. Very well.” Ben barely hesitated. “However, the proceeds were stolen during the night from the volunteer who had taken them home.”

Lyle blinked a couple times. “Stolen? But...how?”

“It would appear somebody waltzed into the woman’s bedroom and helped him or herself to the money box.”

The guy took a step back. “But...why are you talking to me?”

Did he receive a salary from the historical society? Ben found himself wondering. Even if he did, the odds were it wasn’t much. Did he have family money? Lyle might have the mannerisms of an elderly man, but he wasn’t more than mid to late forties. He could be struggling financially, but didn’t want to lose his status by quitting the historical society gig. Or...was he passionate enough about his cause to steal to benefit the historical society? Say, to buy this piece of property? Would he be making Aaron Hershberger a new, higher offer soon?

“Because I understand you were in and out last night,” Ben said. “I’m compiling a list of who was present, particularly locals, and thought you might be able to add to it.”

“Oh.” His features slackened briefly in what Ben took for relief. “Well, it’s true I’ve had people remark on how observant I am. I suppose...”

Ben suggested they walk and talk, so they made their way back to the cars. A couple of names did pop up in Lyle’s recollections that surprised Ben a little. Lyle was quite sure no one had asked him about the money.

“Why would they? I didn’t know anything about it. I don’t even know who took it home.” He unlocked his car door and opened it, stepping behind it as if to put a barrier between him and Ben.

“I’ll bet you could make a good guess,” Ben suggested, trying to keep the dryness from his voice. “Observant as you are.”

“Well...” Lyle appeared briefly pleased. “I suppose I would have assumed that Ms. Markovic had it. She’d taken responsibility for locking up, you know, which means she was the last out. And she was in charge of the whole event.”

“You’re right. It was Ms. Markovic who was robbed.”

His forehead creased. “She wasn’t hurt, was she?”

“No. In fact, she never knew she had an intruder until she woke up this morning and found the money gone.”

“That’s...well, it’s dreadful. So much work went into it. I never did hear how much money they raised.”

That sounded genuine, although Ben took almost everything with a grain of salt. Which might be one reason his personal life was so lacking.

“Just over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

“Oh, my. Oh, my.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Ben gave himself a shake. “I need to be going.” He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and extended it. “Here’s my number. If you think of anyone you didn’t mention, hear any rumors, please give me a call. It’s my hope we can recover this money.”

“That would certainly be best,” Lyle agreed.

When Ben drove away, Lyle hadn’t moved. He still stood beside his car, looking after Ben’s marked BPD unit, his thoughts well hidden.

* * *

NADIA RETURNED TO her shop midafternoon to find her one full-time employee, Hannah Yoder, answering questions from two women whose clothing and colorful tote bags labeled them as tourists.

Nadia greeted the women and chatted briefly with them before deciding neither was serious about buying a quilt. Truth was, they were probably enjoying interacting with a real Amish person. She excused herself and went upstairs. She ought to leave her purse and go back down, even let Hannah go home, but what if people came into the store because they were excited about the auction? Or, worse, because they’d heard about the missing money and wanted to judge whether she was guilty or innocent for themselves?

All the more reason to hide up here.

With a sigh, she sank into a chair at her table and massaged her forehead and temples, pressing hard to counteract the pain that had been building all day. Her neck hurt, too, as did her shoulders. Tension made her feel as if she’d been stretched on a medieval rack.

She’d talked to—she had to count—nine people today, the ones she felt obligated to tell in person. Mostly volunteers, several quilters and the head of the relief organization that was to have funneled the money to the homeowners and farmers most in need of help.

The four Amish women had, while shocked and dismayed, also seemed genuinely distressed for Nadia. They had, one and all, plied her with sympathy and food.

Bill Jarvis, from the relief organization, had all but reeled, as if she’d struck him. “But...we had such hopes,” he said, leaving her almost speechless. With the best intentions in the world, she had let so many people down. Bill didn’t seem to blame her, at least, not yet; given a little time, he might circle around to anger.

Of the remaining women Nadia had told, one had been openly sympathetic, one scathing and two on the fence. If those were her odds, she’d be posting an out-of-business sign within a couple of months. Her Amish shoppers might stick with her, but her biggest competition was a nice, Amish-owned fabric store in Hadburg, the next-largest town in the county, and closer to where most members of the faith lived. Many worked in or owned businesses in Byrum, but their ideal was rural living and Nadia knew of only a few who had homes or apartments in town. She wouldn’t even want the Amish to entirely abandon the Hadburg store just to support her.

Of course, going out of business was only one option. Another was the possibility of being arrested.

Now she was just being pathetic. How could Chief Slater arrest her? She didn’t have the money. Full stop.

So now what? she asked herself drearily.

Help him to the best of her ability, even if the man had disturbed her both times they’d met, although for different reasons. And what she could actually do to help was a mystery.

When a knock on the door at the foot of the stairs came, Nadia pushed herself wearily to her feet.

Instead of Hannah, a man stood there patiently waiting. Medium height and thin, he had light brown hair graying at his temples and a face too lined for what she guessed to be his age.

“Ms. Markovic?” he said. “I’m Jim Wilcox.” When she apparently looked blank, he tapped the embroidered insignia on his shirt. “Wilcox Lock and Key?”

“Oh! Oh, yes. Thank you for coming.”

“You said you had a break-in?”

“Actually, what we suspect is that the intruder had a key.”

He frowned. “Well, first thing I’d suggest is that this interior door require a different key than the front and back doors. I put these locks in myself, had to be seven or eight years ago. I suggested the same to Mrs. Jefferson, but she didn’t want to be bothered to have to figure out which key went to which door.”

“I actually meant to get this lock changed when I first moved in,” she admitted, “just because it opens to my private living space. I’ve had so much else to do, though, and really the only other person who has a key is Hannah Yoder—”

“Who is trustworthy.” He nodded. “Even so...”

“Even so,” Nadia agreed.

“You want me to replace all three locks.”

“Yes.”

He backed up a step. “I’ll get started, then.” But he didn’t keep going. Instead, he cleared his throat. “I hope you weren’t home when you had the break-in. I mean, that you weren’t hurt or...frightened.”

“I slept through it,” she said wryly. “But I was scared to death come morning when I realized he’d been right there—” She cut herself off with a shudder.

“I’m real sorry, Ms. Markovic.” He looked truly distressed, but Nadia had found most people in her new community to be kind. Or, she had until today.

She smiled with difficulty. “Thank you, Mr. Wilcox. I appreciate you coming so quickly.”

He bobbed his head awkwardly and retreated, presumably going out to his truck to get the new locks and whatever tools he needed.

Nadia made herself go into the store, where she found a trio of women she knew.

“Is it true?” one of them said right away.

She had to say, “Unfortunately.”

* * *

FRUSTRATED, BEN DECIDED to go by and talk to Nadia again before he called it a day. She might have learned something, or at least that’s what he told himself. The underlying truth was that he wanted to find out how people had reacted to her disclosure. She’d gotten to him this morning, when she had explained why she needed to start over in a new place. He hadn’t been able to help thinking about the parallels with his sister in her lengthy recovery from the assault that shattered her life, and hoped everyone Nadia talked to had at least been decent to her.

Online, he hadn’t had any trouble finding articles about the horrific episode when she’d been shot. Turned out, she’d given him a very condensed version. It sounded like a real nightmare, and one that had gone on for hours. He also learned that she’d spent those hours using her body to protect the little girl, somehow keeping her quiet after she regained consciousness. Nadia had saved young Molly’s life. She was labeled a heroine in news coverage. He’d seen a picture snapped from a distance away of her being brought out of the house on a gurney. The cops and EMTs in the photo all looked grim in a way Ben recognized. The sight of murdered children scarred the most hardened cop. And to know their own father had killed them...

He shook his head in denial, even though he knew better. Fathers, and mothers, too, regularly hurt and killed their own children.

Nadia was closing up when he arrived. She let him in, then turned the sign on the door to Closed. His gaze went to the shiny new dead bolt lock.

“I see Jim has been here.”

“Yes. I don’t think he charged me enough. He seemed to feel bad about what happened.”

“Yeah, he was pretty upset when Mrs. Jefferson died, too.”

“He told me he recommended she replace the lock on the apartment door, but she didn’t want to be bothered with two different keys.”

Ben nodded. “Jim felt guilty that he hadn’t insisted.”

“Wait.” She gaped at him. “Do you actually think someone killed her? That she didn’t just fall down the stairs?”

“I’m sure she was pushed,” he said grimly.

“But...how can you know?”

“Because her head hit the wall a lot higher than it could have if she’d fallen. We found blood and hair in the dent. It took some real force to launch her up instead of down. The ME agrees, too. People who fall bump down the stairs, but her injuries are consistent with the greater force theory.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

He kept a snapshot of Edith Jefferson’s body, just as he did one of every other crime victim he’d seen. Crumpled at the foot of the stairs, Edith had appeared shockingly tiny and hideously damaged.

He tried to shake off the picture. “It happened long before you came to town. What happened to her was personal. It had nothing to do with you.”

“No, I know, but...” She shivered. “Even if she’d changed that lock, it might not have made any difference.”

“It might not have,” he agreed. It stuck in his craw that he hadn’t been able to make an arrest. Nothing had been stolen. Nobody seemed to have both motive to kill the old woman and opportunity. He hadn’t closed the case, though, and wouldn’t. He hoped like hell this current investigation didn’t end up in a similar limbo. So far, it wasn’t looking good. “So, how’d your day go?” he asked.

She told him, but he had a feeling this was the condensed version, too. Her face was pinched, her luminous eyes clouded. It was especially disturbing because he’d seen her glowing on the stage last night as she thanked everyone. The contrast was painful.

She might have taken the money, he reminded himself, but couldn’t quite believe it. Okay, didn’t want to believe it.

He threw out names of people he had been told were there last night. Turned out several were playing a behind-the-scenes role or had good reason to be attending. A couple of the names had her shaking her head.

“I don’t know any of them. Or, if I’ve met them, I didn’t catch their names.”

She didn’t invite him up to her apartment, and since he hadn’t come up with anything else to ask her, Ben finally said, “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten today.”

Expression mulish, she retorted, “You made me have breakfast, remember?”

“A croissant. Did you stop for lunch?”

Her lips compressed.

“You may not feel like eating,” he said quietly, “but you need to make yourself. And take something for that headache.”

Nadia stiffened. “How did you know?”

“You have all the signs.” He knew he could have massaged some of that pain away, but he couldn’t let himself put his hands on her. As the last person to have the money, she remained a suspect.

“You’re right.” She sagged slightly. “I’ll follow your advice. I promise.”

He left on that note. On the drive home, he called to let his dispatcher know where he’d be, then made another call to order a pizza for pickup.

Usually by the end of a day, he was sick enough of people to relish a few hours of solitude. Tonight, his house felt strangely lonely when he finally let himself in.

For once, he was glad when his phone rang shortly after he’d cleaned up when he was done eating, and especially when he saw the name displayed. His sister. Odd timing, when she’d been on his mind so much the past few days.

“Lucy.”

“Hey,” she said. “Did I get you at a good time?”

“Yep. Just had pizza and I was thinking of kicking back and watching some baseball. How are you?” He made the question sound light, but it wasn’t. It never was. While he was in college, Lucy, only a year and a half older than him, had been brutally raped and left for dead. The rapist was never identified and arrested. She was the reason Ben had changed his major from prelaw to criminology.

Lucy had remained...fragile. She was gutsy enough to move into an apartment of her own despite their parents’ opposition, and she held a job, but to his knowledge she never dated, probably never went out at night, which limited any friendships. She lived a half life, because she could never forget. He saw hints of the same vulnerability in Nadia, but also more strength.

“I’m okay,” his sister said now. “But I was thinking.”

Ben waited.

“Would you mind if I came for a visit?” she said in a rush.

Traveling was something else she didn’t do.

Hiding his surprise, he said, “What, you think I’ll say no? I’ve only been trying to talk you into coming since the day I moved.”

“I know. Something happened that shook me up—nothing big, just the usual—” which meant she’d had a panic attack “—and, you know, I’ve been reading about your part of Missouri. I’d like to see it.”

“It’s pretty country, but not spectacular.”

“I’m curious about the Amish. They sound so gentle.”

Ben had his suspicions that behind the facade even the Amish had their share of drunks and spousal and child abuse, but he had to admit that on the whole the ones he’d dealt with were straightforward, good-humored and honest. Their belief in forgiveness was profound. Okay, he still had trouble believing an Amish woman who had suffered what Lucy had could truly forgive her rapist. But then, he was a cynic.

“They seem like good people,” he agreed. “Individuals, just like any other group.”

“Yes. I just thought...” Lucy hesitated. “I don’t know. That Byrum sounds like a nice place. Even...”

Oh, hell. He braced himself. Don’t let her say safe.

What she did say was almost worse. “Peaceful,” she finished.

He remembered what Nadia had said, word for word. I had something traumatic happen. I couldn’t get past it. I thought making a change would help.

She’d sought peace here, too, and hadn’t found it.

“I’m a cop,” he said, his voice coming out rough. “They hired me for a reason, Lucy.”

“I know, but it’s not the same as what you dealt with here, is it?”

The hope in her voice just about killed him.

“No.” What could he say but, “When are you coming?”

She would be safer here. She’d have him, and nobody would hurt Lucy on his watch.

She never forgot, and neither did he.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT LEAST, WITH today being Sunday, Nadia didn’t have to open her store. Too bad she had to spend her day doing something worse than facing the avidly nosy and the angry in person. Instead, she was going to call every single person who’d written a check or used a credit card for a purchase at Friday’s event. Karen Llewellyn had offered to help, the reluctance in her voice only part of why Nadia had insisted on handling the entire task herself. The main reason was her sense of responsibility. She’d lost the money. To the extent she could, Nadia vowed to face the unpleasant consequences alone.

She knew a few attendees, and was well aware that some calls would prove more difficult than others. Difficult being a euphemism, of course.

Strictly alphabetical was the only way to go, she decided.

With a cup of tea steeping at her elbow, she opened her laptop and began. Her very first call was to the woman she’d added as a walk-in last night, Louise Alsobrook.

“Oh, you poor dear!” was the first thing Ms. Alsobrook exclaimed after Nadia’s stiff explanation. “Didn’t somebody among your volunteers have a safe?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Nadia said. “And really...I don’t think any of us dreamed of something like this happening. The community has been so supportive. I’ve been involved with charity events in a larger city before and nobody worried about securing the money until the bank opened.”

“Greed can happen anywhere,” the woman said practically. “Well, I just looked online, and the charge to my credit card hasn’t been presented. I’ll ask my credit card company to put a stop on this number and issue a new card. In the meantime, I’ll put a check in the mail for the same amount, or even some extra. Because a lot of what’s gone must have been cash, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Thank you so much, Ms. Alsobrook,” Nadia said fervently. “This is...such a nightmare, and you’ve been very kind.”

“Oh, honey, I know all of you worked so hard. Now, should I send it straight to the aid organization?”

“Yes, please.” She asked that Ms. Alsobrook add a note to let Bill Jarvis know that it was a replacement for the stolen credit card slip. He’d agreed to keep track so that the auction organizers knew who had sent money and how much.

“I’ll send that check first thing tomorrow,” Ms. Alsobrook promised.

Eyes stinging, Nadia ended the call, made a note and allowed herself a few sips of tea before she reached for the phone again.

* * *

ARMS CROSSED ATOP the white-painted fence, Ben watched foals with legs too long and spindly for their bodies gamboling in the field as their mothers grazed placidly. Gary Edgerton bred, raised and trained horses destined to be harness racers or to pull an Amish buggy. His wife was the quilt enthusiast, but both had attended the auction and spent a substantial amount.

Having heard approaching footsteps, Ben wasn’t surprised when a man’s voice came from behind him.

“A lot of money on the hoof.”

Ben turned to see Edgerton watching him rather than the mares and foals. “Cute little buggers,” Ben commented. “How old are they?”

“A couple weeks old up to three months. The last few broodmares are due any day.”

Ben knew next to nothing about horses. He’d never thrown a leg over one in his life, although he’d now ridden in a buggy and had become accustomed to the splats of manure decorating the streets of his town, as well as to the hitching rails as common as they would have been in the nineteenth century.

“Why the age spread?” he asked. “I thought foals were born in spring.”

“Mares don’t all come into season at the same time. Some breedings don’t take, so we have to wait until she’s ready again for a second go-around.”

Edgerton offered a tour, but Ben asked for a rain check.

“Guess you go at it hard when this much money is missing,” the guy remarked.

“Ms. Markovic called?”

“This morning. She and Allison had words.”

“And why is that?”

The horseman snorted. “Woman comes out of nowhere, charms her way into taking the lead on the auction, leaves with the money and, oh, oops, reports it stolen the next morning. You’re in the wrong job if you’re credulous enough to believe crap that smells a lot worse than my manure pile.”

From long practice, Ben hid his irritation successfully. “Allison thinks the same?”

“Hell, yes!” Expression bullish, Edgerton glared at Ben. “Slick a scheme as any I’ve ever heard of.”

“She put a lot of money into starting that business,” he said mildly. “Sure, Ms. Markovic would walk away with some money, maybe sixty, seventy thousand in cash. But if most people think the same as you and your wife, her business will go under. I don’t think she’d come out of it much, if any, ahead.”

“Sixty thousand bucks on top of what she recovers by selling the building and the business? That’s not a bad take. And then she can move on, pull the same shit somewhere else.”

Unwilling to argue the point, because, yes, he was already considering that very scenario, however unlikely he believed it to be, Ben steered him to recollections of Friday. Mrs. Edgerton had attended the quilt sale earlier in the day Friday and spent money there, as well as a larger amount at the evening auction. Edgerton offered the names of a few people who weren’t already on Ben’s list but sneered at the idea any of them would steal.

“These are folks who have lived around here their whole lives,” he insisted, as if that was all Ben needed to know about them.

Choosing not to point out that he’d arrested more than a few longtime residents for crimes ranging from misdemeanor shoplifting to rape and negligent homicide, Ben ascertained that the missus was up at the house and went to talk to her.

She was even sharper-tongued than her husband had been. Ben drove away without having learned anything useful, but with a sour taste in his mouth and a cramp of pity for what Nadia must be experiencing.

There were more people he should talk to, but he was increasingly doubtful that he’d learn anything new. He needed to get a more complete list of volunteers from Nadia... With a grimace, he corrected himself. He should get that list from Julie Baird or Katie-Ann Chupp. Because, much as he disliked the idea, Nadia remained his only potential suspect right now. Katie-Ann—yeah, he could count on her for complete honesty. But this, if memory served him right, was church Sunday for the Amish. With no child missing, no dead body, he couldn’t justify bothering her before tomorrow.

* * *

BEN HAD WORKED BEFORE with Tricia Mears, the deputy prosecuting attorney who was waiting for him at the station. Thanking her for coming, he escorted her to his office. As soon as he shut the door, she said, “I have your warrant.”

He needed to search Nadia’s financial records, something that also would have to wait until morning, when banks opened. If she really were a thief, she’d hardly be brazen enough to deposit the money. If she found a secure enough hiding place, she could filter the cash slowly into her finances with no one having a clue.

“You drag a judge out of church to get this signed today?” he asked.

Maybe in her late twenties, tiny and blonde, she grinned. “Wouldn’t dare. But I was parked in Judge Greenhaw’s driveway when he arrived home after church. He asked if this couldn’t have waited, but he didn’t seem to really mind. And, like everyone else in town, he already knew about the theft.”

“Did he have an opinion, too?” Ben asked drily.

“Hadn’t had occasion to meet her, he said, but he understood why you had to look at her first.”

“Thanks for getting right on this,” Ben said.

Vibrating with energy, she perched on the edge of the seat she’d taken across the desk from him. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Not yet. What I’d like is to find out where everyone who attended that auction stands financially, but I kind of doubt Greenhaw would go for such a sweeping warrant.”

“That’s safe to say.” She rose to her feet. “Unless you’d like to...well, throw around ideas, I need to show my face at my grandparents’ for Sunday dinner.”

He waved her off. “Go.”

Only a few minutes later, someone knocked on his door. When he called, “Come in,” Officer Danny Carroll entered.

In his early thirties, stocky and stolid, Carroll had demonstrated the kind of judgment and work ethic that put him at the top of a short list for promotion. Today, he and Riley Boyd had gone to Nadia’s block to speak to the neighbors who hadn’t been home yesterday.

Ben leaned back in his desk chair. “Anything?”

“I found one woman, a Laura Kelling, who saw a light in Ms. Markovic’s place during the night Friday. She’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, but has no idea what time.”

Wonderful. “Overhead light?”

“She was uncertain about that. She lives across the street, but a few doors down. Not a perfect angle. She said the light was diffuse, just a glow coming from somewhere inside, downstairs. She claims it went out while she was watching.”

“So something about it caught her eye,” Ben said thoughtfully.

“That’s my take,” Carroll agreed.

“And she couldn’t pin down the time at all.”

“She went to bed about ten because she needed to be up by six yesterday morning. She admits to getting up at least once, sometimes twice a night.”

“Ms. Markovic was home just after midnight. Is it likely this Ms. Kelling would have needed to use the bathroom that quick?”

Officer Carroll shrugged. “Depends when she cut off liquids for the night.”

That was true, unfortunately. Ben could imagine a defense attorney trying to persuade a jury that the witness’s bladder would have held out longer than two hours and that, therefore, the light she saw had shone inside what should have been a dark building well after Ms. Markovich had gone to sleep.

After which the prosecutor would point out that they had only Ms. Markovic’s word for when she turned out the lights and went to sleep, and that it was entirely possible she had gotten out of bed at some point during the night to hide the money in a location the police were unlikely to find in any initial search.

Something he probably should have had done yesterday, he reflected, although he had taken precautions to ensure she couldn’t sneak the money out of the building and hide it elsewhere.

“Okay, thanks,” Ben said. “Have you spoken to everybody?”

“Yep. Sundays are good that way.”

Left alone again, Ben realized he was disappointed. He would have liked incontrovertible evidence to turn up showing that someone besides Nadia had taken the money. And he knew better than to develop feelings for a suspect, far less allow sympathy or any other emotion to influence him. Because of his usual objectivity, he’d been called a cold bastard; no one outside his family having any idea how much rage burned in him for one particular class of criminals. He’d succeeded in hiding it from the people he worked with until the day he came close to crossing a line that would have ended his career and conceivably resulted in jail time.

The hatred for rapists was one explanation for why his blood boiled every time he pictured a man slipping uninvited into Nadia’s bedroom, detouring from his main purpose to look his fill.

Statistically, the odds were the thief was a man. In this case, the auction volunteers, who were most likely to know who had the money, were all women except for a few men dragged in to assemble the stage, do some heavy lifting and build quilt display racks. Imagining a woman in Nadia’s bedroom instead of a man wasn’t a big improvement. Either way, what sense of security she’d gathered around herself after the tragedy would be stolen again.

Unless, of course, nobody else had ever stepped foot in that bedroom, and she knew exactly where the money was.

He wondered whether she’d give permission for a thorough search of her premises.

Ben groaned, rasped a hand over his jaw and decided to call it a day.

* * *

NADIA ENDED THE DAY feeling battered. Sick to her stomach, bruised head to toe. Remembering Ben Slater’s chiding, she dragged herself to her kitchen and examined the contents of cupboards and refrigerator. She’d skipped lunch and had no appetite for dinner, but he was right—she had to eat. Even a salad felt like too much work, so she settled for cottage cheese and a small bowl of strawberries. Finally, new lock or no, she carried a kitchen chair downstairs and braced it under the doorknob. In theory, there’d be an awful noise at the very least if someone tried to open the door.

Nadia watched TV shows that didn’t really interest her until it was late enough to go to bed. If she’d had a sedative, she would have taken it. After very little sleep last night, she was mind-numbingly tired. But once she climbed into bed, lights out, she lay stiffly. The nausea soothed by her bland meal returned with a vengeance. As if she’d recorded today’s phone conversations, they replayed in her head, some voices heavy with disappointment, others sharp. A few vicious.

Have you no shame?

I suppose you think we’re country hicks, too dumb to see through your little story.

I won’t be buying so much as a spool of thread at your shop again, and I hope every other woman in this county feels the same.

Plenty of people had been neutral, promising to let her know if the credit card had been run or check cashed. Perhaps half had promised to replace the money. A very small minority had been, like Louise Alsobrook, really nice.

Of course, it was what the nasty people said that was stuck in her head.

Nadia tried with the “sticks and stones may break my bones” thing, but still felt like an old woman when she opened the store come morning. Thank heavens she didn’t have to teach a class today! She hoped makeup, applied more heavily than usual, disguised some of the signs of her exhaustion, especially the purple bruising beneath her eyes. The fact that her eyes appeared sunken...well, there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Plus, her head ached, blinking almost took more effort than she could summon and she wasn’t sure the muscles that would allow her to smile were functioning.

But this was the one day of the week she had no help, and the sign out front listed open hours that included Mondays, ten to five. If anything of her new life was to be saved, she couldn’t hide in her apartment.

Mondays were the slowest days, businesswise, so she wasn’t surprised, and was almost relieved, that no one at all came in to browse until after eleven. Then it was a husband and wife she pegged immediately as tourists. They exclaimed over the displayed quilts, gasped at the prices and bought a set of machine-quilted place mats.

Her next visitor was Colleen Hoefling, who wanted to hear what, if anything, the police had learned, and who purchased fabric for her next quilt, or so she said. Nadia suspected Colleen, like most serious quilters, already owned enough fabric for her next ten or twenty quilts. She was simply being nice.

Colleen also shooed Nadia upstairs to get some lunch, insisting she knew how to use a cash register.

After eating, Nadia came down to the sound of voices.

The first was scathing. “And who do you think stole the money if it wasn’t her?”

“I don’t know,” Colleen said, hers distinctly cool, “but I’m appalled at the rush to judgment I’m seeing. Nadia has been nothing but friendly. She’s warm and likable. Do you have any idea how much time she gave to make the auction a success? I’m not sure it would have happened at all without her.” She talked right over the other woman, whose voice Nadia had recognized. Peggy Montgomery, whose consigned quilt was currently starring in the front window display. “What’s more, Nadia is a fine businesswoman with a good eye for color. With the way she’s selling our quilts online, she’s giving all of us opportunities we haven’t had.”

“And making a sizable commission.”

“This is her business. I, for one, am a terrible saleswoman.”

Continuing to lurk out here made her a coward. Nadia girded herself and entered the store.

“Peggy,” she said with a smile that probably looked ghastly, but was the best she could do, “how nice to see you. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Thank you, but no,” she said stiffly. “I just wanted a word with Colleen.” She turned and strode out the door.

Nadia waited until it closed behind her before she turned to Colleen. “I expected more people like her today.” She wrinkled her nose. “What am I saying? I’m nowhere near halfway through the day. There’s plenty of time.”

“You heard her?”

This smile felt genuine. “And you. Thank you for the defense.”

Colleen shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone. Peggy is a good example. She’s a nice woman. This wasn’t like her.”

“I’m the newcomer. The outsider.” Nadia had figured out that much Saturday. “Painting me evil is better than imagining someone you’ve known all your life stealing money that would have helped struggling people hold onto their land or rebuild.”

The other woman sniffed. “I’ve lived around here all my life, and I have no trouble imagining a few of my neighbors feeling justified in doing whatever they pleased.”

Nadia was laughing when the bell on the front door clanged. She turned to meet a pair of very dark eyes. Ben Slater wore his uniform today, a badge on his chest and his holstered gun at his hip. The visible weapon had the usual effect.

Her laugh had already died before she saw his stone face. “Chief Slater.”

He bent his head. “Ms. Markovic. Mrs. Hoefling.”

“I’m happy to stay a little longer, if you need to speak to Nadia,” Colleen offered.

“That would be helpful,” he said. “Perhaps we could go upstairs, Ms. Markovic?”

As chilled as she was by the expressionless way he was looking at her, Nadia didn’t see that she had any choice. She thanked Colleen and led the police chief through the side door. She sidled by the chair she’d left at the foot of the stairs, since she had every intention of bracing it in place again tonight—and every night, for the foreseeable future. She didn’t look back to see what Ben Slater thought about her primitive defense.

In the small living room, she faced him, chin high. She couldn’t make herself ask how she could help him. Hating her awareness of him, she just waited.

“I’m here to ask if you would permit a full search of this building without my getting a warrant first.”

“I feel sure you wouldn’t have any trouble getting one,” she said bitterly. “Given the local consensus on my guilt.”

Something flickered in his eyes, but he said only, “You must realize this is something I need to do.”

Nadia crossed her arms. “Shouldn’t you have done it Saturday? Over the weekend, I could have taken the money box anyplace.”

He didn’t say a word. His expression stayed impassive. She stared at him, understanding embarrassingly slow to come.

“You’ve had me watched. Did somebody follow me Saturday?”

“I’m doing my job.”

Air rushed out in what felt too much like a sob, but she clung to her dignity—and her anger and despair. “Do you know what it will do to my business once word gets out that the police suspect me to the point of searching my premises?”

“The sooner we can clear you,” he said woodenly, “the sooner your reputation will be restored.”

Her laugh was caustic. “What a nice, positive spin! I suppose practice makes perfect. I guess all that experience is why they made you chief.”

The only satisfaction he gave her was the tightening of his jaw muscles and some tension at the corners of his eyes.

“When do you plan to do this search?”

“If you agree, immediately.”

Nadia was so law-abiding she’d never so much as gotten a traffic ticket. The police officers who spoke to her after the shooting in Colorado had admired what they called her bravery. Now, seared by humiliation, she wanted to tell Ben Slater to get a warrant. I should have hired an attorney, she realized. She would, first thing tomorrow morning. But not anyone local.

Knowing her cheeks were burning red, she said, “Fine. Do it.”

He took a step closer. Lines deepened on his forehead and his voice came out rough. “This is not meant to suggest we believe you stole the money.”

“No? What other homes and businesses are you also searching?”

“You know there aren’t any yet.”

“I didn’t think so. If you’ll escort me downstairs, I’ll let Colleen go home. I’d just as soon no friends were here to watch.”

Nadia walked past him, pride all that held her together. She heard his tread on the stairs right behind her. Naturally. He couldn’t let her out of sight, in case she tried to move her stash.

Alone in the store, Colleen had been studying a quilt hung on the back wall. Her eyes widened. “Nadia?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for staying, but I think I’ll close up now.”

“I’m sure people will understand.” Colleen obviously didn’t, but she knew not to ask questions. “Call me anytime, okay?”

“I will.” Nadia gave her a swift hug and retreated before she could burst into tears. “Thank you.”

The other woman gathered her purse and bag full of fabric and thread, leaving after a last, worried look over her shoulder. Nadia hastened after her, flipping the sign to Closed and locking the door.

“Make your calls,” she said with frozen dignity, and went to the back room to sit in front of the quilting frame. With her hands shaking, she couldn’t so much as thread a needle, far less work on the half-finished Bear’s Paw quilt in the frame.

She heard Slater’s voice, coming from just outside the doorway. Which probably meant he hadn’t taken his eyes off her for a moment. “It’s a go,” he told someone. “I’ll wait here for you.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.