Vow of Silence Read online

“I needed to make sure she wasn’t still alive.”

  “If you couldn’t tell that by looking at her, then you need a new goddamn job.”

  Something dark flashed in the man’s eyes. No, Deputy Mills wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t stupid at all. Barney Fife my ass…

  Chapter Eight

  Perhaps Joe was a sucker for punishment, or maybe he just wanted to get this over with. But for whatever reason, he found himself parking in Jacob Adams’s driveway. He would have called first, but that wasn’t an option. Apprehension twisted his gut at the thought of knocking on the door and looking Jacob in the eye—pretending that it wasn’t tearing his heart out to be near the man who had everything Joe always wanted.

  But this wasn’t about him, he reminded himself for the hundredth time in the past two days. He had a job to do, and it was about time he bucked up and did it. With that inspiring pep-talk echoing in his mind, Joe threw open the car door and Dexter bailed out after him. The Pointer eyed him with eager anticipation, wagging his stubby tail. “Sorry, Dex, no exploring today. Looks like it’s going to rain.”

  Joe headed up to the house and his partner followed dutifully behind him just as the first drops of rain began to fall. Thunder rumbled overhead, and he glanced up at the sky, eyeing the ominous clouds rolling in. They were going to be in for one hell of a storm.

  This could have waited for tomorrow. He had plenty of work to start plowing through. But if he was honest, a part of him wanted to see Hannah again, even if it was under these circumstances. After spending the afternoon at the morgue, he was exhausted and emotionally strung out. It wasn’t lost on him that he’d instinctively sought her out. Guess old habits die hard. Even after all these years, she was still the person he wanted to turn to for comfort, but he was under no illusion he’d be receiving any of that here from her—now, or ever.

  The intensity of the rain picked up, turning into a steady downpour as he climbed the porch steps. The floorboards wobbled beneath his feet, the nails having worked loose by time and neglect. As he approached the door, the home’s state of disrepair became increasingly apparent. The screen on the outer door was torn, and the painted trim around the windows was cracked and peeling. What the hell? Why wasn’t Jacob taking better care of his place?

  Joe turned the handle on the screen door and the knob came off in this hand. He muttered a curse under his breath, shoving the thing back together. The hinges cried in protest as he pulled the door open and knocked on the inner one. Shadows cast by the glowing gas lamps floated past the window. Another growl of thunder rumbled overhead, as if warning anyone dumb enough to be outside, they’d better get their ass indoors because all hell was about to break loose.

  Joe knocked again—louder.

  Approaching footsteps sounded on the other side of the door and Joe prepared himself to come face-to-face with the man who had his life. It was bound to happen sooner or later; he might as well get it over with.

  The lock disengaged and the door slowly opened, but it wasn’t Jacob standing on the other side of it. Joe’s heart kicked inside his chest. Just the sight of her was agonizing, and at the same time soothing. Being this close to Hannah made it more difficult to contain all those emotions he’d sequestered. Apparently, the sentiment was not mutual, because she didn’t look any more pleased to see him now than she did earlier.

  “Josiah… What are ya doin’ here?” She cast an anxious glance over her shoulder.

  Was she worried about upsetting Jacob? Maybe she worried he’d get the wrong idea, because Joe had to admit this didn’t look good. It was late, well past an appropriate hour for visitors. But that was the thing with homicide investigations, they weren’t run on a nine-to-five schedule, and shit…he just wanted to see her again.

  She studied him with eyes that knew him all too well, eyes that saw the parts of him he didn’t want anyone to know existed. To his surprise, and perhaps despite herself, concern etched her delicately arched brows. Thunder boomed outside, no longer a rumbled warning, but a proclamation to seek shelter.

  “Ya shouldn’t be here,” she told him when he didn’t respond right away. It wasn’t anything he didn’t know.

  Armed with the same response he’d given himself when rationalizing his reason for the visit, he said, “Remember when you said earlier today that you would help the devil himself if it meant catching your sister’s killer?”

  She nodded slowly, apprehension brimming in her beautiful blue eyes.

  “Well, I need your help.”

  …

  For a moment, Hannah wondered if her thoughts hadn’t conjured the man standing at her doorstep. He looked exhausted—physically and emotionally. Despite her simmering anger, compassion softened her heart when she met and held his pleading stare. Before she could consider the wisdom of it, she opened the door wider and moved aside. “Come on in, Josiah, before ya catch yer death.”

  He stepped inside, and the dog she’d noticed at the inn entered with him. The wind was whipping outside, and she had to fight against it to push the door closed. She couldn’t very well leave them standing out there in a thunderstorm. “Head into the kitchen, and I’ll grab ya a towel to dry off.”

  He followed her and took a seat at the table. She turned on the stove and struck a match to light the burner, then set the tea kettle over the flame before leaving to get a towel. She’d just put Eli to bed and paused to check on him when she passed his room. Hannah wasn’t surprised to find him fast asleep, especially with the storm picking up outside, but then they’d always had the opposite effect on him than they did her.

  That must be why her pulse was racing. She refused to acknowledge it could have anything to do with the man sitting at her kitchen table. She was so angry with him, and at the same time, finding him standing outside soaked to the bone and looking so worn had put an unexpected crack in the stone she’d walled around her heart. This wasn’t good. Josiah had always been her weakness, and it was clear the passage of time had done nothing to cure her of it.

  He needed to leave—for both of their sakes. Josiah was shunned. Not only was it inappropriate for him to be here alone with her, it was forbidden. He wasn’t one of them anymore. She would give him the towel and politely ask him to go. He wanted to talk to her about Cassie, but this wasn’t the time or place. If anyone came by and found him here…

  Hannah grabbed two towels and hurried down the stairs. She rounded the corner and then abruptly stopped. Josiah was sitting where she’d left him, his elbows braced on the table, his face buried in his hands, looking as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. And in that moment, though it was wrong, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to leave.

  Cautiously, she studied him as she approached. So much about Josiah had changed. He seemed harder, rougher. The outside world hadn’t been kind to him. Oh, he was still an exceedingly handsome man—more now than when he’d left—but there was an air of authority about him, a haunted solemnness in his soul that hadn’t been there before. And yet, when he lifted his head and looked at her, it was as if time were erased and in the blink of an eye, their years apart vanished.

  Hannah’s breath caught in her throat as she met and held his stare—eyes that were so mired in various colors she’d never been able to assign them a shade. Her throat went dry, words sticking in her mouth as she handed him a towel.

  “Thank you.”

  His husky-smooth masculine voice made her nerve-endings tingle as she knelt beside his dog and toweled off his wet head before running it down his spotted back. “Ya have a dog…” she commented, for lack of anything better to say. “I don’t recall ya havin’ a fondness for ‘em.” The dog closed his eyes, soaking up the attention as fast as the towel was wicking the moisture from his coat.

  “I don’t particularly, just this one. He’s more of a partner than a pet. I met Dexter during a case I was working a few years ago. He helped find a young woman I was looking for. His handler and I became good friends. He died in a skiing accid
ent last year and I adopted Dex.” Josiah ran the towel over his head while he spoke, leaving his dark hair in disarray.

  It was shorter than he used to wear it, cut close on the sides with a little more length on top. It was a good look on him, reminding her of one of those men on the cover of the magazines in the grocery store checkout aisle.

  “Ya do search and rescue with him?”

  “Not exactly. Dexter’s a cadaver dog.”

  “A what?”

  Josiah paused from drying his neck, and glanced over, studying her a moment. “He finds people—who’ve died.”

  Her hand stalled on the dog’s back. “Oh…”

  “He’s been all over the world, traveling with Ben to natural disaster sites. I went through the training to become his handler when I adopted him, but unfortunately my work doesn’t allow me a lot of time off. Most of Dexter’s work is local now.”

  Hannah studied him as she stood, her heart beating a little bit faster. Heat flushed through her body, making her uneasy. It’d been a long time since she’d experienced any sort of feminine awareness around a man, and the awakening of sensations reminded her of what could have been, what she’d had to settle for, and the emptiness she was left with.

  Guilt assailed her. Jacob’s memory deserved better than to be compared to the man sitting in her kitchen. Anger simmered in her veins, at herself for not being stronger when it came to this man, and at Josiah for coming back here and putting her in this situation.

  “Ya shouldn’t be here,” she admonished primly as she went to the stove to check the water. As if agreeing, the tea kettle began to whistle. The shrill screech slowly dying as she pulled it off the heat and extinguished the flame. “Ya know the rules as well as I do.”

  “Since when do you care about following rules? That doesn’t sound much like the Hannah I knew.”

  “That’s because I’m not the Hannah ya knew,” she snapped.

  His brows shot up at her flash of temper. The way he was eyeing her said he begged to differ, but he refrained from saying as much.

  She grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and set them on the counter with a loud clap.

  “Where’s your husband, Hannah?”

  She didn’t miss the brittleness in his tone when he said “husband.” A sharp pain of guilt and regret pinched her chest. Her hand wobbled as she poured the hot water, spilling it over the rim of the cup. She carefully set the tea kettle back on the stove. “Why are ya askin’?” Wariness filled her voice.

  “Because if he were here, I never would have gotten through the front door.”

  That was true. Jacob and Josiah had never been friends. Even as children the rivalry between them had quickly turned to animosity and they’d fought constantly.

  “I saw him pick you up today, at the inn.”

  “Were ya watchin’ me?” She placed a tea bag in each of the mugs and added a teaspoon of honey.

  “I happened to be by the window when you were leaving.”

  “That wasn’t Jacob ya saw.” Turning toward the table, she set both mugs down and took the seat across from him. “That was his brother, Abel. Jacob died eight months ago in a farmin’ accident.”

  Emotion flickered across his face, but it was gone before she could decipher it. “Fuck, Hannah, I’m sorry.”

  She flinched at his casual use of profanity but said nothing to reprimand his language. It wasn’t her place. He wasn’t one of them anymore. He belonged to the outsiders now. With his clean-shaven face and secular tongue, he looked and acted the part.

  “You’re alone here, then?”

  “I am now. Cassie stayed with me after Jacob died. I didn’t want to move home and give up the farm. She was helpin’ me with chores and takin’ care of my son, Elijah. It’s my fault…” She’d thought those words many times since Cassie’s death, but this was the first time she’d said them out loud. Her vision blurred and she struggled to hold back the tears but lost the battle when her voice cracked as she confessed her darkest fear. “It’s my fault Cassie died.”

  …

  Josiah was out of his chair and kneeling beside Hannah before he could consider the wisdom of it. And if he’d taken just two seconds to do so, he probably would have realized what a disastrous mistake he was about to make. But Hannah was in his arms before he even realized he’d moved.

  She tensed at his touch, her slender spine going rigid. “Don’t…” her voice cracked, slamming into him like a sucker punch. “Ya don’t get ta touch me, Josiah.”

  Her effort to wrest herself from his arms was minimal, a half-hearted attempt that made him believe she didn’t really want him to let her go. He could easily hold onto her, and God help him, he wanted to. She felt incredible… Exactly how he remembered, like she was made just for him.

  But she wasn’t his. She’d belonged to someone else, and for all he knew, her heart still did.

  “Ya lost the right eight years ago…”

  She was right, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to hold her, to give her the comfort she desperately needed. He inhaled sharply, her lavender scent slipping deep in his lungs. The scent he craved more than oxygen infused his cells, and his body came alive in a way it had no business doing. Even after all this time, she was still the only woman he’d ever truly wanted, and his body recognized her as his, even though it couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “It isn’t your fault she died, Hannah,” his voice sounded like gravel, giving away the emotional toll this day was taking on him.

  “It should have been me…” she cried, abandoning her struggle and covering her face with her hands, wracked with grief as her slender body shook in his arms.

  At first, he thought it was survivor’s guilt, but then he realized she was serious. Dread churned in the pit of his stomach as those words struck his heart with crippling fear. “What do you mean, it should have been you?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as she met his stare. “The night Cassie went to the Heinz farm, I was supposed to go, not her. But I wasn’t feelin’ well, so she went instead. Cassie had plans to meet some friends afterward. I didn’t know she was missin’ til later that night when she didn’t come home.” Hannah’s voice broke again, hitching with a hiccupping sob. “This happened because she was doin’ me a favor. She wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

  Had the killer been waiting for Hannah and taken Cassie instead? In light of this information, he couldn’t discount the possibility that Hannah had been the original target. That thought added a whole new terrifying element to this case. Was Hannah in danger? Icy dread crystallized his veins.

  But Hannah didn’t fit the victim’s profile…or did she? Shit, he needed that analysis from Quantico—like yesterday. He had four dead girls, and considering all the variables, the best place to start this investigation was right here where he could get the most information and cooperation. No one else would open up to him like Hannah would. Hell, he’d be lucky if they even spoke to him. “I’m going to need a list of Cassie’s friends. Do the names Abigail Schwartz, Catherine Johnson, or Caroline Yoder sound familiar to you?”

  “She and Abby were friends, but the others… I don’t remember her mentionin’ them.”

  “Do you know who she was planning on meeting that night?”

  He could see the flicker of hesitation in Hannah’s eyes, felt the subtle tension in her shoulders. She was hiding something. Perhaps she wasn’t going to be as forthcoming as he’d hoped. “Hannah, if you know something, you’ve got to tell me.”

  “But if the others found out…especially Da—”

  The mention of Hannah’s father set Joe’s teeth on edge. After all these years, she was still so worried about pleasing him. Resentment for the old bastard rose like a tumultuous tide, and Joe fought to quell the emotion before she sensed it, because as well as he knew her, she also knew him, and Hannah’s father was one topic of conversation he did not want to get into. “What you tell me stays between us, Hannah. I’m not here to jud
ge; I’m here to catch your sister’s killer.”

  She considered his words a moment then nodded. “Cassie had a boyfriend. That’s who she was plannin’ on seein’ that night.”

  Joe wasn’t sure what was so secretive about that. She was seventeen and in her rumspringa. Many girls her age were courting. What Joe found odd was that the guy hadn’t bothered to contact Hannah when Cassie didn’t show up. Why hadn’t he checked on her? It’s what Joe would have done if Hannah had failed to meet him.

  “What is his name?” First thing tomorrow morning, Joe was going to pay this guy a visit.

  “Keegan is his first name. She never told me the last.” Hannah glanced away.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Another moment of hesitation passed, and she nibbled her bottom lip like she used to do whenever she was nervous. “Cassie’s boyfriend wasn’t Amish.”

  Ho-ly shit… “And you were okay with that?”

  Hannah shrugged. “There wasn’t much I could do about it. I know what it’s like to have yer heart broken, and I know what it’s like to marry someone ya don’t love.”

  Ouch…

  “I didn’t want that for her, and I didn’t want her to shut me out if I voiced disapproval. She saw my life and what livin’ under Father’s rule had done. She wanted out—before it was too late for her and she was forced to marry someone she didn’t want to be with.

  “After Jacob died, it was the perfect opportunity for Cassie to get out from under da’s roof. She came to live with me, and I desperately needed the help. Da thought I should sell the farm and move home, but I didn’t want to lose my independence. I rented out the fields, but it didn’t pay enough to sustain us, so I started workin’ part-time at the inn. Cassie took care of Eli while I was gone. Things were…good. Shortly before she died, she confided in me that she was considerin’ not joinin’ the church.”

  “Did anyone else know this?”

  “I don’t know. She said somethin’ about meetin’ with Deacon Schrock—”

  “Wait, who?”