Rising, she looked around to get her bearings. Behind her, the trees near the shore were barely visible. Farther out, the silhouette of an ice-fishing shanty shimmered like a mirage in the fading light. Brushing snow from her coat, she started toward the structure. Constructed of wood with a single window and tin chimney, the shanty reminded her of a tall, skinny doghouse. She knew sometimes English fishermen spent the night on the lake. But there was no telltale glow of lantern light. No ribbon of smoke rising from the chimney. This one was vacant. It would do.
Becca slogged through a deep drift and stumbled toward the front of the shanty. A padlock hung from the hasp, but it wasn’t engaged. Shaking with cold, she shoved open the door. The interior was dark and hushed. The air smelled of kerosene and fish. Out of the wind, it was so quiet that she could hear the ice creaking beneath her feet.
Her breaths puffing out in clouds of white vapor, she pulled out the candle and matches she’d brought from home and lit the wick. The light revealed a small interior with plywood walls and a shelf covered with fish blood and a smattering of silver scales. A lantern sat on the shelf. A coil of rope hung on the wall.
Becca crossed to the shelf and set the candle next to the lantern. Turning, she surveyed the floor. Someone had covered the fishing hole with a square of plywood. Bending, she dragged the wood aside. The hole was about fourteen inches in diameter and crusted over with new ice.
She looked around for something with which to break it, but there wasn’t much in the way of tools. A broken concrete block. A plastic box of fishhooks. Empty beer cans. Then she spotted the hand auger in the corner. Kneeling, she picked it up and used it to break the thin crust.
When the hole was open, Becca crossed to the bench, lifted the rope from its hook, and uncoiled it. It was about twelve feet long and frayed on both ends. Her hands shook as she tied one end of it around her waist. She didn’t let herself think as she secured the other end to the concrete block.
Kneeling next to the hole in the ice, Becca bowed her head and silently recited the Lord’s Prayer. She asked God to take care of her mamm and datt. She asked Him to ease their grief in the coming days. She asked Him to forgive her brother for what he’d done to her most of her life. Finally, she asked God to forgive her for the sin she was about to commit. She closed her eyes and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life, hoping it was enough.
When she was finished, Becca rose, picked up the rope, and lowered the concrete block into the hole, watching it disappear into the black depths. She thought of the journey before her and her chest swelled—not with fear, but with the utter certainty that soon all would be right.
Standing at the edge of the hole, she closed her eyes, stepped forward, and plunged into the water.
CHAPTER 1
My mamm once told me that some places are too beautiful for anything bad to happen. When I was a kid, I believed those words with all of my young heart. I lived my life in a state of ignorant bliss, oblivious to the evils that lurked like frothy-mouthed predators outside the imaginary gates of our small Amish community. The English world with its mysterious and forbidden charms seemed like a million miles away from our perfect little corner of the earth. I had no way of knowing that some predators come from within and beauty has absolutely nothing to do with the crimes men commit.
Ohio’s Amish country is a mosaic of quaint farms, rolling hills dissected by razor-straight rows of corn, lush hardwood forests, and pastures so green that you’d swear you had stepped into a Bill Coleman photograph. This morning, with the sun punching through the final vestiges of fog and the dew sparkling like quicksilver on the tall grass of a hay field, I think of my mamm’s words and I understand how she could believe them.
But I’m a cop now and not easily swayed by appearances, no matter how convincing the facade. My name is Kate Burkholder and I’ve been the police chief of Painters Mill for about three years now. I was born here to Amish parents in a one-hundred-year-old farmhouse set on sixty acres of northeastern Ohio’s rich, glaciated soil. I grew up Plain—no electricity, no motorized vehicles. Up until the age of fourteen, I was a typical Amish girl—innocent, God-loving, content in the way most Amish children are. My future, my very destiny, had been preordained by my gender and the religion bestowed upon me by my parents. All of that changed on a postcard-perfect summer day much like this one when fate introduced me to the dark side of human nature. I learned at a formative age that even on perfect, sunny days, bad things happen.
I try not to let my view of the world affect the way I do my job. Most of the time, I succeed. Sometimes I feel all that cynicism pressing in, coloring my perceptions, perhaps unfairly. But far too often, my general distrust of mankind serves me well.