Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

“You don’t believe it because you haven’t spent the last year in prison.”

I struggle to get a read on his frame of mind, straining to see his face in the darkness, his eyes. “Joseph, don’t do this. Please. Give me the gun. Let me help you. You know I will.” I deliver the final sentence in Deitsch.

“Been a long time since I heard Deitsch.” He cocks his head slightly. “Never thought I’d miss the sound of it.”

Frustration builds in my chest. Sighing, I look down at the ground, then at him, aware that my cell is vibrating. “Do you realize how serious this is?”

“I know exactly how serious it is.”

“You can’t take a cop hostage and expect anything good to happen. Joseph, they’ll kill you. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

The initial rush of adrenaline is beginning to subside. My hands are steadier, my brain clicking back into place. “Did you start the fire over at Old Man Yoder’s place?”

“I guess it worked, didn’t it?” he says.

“Have you been inside the Beachy house?”

“For a little while.”

“Are the children all right?” I ask. “Rebecca and Daniel?”

“Of course, they’re all—”

“Datt?”

I startle at the sound of the high-pitched voice coming at us from the general direction of the farmhouse. I glance down the trail and see a branch rustle. Feet crunch over dried grass, getting closer. In the moonlight, a small figure emerges from the darkness. A little girl. Five or six years old. She’s wearing a plain white nightgown. I can’t see her feet, but I think they must be muddy. She’s a tiny thing with long brown hair and big brown eyes set into an angel’s face.

“Sadie.” Joseph stands rooted in place, as if an electrical current has come up through the ground and delivered a thousand, paralyzing volts. “I told you to stay inside.”

“You said you were coming right back.” The little girl stops a few feet away, her eyes on me. “Who is she, Datt?”

I give King a warning look. “Don’t bring them into this,” I say quietly. “Please. This is between me and you now. Send her back to the house.”

“Too late,” he mutters, and starts toward the child, holding the gun down at his side, keeping an eye on me.

The little girl goes to him, crossing right in front of me, close enough for me to discern her child scent. Nightgown swishing, feet slapping the ground, she runs to her father and throws her arms around his legs.

“I thought they might take you away again,” she says.

He ducks his head as if the words cause him physical pain. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be all right.”

She falls silent for a moment, and then: “Levi said since God sent you back to us He might send Mamm, too. So I came out to see for myself if maybe she was here, too.”

Even as she says the words, I imagine her eyes skimming the forest, as if she’s expecting her long-dead mother to step out of the shadows and announce her return. Something shakes loose inside me at the notion. I can’t see her face, but I know it’s filled with a child’s innocent faith—a faith that will undoubtedly be ripped from her young heart all too soon.

King sets his hand on her back and for the first time he takes his eyes off me. “She’s not coming back.”

She peels her face away from her father and turns in my direction. “Who is the Englischer, Datt?”

“A policeman,” he tells her.

“Is she going to arrest you? Take you away from us again?”

“No.” I feel King’s eyes on me. “I think she’s going to help us.”

“Really?” the girl squeaks.

“Really.” He rises to his full height. “We have to get back to the house. Quickly now. Come on.”

Easing the girl away, he shifts the revolver toward me and motions with it in the direction of the house. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he says quietly. “Don’t make me do something I don’t want to do. Do you understand?”

I nod and we set off at a brisk pace.

We’ve only walked a few yards when in the distance a police siren begins to wail. I don’t know if it’s the fire department and is related to the barn fire—or if Mona followed through and dispatched T.J. and Holmes County after our communication was abruptly severed.

“Joseph, you need to think about the consequences of what you’re doing. Once law enforcement realizes I’ve been taken hostage, that you’ve taken the children and the Beachys hostage, the situation is going to escalate and—”

“I sent Daniel and Rebecca packing,” he cuts in. “I don’t want them here. I don’t need them—”

“Every police agency within a hundred miles is going to jump into this,” I tell him. “Someone is going to get hurt.” When he says nothing, I add, “You’re putting your children at risk. Exposing them to—”

“You never did know when to stop talking. You still don’t.” He tilts his head toward the house. “Walk.”

I continue toward the house, aware that another siren has joined the first, an unsettling harmony that echoes among the treetops like the promise of something dreadful to come.





CHAPTER 5

The activity on my radio intensifies on the short walk to the Beachy farmhouse. Evidently, when my conversation with Mona was cut off abruptly without explanation—and when I failed to respond to her attempt to reach me—she must have assumed I’d run into trouble and put out a county-wide emergency dispatch.

Good girl, I think, and I catch a flurry of codes coming over the airwaves as King, the little girl, and I traverse the muddy, overgrown path to the house.

Investigating abandoned vehicle …

Came back stolen.

Exited vehicle …

… radio check … officer in trouble.

Ten-thirty-nine.

I’m ten-seven-six.

Other than the hiss and crackle of the radio, we walk in silence, single-file with the little girl in the lead, me in the middle, and King behind me. I can only assume my revolver is leveled at my back, which doesn’t give me much in the way of options. I have no idea what the situation is inside the house; I don’t know if he’s telling the truth about Rebecca and Daniel—if they were harmed—or if they’re helping him.

But it’s the five children that worry me most. If Joseph King is cold-blooded enough to murder his wife in her bed with the children in the house, God only knows what else he’s capable of. Even if he has no intention of harming them outright, they are no doubt in danger. How will he react when he realizes they are the perfect bargaining chip?

We ascend a grassy incline, climb over a split-rail fence, then cross the wide expanse of yard. We take a narrow, broken sidewalk to the rear of the house and King motions me up the concrete steps to a small porch. Before the little girl reaches the door, it swings open. The little boy I met earlier in the day thrusts a lantern at us. His eyes widen at the sight of me. “Oh.” Big blue eyes dart to his father. “Datt?”

“It’s okay,” King says, and then to me: “Get inside.”

I obey, aware that he’s right behind me. That he’s still gripping my .38.