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  I’m standing next to my city-issue Explorer on the shoulder of Township Road 18, a mile or so out of Painters Mill. Around me, heavy snow slants down at a nearly horizontal angle. The wind is kicking to about thirty knots, and visibility has dwindled to less than an eighth of a mile. If the weatherman is correct, things are going to get worse before they get better.

  The vintage Mercedes went through the wood fence, busting all four rails along with two posts, the tires digging deep trenches through the ditch, and now sits at a cockeyed angle in the pasture. A dozen or so of Levi Hochstetler’s black angus cattle decided the car was a lot more interesting than the pile of hay up by the barn, and came down to investigate. Two of the animals are already poking around the opening in the fence.

  “I was on my way to the shop and came over that hill.” The driver, Joe Neely, the owner of the wrecked Mercedes and Mocha Joe’s—a nice little upscale coffeehouse in town—motions to the road behind him. “Must have hit a slick spot, because I went into a spin. Next thing I know I’m in that pasture.”

  I nod, saying nothing, but I have a feeling there’s a little more to the story than he’s letting on—like maybe he was in a hurry and driving too fast for the road conditions. I keep the theory to myself. I’ve met Joe several times in the year since he opened Mocha Joe’s; I make it a point to get to know all the merchants and shopkeepers in town. He never hesitates to offer up free coffee to me and my officers—the sheriff’s department, too. He’s a decent fellow, a family man, and I’m confident he’ll make things right with the homeowner.

  “Are you injured, Mr. Neely?” I ask. “Do you need an ambulance? Get yourself checked out?”

  “Oh, heck no, Chief Burkholder. I’m fine. Just…” He looks at his car and sighs. “I sure do like that car. She might be vintage, but she’s my first Mercedes. Bought her the day I opened the shop and had a crush on her ever since.”

  “Going to need a new headlight,” I tell him. “Maybe get that quarter panel replaced. You want me to get you a wrecker?”

  “I sure would appreciate that.”

  Tilting my head, I speak into my lapel mike, trying not to notice when snow sneaks down my collar. “Ten-fifty-one,” I say, requesting a wrecker and giving the general location.

  “Ten-four,” comes my first-shift dispatcher’s voice over the radio. Lois Monroe is in her mid-fifties, with a big laugh and a temperament as prickly as her hair. She might be our resident “mom,” but I’ve seen her put more than one tough customer in his place. “Ricky’s Towing is running behind this morning, Chief. Says they’ve been getting calls for a couple of hours now. Gonna be a while.”

  “Try Jonny Ray.”

  “Roger that.”

  This is the fourth fender bender I’ve responded to this morning and it’s not yet nine A.M., a sure sign that the first day of the week is going to live up to its name.

  I’m in the process of setting out flares when I hear tires crunch through snow. I look up to see Rupert “Glock” Maddox’s cruiser roll up and stop behind my Explorer, lights flashing. He’s my usual first-shift officer, an experienced cop and former military man, and as always, I’m glad to see him.

  “Need a hand, Chief?”

  I drop the final flare and look up to see him approach. Not for the first time I wonder how he always manages to show up just when I need him. “If you wait here for the wrecker,” I tell him, “I’ll let Hochstetler know he needs to pen those cows up in the barn until he can get some wire on this fence.”

  Glock breaks open an additional flare and drops it on the centerline. “Definitely don’t need cows running around with slick roads and low visibility.”

  I’m midway to the Explorer when my cell vibrates against my hip. I glance down to see DISPATCH on the display and pick up. “You’re keeping us busy this morning, Lois.”

  “I just took a call from Adam Lengacher, Chief. He says he was out for a sleigh ride with his kids and found a woman lying in the field. Evidently, she wrecked sometime during the night, left her vehicle to find help, and lost her way.”

  Squinting against the snow blowing into my face, I reach the Explorer and yank open the door. “How badly is she injured?”

  “He isn’t sure.”

  “Check to see if ambulances are running. See if they can pick her up and take her to Pomerene Hospital. Do you know where the accident occurred?”

  “Township Road 36.”

  “Call County,” I say, referring to the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department. “Tell them we’re jammed up here, will you?”

  “That’s exactly what I was going to do, Chief, but Adam told me the woman asked for you.”

  The statement gives me pause. “Does this mystery woman have a name?”

  “He didn’t think to ask.”

  I sigh, wondering who she is and why she would ask for me. “All right,” I tell her. “Cancel County. Let me get things tied up here and I’ll head out that way.”

  I end the call, think about going back out into the snow, but instead I call Glock. He’s standing on the shoulder with Joe, talking and looking in the general direction of the wayward Mercedes. I see him pluck his cell from a compartment on his belt.

  “I’ve got to take a call out at the Lengacher farm,” I tell him. “Can you let Hochstetler know he needs to pen those cows until he can get that fence repaired?”

  He looks at me, phone to his ear, and grins. “You got it, Chief. Be careful out there.”

  * * *

  I’ve known Adam Lengacher since I was eight years old. I was friends with his sister for a time. Their datt ran a hog operation, butchered livestock for meat on the side, had a smokehouse for venison, and a reputation for making good German-style sausage. For a couple of summers, while the men cut meat and smoked their pipes, the three of us would coo over the piglets and play hide-and-seek in the cornfield next to their house. Those carefree days didn’t last and we lost touch as we entered our teen years. Adam married and started a family. I fell out of favor with my Amish brethren and eventually left the fold, trading Painters Mill for the big-city lights of Columbus.

  I’ve seen him around town a few times since I’ve been chief, just to wave or smile or say hello. The last time I spoke to him was at his wife’s funeral, two years ago, and then it was only to offer my condolences.

  He lives with his three children on a lesser-used township road that’s more gravel than asphalt a few miles out of Painters Mill. I pass a snowplow on the way, but I know they won’t be clearing the secondary roads much longer. As I creep along TR 36, my tires bumping over ever-growing drifts, powdered snow blowing in my rearview mirror, the severity of the weather situation hits home. I’ve not received official word that emergency services are grounded, but there’s no way an ambulance is going to venture into rural areas and risk getting stuck.

  The road is virtually invisible, not only due to low visibility, but because the roadway and shoulder are obscured by a foot of snow. Worse, the wind has picked up and the drifts are growing exponentially. In a few more hours, the east-west roads will be impassable. If the injured motorist Adam stumbled upon turns out to have a medical emergency and she’s able to travel, I’ll likely have to transport her to Pomerene Hospital myself.

  Jamming the Explorer into four-wheel drive, I turn into the lane of the Lengacher farm. Despite the severity of the weather, I can’t help but notice the beauty of the snow against the old farmhouse and the eighty-foot-tall pine trees in the side yard. White four-rail fences line both sides of the long driveway. I climb a low rise, and a big red bank barn looms into view. The barn door stands open. An antique-looking sleigh is parked just inside. Two Amish girls bundled in coats and wearing winter bonnets lead a fat dapple-gray draft horse deeper into the interior.

  I park as close to the house as I can manage, kill the engine, and pull my hood over my head. Wind and snow pummel me as I take the walkway around to the front door and knock. The door swings open and I find myself looking at a boy of abo
ut eight with yellow-blond hair and eyes the color of a blue jay. He’s wearing a brown coat and a flat-brimmed hat, and he’s in his stocking feet, his big toe sticking out of a hole.

  “Hi.” I smile, look past him. “Is your datt home?”

  “Ja.” The boy cocks his head. “Are you the police?”

  “Yes, but you can call me Katie.”

  “Datt said to bring you back.” Reaching out, the boy takes my hand. “Come on. We found a girl. An autseidah.” Outsider. “She’s hurt so we put her on the cot in Mamm’s sewing room.”

  His hand is small, roughened with calluses, and cold in mine as he leads me through the door and into a dimly lit living room. The smells of woodsmoke and a house well lived in float on the heated air. I see a ragtag sofa piled with crocheted pillows, a handcrafted coffee table, a macramé wall covering. A propane floor lamp hisses at me from the corner.

  “I’m eight, but I’m going to be nine next month.” The boy prattles as he leads me through the living room. “My sisters are putting Jimmy away.”

  “Jimmy must be that big plow horse I saw when I pulled in,” I say.

  “He’s fat but he still likes to pull the sleigh.” He doesn’t miss a beat as we enter a narrow hall. “Annie likes him because he’s got a pink nose.”

  He takes me down the hall and stops outside a doorway. The room beyond is a small area, about ten feet square, with a single window, a workbench set against a wall, and an antique Singer sewing machine that looks like it hasn’t been used in some time.

  Adam Lengacher stands just inside, looking at me. He’s tall and blond with a rangy build and the blue eyes he passed down to his son. He still wears his heavy coat, dark trousers that are wet around the hem, and boots that left a trail of watery prints.

  “Hi, Adam,” I say.

  “Katie.”

  Remembrance flickers in his eyes. The hint of a smile on a mouth that doesn’t seem to quite remember how to do it. Even after all these years, I still see the boy he once was. The one who could talk a blue moon. The one I’d locked in the corn crib until he cried.…

  “I hear you have an injured motorist on your hands,” I say.

  “Found her when we were out for a sleigh ride. Looks like she wrecked out. I think she’s hurt. There’s blood.”

  “We thought she was dead,” the boy says with a tad too much enthusiasm, “but Datt said she was just cold.”

  Adam addresses his son. “Hohla die shveshtahs. Fazayla eena zu kumma inseid.” Fetch your sisters. Tell them to come inside.

  Giving me a lingering look, the boy leaves us, his stocking feet echoing as he runs down the hall.

  I start toward the cot, but Adam stops me. “Sie katt en bix, Katie.” She had a gun. “Sie gedroit mich mitt es.” She threatened me with it.

  “Where’s the gun?” I ask in Deitsch.

  Frowning, he reaches into his coat pocket and produces a Sig Sauer P320. It’s a nine-millimeter. Polymer grip.

  “Where’s the clip?” I ask.

  He reaches into his other pocket and pulls it out. It’s a typical magazine that holds seventeen rounds. I take the weapon, check the chamber, find it empty, drop it into my own coat pocket, the clip in the other.

  “Did she say anything?” I ask.

  “Not much.”

  “Did she give you her name?” I’ll run her through LEADS to check for a record or an active warrant.

  He shakes his head. “She was in and out. Delirious from the cold, I think.”

  I’m ruminating the presence of the gun and the fact that he brought her here in spite of it. Another cop might have questioned his judgment, especially with three young children in tow. But having been born and raised Amish, I understand the mind-set. You don’t leave anyone, including an outsider, to the elements, especially if they’re hurt.

  My eyes move past Adam to the woman on the cot. She’s bundled in a tattered quilt that’s pulled halfway over her face, damp hair sticking to her cheek. Even from several feet away, I see her shivering violently, which is a good sign if she’s hypothermic. Wet leather boots on the floor beneath the cot. A sopping coat hung on a chair back, water dripping. A smear of blood mars the wood plank floor next to the cot.

  “Stay here,” I say to Adam, and start toward the woman. “Ma’am?” I begin. “I’m a police officer. I need to see your—”

  The woman lifts her head and looks at me. The slap of recognition stops me in my tracks, cuts my words short. I haven’t seen Gina Colorosa in ten years. Once upon a time we’d been friends. We attended the police academy together. Graduated from the same class. We shared an apartment. Shared a hell of a lot more than that—all the trials and tribulations of young women finding their place in the world. If it hadn’t been for Gina, I probably wouldn’t have found my way into law enforcement.

  “Damn. Kate Burkholder. Took you long enough to get here.”

  Her voice is rougher than I remember. Weak despite the echo of the old attitude I used to admire back when I was too young, too naive, to know better. I don’t know what to say to her. Or how to feel. I can’t stop looking at her. I can’t believe she’s here in Painters Mill. That we didn’t part on good terms adds an uncomfortable dimension to all of it.

  Her entire body quakes beneath the quilt. Her teeth chatter uncontrollably. Her complexion is shockingly pale, her lips tinged with blue. Her hair is wet. My EMT training kicks in. I look at Adam. “We need blankets. A dry towel. And hot tea, if you have it.”

  Nodding, he leaves the room.

  “Get me … electric blanket,” she says.

  “How long were you out in the cold?” I ask.

  “Not sure. A few hours. Too damn long.”

  “You’re hypothermic. I’ll get you warmed up and then we need to get you to the hospital.”

  “No … hospital,” she says between bursts of shivering.

  I look down at the smear of blood on the floor. “You’re bleeding. Were you injured in the crash? How badly are you hurt?” In the back of my mind I acknowledge the possibility that if she’s seriously hypothermic, she may not know or remember. Confusion is a common manifestation of hypothermia.

  “Airbag got me in the face, gave me a bloody nose,” she says. “That’s all. I’m fine.”

  Something in the way she’s looking at me gives me pause, gives credence to the odd sense that something isn’t quite right with all this.

  “We’ve got serious weather on the way,” I tell her. “Ambulances won’t be running long. I can get you to the hospital, but we need to leave now. I suggest you take me up on the offer because we may not be able to get out later.”

  “Kate, I’m fine.” When I don’t respond, she musters a weak grin. “For God’s sake … I just … need to warm up.”

  I turn to see Adam standing at the door, several folded blankets and a ratty bath towel in his arms. “The girls are making hot tea,” he tells me, his eyes flicking to Gina.

  “Good. Thanks.” I take the blankets. As I drape them over Gina, I try not to notice the way her arms and legs are shaking beneath the quilt. The unsettling blue hue of her lips. The way she keeps clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering.

  “Hair’s wet,” I tell her. “We need to get you dry. Are your clothes dry?”

  “They’re … fine.”

  “Can you sit up?”

  “Yep.” Face contorting as if she’s in pain, she manages and reaches for the towel. “I can do it.”

  I let her, trying not to notice the paleness of her hand, that she’s weak and doing her damnedest to pretend otherwise.

  While she scrubs her hair dry with the towel, I tuck the blankets beneath her legs and layer yet another over her. “So what happened?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t know we were in for this kind of weather. It was dark and snowing like crazy. I couldn’t see. Ran off the damn road and hit a tree.”

  “Airbags deployed?”

  “I told you they did.”

&nbsp
; I nod. “Where were you headed?”

  She hands me the towel. “To see you.”

  “A heads-up would have been nice.”

  “Yeah, well, hindsight.”

  We stare at each other a full minute, minds working, neither of us speaking. “Are you still with Columbus Division of Police?” I ask.

  “Last time I checked.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  The old wiliness flickers in her eyes. “Where’s my gun?”

  “You mean the gun you pointed at the unarmed Amish man who was with his children and trying to help you?”

  “That would be the one.” Sighing, she sinks back into the mattress. “Look, I’m sorry. I barely remember. I mean, I was in and out by that point. I’d been in the snow a long time.” She shrugs. “I didn’t know who he was or what he was up to.”

  A quiet alarm starts to simmer at the back of my brain. Not a clanging bell warning me of impending danger, but a more subtle hum that stirs when someone’s not being up front. I’m well versed in the symptoms of hypothermia. I’ve seen a dozen cases in the years I’ve been a cop. The hunter that fell through the ice on Painters Creek a couple years ago. The kid who plunged through the ice on Miller’s Pond last winter. Confusion is common. Is that the case here? Or is there something else going on?

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I ask.

  “It was sort of a last-minute decision.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Let’s just say it was unplanned.”

  A youngster’s voice in the hall draws my attention. I turn to see Adam taking a mug from a girl of about seven. She’s curious, her inquisitive eyes probing the mysterious Englischer woman. Her datt is on to her and he’s quick to send her on her way.

  “Go to the root cellar and get a couple jars of sausage for supper,” he tells her. “Beets, too. Have Annie help you.”

  “Okay.” She cranes her neck for a final peek and then turns and leaves.