Sworn to Silence

Snagging the pickax, I approach and hand it to him. “Dig.”

Without looking at me, Jacob sets down his flashlight, raises the pickax above his head and begins to whack away at the frozen ground, grunting with every swing.

I shine the beam of my Mag-Lite on the deepening hole and watch frozen chunks fly.

“Mein gott.” Jacob falls to his knees, digging with his gloved hands. “This must be it.”

Hope jumps through me. I go to my knees beside him and dig like a dog. My stomach lurches when I see a thatch of dark hair.

He sits back on his heels, his brows knit. “This is very shallow.”

“Gotta be it.” I continue digging, too caught up in the moment to consider his words. “Ground could have shifted. There sure as hell aren’t two bodies buried here.”

“Katie . . .”

Only then do I realize we’ve unearthed a dead animal. I see matted fur. The dull white of old bone. The glint of a choke collar tells me it’s a dog. Disappointment spreads through me. I stare at the carcass, denial rising. I look at my brother and choke back angry words. “Damn it, Jacob, we’ve got to find those remains.”

“Do not speak to me with your English tongue.”

I grapple for patience that has long since worn thin. “Can you stop thinking about Amish versus English? This killer makes no distinction! It could just as easily be an Amish girl next!”

“I am trying.”

“Try harder!” In some small corner of my mind I’m aware that I’m not helping the situation by losing my temper, but I can’t stop myself. “Damn it, Jacob, you owe me this.”

My brother blinks, his eyes owlish in the dim light from my flashlight. “I have no debt to you.”

“Oh, come on! A crime was committed that day! Datt swept the entire, sordid mess under the rug. That wasn’t the way it should have been handled, and you know it.”

“Datt did what he thought was right.”

“Right for whom?”

“The family.”

“What about justice for me?” I smack my chest with my open hand. “I had to go the rest of my life unable to speak of it because Datt decided everyone in our family should pretend it never happened! What do you think that did to me?”

His eyes blaze. “You were not the only one affected by the sin we committed that night.”

“I was the only one who was raped and nearly killed! I was the only one who was forced to take a life!” The rage behind my words shocks me. A voice I don’t recognize echoes within the confines of the building, harmonizing weirdly with the howl of the wind.

“All of us have blood on our hands!” Jacob hisses. “We share the same sin.”

“It was different for me! You haven’t looked at me the same since.” I run out of breath. I don’t know where this is coming from. Some emotional pressure cooker that’s been simmering unacknowledged inside me. I try to stop the words, but they gush like blood from a wound. “You didn’t stand by me. You didn’t support me when I made the decision to leave the church.”

“I still do not condone your decision.” He stares at me, his complexion strangely pale against his full beard. “But I will tell you this. If I had held the gun in my hand that day I would have killed for you. I would have gone against God’s will and taken a life because it would have been worse to not have you in this world. This is my sin, too, Katie.”

Tears threaten, but I fight them back. My own breaths billow before my face as I grapple for control. “Then why do you hate me?”

“I do not hate you.”

“You blame me. How can you hold what happened against me?”

My brother says nothing.

“Why?” I shout.

His gaze burns into mine. “I saw you smile at Daniel Lapp.”

My blood freezes in my veins. I feel myself go still as my mind tries to comprehend the meaning behind his words. “What?”

“We were in the pasture. Daniel and I were digging postholes for the fence. It was hot. You brought us lemonade. He looked at you the way a man looks at a woman. Katie, you smiled at him.”

My reaction is physical, like a fist slamming into my gut. Staring into my brother’s eyes, knowing what he is thinking—what he has believed about me all these years—and I feel sick. The old shame churns inside me, a cauldron of acid eating away at my very foundation. “How dare you insinuate what happened was my fault.”

“I am not laying blame. But I cannot change what I saw.”

“For God’s sake, Jacob, I was a kid.”

My brother’s expression closes, and I realize he doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to hear my explanations. That I feel the need to defend myself shames me. I did what I had to do that day to save my life. But ingrained beliefs are difficult to exorcise no matter how valiant the attempt. I’ve always considered myself an enlightened woman. But I was raised Amish and some of those old values will always be a part of me.

I look around, fighting my way back to the present and the situation at hand. Once again I remind myself that I’m a police officer, that I have a murder to solve. Slowly, the dark emotions slink back into their hidey-hole.

Bowing my head, I rub at the ache between my eyes. “I can’t talk about this right now. I need to find Lapp’s body.”

He stares at me for a long while, saying nothing, then turns and walks away.

My feet throb with cold. My fingers are numb. I’m not sure if the tremors ripping through me are from the temperature or the emotions freezing me from the inside out. The one thing I am certain of is that I’ve lost my brother. Another shattering truth piled on top of a dozen others. I feel like crying, but I pick up the shovel instead. Propping my flashlight against a broken cinder block, I set the blade to the frozen earth and dig.

CHAPTER 10

John knew better than to go to the bar. He knew if he did he’d end up getting shitfaced. He’d lose track of time and the bartender would end up pushing him out the door when they closed at two A.M. But like all the other nights he’d ended up at the Avalon Bar and Grill, it was better than drinking alone.

The place was a dive. The bartender was a rude asshole. The glasses weren’t quite clean. The management watered down the booze. But the burgers were decent. And even drunk out of his mind, John could always find his way home. He’d learned to appreciate the little things in life.

He ordered a double shot of Chivas and a dark beer, then played a game of eight ball. One game led to six. One double led to too many to count. John Tomasetti, drunk again. What was the world coming to?

Standing at the bar, he watched the bartender pour another shot. He downed it in a single gulp. The alcohol scalded his esophagus and landed like a fireball in his belly. He’d never developed a taste for even the top-shelf whiskies, but this wasn’t about pleasure. It was about getting through another day without blowing his brains out.

At some point he’d lost track of the man he’d been playing pool with. A couple of college kids had taken over the pool table. Time to kick it up a notch, John thought, and headed toward the men’s room. Locking himself in a stall, he fished a Xanax from his pocket, chewed it and swallowed. He savored the bitter chalkiness of the pill, then washed the taste from his mouth with beer.

He knew mixing prescription drugs with alcohol was stupid and pathetic and that some day Fate would make him pay. Sooner or later, she always got her due. But he didn’t think that cruel bitch could do anything worse than what she’d already done. In some sick way, it was a comforting thought.

Two years ago, he would have laughed his ass off if someone had predicted this future for him. That his family would be taken from him and he would be left alone to mourn them. That he would kill a man in cold blood and feel nothing more than a fleeting sense of satisfaction. That he would use his law enforcement know-how to frame another man for the crime. That he would have to rely on booze and a cocktail of pills just to make it through