A Plain Disappearance Read online

  A Plain Disappearance, Digital Edition Based on Print Edition Copyright © 2013 by Amanda Flower All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America

  978-1-4336-7699-4

  Published by B&H Publishing Group, Nashville, Tennessee Dewey Decimal Classification: F

  Subject Heading: ROMANTIC SUSPENSE NOVELS AMISH—FICTION MYSTERY FICTION

  Publisher’s Note: The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  For Meredith and Hayden

  and in memory of Puddleglum

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my agent and friend, Nicole Resciniti. You are a shooting star to the top. Thank you for allowing me to hitch a ride.

  Always thanks to my editors, Julie Gwinn and Julie Carobini, for pushing me and helping me see how to make each book better than the last. Also, thanks to the rest of the B&H team. You are my personal dream team.

  Thank you to Suzy Schroeder-Green, who answers my tireless technology questions and whose answers help both Chloe and me look smarter on the job. And appreciation to the Ursuline College community for encouraging one of its librarians to moonlight as a mystery author, and for finding the academic twists in my novels amusing.

  Always love and gratitude to my mom, Pamela Flower, who reads every word of everything I write.

  And finally, I want to thank my heavenly Father for my dreams and for the people around me who help them come true.

  Chapter One

  Steam rose from Sparky’s nose and mouth into the frigid late December air as he shook his bridle and pulled the sleigh over a small hill. The sleigh owner’s grandson, Timothy Troyer, sat in the driver seat, wearing a thick wool coat, black knit cap, and navy scarf wrapped about his neck. He held the reins with a light but firm touch, and he looked every bit the part of a young Amish man out for a sleigh ride—even though he’d left the Amish way years before.

  Did that mean I was the Amish girl to complete the picturesque scene? I pulled the wool blanket up closer to my face and chuckled to myself. Beneath it I wore a purple and gray ski jacket and flannel-lined jeans. A pink and purple Fair Isle stocking cap, complete with pompom, covered my shoulder-length, straight red hair, and tortoise shell-patterned framed sunglasses protected my hazel eyes from the sun’s glare off of the snow. Not exactly Amish attire.

  Timothy cut his bright blue eyes to me, and a smile played on the corners of his mouth. “What’s so funny?”

  I burrowed deeper under the heavy wool blankets wrapped around me cocoon-style. “I was just thinking that this was unlike any first date that I’ve ever been on.”

  Amusement lit his eyes. “Have you had many first dates?”

  “A few,” I teased.

  “Really. And what did you do on these dates?”

  I thought for a minute. “Went to the movies or out for coffee. Once a date took me putt-putt golfing.”

  “Putt-putt golfing?” He laughed. “And how am I doing in comparison to that?”

  “Not bad. The putt-putt guy didn’t ask me out on a second date when I beat him twice in a row.”

  He winked at me. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Ahead of us a weathered barn came into view through a stand of pine trees. The trees stood well over twenty feet high in a straight line perhaps to protect the barn from the wind and rain flying across the fields. If their purpose was to shelter the barn from Ohio’s dramatic change in seasons, nature won that battle. What remained of the old building consisted of grayish-white weathered boards, the structure’s edges and shape barely discernible in the falling snow until Sparky and the sleigh cleared the stand of trees.

  Timothy pulled back on the reins. “Whoa!”

  The horse came to a stop.

  I released my hold on the blanket. “Why are we stopping?”

  “I thought it might be nice to stretch our legs. The hardest part of the winter for me is being stuck indoors.”

  I tilted my chin. “You don’t exactly have a desk job.” Timothy was a sought-after carpenter in Knox County and he’d parlayed his business into being a general contractor. Unlike me, he never sat still. As the Director of Computer Services at Harshberger College, I spent most of my time sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen. I inhaled the cold air, and it stung the inside of my nose. “A walk sounds nice.”

  Timothy hopped out of the sleigh and whistled. His black-and-brown, mixed-breed dog, Mabel, snuffled from her spot under the bench seat but made no move to leave the warmth of the sleigh. Her body curved around the warm brick that Grandfather Zook—the sleigh’s owner—had placed inside before we left the Troyer farm. “Come on, girl,” Timothy said.

  The reluctant dog whimpered.

  Timothy placed his hands on his hips—a pose his mother made on a daily basis when she dealt with her seven-year-old son, Thomas. I stifled another chuckle.

  Mabel woofed softly, but finally she wriggled out of her place. The dog jumped into the snow, and a cloud of white flew into the air and covered her entire body with a fine dust.

  I stood, about to jump from the sleigh myself.

  “Wait!” Timothy ran toward me.

  I glanced around in search of any danger that may have caused Timothy’s outburst. All I saw was the old forgotten barn, the pine trees, and the white fields. “What? What’s wrong?”

  He beamed at me and extended his hand. “Let me help you.”

  My face grew hot, but I placed my gloved hand into Timothy’s and jumped lightly to the ground. To my pleasure, when I found my footing, he didn’t release my hand. Despite the leather gloves that kept our skin from touching, a charge passed between us—something I first had noticed when I met Timothy five months ago after moving to Appleseed Creek, Ohio, from Cleveland.

  Despite Mabel’s grumbling about leaving the warmth of her blankets in the sleigh, she leaped over a snow-covered stump and rolled onto her back, lavishing herself in the feeling of white powder against her fluffy body.

  Timothy blew out a mock sigh. “It’s going to take me an hour to brush all of the knots out of her coat.”

  I smiled. Snow fell all around us, as if Timothy, Mabel, and I moved forward inside a snow globe shaken by a giant’s hand. I could almost hear the tinkling notes of the music box.

  I pointed to the barn. “Whose farm is this?”

  Timothy squinted against the snow’s glare. “This is the old Gundy place.”

  “Gundy? I don’t think I’ve heard that name before.”

  Timothy brushed away the snow gathering on his coat sleeve. “They moved to Colorado six or seven years ago.”

  “They didn’t sell their property before they moved?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  I took in the crooked window shutters and gaping hole in the roof of the barn. “It is pretty in a sad, abandoned sort of way,” I said. “Becky should come here sometime with her paints and try to capture its loveliness before it falls to the ground.”

  Becky was Timothy’s nineteen-year-old sister, my housemate, and an aspiring artist. Her brother had left the Amish in search of a different kind of Christian faith, but she left the Amish way to pursue her art—a pursuit put on hold by a terrible auto-buggy accident. The collision left an Amish bishop dead and Becky with a criminal record.

  Timothy grabbed my other hand and turned me toward him. “I’m glad you like it, but I didn’t bring you here just to see the old barn. I brought you here to give you your Christmas gift.”

  I frowned. “I thought we agreed to exchange them with your family tomorrow on Christmas Eve. I didn’t bring mine for you.”

  He smiled. “I wanted to give you something without the ent
ire family watching.” He removed a small black box with a bright red bow on top from his coat pocket.

  My breath caught. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready for what he was about to ask me. He placed the box into my hand, and by its long rectangular shape I realized it wasn’t a ring box at all. Disappointment replaced the sudden rush of fear that had coursed through my body.

  “Open it,” Timothy whispered. His voice sounded so much like Mr. Green’s did when he watched his children, Tanisha, my best friend, and her young brother open one of their presents Christmas morning, I felt a rush of homesickness for the family that took me in when my father walked away from me. For Mr. Green the joy of Christmas was truly in the giving. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that Timothy was the same way.

  I opened the box. Inside on a bed of baby blue velvet laid a delicate silver necklace with two small charms on it. One of the charms was a computer mouse, the other a hammer. I glanced up at Timothy.

  He removed the necklace from the box. “Don’t you see? These things can be side by side.”

  He didn’t need to explain. Timothy was the hammer, and I the computer mouse. It was such a thoughtful and creative gift, that it brought tears to my eyes. Embarrassment surfaced, too. Timothy bought me this lovely gift and I had a new ratchet set wrapped for him under my Christmas tree. How romantic was that? I suppressed a groan.

  “Let me put it on you.” Timothy stepped behind me and hung the necklace around my throat. He tucked the clasp under the collar of my ski coat, his calloused fingers brushing the nape of my neck, raising goose bumps on my skin. He moved back around to face me.

  I kept the charms out on top of my scarf and rolled them back and forth between my fingers. “How did you find these?”

  “Google.” He laughed. “Actually, I found them with Becky’s help.”

  Although Becky left her Amish family much more recently than Timothy had, she was already a whiz at searching and shopping online. Before long she would become better at it than me—and I worked with computers for a living.

  “Thank you. I love it. It’s the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received.”

  Timothy leaned forward, and I closed my eyes. Nothing happened. I opened them again and I blushed. Timothy was staring at Mabel. She was hunched low to the ground as if prepared to spring into action. A growl escaped from deep within her throat.

  I tucked my silver necklace from sight under my coat. “I’ve never heard her make that sound before.”

  Timothy placed his hand on the dog’s fluffy head. “Neither have I.”

  Mabel’s growls became louder and more ferocious.

  I scanned the white landscape. “Do you think a wild animal is out here? Like a bear or a coyote?”

  Timothy shook his head. “I’ve never seen a bear in Knox County and a coyote is too skittish to hang around us with Mabel’s scent in the air.”

  “What—”

  My next question was cut off as Mabel launched from her frozen position, running full tilt for the barn. Without a word, Timothy and I ran after her.

  We drew closer, the barn much larger than I had first thought. In its prime, it could have housed horses, cows, and other large livestock. We reached the barn and icicles the size of baseball bats hung from eaves twenty feet above us. Mabel had already rounded the far corner of the weathered structure.

  We followed her, and I hoped that she wouldn’t run too far, or worse, come across the bear I worried about. As we jogged around the corner, we stopped short to avoid tripping over Mabel who, in a hunched position, stared at an object half-buried in the snow.

  We peered over her at the mound of black and navy cloth. On closer inspection, it was much more than cloth that had caught Mabel’s attention—a bluish, fine-boned hand stuck out of the snow, reaching for us.

  Chapter Two

  Timothy knelt on the ground beside the buried body. He shoveled snow away with his gloved hands, revealing a girl’s head and neck. The black bonnet confirmed what I thought the moment we saw the hand: She was Amish and young. Her face was like a porcelain doll’s—flawless skin and fine-boned much like the hand. It was lovely except for the otherworldly bluish tint to it. Timothy placed a finger to her neck. I knew what he would say even before he opened his mouth. No one that blue could still be here on earth.

  Timothy dropped his hand to his side and sat back on his feet. “She’s dead.”

  I removed my cell phone from deep in my parka’s inner pocket and dialed a number with which I was all too familiar.

  Chief Rose answered on the first ring. “What is it, Humphrey? Did you run into Fanning and Buckley?” She asked this in her typically terse fashion.

  I closed my eyes. Curt Fanning and Brock Buckley, a couple of local thugs, had spent the last few months harassing me and the entire Troyer family. Could they have had something to do with the Amish girl’s death? I winced from the stab of a headache coming on.

  In the background, I heard laughter, conversation, and Christmas music playing. Was the Appleseed Creek Chief of Police at a holiday party? I found it startling to think Chief Rose had a life outside of her job, which she seemed to live, breathe, and eat. At least until I heard the background music playing through my phone.

  “Are you still there?” she asked.

  I removed my Fair Isle hat and pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Yes. I’m still here. We have a problem, and it doesn’t involve Curt and Brock. At least, I don’t think it does.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I? Whatever this is, it’s going to cause me to leave this party, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Where are you?” Sharpness in her voice replaced the sarcasm.

  “Um.” I lowered the phone just a tad. “Timothy, where are we?”

  He stood and held out his hand for the phone. I gave it to him and listened while he described our location and the sad discovery.

  Mabel’s growling stopped. She walked over to me and leaned against my leg with a whimper. I dug my fingers into the curly fur on the top of her head. “You did good, girl.”

  I turned my eyes away from the girl’s face then. She was so young—just a teenager—a life cut short. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  Timothy handed the phone back to me. “It’s going to take Greta and her officers a little while to reach us. Also, depending on the location, the sheriff and some deputies may have to be rounded up too. I don’t know if this property falls within the limits of Appleseed Creek.”

  I couldn’t look at the blue face, so I concentrated on the hand. “Do you know her?”

  Timothy grimaced. “Ya,” he said, using the Pennsylvania Dutch word. He was more likely to pepper his English speech with his first language when he was around his family or when he was upset. At this moment, it was the latter.

  “Who is she?”

  He walked over to stand next to Mabel and me. “Katie Lambright.”

  Katie Lambright. I rolled the name around in my head. I didn’t remember meeting a Katie since moving to the county, but my stomach dropped. I did know a Lambright. Anna Lambright was Timothy’s thirteen-year-old sister, Ruth’s, best friend. I prayed I was wrong. “Is she related to Anna?”

  He turned to me, tears in his eyes. “Katie was Anna’s older sister.”

  Ruth and Anna had only recently been allowed to see each other again. The bishop and the deacon had punished the Troyer family for continuing contact with Timothy and Becky, who left the Amish way, by forbidding Anna to interact with Ruth. The separation had hurt Ruth deeply and almost ruined their friendship. However, when the bishop changed his mind and saw there was no harm in the Troyers interacting with their English children, Ruth’s father had relented.

  This tragedy could sever their friendship again—especially since Timothy and I were the ones to discover Katie’s body.

  Timothy strode around the corner of the barn.

  Mabel and I hurried after him. “What are you doing?”

  He
slowed just long enough to glance at us over his shoulder. “I want to take a look around before Greta arrives.”

  The barn door stood halfway open and hung awkwardly from its hinges. A drift of snow four feet high blocked the doorway. Undeterred, Timothy stepped into the snow drift and sunk up to his thighs. He turned his head. “Mabel, stay.”

  The brown and black dog sat with a whine.

  Timothy’s steps broke a path into the barn that I was able to follow. The drift was deep but not long. It extended perhaps four feet into the huge expanse of the barn.

  Inside the barn was dark, but the gaping hole in the roof worked as a sky light. We stood and let our eyes adjust. The items inside of the barn were what I expected to find: piles of old boards, rusty nails sticking out of the pillars, and grungy wagon wheels. Nothing was of any interest or relation to Katie Lambright, who lay dead on the other side of the barn wall.

  Light from the hole in the roof reflected off the metal surface at the back of the building. Without discussion, Timothy and I moved toward the reflection.

  The source of the light was a rearview car mirror sticking out of a blue milk crate. The crate was half-covered with an enormous blue tarp. Timothy pulled back the tarp, revealing dozens, maybe hundreds, of automobile parts from steering wheels to spark plugs. Ten tire irons were piled in a stack. “Looks like someone used this old barn for extra storage.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  He shook his head. “Not without the permission of the owner.”

  “Who is somewhere in Colorado.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe all this belonged to the Gundys.”

  Timothy shook his head. “They’re Amish.”

  The sound of snowmobiles broke into the tranquil quiet of the frozen farmland. Chief Rose and her posse were coming.

  Timothy turned. “We’d better step outside. Greta won’t like it if she finds us in here.”

  “She’ll know we were. We can’t really hide all the tracks we made in the snow.”

  Timothy shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’re right.”