Jenny, as she secretly called the gentle horse due to her father’s belief that animals shouldn’t be named, stood quietly, not even flinching when the pickup truck with a blue light swirling on its roof whipped past her. The buggy shuddered in its wake.

  I wonder what the emergency is.

  Out of habit, she whispered a soft prayer for whoever needed assistance. The familiar ritual was as comfortable as a pair of well-worn boots. She barely even thought about what she was doing before the words sprang to her lips. It might have been a habit, but the prayers were heartfelt. Tragedy struck every day, and no one was immune.

  If that weren’t the case, her mother would have still been with them.

  A loud, ear-piercing blare answered her silent question. A fire truck was on the way. She kept the buggy where it was, knowing she’d have to pull over again before the horse could work its way back to a full trot. Sure enough, less than a minute later, a fire truck belonging to the Sutter Springs, Ohio, volunteer fire department zoomed past, its tires spitting gravel and specks of mud against the shield in the front of the buggy. The gritty substance pinged as it struck the metal sides of the Amish vehicle.

  Once she was sure all the emergency vehicles had passed, she maneuvered the buggy back onto the two-lane road and continued home. Hopefully, she would arrive before her daed began wondering what was keeping her. She had unexpectedly run into her friend Diana, whom she hadn’t seen in weeks. Beth had delayed her return in order to see the woman’s month-old daughter. Beth loved kinder. The biggest wound of her single state was that she had no bopplin of her own. By the time she had packed her groceries into the buggy and headed back toward home, she was an hour behind schedule. Daed tended to worry, especially since her older sister, Miriam, had up and left the family two years ago for an Englischer. She’d gone to her sister’s room one morning to wake her for breakfast and had found the bedroom window wide open and a short note on the bedside table explaining she was done with the Amish way of life and was leaving with an Englischer she’d been seeing. No forwarding address had been provided. Typical of her selfish sibling. It had been just Beth and her father ever since. Their mother had died right before Beth turned two, leaving the grieving widower with two kinder to raise alone. He’d been a gut daed, although somewhat strict. She had often wondered why he hadn’t remarried. Most Amish men would have, especially if they were raising kinder alone.

  They’d had no contact with Miriam after she left. Until today. Beth glanced down at the letter she’d plucked from the mailbox before she’d left for town.

  Miriam wanted to cumme home. She didn’t say if she wanted to cumme to stay or merely to visit. Beth didn’t know how to feel about that. Her sister had caused so many problems in the past. She wasn’t sure she knew how to respond. Normally, Beth would have had no issue with giving the letter to her father and letting him make the call. He was the head of their family, after all. However, she hesitated. Her father had always seemed so strong and larger than life to her. These past few weeks, though, he’d acted as if a heavy burden was weighing him down. He wouldn’t speak of his concerns with her. In his mind, she understood, she was still a little one, and not a full-grown woman. Regardless of the fact that she would be twenty-eight in less than a month.

  As she moved along, she frowned.

  Why weren’t the sirens fading? Those vehicles were so much faster than her horse-drawn buggy. She shouldn’t still be able to hear them. But hear them, she could. In fact, it seemed the sirens were getting louder. As if the trucks had reached their destination and had stopped moving. She wasn’t comforted. The fire was nearby.

  A thread of anxiety slid through her. One of her friends or neighbors could be in trouble. Sutter Springs was something of a tourist attraction for those curious about the Amish way of life. The entire town was a mix of Englisch and Amish living side by side. Englisch neighbors bookended her own haus.

  Clutching the reins tighter in her fists, she flicked them, urging the mare into an extended trot. It was as fast as she dared push the animal, both because of the wet, slick roads and because she didn’t want to injure Jenny. She may have been a work horse, but Beth had grown very fond of her since they’d first purchased her ten years ago.

  The sirens finally ceased. Fear clutched her lungs in its grip. She couldn’t relax.

  A brisk breeze drafted behind the shield, spraying a cool mist on her face. A whiff of smoke teased her nose, and she froze. She hadn’t realized how hard she’d been hoping it was a false alarm. Jerking her head to the left, she raised her eyes to gaze over the tree line to about where eleven o’clock would be if the landscape before her were a giant clock. Dark plumes of black smoke churned in the air.

  It was close. Too close.

  Her stomach quivered and her muscles clenched.

  Jenny trotted forward, her flanks quivering. Even she seemed to sense the wrongness in the atmosphere. Beth sucked in a deep breath to calm herself and ended up coughing, her tongue and the roof of her mouth coated with the oily smoke.

  Finally, the horse reached the corner of her road. Two fire trucks, several smaller emergency vehicles and a single police cruiser lined the road. It was hard at first to tell where the fire was coming from. But she knew. In her gut, she knew it wasn’t a neighbor’s haus.

  It was hers.

  She would never make it to her driveway. Too many vehicles blocked her path. Not to mention all the residents emerging from their homes, mouths open in shock as they gawked. When Sharon, the young woman who lived directly across from her, met her gaze briefly and then dropped her eyes, the bottom fell out of Beth’s stomach.

  Pulling her horse over to the side of the road, Beth leaped down from the buggy, stumbling on the uneven ground. Righting herself, she ran toward her home. Jenny wouldn’t stray. Beth rushed forward. The gaping neighbors saw her coming and parted to make way. She didn’t acknowledge them. Her heart pounded in her chest. She opened her mouth and panted, desperate to get a full breath.

  The smoke was heavy in the air. She kept going. Rounding her driveway, she noted with relief that the fire wasn’t coming from her haus. Her anxiety spiked, however, when she saw it was coming from the huge barn in the next lot.

  The family’s auction business.

  Daed. Her father was supposed to be working in the auction barn. Had he gotten out?

  The members of the volunteer fire department were everywhere, focused on keeping the blaze contained to the one building. Thankfully, the ground was wet enough to keep it from spreading over the grass. The breeze, however, would be a concern. Plenty of fires were started by embers that broke free and got carried on the wind. Englisch and Amish volunteers worked side by side. The volunteer fire department was one place where the two cultures worked seamlessly together. The fire was fully involved. She knew at a glance the building would be a total loss.

  It was only a building, she reminded herself. Property could be replaced, structures rebuilt. No worldly trapping was worth more than a person’s life.

  Cutting across the lawn, she kept out of the way of the firefighters. She had to find her father.

  She raced behind the firefighters and circled to the back of the building. Flames erupted from the upstairs window. She ignored them, keeping as far from the burning building as she could. Turning the corner, shock spiked through her at the sight of two men locked together in a fierce battle. She should go for help, but she couldn’t leave. Her focus remained locked on the two figures ahead of her, wrestling.

  A large, bearded man she’d never seen before had her father in a choke hold.

  Daed was a peaceful man. He would never fight, although he struggled to free himself. Even in his struggle, he didn’t strike back.

  He managed to wrench himself out of the man’s hold. Instead of turning to confront him, Daed took several steps away, his steps staggering.

  He didn’t move fast enough. The stranger pulled out a gun. Right in front of her eyes, before she could shout a warning, he pulled the trigger. The cacophony around them camouflaged the blast. Her father collapsed to the ground and lay still. A dark stain spread on the grass under him.

  “Daed!”

  Despite the chaos, the shooter heard her shout. He raised the gun a second time, but this time, when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses, but she could feel the rage emanating from him. Beneath the cover of the beard, his lips pulled back in a snarl. She backed up, then whirled around to run away.

  Something slammed against the back of her skull. Agony ripped through her. Then everything went dark.

  * * *

  Miriam’s haus. Gideon Bender buried the well-known sensation of bitterness working its way into his mind. He could taste it on his tongue. But now was not the time to dwell on her betrayal. He couldn’t let it matter. No matter what his former almost-fiancée had done to him, her family was innocent and needed help.

  Tom, the driver, pulled in behind a familiar police cruiser and opened the door.

  “Gideon! Over here!” Gideon jumped down from the passenger side of the pickup truck he’d rode to the fire in and ran across the sodden grass to where his brother-in-law, Sergeant Steve Beck, stood with the fire inspector beyond the firefighters dealing with the inferno. He grimaced. There was no way they’d be able to save the building. Fortunately, it was Tuesday. He knew from experience that Amos Troyer spent Tuesdays at the lumberyard. While fires were always horrible, this could have turned tragic had anyone been inside the barn-turned-auction-business.

  Gideon jogged toward the two men, his steps slowing as he drew closer. They broke off their conversation and watched him approach, their normally friendly expressions morphed into twin masks of resolve. His brothers, Micah and Isaiah, underwent the same shift when danger showed its face. It must be something that happened when one entered law enforcement. Micah and Isaiah had both left their Amish community years ago. Micah was now a deputy US marshal. Isaiah had been lost to them for seventeen years. When he had shown up a year and a half ago, the family had been shocked to find he’d become a bounty hunter. Now he was a married man with an adopted six-year-old son and his wife was due to have a baby in July.

  All his brothers and his sister had found love and were building families. Gideon couldn’t be happier for them. He loved being the fun uncle and treasured every moment with his siblings.

  That didn’t mean he didn’t yearn for a family of his own one day. Except Miriam had destroyed that future when she’d left him and run off to marry an Englischer.

  None of which mattered now.

  He shifted his attention back to the men before him.

  “Ja? What can I help you with?” He needed to get back to the fire. They could use every set of hands to keep it contained. His glance slid back to the structure. The auction barn was barely visible in the midst of the flames shooting upward.

  Steve sighed. “The inspector here has found evidence that an accelerant was used to start this fire.”

  He blinked. That was the last thing he expected to hear. “Arson?”

  Who would want to hurt Amos Troyer? Except for his own daed, Gideon had never met a better man. Or a gentler one. Plus, the poor fellow had suffered so much. “Who would burn down an Amish business? Amos didn’t have any enemies.”

  Did he? Maybe not Amos, but he could see Miriam making enemies.

  He shook the thought away, knowing it was unworthy.

  “That’s what we need to find out. We’ll need to talk with some of the people around here.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck as if it already ached. “You know that some of your neighbors are reluctant to speak with the police.”

  He nodded. “Ja. I know. We don’t generally talk with outsiders about our business.”

  Steve winced.

  “Not you. You’re my brother, ain’t so? But others in the community wouldn’t feel that way.”

  Steve had brought Gideon’s twin sister, Joss, back to the family. She had been abducted twenty-five years ago, and somehow, Steve had saved her and returned her. Well, he married her. And she didn’t return to the Amish. But Joss was part of their family again. Gideon had become very close to his Englisch brother-in-law.

  “I’m not looking for compliments. Though I never mind them.” Steve flashed a quick grin. “What we’re suggesting is that people might be more comfortable with you talking to them. Would you consider helping out? Kind of like a consultant?”

  Gideon rubbed his beardless chin. It was an interesting idea. Gideon had a reputation for being a bit of a practical joker. But the truth was, he was easily bored. And when he got bored, his mind would think up ways to entertain itself. Some of these ideas had landed him in trouble over the years. He had never talked with anyone about it, not even his siblings, but he knew that if he were in the Englisch school system, he would have been in the accelerated or gifted classes.

  A month after she’d married his brother, Isaiah, his sister-in-law, Addison, had been talking with him and had suddenly said, “Do people realize you’re a genius?”

  He’d thought she was teasing, the way people do, but when he’d started to make a joke, her serious expression had made the humorous remark die in his throat.

  “I’m not a genius,” he’d protested. It wasn’t possible to talk about how intelligent he really was and sound humble, though, so he had left it there. In the Amish world, there were no perks or rewards for being the smartest in the community. In fact, their entire lifestyle was geared toward keeping any one member from standing out. It was enough that when he and Daed were working in the carpentry shop, Daed often asked Gideon to measure something or do any intricate math, knowing Gideon could eye a piece of wood or metal and accurately tell exactly how long it was and he could solve complicated equations mentally in seconds. He had never made a fuss about it, and neither had his family. Quite the opposite. He had grown used to downplaying his abilities. Having an actual label attached to them disconcerted him. To his relief, Addison had dropped the subject. But for the first time, he felt like he’d been completely seen.

  A challenge like the one Steve offered now appealed to him. “Ja. I will help you. Let me know when.”

  He turned back to the disaster at hand. Gideon wasn’t the only Amish man in the volunteer fire department. He and the rest of the men worked tirelessly to contain and extinguish the flames. No one went inside the building. The air stunk of smoke and ash, but the poison fumes were dispersed enough to keep anyone from inhaling too many and becoming sick or worse.

  About twenty minutes after he arrived, the chief sent Gideon to check on the ground behind the barn and make sure there were no glowing embers or sparks. With a nod, he jogged around the side.

  And nearly tripped over a body lying on the ground. Righting himself, he glanced down to see who he’d run into.

  Stopping, Gideon’s jaw dropped. Beth Troyer, Miriam’s younger sister and his old school friend, lay motionless on the wet grass. His heart leaped to his throat. How long had she been lying here? Instantly, his eyes took in her color. Pale, but not bluish. That was gut.

  Kneeling beside her, he touched the pulse point on her neck with a shaking hand. Her skin was cool, but not waxy. A thready pulse beat against his fingertips. When he removed his hand, he exclaimed. There was blood on his fingers. Leaning in, he spied a pool of it spread beneath her. She needed medical help, now. He sprang to his feet, ready to alert the chief and get an ambulance.

  “Daed.” Her weak voice halted him. Spinning back, he saw her eyes remained sealed shut. Had she really spoken?

  He dropped beside her again. “Beth?”

  Her dry lips parted slightly. “Daed. Check him. Hurt bad.”

  She fell silent again. He glanced around and noticed a second body. What was going on? Two bodies, and neither one of them inside the burning structure. That couldn’t be a coincidence. He moved to Amos’s crumpled form. The man lay at an unnatural angle, but Gideon had a clear view of his vacant eyes staring at nothing. He knew without touching him that they were too late. Still, he leaned down and gently placed his fingers against Amos’s cold throat. Unlike his daughter, Amos had no pulse. Although cold, lividity had barely set in. He couldn’t have been dead for more than half an hour, an hour at most.

  What was Amos doing here on a Tuesday? It felt wrong to worry about such a thing when the man was dead. Except, had he not been here, he would still be alive.

  Sighing, Gideon shrugged out of his coat and settled it over the unconscious woman. He didn’t have a second covering for Amos, but it didn’t matter. The man was beyond feeling the misty drizzle starting to fall.

  But Beth was still alive. Although he had no idea how extensive her injuries were, she wasn’t gone.

  He left her to find help, running in his haste to keep her alive, barely noticing the hissing sound as the raindrops grew heavier and hit the burning barn. Even if he hadn’t told Steve he’d help already, he was determined to involve himself in the case now.

  Copyright © 2024 by Dana Roae

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  ISBN-13: 9780369741615

  Chasing Justice

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