Forbidden (6 page)

“But—” The buzz of Roc's cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it from his hip pocket but dumped it on the bed.

“Answer it,” Roberto said, and he began picking up shards of broken glass off the floor. “That is the only way to find out the answers you seek.”

It was a local number, Pennsylvania area code. “Yeah? This is Roc.”

The clearing of a throat made Roc's muscles tense. “Roc Girouard, this is Levi Fisher calling.”

“Levi?” He cupped his hand over his forehead. “I'm surprised to hear from—”

“I need your help.”

With one simple statement, all Roc's questions and doubts slid into perspective. He would go and confront whatever evil Levi was now facing. Not because he thought it would help end the vampire curse, or because he believed God wanted him to, but because it was all he could do. If he didn't, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. For not only did he seek vengeance, but absolution from all of this guilt.

Levi and Hannah sat side by side at the wooden table, their dour expressions making it seem as if they had never smiled in their lives. They didn't hold hands or even glance at each other, but they were clearly of one mind.

“Thank you for coming, Roc.” Levi spoke first in a somber tone. “Hannah's sister, Rachel, was taken by Akiva.”

Roc sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “How do you know?”

“Where else would she be?”

Roc laughed but caught himself. The worried slant of their brows and tension around their mouths forced Roc to curb his sarcasm. “Look, Levi, people go missing all the time. It doesn't mean it's vampire related. It doesn't even mean foul play. The person could have gotten lost, decided to start a new life, ended up in the hospital.”

“You know what happened, Roc.”

“How would I know that? And neither do you, Levi.” Roc leaned forward, bracing his arm on the table next to the iced tea Hannah had prepared for him. “Look, I know you're worried, but there could be a million reasons why Rachel didn't come home yesterday.”

“Her husband died at the hands of a…of…Akiva.” Hannah spoke this time, her voice slow and calm. But there was an underlying layer of fear poisoning her words and the peaceful atmosphere in the small Amish home.

“You can't even say it!” Roc's voice detonated in the room, and with it his temper and frustration over his own denials. “Vampire. Vam—pire. Let's say it all togeth—”

“Roc.” Levi's voice dipped lower in a fatherly intonation.

But something inside Roc had come unhinged. He clung to the edge of sanity by his fingertips, fighting, struggling, clawing his way back. He had come here expecting the worst, expecting it to be about Akiva. But now that he was here, the grief of Ferris's death wouldn't leave. He couldn't…wouldn't believe everything bad, everything he would have to deal with for the rest of his life, was because of vampires. Maybe if he didn't believe, then it would erase the last few hours and six months…or even the past few years.

Why, he'd lived almost thirty years without any knowledge of vampires, and by God, maybe he could go back to some sort of solid ground of common sense. Good grief, with all the years of police work in his hip pocket, he'd never run into vampires or anything supernatural. Evil existed, sure, because evil ruled in the hearts of men and women. All manner of debauchery and treachery went on in the night and broad daylight, things normal people didn't want to know existed. And it happened often. But was it all because of some great conspiracy with vampires at the helm?

The deep end of craziness repelled him, and he made a quick decision. “I can't help you, Levi.” He pushed back from the table. “Hannah, I'm sorry, but I can't.”

Her brown eyes widened, but it was her husband, Levi, who spoke. “Why not?”

What could Roc say? He hadn't been able to help Ferris. Or Josef. Or Emma. He might as well admit this particular mission was useless. But how could he explain that to this desperate couple, who were looking to him for answers? When the sad fact was Rachel was probably already dead.

He remembered the pictures of Ruby Yoder, the young Amish woman killed a few months back: fearful frozen gaze, chewed neck, and drops of blood on her apron. Details. Sometimes he really hated the details he couldn't expunge. He didn't need all of this again. No more details. No more blood. No more death. Maybe he'd just go live on a beach, stare at the ocean blue, the waves slurping onto the sand, receding and surging forth again, and simply forget.

But he couldn't. It was impossible. Because he remembered Rachel's blue eyes, her slim neck, her slight blush at forgetting her married name. He didn't want to see her like Ruby Yoder or Emma. But could he stop it from happening again?

The expectation in both Levi's and Hannah's gazes poked at him. “Look”—he glanced downward, ran his hands along his thighs in an attempt to wipe away his own blame—“I can hook you up with the right law enforcement, if she's truly missing, but that's all.”

“If that's the best—”

“No.” Hannah interrupted her husband. She didn't glance at Levi for permission or apology but stared straight at Roc with a solid intensity. “No law enforcement will understand what we're up against. But you know, Roc. You understand.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “You're Rachel's only hope.”

She opened her mouth but then closed it, her lips tightening. The tears disappeared, and a fire sparked in those brown depths, a fire born of understanding and desperation. “I don't want my sister to end up like Ruby or Josef. It's my fault this happened. But I'm helpless without your help. Please, Roc.”

Roc swallowed, cutting off the angry, defensive retort rising in his throat. He didn't want to be anyone's last hope. Because then they didn't stand a chance in hell.

“It's not just one life we're asking you to save.” Levi hooked an arm around his wife's shoulders. They were a concrete force together, as if fortified by each other's presence. “Rachel is pregnant.”

The simple statement made Roc's decision for him. Not because he thought he could do anything to stop Akiva, if that was who in fact had taken Rachel, but because it wasn't one life at risk but two. So if he was going to do this, he wouldn't make assumptions He would approach this disappearance like any other, like any sane cop oblivious of supernatural phenomenon.

He drew a calming breath, a pathetic effort to slow his racing heartbeat. “Look, Levi, Hannah, I'm not unsympathetic to Rachel's disappearance. But really? We're gonna jump to the conclusion that some vampire grabbed her? That's reason number one million, seven hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred and eleven. Before we jump to that most bizarre conclusion, let's examine a few other possibilities.”

Levi and Hannah sat perfectly still and waited for him to continue.

“She lost her husband.” A flash of memory came to mind, Josef lying in the cemetery. “So she's a widow.” Roc tapped his leg with his thumb as he thought of all the possibilities, all the reasons, all the explanations, which filed logically and rationally through his mind. “Maybe she's seeing someone else.”

Hannah shook her head.

“She could have done so without telling you.”

Levi shook his head this time.

“She could have been seeing someone outside the district.” Roc kept on with the possibilities, trying to jar loose their tightly held belief that this involved a vampire. “Maybe she started seeing an
Englisher
.”

“Roc,” Hannah said with firm conviction, “our parents had suggested other single men who might take up the mantle of fatherhood for Josef's baby, but she wouldn't—”

“If it was someone they might not approve of, then they might not know either. You probably wouldn't even know.”

“She would not risk being shunned.”

Roc blinked but kept on. “She might.”

“She was never alone,” Hannah said in crisp tones.

Roc frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We kept an eye on her. Others kept watch too,” Levi explained, glancing at Hannah. “Because we feared something like this might happen.”

“Okay, then maybe she went to the doctor. She was pregnant, right? So maybe the hospital—”

“And how would she have gone?” Levi questioned.

Roc opened his mouth then closed it. Back in New Orleans, there would have been a dozen ways for someone to get to an ER. But here in Promise, Pennsylvania, where buggies outnumbered cars, or at least seemed to, where telephones were rare commodities, in the Amish community at least, where hospitals weren't even the first choice, the possibilities were more limited. Would a pregnant woman have hitched a horse to a buggy by herself? Maybe. But then wouldn't they be missing a horse and buggy? One of those red scooters so many of the youngsters used going to and from school was out of the question for a pregnant woman. If she'd asked for a ride from a neighbor, then the neighbor would have told the family, and the whole community would already be in the know. The natural grapevine wove through the community, tying them all together and keeping them better informed than any telephones, newspaper, or twenty-four-hour news station could.

Levi shifted in his chair. “I admit, Roc, we jumped first and foremost to a difficult conception. But I went over to our Mennonite neighbors and used their telephone. I called the doctor in town. He's the one in our district who looks after some of the women, especially those expecting. He hadn't seen Rachel for over a month.”

“Since she had problems before,” Hannah explained, “we thought maybe she was having trouble and went straight to the hospital.”

“The simplest explanation is usually the most likely,” Roc agreed.

“Usually.” Levi nodded his agreement. His stony gaze revealed no doubts as to what he believed had happened to Rachel. But still the Amish man let Roc think it through without interrupting, without arguing his case. He simply waited. It was Hannah who reached over and touched her husband's sleeve, but Levi cupped her hand, patted it once, twice, and they both watched Roc with solemn gazes.

Frustrated with them, with himself, with the whole situation, Roc pushed away from the table and walked toward the back door of their kitchen. He stared out the window at the yellow daisies planted around the base of a stout oak. Life had certainly been simpler before he'd ever come to Pennsylvania. If he'd been on a drinking binge for the last six months, then he could easily doubt all he'd seen, doubt his sanity, doubt the blood and bodies. But he hadn't been drinking. His eyes had been opened to an even more frightening world than he'd ever known existed. And he couldn't close his eyes just because he wished it away.

“But why?” he asked, without facing the Amish couple. “Why would he…Akiva…this
vampire
”—he emphasized the word they seemed reluctant to use—“want Rachel? It doesn't make sense.” Roc remembered meeting the woman, Rachel, several months ago in his desperate search for a killer, before he really understood what evil he was trying to expose. She'd been newly married, and neither had known her husband would soon be dead. It wasn't because the woman wasn't desirable, but he wondered what suddenly made her attractive to a vampire. His gaze shifted from the peaceful scenery of farmland toward Hannah.

“I think…” She spoke softly as she stared down at her lap, the ties of her headpiece trailing downward. She wore the simple clothes he'd learned were required by the Amish. The white
kapp
, the plain dress of some earthy tone, this one being green, the apron pinned in place with straight pins, and the solid black tennis shoes.

“It's all right, Hannah,” Levi said in a soothing voice.

She gave a bob of her head. “I think he wants to hurt me.” She glanced up then, her brown eyes seeking understanding from Roc. “Because of what happened.”

Roc remembered how Hannah had agreed to go with Akiva. It had been her sacrificial attempt to save Levi. But the vampire had pushed her away, not wanting her without love, if her heart had belonged to Levi. None of it frankly made sense to Roc at the time and made even less now. But if anyone knew Akiva, Hannah did. Still, the voice of reason intruded. “It's been six months. Why now?”

“Why not now?” she asked in return.

“But why wait so long?” Roc persisted.

“Maybe,” Levi suggested, “Akiva was waiting for the right opportunity. As I said, we had been keeping a close eye on Rachel.”

Roc quirked an eyebrow. “So you thought Akiva would return?”

Levi rubbed his jaw where it was covered by a thick growth of beard. “We worried about Rachel, wanted to help her if she needed it. But I also had concerns, not only for Rachel, but also for Hannah. Revenge is a powerful tool.”

“Akiva…Jacob”—Hannah used the vampire's human name, the boy she had known and loved—“he knew Rachel. She went with him to New Orleans during their
rumschpringa
years.”

Both of Roc's eyebrows lifted. “Were they
together
back then?” He wasn't sure Hannah and Levi understood what he meant by that particular English word. “Were they dating? Or whatever you call it?”

Hannah plucked at the ties of her headpiece. “I don't think so…but…”

“But” told him more than anything else. He read the hesitation in her eyes. She wasn't sure. “But what? The more I know the easier it will be for me to find them, to help her.”

Hannah rolled her lips inward before speaking. “Rachel wanted Josef even then, but I'm not sure what went on between her and Jacob. She said nothing about that time, but…”

When she didn't continue, he voiced her doubts: “You're not so sure.”

Her slim shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I wasn't there. It is not for me to say anyway. Gossip is—”

“Gossip is about all we have to go on, apparently.” Roc walked over to the table and took a long drink of the sweetened tea, the ice clanking in the glass. Rattled, he focused on the details. Details mattered. “Do you have a recent picture of Rachel?”

Hannah shook her head. “We don't hold with—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He frowned. Searching for a missing person was never easy. The list of those missing in each state was astronomical and sobering. But the Amish rules for not allowing photographs complicated things. “No photographs. The
Ordnung
should reconsider just for safety purposes.”

“The Lord is in control,” Levi stated.

“If you were so convinced of that, then why did you call me?” Roc challenged.

“The good Lord can use you too, Roc. And I believe He will help us to find Rachel.”

Roc could never understand this quiet young man's rock-solid, unshakable faith. Was it faith or rationalization? Levi had no idea what they were up against, much less the odds of ever finding Rachel. Alive or dead. And without a photograph, the odds of identifying her went down too. “Did she ever go to a dentist, have x-rays taken?”