Chapter 1
One
Everything inside Anna Hartzler screamed she’d made a terrible mistake in so many ways. Returning to Rachel’s Crossing. Taking the bait from him. Dragging her daughter along on this fool’s mission.
A chill chased up her spine. The circumstances of this event bore an uncanny resemblance to those of the night when everything had changed.
The woods past Anna’s family’s property swallowed her up. It felt like she’d crossed a threshold—back into the darkness of her past.
“You’re being silly.” Anna could almost hear Constance teasing her like she used to, calling her a baby as they waited in these same woods for Englischer friends.
Only something far worse came.
Anna jumped at every sound in the darkness. Why, after ten years of silence, had her sister’s kidnapper chosen to reveal Constance’s fate?
Her exhausted body urged her to turn around. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Anna and her daughter, Grace, had traveled for hours to get here. She should go back to her grandparents’ home and confess everything. At least give herself one peaceful night before confronting the past.
But if there was even a slight chance of learning the truth about Constance, Anna had to try. She owed it to her sister. She’d lived, while Constance’s fate remained unknown.
As the years passed, the case had turned ice-cold. The lack of new leads left investigators with no progress in Constance’s abduction.
Anna and Constance had both been held captive in the basement of an old house on the edge of Amish country. The kidnapper had taken Constance from the basement after one of his bizarre games. That was the last time Anna saw her sister.
Until the first letter arrived, Anna believed she might never know the truth behind her sister’s disappearance.
Her grandparents’ tears at meeting Grace tonight had filled Anna with shame. She should have come home sooner. They’d missed her, and she, them. Yet every time she’d thought about returning, she’d slammed the door shut on painful memories waiting to take her captive.
Anna had waited until Grace and her grandparents were asleep before leaving the house. And because she still carried nightmares of her and Constance being taken from the woods “that night,” she’d locked the doors behind her.
The rain had passed, leaving a fog that suited her mission. At one time Anna couldn’t imagine leaving Rachel’s Crossing. Her life was just as much a part of this stretch of Kentucky as the mountains that looked down upon them. Her roots had run deep. Family. Friendship. The boy next door.
Jaxson Thomas’s handsome eighteen-year-old face popped into her head.
A reminder that not all memories from the past were bad.
Once, she’d loved him deeply, despite their differences.
For months following that traumatic night, Jax was the only person with whom Anna felt comfortable enough to talk to about what happened.
Her parents were frantic with worry over Constance’s disappearance.
She didn’t want to burden them with her unraveling.
Jax always helped keep her centered.
In a moment of vulnerability for both, they’d taken comfort together from the storms in their lives in each other’s arms. Anna was still reeling from what happened to her and Constance. Jax had been dealing with another physical fight with his abusive father. Things happened that neither planned.
Their actions that night had permanent consequences.
By the time Anna knew she was pregnant, Jax had fled Rachel’s Crossing to get away from his father’s continued abuse.
When her parents found out, they moved Anna to her mamm’s former community in Bruce County, in Ontario, Canada, to avoid the shame of an unwed pregnancy, but they stayed in touch with Rachel’s Crossing police, hoping for word on Constance.
Though Anna had missed her grandparents in Kentucky dearly, for a while, life seemed normal.
Most people in the Lucknow community assumed Anna was a widow when she arrived—it seemed easier to let them think what they wanted.
Distance brought Anna a fragile peace. She’d met Mark Hartzler and married him. He wasn’t Jax, but he was a gut man who loved her and Grace. And she loved him.
But it seemed as if sorrow was determined to follow her wherever she went. Last year, a fire claimed the lives of her parents and husband.
Heartbroken, Anna returned to the States, but not to Rachel’s Crossing.
She couldn’t bring herself to come back here despite her grandparents still living in the community.
Instead, she’d moved to Tennessee to stay with her daed’s cousin.
She and Grace had rebuilt their lives when the first letter arrived.
Anna held the lantern high to light the way through the woods. Past her family’s farm, the one that once belonged to Jax appeared through the fog. They’d been neighbors first, then friends. And then…
She couldn’t think about Jax and not be sad and filled with guilt at the same time for not telling him the truth back then. She could have found a way to track him down. Instead, she’d taken the coward’s way out.
The early spring chill settling over the community made Anna glad she’d worn her cloak and the heavy bonnet to protect her head. Each step brought her closer to the answers the kidnapper’s letter hinted at delivering. Could she go through with this, face potential danger, even for Constance?
Frightening memories of the time forced themselves free, threatening to glue her steps into place.
Heads or tails…
“No.” The word slipped from her lips, echoing all around. She didn’t want to think about his last twisted game. He’d forced them to choose a side of the coin and then selected his loser. Constance.
The light reached the edge of the property, where she’d once been held. With her foot hovering in mid-stride, it was as if an invisible fence blocked her progress. The place had undergone changes throughout the years, but for Anna, it would forever stay as it was. Frozen in time.
As she continued toward the house where the nightmare happened, her fingers touched the letter and bracelet she’d stuffed inside her apron pocket because she didn’t want Grace to see.
“Just do it. For Constance.” She forced herself to keep going. One step followed another until she stood on the dilapidated porch.
The door was ajar.
Shivers chased each other down her frame. What if he was inside waiting for her? She couldn’t go back there again.
“Hello?” Her shaky voice came out disjointed in the fog.
Foolish. Did she think he’d invite her inside?
Anna’s hand hovered over the doorknob. Would coming here alone prove to be a dreadful mistake, her need for answers a fire that would consume her? She’d come this far and there was no turning back. No matter the cost.
Through the years, there’d been several cases that were similar to Constance’s. None matched perfectly, and all had led to another dead end.
A serial killer had been recently caught in Rachel’s Crossing—the police chief who’d once handled her sister’s case.
Anna couldn’t reconcile the man she’d trusted with the truth: beneath his charm hid a killer.
After Chief Fisher received his sentence, Anna visited him in prison to ask if he was responsible for Constance’s disappearance.
Fisher had remembered Anna and maintained he played no part in Constance’s abduction. Oddly enough, Anna believed him.
Now, here she was, so many years later, still looking for the truth.
If you want answers, you know where to go and you’d better come alone if you dare face your part in it.
The letter itself would have been enough to convince Anna that her and Constance’s kidnapper was back, but when he’d included the bracelet, well, there was no doubt.
Constance had bought the silver bracelet in town during one of her adventures with her Englischer friends. She’d shown it to Anna the night of the kidnapping before slipping it into her apron pocket and making Anna promise not to tell anyone.
Only Anna, Constance and the kidnapper who’d taken the bracelet knew of its existence.
Her hand grew sweaty holding the lantern as fear threatened to win out over the need for answers. Every time she let her brain focus on what happened that night, she lost another piece of her soul.
Just go in.
Anna pushed the door open all the way. Its yawning sound grated along her frazzled nerves.
The vast open space facing her held discarded fast-food bags and alcohol bottles. Teenagers probably came here to drink much like they did up at Black Mountain in previous years. Yet, it wasn’t a teenager who’d sent her the letter. Someone connected to the case wanted her back in Rachel’s Crossing.
Dozens of footprints littered the layers of dust. One set might belong to him. Her fear took on a new level, sending warning signals through her brain to leave now.
Instead, Anna started for the basement, her heartbeat echoing in her ears. In the kitchen, the door once sealing her freedom and Constance’s fate remained closed. Dread slithered into the pit of her stomach and thrashed around.
She listened. Not a sound over her drumming pulse.
Anna rubbed her damp palm over her cloak before reaching for the knob.
Memories of that night slapped her in the face again.
The sound of Constance’s screams still echoed in her ears as their abductor dragged her away.
Anna had promised her sister she’d get help.
The only way to do that was to get free.
Her hands had been bound by rope suspended from a rafter.
She’d dislocated one wrist to free them.
The pain had been excruciating. When she’d hit the floor, Anna landed on her injured hand.
She’d screamed and clamped her bottom lip until it bled.
There hadn’t been much time. What if he came back for her?