Page 93 of A Gathering of Secrets

“I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, thank you. I’ll meet you there as soon as I talk to the Yoders. They’re only ten minutes from the shop.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

I hang up and call Skid with a quick summary of the situation. “She’s eighteen years old and might be on her way to the Yoder farm out on County Road Twenty-Four.”

“I know the place,” he says. “I’ll swing by, do a welfare check.”

“Thanks. I’m on my way over to The Mercantile. Keep me posted.”

“You, too.”

CHAPTER 21

I let Jodie know where I’m going as I go through reception, and then I dash into the deluge. I run the Explorer twenty miles an hour over the speed limit and make it to The Mercantile in twelve minutes. As I pull into the front lot, my headlights play over the building’s facade, glint off the darkened windows. There are no cars in the lot. No lights inside.

I pick up my radio. “I’m ten-twenty-three,” I say, to let Skid and dispatch know I’ve arrived on scene.

“You got eyes on her?” comes Skid’s voice.

“Negative.” I have to raise my voice to be heard above the rain pounding the roof of my vehicle. “Are you at the Stutzmans’?”

“ETA two minutes.”

“Roger that.”

I rack my mike and scan the front of the shop. The place is homey and inviting during the day, with hanging baskets and half whiskey barrels full of fall mums, pansies, and asparagus ferns. Tonight, surrounded by impenetrable darkness and the rain pouring down, it possesses a postapocalyptic feel.

“Come on, Neva,” I whisper. “You’re too smart to do something like this. Where the hell are you?”

Flipping the switch for my spotlight, I reach for the handle and shine it along the front of the building. I idle past, watching the shadows, keeping my eye on the doors and windows for movement or light. I reach the end of the building and peer into the side lot.

Lightning flashes with blinding intensity. An instant later thunder cracks like cannon shot. I pull around to the side and creep toward the rear, where the old round barn is being renovated. The lot is vacant, ghostlike fingers of steam rising from the gravel.

Hitting my high beams, I crank the wipers up a notch, lean forward, and squint to see through the rain-streaked windshield. The round barn is a huge structure, half of which is surrounded by scaffolding. It had once been white, but decades of weather extremes have stripped the paint and turned the tin roof shingles to rust. There’s a massive cupola at the peak. A small square window stares down at me like a dead, blank eye. It’s an interesting building, and even in the dark and through the driving rain, I can see the vision Edna Lambright and her husband must have for the place.

The structure is built into a hillside. An orange skid loader lurks in the shadows where some of the foundation has crumbled. My beams illuminate a Dumpster full of refuse. A couple of five-gallon buckets stacked against the exterior wall. The place is deserted. No sign of Neva.

I’m in the process of turning around to wait for Edna Lambright when I see a flicker of light near the front door. I run my spotlight over the facade, but there’s no one there; the door is closed. No light in the window. There’s no vehicle. No buggy. Still, I’m certain I saw a light. So where the hell did it come from?

“Only one way to find out.”

Resigned to getting wet, I shut down the engine, grab my Maglite, and hightail it to the door. My clothes are soaked when I reach for the knob. I’m half expecting to find it locked, but when I twist, the door creaks open. The interior is dark as a cave. The rain pounding the roof is deafening. The smells of wood and plaster waft out on a draft of damp air.

“Hello?” I call out. “Neva? Are you here? It’s Kate Burkholder.”

I listen, but no response comes. Stepping inside, I shine the beam around the interior. It’s a large area with a wood plank floor. The remnants of a dilapidated silo stand in the center. Several stanchions on a raised concrete slab are still recognizable. Two full-size stalls to my right. Curved stairs run along the wall to a second-level loft and down to the ground level. To my left I see a scaffolding set up against the wall where workers have been shoring up the overhead beams.

“Neva Lambright!” I call out her name and identify myself again. “Can you come talk to me please!”

I walk to the center of the space, run my beam along the floor. “Neva!”

Ducking between the stall rails, I cross to the stanchions, and peer into the silo. The air smells of damp earth and rotting wood. The dirt floor is ten feet down. In the yellow beam of light, I see an antique milk can lying on its side. An old cot without a mattress. I startle when something darts across the floor. A field mouse.

“Great,” I say on a sigh.

Dust motes fly in the sphere of the beam when I shift the light, point it toward the stairs. They’re made of stone and oak planks. Original to the building, but they look solid enough to support my weight.