Her gaze drifted away. The outhouse path, heading into the shade of a huge old honeysuckle, appeared trodden. People lived here, she suspected, at least one male and one female.

She dropped her bag of beer cans, knelt and touched the girl to reassure herself. Yes, she was breathing.

“Hello? This is Sheriff Kick. Can you wake up? Hello?”

She got her arms beneath the girl and hauled her limply upright, surprised by her weight, worried by her gurgling stomach, then lugged her in a fireman’s carry to the porch of the house, which offered shade but little space amid dense clutter. She pushed aside old boots and harness tack, crates of wilting cabbages, a basket of wilted greens, and laid the girl down. Sweat stung her eyes. She paused to mop a sleeve across her face and gather in a few deep, scorching breaths. She felt a little dizzy as she knocked on the door.

“This is Sheriff Kick. Hello? Hallo? Goedemorgen?”

She reached to turn the doorknob—had nearly touched it when an electrical shock jumped to her sweaty fingers and snapped her hand. Inside the house an alarm bell rang. Her breath stuck as she saw the red stripe across her inner fingers. The drunken girl moaned and shifted on the porch floor.

What had just happened?

Keep breathing, Heidi.

As her lungs hauled at the heavy air, she unsnapped her holster.

“Hallo! This is the Bad Axe County sheriff.”

Was the doorknob booby-trapped? Why? How? The Amish didn’t use electricity—except when they did. Like the Amish couldn’t own a telephone or a car, but they could use your telephone and ride in your car. Their clothing could not have buttons, but safety pins were OK. She had lived around the Amish all her life without ever understanding the nuances of their Ordnung.

“Hallo? Goedemorgen? Ist hier jemand?”

She had no probable cause to enter the house. She walked out into the farmyard. The sawmill had not been used in years. All the wood, both sawed and unsawed, had weathered to gray. The sawdust piles had rotted.

She turned toward the barn. The structure was in the Amish style, plain architecture, unpainted and weathered, just an ordinary barn, yet the silence from the open door made her feel that something was wrong. She used a sleeve to mop her face again. Her lungs labored, her heart sped. Silent barns spooked her, odd for a farm girl, for an ex–Dairy Queen, maybe, except that when she was seventeen her mom and dad had been found shot dead inside their own.

Never mind, Heidi. Turn that off.

As she approached the door, the contrasting brightness was too strong for her to see inside.

“Is anybody in here? This is the Bad Axe County sheriff.”