Kneeling next to the hole in the ice, Becca bowed her head and silently recited the Lord’s Prayer. She asked God to take care of her mamm and datt. She asked Him to ease their grief in the coming days. She asked Him to forgive her brother for what he’d done to her most of her life. Finally, she asked God to forgive her for the sin she was about to commit. She closed her eyes and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life, hoping it was enough.

When she was finished, Becca rose, picked up the rope, and lowered the concrete block into the hole, watching it disappear into the black depths. She thought of the journey before her and her chest swelled—not with fear, but with the utter certainty that soon all would be right.

Standing at the edge of the hole, she closed her eyes, stepped forward, and plunged into the water.

CHAPTER 1

My mamm once told me that some places are too beautiful for anything bad to happen. When I was a kid, I believed those words with all of my young heart. I lived my life in a state of ignorant bliss, oblivious to the evils that lurked like frothy-mouthed predators outside the imaginary gates of our small Amish community. The English world with its mysterious and forbidden charms seemed like a million miles away from our perfect little corner of the earth. I had no way of knowing that some predators come from within and beauty has absolutely nothing to do with the crimes men commit.

Ohio’s Amish country is a mosaic of quaint farms, rolling hills dissected by razor-straight rows of corn, lush hardwood forests, and pastures so green that you’d swear you had stepped into a Bill Coleman photograph. This morning, with the sun punching through the final vestiges of fog and the dew sparkling like quicksilver on the tall grass of a hay field, I think of my mamm’s words and I understand how she could believe them.

But I’m a cop now and not easily swayed by appearances, no matter how convincing the facade. My name is Kate Burkholder and I’ve been the police chief of Painters Mill for about three years now. I was born here to Amish parents in a one-hundred-year-old farmhouse set on sixty acres of northeastern Ohio’s rich, glaciated soil. I grew up Plain—no electricity, no motorized vehicles. Up until the age of fourteen, I was a typical Amish girl—innocent, God-loving, content in the way most Amish children are. My future, my very destiny, had been preordained by my gender and the religion bestowed upon me by my parents. All of that changed on a postcard-perfect summer day much like this one when fate introduced me to the dark side of human nature. I learned at a formative age that even on perfect, sunny days, bad things happen.