“Kate. Hey. Kate.”

I wake to find Tomasetti leaning over me. One hand braced on the headboard, the other warm against my shoulder. Disoriented, unnerved by the dream still so vivid in my mind, I sit up quickly. Hazy light slants in through the windows and I realize with some surprise I don’t know if it’s morning or afternoon or somewhere in between.

“Hey.” My voice is clogged, so I clear it.

“You were thrashing around.” Tomasetti tilts his head as if to get a better look at my face. “Bad dream?”

“Yeah.” Not making eye contact with him, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and scrub my hand over my face. “What time is it?”

“After six.”

I look at him over the tops of my fingertips and smile. “A.M. or P.M.?”

He smiles back. “P.M.”

“I have to go.” I start to rise.

But he presses me back. “Whoa.”

“I didn’t intend to sleep this long.”

“That’s what you get for staying up all night.”

He’s wearing an exquisitely cut charcoal suit with a light gray shirt and the tie I bought him for Father’s Day last summer. I know he hates that tie; I have the fashion sense of a toad, especially when it comes to dressing a man. But I know he wears it because he loves me.

Lowering himself onto the bed next to me, he puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. “I tried to wake you for dinner, but you were out cold.”

“You know that’s no reflection on your cooking, right?”

He smiles. “I picked up a sandwich at Leo’s for you.”

I make an exaggerated sound of disappointment, wondering if he has any idea how comforted I am by his presence. “You know we’re putting Leo’s kids through college, don’t you?”

“You know his name isn’t really Leo, right?”

That makes me laugh.

“That’s better.”

“Where are you going?”

“Dinner with the brass.” He smoothes a strand of hair from my face. “Do you want to talk? I have a few minutes.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I heard what happened to Hoch Yoder. It was on the news.” He leans close and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I’m sorry. I know you liked him.”

“Are they calling it a suicide?”

“Yeah.”

Talk of the case reminds me that I lost half a day and how much I have to do. I try to rise again, but he stops me.

“Wait.” Gently, he wraps his fingers around my biceps and turns me to him.

I look up at him. “Tomasetti, I have morning breath.”

“Do I look even remotely concerned about that?”

He sets his mouth against mine and I melt into him. My arms go around his neck and I pull him closer. I kiss him hard, using my tongue, wanting more. He kisses me back in kind, and in an instant I’m swept away. It’s crazy, but even as he holds me, I feel an inexplicable rise of desperation, of wanting that has nothing to do with physical needs, and I wonder how it is that my love for him can be so all-encompassing.

After a moment, he pulls away. His face is scant inches from mine. His pupils are dilated, his mouth wet. “I have to tell you something.” His voice is low and rough, his nostrils flaring, but he isn’t smiling. “Before you hear it on the news.”

Something cold skitters up my back. “What?”

“Joey Ferguson is dead.”

I hear the words as if I’m standing in some vast canyon, and they echo off rocky cliffs. I’m so shocked that it takes a moment for the words to register. “Dead? How?”

“He was shot outside a bar in Cleveland. Execution style. Passerby found his body a few hours ago.”

I stare at him, stunned, not sure what to make of it. The silence is deafening. “Did the cops get the shooter?”

“No.”

I’m suspicious by nature, and no matter how much I love him, I know him. I know what he’s capable of. And I have no choice but to ask the one question I fear most. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

He takes the question in stride, as if knowing I would ask. “No.”

A sense of relief unravels the knot of tension at the back of my neck. Still, I know there’s a possibility that he’s lying. To protect me. To protect himself.

“All right,” I hear myself say.

“I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Who’s handling the case?”

“Cleveland PD.”

“Are they looking at you?”

“Probably. They won’t find anything.” He looks down at our clasped hands and then makes eye contact with me. “Are we all right?”

“Yes,” I say.

As he walks out the door, all I can think is that they didn’t find anything the last time the police looked at him, and Tomasetti had been guilty as sin.

CHAPTER 30

I arrive at the station a little after seven. I’m preoccupied by my conversation with Tomasetti and operating in a fog as I go through the front door. Mona greets me with her usual cheery, “Hey Chief,” as I make a beeline for the coffee station.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Jodie’s flooded in, so I told her I’d cover her shift.” She rises and crosses to me, her hand extended with a dozen or so pink slips. “I hate to hit you with this with everything else that’s going on, but I just took a 911 from Randy Trask. He says the water’s up over the Tuscarawas Bridge.”

“Of course it is,” I mutter.

The Tuscarawas Bridge is a covered bridge of historical significance and a Painters Mill icon that spans Painters Creek and part of a floodplain. “Get T.J. out there to set up flares. Notify the sheriff’s department.” I take the messages and glance through them. “I want the road blocked and a detour set up.” I pour coffee into my cup, knowing there’s always some motorist who’s in a hurry and takes a chance by driving through high water. “Give the mayor a call and put in a call to ODOT.”

“Will do.” I can tell by the way she’s fidgeting that she’s got something else on her mind. Before I can ask, she blurts, “Chief, I think I found something on Ruth Weaver.”

I set the coffeepot back on the burner and give her my full attention. “Let’s see it.”

I follow her to the dispatch station. She slides behind her computer and deftly runs her fingers over the keyboard. An instant later, a photo of an Amish woman appears on the screen. I guess her to be about twenty-five to thirty years old. Plain gray dress. Dark bonnet. Swartzentruber, I think.

“I found it on a blog site,” she tells me. “A blogger posted it eight years ago on a site called A Lid for Every Pot.”

“That’s an old Amish saying,” I murmur.

“I was just messing around and did a search for Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania, and the blog came up. I started reading, and the blogger, a lady by the name of Gwen Malcolm, had driven across Pennsylvania while on vacation and ran across this Amish woman on the roadside selling handwoven baskets. She bought a basket and started talking to the woman and somehow ended up taking the photo, which she used in her blog.”

“That’s surprising,” I say. “That dress and bonnet are Swartzentruber.”

“According to the blogger, the Amish woman’s name is Ruth Weaver.”

I lean closer to the monitor. “Can you enlarge it?”

“Yeah, but we lose resolution.” She taps a menu tab, and a larger but grainier photo augments.

I stare at the woman’s face, and a vague sense of familiarity grips me. I know it’s impossible; I’ve never met Ruth Weaver. Still, staring at the photo is like having a word on the tip of your tongue that you can’t quite conjure. “Mona, I think I’ve seen her before.”

“Here in Painters Mill? Or when you drove over to Pennsylvania?”

“I’m not sure. But her face … there’s something familiar about her.”

“Like passing-on-the-street familiar or you’ve-talked-to-her familiar?”

“I don’t know.” I shift my attention to Mona. “See if you can get in touch with the blogger and get your hands on a better photo. Or if she has others, ask her to send them.”

“I’ll do it right now.”