Free Forsaken by Leanna Ellis Page B

the way of life. This is our—”
    â€œ Danke , Levi, for carrying me home.” She scrambled out of the buggy, tripping on her skirt and practically leaping for the waterlogged ground. She didn’t look back, didn’t stop to help with the scooter, but simply ran for the safety of her room.

Chapter Ten
    Blood spurted like an oil well gone amok.
    Roc rolled his eyes and scrunched down in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. When would this movie end? Surrounded by the Amish teens he’d met a week ago, he laughed inwardly at their grunts and groans when axes split heads like melons— Hollywood probably used cantaloupe and honeydew —but Roc had seen blood as thick as Log Cabin syrup, smelled death where the rotting odors forced him to smoke a cigar to counter its effect, and tasted the coppery tang of fear. This horror flick didn’t come close.
    His cell phone vibrated in his hip pocket, and he reached for it as he slid out of his seat and up the aisle, jogging through the swinging theater door and into the bright lights of the lobby with its orange and purple carpet. “Roc here.”
    â€œHave the Amish converted you yet?” Mike’s voice came over the line extra loud and Roc turned down the volume.
    Roc paced in front of a row of gaming machines with Star Wars lasers and Terminator weaponry. “Yeah, I’m at church right now.”
    â€œWell, say a prayer.”
    â€œWhat’s up? Too early for the DNA test on the New Orleans Amish gal.”
    â€œA body was found. South of Promise.”
    Roc went as still as a predator on the hunt. “The missing teen? Ruby—”
    â€œIt’s not official yet but looks like it. Don’t say anything.”
    â€œWho am I going to tell? Jesus?”
    â€œHe knows.”
    â€œSo who was the gal in New Orleans?”
    Mike cleared his throat. “Brody thinks it’s a local girl out having fun on Halloween.”
    â€œYou mean trick-or-treating as an Amish?”
    â€œYep. Just a costume.”
    Roc laid a hand against the wall to steady himself. So he’d been sent here on some wild monster chase? He had to see this new body, see if there were any signs the two murders (three counting Emma) were related. Otherwise, he’d head back to Louisiana tonight. “Where are you, Mike? Still at the scene?”
    â€œNot my jurisdiction. I’m just passing along the information.”
    â€œI need to see the body.”
    â€œLook, I saw the pictures. They’re similar to the ones you sent of the trick-or-treater. Like Little Red Riding Hood, the Grimm’s version, ya know what I mean?”
    Unfortunately.
    ***
    â€œMan, you missed it.” Caleb Esch veered away from the group of teens emerging from the theater and headed toward Roc, who pocketed his cell phone. The teen had a relaxed, loose-limbed gait and hair like a thatch of hay on the top of his head.
    Roc nodded toward the theater where the pounding music poured out through the doorway. “How’d it end?”
    â€œMore blood.”
    The popcorn hardened in Roc’s belly as he looked at the teens gathered around him—young and innocent, even in their rebellion. “I’m going to have to get going.”
    â€œYou got a hot date?” The words came from the teen, Zachariah, who looked from the neck up like he belonged in the eighteenth century and from the neck down like he could be on MTV, which only made Roc’s grin broaden.
    â€œSomething like that.” He palmed his keys.
    With the lingering scent of popcorn and manufactured butter clinging to them, they pushed out into the crisp evening air. The cinema was sandwiched between a Wal-Mart and a hardware store. As they moved into the parking lot, the boys heading toward an English friend’s truck and Roc toward his Mustang, Luke shouldered him. “We’ll be on Straight Edge Road this weekend. Will we see you then?”
    â€œIf