Amish Country Ambush. Dana R. Lynn

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       ONE

      The lights flickered as thunder boomed, rattling the windows. Immediately, heavy sheets of rain pelted the glass. Distracted, Elise St. Clair glanced at the lights running the length of the ceiling as she pressed the button to answer the next call.

      Her customary greeting of “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” was swallowed up in the intensity of the noise that blasted back at her.

      The woman on the other end of the phone was shouting, the sound deafeningly loud. And worse, she couldn’t understand a word the woman was saying. She was yelling in Pennsylvania Dutch, the language spoken by the Amish community. Elise didn’t quite recognize the voice, although there was something familiar about it. She glanced down at the screen nearest her and felt her world tilt.

      She might not have recognized the voice on the other end of the phone, but she knew the address that flashed across one of the three computer monitors at her station.

      It belonged to an old, slightly creaky farmhouse on the edge of town. The paint was peeling in places, and there were some shingles missing. It was hidden in the middle of nowhere. The kind of place people would drive by without a second glance.

      It was also her house. The house she had lived in for the past two years with Mikey, her nephew who was now three years old. And the phone number belonged to her babysitter, Diana Mosher, who was definitely not the person on the phone. Where was Diana? Who was calling her?

      Something horrible had happened, and she couldn’t understand a word of it. The urge to throw down her headset and dash out the door was fierce. Her hands were already on the headset, ready to snatch it from her head before she realized that she was the only one who could notify the authorities of the need for help. But who should she call? Police? Ambulance? Fire department? As head dispatcher, it was her job to send the call to the correct department.

      The shouting on the other end eased off as the woman on the line started sobbing. She sounded younger than Elise had first thought. Wait a minute. Her cleaning girl, Leah, was due in today. Elise had hired her because she herself was allergic to dust, and there СКАЧАТЬ