The thud Mike heard was followed by hasty footsteps, too light to be his partners. With a protective hand over his revolver, he slowly walked along several stainless-steel work stations that had been stacked on top of each other, creating a wall of silver against the darkness of the slaughterhouse.

As the footsteps became more distant, he risked a glance around the corner, only to see a woman's figure several feet away, heading toward the side door of the building.

With his partner painfully absent, Mike gave chase, leaving enough room between himself and their suspect to remain undetected for the time being. Unaware of her secret follower, Amy rushed out the side door and toward a good-sized storage shed, matching the exterior colors and trim of the processing facility, but sitting a hundred feet off to the side.

Her sandals clapped against a paved driveway which was wide enough for a car travel on, as she finally slowed down and vanished beneath the slightly ajar double doors.

When he was sure that she hadn't noticed his presence yet, Mike crossed the short distance, Amy's loud and panicked sobs greeting him before he ever even set foot into the shed. The side windows along the metal frame of the building sent enough light in to show that the space was filled to the brink with processing machinery of different styles and ages, some even broken or significantly rusted.

Amy was leaning against what looked to be a table saw with the blade attached to an overhead arm, one hand in front of her face, the other one frantically trying to loosen a rusted wing nut to remove the saw blade.

Drawing in a deep breath, Mike slowed down and crossed his arms in front of his chest, the light coming from outside causing his elongated shadow to touch Amy's worn out tennis shoes.

"Trying to get rid of some evidence?"

His question nearly made the young woman jump out of her skin and she stumbled over her feet as she turned around. Black streaks of runny makeup covered her blushed cheeks and her frantic eyes scanned him suspiciously, as she fought to come up with the right words.

"I didn't see you come in…just the other guy…", she growled and took a step back, acting like a cornered animal.

"That was the idea.", Mike countered in feigned professionalism and pointed at the saw, "Is this…how you cut his head off?"

Following his finger, Amy licked her lips, her fingers tracing the metal table of the machine like a cherished family heirloom.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

His friendly openness seemed to confuse Amy, as her hostile attitude dulled down significantly, only to be replaced by mild confusion. With one hand across the red flannel blouse that reached halfway down her thighs, he could see her breathing heavily.

When nothing else was said, Mike cleared his throat and smiled genially.

"You thought that you and Rory were the perfect match, didn't you?", he said empathetically, watching her expression with great interest. When she didn't respond or move a muscle, he continued, "That's why your names were carved all over the trees. The pictures hanging in the restaurant. It was a fairytale made in heaven, as far as everyone was concerned. You and Rory shared so many things, and I bet everybody in town was looking forward to you guys getting together and burying the hatchet of that old Morrison and Darr feud for good, didn't they? But Rory had some trouble with commitment."

A slight nod was his only response and Mike clenched his jaw, almost regretting to be on the right track from the beginning when it came to that girl.

"When you found out about Marie, you became angry. Embarrassed even. Every day you get to drive by those trees, see both of your names, and you are being reminded of what he did. How he betrayed you."

"It was more than just that…", Amy whispered, her voice having grown tired, "My dad never wanted me to date him. He hates Mickey's guts and wanted nothing to do with them. His dream was that I would marry Jacob instead."

A bell went off in Mike's mind at the mentioning of Daniels' name and the implications of everything that had happened. Considering what Barry had told him, that statement just opened up a whole new can of worms.

"But you didn't like Jacob…He was good enough to be your tool to get Rory jealous though. What is it that you promised him?"

"Nothing. I promised him nothing. I like Jacob. He is a great friend.", Amy insisted and wiped her face with a shaky hand, before running it through her long curly hair, "But I didn't love him. Never could. He was too…sheltered. He was a kid, really. With way too much responsibility on his shoulders. But the town loves him so he gets to run it."

"Well somebody didn't like him too much and tried to kill him this morning. Care to tell me where you were?"

Amy never flinched, never seemed surprised. With her lips pursed to a thin line, she stared straight ahead, her dark brown eyes scanning the building outside.

"I was in bed sleeping. You can ask my father if you like. I've been staying at his place for a few days, Jacob thought it'd be safer that way with the tensions running high within the Amish community and all."

"What do you mean?"

Nervously fidgeting with the frayed edges of her shirt, Amy let out a quiet sigh, before glancing back up.

"Well, somehow word got out about Rory's death and some of the Amish suspected that Jacob was involved. They wanted for him to admit to it and step down, but obviously he wouldn't. Once…once he knew you guys were coming, he went over to Shipshewana to talk to some of the guys, bribe them to keep their mouths shut until you guys had left again. This way the situation could be handled…internally. Without outsiders from…from California. I guess that didn't go over well."

"You think it's the Amish that set his house on fire this morning, don't you?", Mike asked, growing increasingly worried about his partner's absence.

"Probably. They're two-faced…sneaky little weasels. Everybody thinks they're all proper and simple and nice but they're just as corrupt as the rest of us. And what more of a coward thing to do then to set a man's house on fire while he's inside sleeping?"

"Killing one."

Mike's accusatory words made her freeze in her spot, eyes narrowed to tight slats, as she took a step toward him.

"Do you even realize he had the nerve to come down here and lie to me? While I am trying to help his dad…and mine…to get the old machinery ready again? Do you realize I have spent most of my days out here and away from town because everybody stares at me now? People will whisper behind my back, make fun of me? I can't go into Amish country because they won't serve me. I can't go into town because people watch me like a hawk. Ironically, the only place I have been able to find any sort of peace is in an old slaughterhouse."

Amy's voice was beginning to break and she stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, then leaned down, absent-mindedly wiping some dust off her jeans.

"I have been working tirelessly on getting everything back up and running to ensure it's ready for inspection. Other than the front offices and packaging, this building hasn't been used in nearly a decade. Do you have any idea how much work I have put into this so that my dad can continue to manage the chicken farm undisturbed?"

Mike nodded slowly, his interest in rehab work not quite as overpowering as his interest in solving this case.

"You said Rory came down here and lied to you?"

"He did…", Amy said, as her face began to blush with anger, "He had the nerve to tell me that he was all done with that Amish girl and that he wanted for us to get together again. But I knew he was still seeing her."

"So you became angry and killed him."

"Not at first…", she answered too fast, her eyes drifting back to the slaughterhouse that sat behind him, "He became agitated. And followed me around. I became worried. And then he tried to grab me so I pushed him back and he tripped and stumbled to the ground. He must have gotten the wind knocked out of him or something, but he stayed still after he fell. I…I don't remember…but once he was down, I went into…everything in front of my eyes turned red and I couldn't stop myself…"

A loud sob escaped her lips and Amy quickly put a hand in front of her mouth, trying to contain her emotions. After a few deep breaths, she glanced up again.

"I was in the middle of setting up the bone saw at the time and I…I was so scared that he would wake up and want to hurt me. So I wanted to hurt him first."

"And you decided to decapitate him?"

Discussing the gruesome murder seemed to help Amy relax and she nodded quietly, as she wiped another tear off her cheek.

"It was the closest thing nearby. He wasn't a very heavy guy so I just dragged him over there and I…I pushed him through it. I couldn't believe how smooth and fast it worked…but there was blood everywhere."

At the mental image, Mike drew in a deep breath himself, one hand resting over his revolver in the emotionally charged situation.

"Why did you put his head in the shipment coming from your father's company? And what did you do with the rest of his body?"

"After I killed him, I became so scared. I called Jacob. He came over and helped me clean up the…evidence if you want to call it that. Then I called my father to tell him that I'd be taking over the morning feeding of the chickens and when the time came, Jacob met me at the farm and helped me strip Rory out of his clothes and we threw him into the big pen. And those hungry chickens…they literally ate all there was of him except for the bones. Jacob took care of those, so I don't know where they are."

Swallowing down his own emotions in a situation that tested his sense of righteousness more than ever, causing him to want to lock Amy into a cell and throw away the key, Mike drew in a deep breath, growing disconcerted by the ease with which Amy explained everything that happened, right up to discarding a dead body by feeding it to livestock.

"As far as the head goes…my father and Mickey Darr have been fighting for as long as I've been alive. And I am sick of it. This town is sick of it. And just because Mickey will switch to pork production doesn't mean it'll stop. It never will. So maybe I hoped that…that by tainting a shipment of my dad's birds, that it would look like Mickey killed his son because he dated me…and then tried to damage my father's company."

"You had to have known this was never going to work.", Mike said sternly and shook his head, "The impression I got from Mickey Darr was that of a guy trying to survive against the monopoly that the company your father manages for this guy from Chicago has bestowed upon this town. He isn't homicidal. Never was. You on the other hand…went from self-defense to out and out murder like it was nothing."

When he raised his voice, Amy took a step back, her shoulders growing rigid and her hands clasped into tight fists, as she prepared for another argument.

"I didn't have a choice. It was me or him."

"You had a choice to end this the right way after he tripped and fell. But instead you decided to take his life. And for that, I am going to charge you with murder."

The noise of something metal rolling across the concrete floor below took his attention off Amy for the fraction of a second, long enough to see that it was a pin she'd pushed off to the side with her right foot. That moment was long enough for the smaller woman to reach for a shovel leaning against a nearby storage container.

Before Mike could even react, the world around him turned dark.