Lancaster County Reckoning

by Kit Wilkinson

  “Thank you but I don’t think I’ll be much help to either you or Nana. I don’t sing.”

  Thomas burst out laughing. Darcy felt heat rise to her cheeks.

  “We won’t be singing,” he said. “Only the youth. It’s really more of a social thing. But there is lots of food to prepare. And a little extra work to do in the stable.”

  “Sounds like I can pitch in. And it is the least I can do after all the help you and your friends have given me,” she said.

  “You know I’m really sorry we didn’t find anything else here today,” he said. “I just thought that if Jesse left those photographs behind then he probably left something else.”

  “You’re right. We just have to stay focused.” Darcy looked around the cottage at all of Jesse’s belongings. Thomas had been right about the furniture designs not quite being suitable for the Amish. They were in the same style as the ones in his home and in the Millers’ home, but the extra flourishes meant they did not exactly fit. All of the pieces had inlays like the box Thomas had found in the well. An idea occurred to her.

  “Thomas, does the FBI know that Jesse used to make furniture?”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas said. “I think I mentioned that he’d made that box I found the photos in. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s nothing really,” Darcy said, but the idea she had kept coming back to her. “I guess I was wondering about the possibility that Jesse may have built something special into one of these pieces of furniture that he made.”

  “What do you mean? Like a hiding place? A secret compartment?”

  “Yes, exactly. I did that once for a friend of mine who was getting married.” Darcy smiled as she remembered the beautiful dress she had sewn for her friend. “She wanted a hidden pocket in her dress so that she could put her ‘something blue’ in it. It was this huge sapphire that had belonged in her family for years and she didn’t want to worry about losing it on her big day. Anyway, I loved the idea. It was easy to do. In fact, after that dress, I ended up selling the idea to a large bridal dress manufacturer. Now those ‘something blue’ pockets are sewn in a whole line of dresses.”

  “Sounds impressive,” Thomas said.

  “Thanks. But actually, my point is that maybe Jesse hid something in his furniture. Like the secret key in the inlay last night. Maybe there’s another one in here?”

  Thomas was nodding. “Won’t hurt to look.”

  Both of them started running their hands over each piece of finely made wooden furniture, tugging at every joint and pressing on every fancy detail. They worked their way through all the downstairs furniture and found nothing.

  “Might as well try the loft, too,” Darcy said.

  Thomas followed her up the narrow wooden steps. “You take the left. I’ll take the right.”

  Darcy started with a small chair and a nightstand. Thomas went to what was probably the largest and most ornate piece in the whole house. But instead of running his hands over it, he took off his hat and turned it in his hands.

  “It’s this. It’s the highboy,” he said. “Come look.”

  “How do you know?” Darcy walked toward him. “You haven’t even touched it.”

  “I should have thought of it before,” he said. “Someone wanted to buy it from Miller’s shop. It was a long time ago.”

  “Buy what? This highboy?”

  “Yes, but Jesse wouldn’t sell it. Bishop Miller was pretty put out with him. He said he shouldn’t be building pieces at the shop that weren’t actually for sale. I don’t think they talked to each other for a week after that.” He grinned at the memory.

  Darcy ran her hands over the piece. She pried at the inlays but there weren’t that many. This piece was hand carved and had amazing detail on the legs and feet. “Nothing’s moving.”

  “Here, take a look at this.” He leaned over and pointed. At the bottom of the highboy was a long piece of intricate trim, on either side of it a small drawer. “Why put a panel here instead of another drawer?”

  “You think there’s something behind the panel?”

  Thomas shrugged. “I think it’s worth checking.”

  He loped back down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Jesse kept his carpentry tools down here. I don’t want to just rip the panel off,” he called from the stairs.

  Thomas soon returned with a small wooden chisel and a soft cloth in his hands. He went back to the highboy. She moved out of his way and watched as he covered the tip of the tool with the cheesecloth so as not to damage the beautiful piece of furniture before prying open the panel. It took some maneuvering, but slowly, steadily, he worked the thick, decorative plank loose.

  “Oh, my, Thomas, look. You were right. There’s a secret shelf.” Darcy felt her heart pumping hard.

  Thomas reached in slowly then stopped, hand in midair. “Did you hear something?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Darcy shook her head. All she could hear was her pulse throbbing through her veins, strong with excitement.

  “Well, then, what are you waiting for?” He smiled at Darcy.

  “Of course.” She nodded and moved in front of him. Her hand trembled as she reached forward into the dark, narrow space. Her fingers fell over a familiar object. “Feels like a book.”

  It was indeed a book. Her eyes swept over the cover, her heart practically skipping a beat as she read it.

  Thomas raised an eyebrow at the item she’d pulled out. “It’s a Bible. Why would he hide that? It’s just like the one he had downstairs. The one I gave you to take to the hospital.”

  “No. This one looks less worn. Maybe like it’s never been used.”

  Thomas lifted the book from her hands and shook it from the binding to see if anything had been tucked inside. A key and an envelope slipped out from between the pages and fell to the floor. Darcy swooped down and scooped them up. She turned the items over in her hands. Neither was marked and the envelope was sealed.

  “Wait,” Thomas whispered, putting a hand to her shoulder. “This time, I’m sure I heard something. Stay here.”

  Darcy nodded and watched as Thomas glided across the loft then slinked down the stairs.

  * * *

  Thomas came to a sudden halt at the bottom of the stairs. Someone was there. A man. Tall and slender. He was dressed all in black, including a stocking cap over his head, which prevented Thomas from being able to see his face.

  “You’re trespassing,” Thomas said, stepping closer. The man was big. But Thomas was bigger. Much bigger. Of course, Thomas knew that the intruder could have a weapon, but there really wasn’t much of a choice. He had to stand his ground and try to make this man leave. Then he had to get Darcy out of there. And call the police.

  Without saying a word, the man pulled a gun from his jacket. Thomas could hear the hammer click to a ready position. He was going to fire.

  Thomas stopped in his tracks, then dove over the sofa and hid behind it. The shot fired out. But it missed him.

  Thomas scrambled to his hands and knees and peeked out from behind the furniture. The masked man aimed the gun at him again. Thomas shoved his hands up under the frame of the couch, grabbing on to the back of it with a hand at either end. It was even lighter than he’d thought. With a grunt he lifted the upholstered love seat and sent it sailing through the air toward the intruder.

  The man lurched backward, trying to escape the giant projectile. The gun fired again.

  This time Thomas felt something stinging through his flesh. He’d been hit on the top of his right leg. It wasn’t going to kill him, but it stung fiercely. He howled and watched as the love seat crashed into the intruder, throwing the man off balance. The masked man stumbled backward and crashed into the wood-burning stove, knocking it over.

  In an instant,
the logs and embers that had been lit that morning to warm the team while they searched spread through the living space. The dry materials of Jesse’s cottage caught fire almost instantaneously.

  The intruder fled through the front door. Thomas hurried up the stairs. He had to get Darcy out of there. And fast. That old wood inside was going to burn like the sun.

  * * *

  Darcy had always heard that dry wood would practically combust given the proper conditions. It must have been true because that was exactly what seemed to be happening to Jesse’s home. The cottage had suddenly become an incinerator.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. Come on!” Thomas grabbed hold of her arm with such strength that she dropped the key and envelope.

  Smoke already swirled through the loft. The flames would soon follow. Keeping his grip on her arm, Thomas pulled her to the edge of the stairs.

  But then he stopped. The bottom of the steps was already knee-high in flames. There was no way out.

  Darcy stared into the flames. Thomas hobbled around her. Why was he moving so stiffly? Then she saw his leg. A hole in his trousers. Fresh blood.

  “Thomas, you’ve been shot!” Panic filled her words. This was all her fault. They should have left the cottage when everyone else had. Now how were they going to get out of there?

  “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Let’s focus on getting out of here for now.”

  Get out? How could they? The only way left was out the window. “Please tell me Jesse has a ladder under the bed,” she said.

  Thomas hobbled away from the stairs toward the one and only window in the loft, pulling her along with him. “No. But I know how we can improvise one.”

  They reached the small window. Thomas yanked the curtains away from the wall and handed them to her. “Tie those together. End to end. Make the knots strong.”

  Darcy dropped to her knees and set to the task at hand. The smoke was growing thick. Thomas limped away again toward the bed. He grabbed the sheets and bedding and tossed them to her. He caught her looking at the window. “Don’t open it yet. As soon as you do, flames will get sucked up here with us.”

  Thomas came back to her side and worked the other pieces of the cloth, tying ends together as quickly as he could.

  Darcy coughed and tried to cover her mouth and nose with her starched apron.

  Thomas tested each of the knots. He tightened a few of them and when he seemed satisfied he wrapped one end of the makeshift rope around the bottom leg of the highboy, then pinned a good portion of the material under the leg of the massive piece of furniture.

  “It might not hold me all the way down, but it will definitely slow the fall and that’s all I need.”

  He opened the window. Fresh oxygen was sucked into the house with amazing force. Darcy braced herself against the wall. More smoke rolled through the bedroom, following its new escape route to the outside. Underneath, the heat felt as if it would liquefy the cottage altogether.

  Thomas threw the tied pieces out the window. They reached a little more than halfway down the side of the house. Not quite a real ladder, but better than nothing.

  “Okay. So you go first,” he said.

  Darcy froze. “I—I—can’t.”

  “It’s fine. Just wrap the material around you and lower yourself down.”

  Darcy could feel her head shaking. She couldn’t jump out of a second-story window. Not even with a blazing fire at her back. “Wait. Jesse’s Bible.”

  She bent over and scooped their findings into her hands and clung to them.

  He positioned Darcy at the side of the window. “Okay. Sit down and swing your legs over the ledge.”

  She sat and slung one leg over the window ledge and then the other. Thomas took the bedding and swirled it once around her left leg. He took the Bible, key and letter and tossed them outside. Then in one quick motion, Thomas grabbed her off the ledge of the window and started to lower her.

  Darcy closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding. The quilt around her leg tightened slightly as he lowered her.

  “Grip the quilts and slide,” he coached her.

  Darcy held her breath. She opened her eyes and looked up. Smoke was swirling around Thomas’s head. She had to forget her fears and move quickly so he would have time to escape, too.

  The makeshift rope held. She slid down it until she was only ten feet from the ground and then she let go and dropped the rest of the way to the ground.

  Wasting no time, she turned around and called to him, “Okay, now, your turn.”

  * * *

  Darcy was safe. Thomas let out a sigh. Part of him wished he’d just carried her down with him. She didn’t weigh that much and then he’d be down there, too, instead of in this inferno with a bleeding leg and a head full of smoke.

  The old cottage was burning at an incredible rate. He doubted they would be able to save any of it. Flames ravaged the dry wood like a hungry wolf.

  He had to get out of there now, but getting his body through that tiny window was going to be much more of a challenge than it was for Darcy.

  Thomas wrapped the quilt around his good leg. He checked the knot around the high boy. Then he put a hand on either side of the window frame and pushed himself through, feet first. His weight tested the makeshift rope. Thomas slid fast. Too fast. The quilt was slipping from inside. His fingers were losing their grip on the outside.

  The thick material ripped through his hands then ended. His shoulder and hip slammed into the side of the house. He bounced out and away from the cottage. The ground was rising up to meet him. He tucked into a ball and tried to break his fall with a roll.

  “Thomas? Are you okay?”

  He felt his lungs fill with air again. He felt the feeling come back to his body. Pain. His leg was screaming with it. But he was alive, and so was she.

  He opened his eyes to find Darcy perched over him on her hands and knees. She was staring right into his face. “I’m going to be fine,” he said. “How about you?”

  “You saved me. Again.” She grabbed his hand and tried to help pull him up.

  Thomas lifted his torso off the ground and sat up beside her. They both looked down at his leg.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he told her. “Can you go get my phone? It’s in the buggy. We need to call the fire department.”

  “Of course,” she said. But she didn’t move away at first. Instead, she put her hands on his cheeks and leaned close to him. He could feel her soft breath on his face.

  Thomas could see and feel the emotion in her huge eyes as they searched his. Without thinking, he cupped her cheek in his big hand and leaned his head into her, touching their foreheads together.

  “Thomas,” she whispered, like a warning. She dropped her gaze away and started to pull back.

  His heart pounded. He tightened his hand on her and he pulled her to his lips. They were soft and warm and for an instant he forgot about his leg and the fire.

  And then she was gone, running around to the front of the house, no doubt to get his phone from the buggy and call 911.

  FIFTEEN

  The fire department came quickly and doused the rampant flames, but not before the front porch fell in. Tomorrow they could comb through the ashes and see if anything was salvageable, but from the looks of it that was doubtful.

  Thomas’s leg has been treated. He moved easily now, but Darcy imagined there must still have been some pain.

  She, too, had been to the EMS vehicle. Fortunately, the stitches in her forehead had stayed intact and she’d gained nothing worse than a few bruises. She sat now on the front bench of his buggy, where Thomas had wrapped her in heavy blankets. But she couldn’t stop shivering. Mostly from the cold, she told herself. And perhaps a little from residual fear. But she also knew it was from Thomas, from his gentle
touch. From his kiss. She could feel it still as he breathed against her. He’d tasted sweet, like apples. His beard had brushed against her chin. He had kissed her. And she didn’t know what to make of it. If anything...

  She watched Thomas while he talked to the firefighters, the police and the EMS team. He moved with self-assurance, seemingly unruffled by the chaos that surrounded them. A man of great strength, both physical and emotional. A man she hardly knew really, but who’d agreed to help her through this nightmare with no hope of getting anything in return but this headache of problems and a bullet through his leg. And he had kissed her.

  A kiss she really needed to forget about. Thomas couldn’t possibly be interested in her romantically. No way. He was so...Amish. And she was not. The kiss was just one of those things that happen in an intense moment. That was all. Nothing more.

  What she really wanted to concentrate on was the Bible, envelope and key they had found in Jesse’s highboy. She was too anxious to open the envelope to wait for Thomas to be able to join her. He probably wouldn’t care.

  Darcy picked it up. She slipped a finger through a gap between the flap and the top edge and ripped it across the top with her finger. There was a single sheet of paper inside. She opened it to find a typed letter with an old photo tucked inside. Another Polaroid—the exact picture Jesse had shared with her weeks ago. Her as a small child, with both of her parents. But this was clearly the original as opposed to the copy, on regular printer paper, that Jesse had provided. The photo had yellowed and faded with age. But there she was being held between the mother and father that she never knew. Darcy turned her attention to the letter and read.

  It is not destroyed, but hidden where only the righteous and pure of heart may find it. These places hold the answers and the beauty and the destruction of the responsible.

  After those cryptic words, there were two quotes that didn’t make any sense to her.

  Darcy shook her head as she read the letter through a second time, her heart sinking into her gut. Then she folded the paper back around the photograph and slipped them back into the envelope.