by Dana R. Lynn
As soon as they heard his parents stirring inside, they turned to go back into the haus. Levi held the door open for Lilah, inhaling as she went past him. Even after spending years away from the Amish community, he appreciated the lack of perfume or artificial fragrance.
Lilah paused halfway inside the haus. “Danke, Levi. For helping me.”
It was almost ten in the morning by the time they managed to leave. The tension simmering around Lilah was nearly tangible. Her hands were clasped demurely in her lap as she sat next to him on the bench, but her knuckles were white. She held her back ramrod straight.
He scoured his mind for something light to say to break the silence but came out with nothing. What could he possibly say? Her brother was dead, and she had to know that it was starting to look like murder. Didn’t she?
He focused on getting her to her brother’s office. When he pulled off the main road onto the dirt road leading to her haus, the buggy lurched slightly as the pavement dropped off. Lilah grabbed the bench with both hands to steady herself.
“Sorry. I forgot how bumpy that spot was.” He needed to pay attention to the road and not let her presence distract him.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t paying attention, or I would have been better prepared.”
A car was heading toward them. Lilah tensed beside him when the vehicle started to slow down.
“It’s okay. I know this guy. Billy Whitman. He owns one of the cars I’m working on. He also did business with your brother.”
Her posture loosened next to him, but she was still uneasy.
“Hey, Levi.” Billy looped his elbow out the window, his right hand resting carelessly on the wheel. “Funny seeing you all the way out here. I was planning on stopping by later to check on my ride.”
Lilah blinked at that. “He means his car,” Levi murmured to her.
“It’ll be ready in five days. I have to work Saturday morning, so I’ll leave the keys and the invoice on the dashboard, okay?”
“That’s perfect.” Billy tilted his head to get a better look at Lilah. “Hey, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
Lilah’s eyes grew wide before she averted her face, flushing.
“I don’t,” he responded, not liking the taste of regret in his mouth. “This is Jacob Schwartz’s sister.”
Instantly, Billy’s grin vanished. “Oh, hey. Sorry about that. Miss Schwartz, Jake was a good guy. I’m sorry for your loss. Have you heard if they’ve caught the person responsible?”
Lilah stared at Billy. “I don’t—I’m not sure what you mean? Responsible for what?”
“For the arson.”
Levi and Lilah exchanged shocked glances. “Are you sure it was arson, Billy?”
Levi didn’t really doubt it, but he didn’t want to trust Billy’s information. The man was not the most reliable source. He tended to go by the theory that if it was on the internet, or if someone said it, it had to be true. However, this did confirm what Jacob had told Lilah before he died.
Now Billy scoffed. “I was talking to one of the firefighters who came to the scene the night of the fire. He’s a neighbor. It was declared arson. I can’t believe you didn’t know it. The report was given to the wife two days ago.”
Lilah had gone so pale, Levi feared she might pass out. He needed to get her out of here. Fast. Levi pulled on the reins to get the mare’s attention. “Billy, you stop by when you need to get your car. I’m on a schedule today, so I need to go.”
“Oh, yeah. Great talking to you, man. Take care.”
As Levi flicked the reins, Billy took off, his tires spitting dust and gravel. Levi glanced back at him. At the corner, Billy turned to look in their direction again. Suddenly, the friendly grin he’d worn was gone. In its place was a glare. And it was directed at Lilah.
At his side, she gasped. She’d seen his glare, too.
“Come on. Let’s go look in the office and then go home. Something’s going on and I don’t like not knowing what it is.”
* * *
Lilah was only too glad to continue on their way. Her haus had been destroyed by arson? She’d wondered about it. What else could Jacob have meant? But hearing it confirmed was like watching her brother die all over again. Her faith was a brittle thread, frayed and fragile. Her mind switched to the look Billy had shot at her. Why was he so angry? They’d never met before. At least, she had no memory of ever meeting him. He had changed so fast, like a chameleon switching colors. What could it all mean?
That wasn’t what bothered her the most, though.
“Hannah knew.” She hadn’t planned on blurting her thoughts out loud, but it was too late to pull them back in. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t have told me about my haus.”
Levi was silent for a moment. “Maybe she was protecting you.”
“Protecting me.” She opened her mouth to speak, but then a new horror occurred to her. Someone had killed her brother. They’d set her haus on fire when she, Jacob and Hannah had been inside, uncaring that multiple lives could have been lost that night. The grief swamped her, and she started sobbing. It was hard to draw in a full breath.
Levi stopped the buggy and waited until she was done. Weak, she allowed herself to lean against him for a moment.
“Someone killed him.”
The sound of her own voice saying the words nearly made her break into tears again. Her eyes were gritty and raw from tears, her throat scratchy.
“Jah. I know.”
She moved her head so she could get a better look at him. His face was grim, the eyes steady. Again, the image of a soldier crept into her mind. Which was silly. Amish men were not soldiers. They were pacifists. They used guns to hunt and provide for their families. Never to kill, not even to protect themselves or their families.
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed likely. This is one time I didn’t want to be right.” He glanced into her eyes. “You knew, too. You didn’t want to believe it, but you knew.”
She hated that he was right. Her pulse sped up. “Levi, do you think that Jacob was killed for whatever he had hidden in his office? Was that why our haus was burned down?”
“Could be.”
“I can’t think what else he could have meant.”
He hesitated for a moment.
“What? Tell me?”
“Lilah, had you noticed any changes in Jacob lately?”
Her back straightened and she narrowed her eyes to slits. “What are you trying to say, Levi Burkholder?”
He warded her off with his hands upraised. “I’m not saying anything. I’m asking a question. Had you noticed a change?”
She wanted to deny it. So much. She opened her mouth but stopped. No matter how it pained her, she had to be honest. “Jah. I noticed a change. He seemed to be worried. Anxious. I thought it was because of the boppli.”
Realizing what she had said, her face burned. One did not speak of such things. Her brother and Hannah hadn’t mentioned that Hannah was expecting. Lilah was able to see it for herself, but very few people talked about such a thing until the boppli was born. She quickly diverted the subject back to his original question. “Had you? Noticed a change?”
He nodded. It knocked the wind out of her like a fist to the gut would have. “Jah. I don’t know what it means, Lilah. Maybe it’s like you said. He was worried about—um—other things. Maybe he had gotten himself into some kind of trouble. I don’t know.”
“Something else,” she said slowly, her mind sorting through other hints she’d missed at the time. “Jacob had a few out-of-town meetings in the past few months. That was new. Previously, all his business had been local.”
His face stilled. His eyes narrowed and he frowned, as if he were trying to solve a complex problem in his head.
Lilah waited. Levi didn’t speak
. She fiddled with the string of her kapp, looping it around her finger and tugging at it as she waited. Shifting on the bench beside him, she resisted the urge to prompt him. Patience had never been her strength. It was worse now. She wanted answers and she wanted them immediately.
Finally, he spoke. “I don’t know what was going on, but all my instincts are screaming that Jacob had gotten himself into something bad. Possibly illegal.”
Her brother, Jacob? She shook her head. “Nee. I can’t believe that. My brother was always honest and kind.”
She met his gaze and flinched. Although sympathetic, the unwavering intensity of his brown eyes seared through her. “Kind people make mistakes like everyone else. They just have different motivations.”
What could have motivated Jacob to do anything illegal? Something that was bad enough that it got him killed, and nearly killed the rest of his family? She fought back the familiar wave of grief and regret. If she survived this mess, there’d be plenty of time to dwell on how Jacob might have survived if not for her.
“We have to find whatever was in his office.” She turned to Levi for confirmation.
“Jah.” He nodded. “I agree. It must have been something serious if those were his last words to you.”
Levi started the mare trotting again.
“What if someone decided to burn his office, too?” she wondered out loud, wrapping her arms around her waist. Despite the sun pounding down on them, she shivered. “The man who shot at me had been going through Jacob’s office.”
“Lilah.”
She glanced up at his deep voice.
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Levi advised. “We’ll do everything humanly possible to figure this out.”
She nodded but couldn’t stop the thoughts twisting through her mind. “I wonder if Hannah had anything to do with it.” The words were out before she’d thought them through.
That got a reaction from him. “Hannah? Your brother’s wife? That Hannah?”
She rolled her eyes. “Jah, that Hannah. Or even Billy.”
He didn’t scoff, as she’d feared he might. “Billy Whitman. Hmm. Before today, I would have laughed at the thought. But I saw the way he glared at you. I’ve never seen that side of him before.”
She shivered as she recalled Billy’s cold glare when he thought she wasn’t looking. She was so deep in thought, it startled her when Levi pulled the reins sharply and stopped the buggy. She looked up to make a sharp remark. Instead, her jaw dropped open at the sight in front of her.
The shed where Jacob had worked, the place they needed to search, was nothing more than a pile of splintered debris under the weight of a thick oak tree, which had fallen. That oak had survived hundreds of storms worse than last night’s.
Her mind couldn’t process what she was seeing. Had the storm knocked it over? It didn’t seem possible.
“There are no other branches or trees down.” She barely recognized that hollow voice as hers. “How could the storm have knocked this one down?”
Levi didn’t answer. He stepped down from the bench and strode to the edge of the debris. She scrambled down after him. Everything was a mess. There wasn’t a single board of the building that hadn’t broken when the tree crushed it.
“It wasn’t the storm.”
“What?”
Levi had walked over to the tree stump. “The storm wasn’t that strong. None of the smaller trees are down. Nor are there any dead branches.” He picked up a branch. “Look. See how green these leaves are? And look at the wood. This was a healthy tree. Unless there was a tornado, it should have survived.”
“True.”
“Cumme. Look at this.”
She stepped around a gopher hole and joined him, squatting next to him. He reached down and scooped up a handful of fine, light brown shavings. Her mouth went dry. “This is sawdust. This tree wasn’t broken by the storm. It was deliberately cut down to keep you out of the office.”
She shook her head. “What was my brother involved with?”
“I don’t know. But I think whoever killed him did this. And I think that person wouldn’t think twice about killing anyone who got in their way.”
FOUR
Lilah shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut, her arms wrapping around her middle. Seeing her chin start to tremble, Levi berated himself for speaking so bluntly. He had always been plainspoken. His time in the military had only sharpened that trait. As he wasn’t a very sociable fellow, Levi didn’t often worry about what he said. His family knew him well enough not to be offended by anything that came out of his mouth.
Not that he was rude. He just tended to speak his mind. At least he had cleaned up his language since he left the service. The rough language of some of his comrades had never stuck with him. He might have been a rebel, but there were some parts of his upbringing that he couldn’t shake, even at his worst.
Reaching out his left hand, he tentatively placed it on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Sometimes I don’t think before I speak.”
Those blue eyes opened and speared him. He felt that glance deep in his soul. There was no judgment or disgust, only a bleakness that struck him like a physical pain.
“I’d rather you tell me the truth than lie to me,” she whispered, her voice raw. “Even if the truth you tell me isn’t one I want to hear. I’m done having people protect me.”
He heard what she didn’t say. Her brother had protected her, and it had cost him his life.
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your brother.”
She shrugged. He wasn’t going to change her mind and he knew it. He snorted. He also knew he was being a hypocrite. Wasn’t he blaming himself for what had happened to Harrison, his old army buddy? Except he was at fault for that, at least partially. Unlike what had happened to Jacob.
Holding in a sigh, he pivoted on his heel in order to see what was left of the office. Not much, that was for sure. The barn next to where the office had been was unscathed.
“I don’t know what your brother wanted you to find. Maybe, if we can get the tree moved, maybe we can search through all the debris and find something that will explain what’s happening.” He didn’t hold out much hope, but they would never know until they searched.
She quirked an eyebrow. He recognized doubt when he saw it.
“Jah, I know we probably won’t find anything. And, since you don’t want to be lied to, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that whoever went through the trouble of sawing down that tree had already searched through the office. I’m guessing he didn’t find what he was looking for and wanted to make sure no one else did, either.”
Lilah chewed on her thumbnail. “Or he did find it but wanted to cover up the fact he’d been searching at all, so the police wouldn’t come for him.”
He considered that. It didn’t ring true for him, but it was a possibility. Jah, a definite possibility. “Could be.”
“So, do we still search?”
The bleakness lurking in those blue eyes blasted away at the wall around his heart. Her vulnerability was having a devastating effect on his mental state. He needed to change direction and focus on something other than Lilah Schwartz.
“I don’t know we have any other choice.” He waited for her response. It wasn’t long in coming. She pondered his statement for ten seconds or so before nodding her head.
“Assuming you’re right, what’s your suggestion?”
“Well, obviously we need to get rid of the tree.” He removed his hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve. It was only a little after ten, but the heat was already sweltering. He sized up the tree. “We’re going to need help. If I try to cut up the tree myself, we’ll be here for days.”
She glanced quickly at his right arm, then blushed, shifting. A thick, awkward silence fell between them. Levi had grown so used
to his prosthetic arm, sometimes he forgot that others might not be as comfortable with it. He continued as if the awkward moment hadn’t occurred.
“I’ll see if my brothers can come and help us. Abram has a friend who runs a lumberyard. Maybe he can borrow a few tools. Saws and such. That should help us get the job done.”
“I don’t want to tell strangers what Jacob said.”
“Jah, I get it. You don’t want strangers to know that Jacob might have been in trouble.” He rubbed his chin while he thought through their options. “Look, my brothers are at work anyway. They wouldn’t be able to assist us until tomorrow morning, at the earliest. Let’s go over and see if we can dig around the tree. Maybe we’ll find something.”
Lilah sighed, but didn’t debate his statement. Together, they walked to the pile of splintered wood, branches and sawdust. She used her hands to pull up some of the smaller boards. Levi moved opposite her. He wasn’t able to grab as much with his right arm, but he could get a hold on the smaller pieces. With his left, he lifted some heftier pieces. Under those pieces were more pieces. The stack of wood, debris and dust that had been her brother’s office stood three feet high.
“Ouch!” Lilah jerked back, holding her left hand carefully. A large, jagged sliver was jammed into her flesh. Blood welled up around the projectile. A slow rivulet ran down the side of her hand.
“Oh, hey.” He dropped the board he was holding and jogged around the pile to assist. Bracing her injured hand in his right, he used the left hand to gently pry the sliver loose. The cut was bleeding, but it wasn’t deep. He rubbed the area with his finger to make sure he got the entire splinter out. A buzz of energy shot from her palm to his skin. He dropped her hand, the back of his neck heating up. He was acting like a teenager.
“It should be fine in a minute.” He stepped back from her. “Does it hurt?”
Her eyes were wide. She’d felt it, too. Not gut. “Nee, not anymore.”
He averted his gaze from the flush in her cheeks. “Gut. This is going to take a long time to dig through.”