“Is your mother still bringing me some new treats today?”
“She is.”
“Good. I can hardly wait.” And it was true. There was something about seeing the talents of such peaceful people that gave her hope. Like wishing on the brightest star in the sky or spending an evening in the parlor with Aunt Diane.
She thought back to the moment Arnie had been arrested, the shock and horror on her aunt’s face nearly bringing her to tears. But as she’d tried to explain, again and again throughout the rest of the weekend, there was no way Diane or anyone else could have ever known what Arnie had done. He’d spent so much of his life living in the background that he’d become proficient at the skill.
But Diane had fretted anyway, convinced she, who had been nicer to Arnie than anyone had ever been, should have known something, should have done something. It wasn’t until Claire had wrestled the conversation away from Arnie and onto his obsession with Esther that her aunt had finally let it go, her nurturing side clucking away at the angry way in which Walter had handled Esther.
“He was after something mighty important, Claire, to have risked going back inside your shop to see Esther a second time.”
It was a statement that had nagged at her subconscious throughout the night only to rise to the surface again while watching Esther speak so happily to Eli …
“Esther?”
Esther ran a hand down the front of her aproned dress. “What is it, Claire?”
“What was it again that Walter was so intent on finding when he grabbed your wrist and then your neck?”
Esther flashed a reassuring look at Eli, then followed it with a calming hand to his cheek before addressing Claire’s question. “He wanted the chest. He said it was in the stockroom.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. Only that he must have it.”
She closed her eyes in a mental review of the Amish-made furniture pieces she’d sorted through every chance she got during the first few weeks the shop was open. There had been rocking chairs and horses, bed posts and night stands, kitchen chairs and quilt racks. And there had been one chest …
“I gave that chest back to your brother, Eli.”
Eli nodded. “He gave it to Ruth. For pots and pans. It almost burned in fire.”
And then she remembered. She’d knelt beside that very chest when she’d checked in on Ruth the morning after the fire.
“Can I see it?” she asked Eli.
“Benjamin can make a chest for you.”
She waved the appealing notion from her thoughts. “No. I want to see that one—the one that Walter was so desperate to find.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Eli led the way through the stockroom and into the alley, his hand wrapped tightly around Esther’s. When they stepped inside Ruth’s kitchen, he swept his hand toward the finely crafted chest that sat no more than a few feet from where Nellie had started the fire designed to punish Ruth.
She dropped to her knees and ran her hand across the chest, the smooth wood beneath her palm oddly comforting. “May I open it?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Please.”
Lifting the latch, Claire used her fingers to raise the lid upward until it rested against the back wall and she was looking down at an assortment of baking pans that sparkled and shined. Then, with barely a hesitation, she began removing them from the chest, handing each and every pan to Esther until there was nothing left but the floor of the chest.
“There is a compartment. In the bottom.” Eli moved in beside Claire and pointed toward a small recession in the wood. “The English use it for papers. For keepsakes.”
Reaching into the chest, she pushed her fingers into the recession and slid them to the right, a split panel giving way to a shallow compartment below.
“What is that?” Eli shouted as he dropped to his knees beside Claire.
Her heart pounded double time in her chest at the sight of so much green. “I’m not positive, Eli, but I suspect that’s the money Walter stole from the Amish.”
Three hours later, every single dollar had been accounted for and sorted into envelopes bearing the names of several different Amish families …
Stoltzfus.
Lapp.
Troyer.
Beilers.
Yoder.
Miller.
And King.
She lifted the last envelope off the counter and handed it to Martha, the shock on the woman’s face threatening to bring the same tears to Claire’s face that Esther’s already sported. “This belongs to your family.”
With hands that trembled, Martha turned the envelope over and lifted the flap, her body sagging against the counter at the sight of the hundreds of dollars it contained. “I do not understand. I have not made enough things.”
“This is not for the things you bring for my shop. This is for the things your husband brought to Walter Snow.”
Martha’s head snapped up, her gaze volleying between Claire and Esther. “Walter Snow? But he … took our money.”
“And now you’re getting it all back. Right down to the very last dollar.” The telltale jingle of an arriving customer brought an intake of air from Esther’s direction. The sound told Claire everything she needed to know even as she kept her focus squarely on the girl’s mother.
Slowly, Martha looked back down at the envelope of money, her hand shaking almost violently. “But … how?”
“Because one man spent the past three hours poring over Walter’s records until he knew how much money belonged in each envelope.”
Eli draped a respectful arm across Esther’s shoulders and addressed his future mother-in-law in a voice choked with emotion. “He is a good man.”
“He is a fair man,” whispered Esther.
Martha looked from Eli to Esther and finally to Claire before turning to face the man they spoke of—a man standing just inside the doorway with a pained expression in his eyes.
For that moment, time seemed to stand still, stymied by sixteen years of hurt and disappointment, bitterness and uncertainty. Claire held her breath and waited, the pounding of her heart rivaled only by the ticking of the clock above the register and Esther’s occasional tear-induced sniffle.
But all of that faded away as Martha turned a watery gaze to the floor and addressed the brother she’d been raised beside until a life choice took them in separate directions, bringing them together again at that very moment …
Two people who were no longer the same yet had changed very little.
“Thank you, Jakob.”
Hearse and Buggy Page 23