The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  Fireflies lit the darkened yard, and a barn owl hooted from the trees. Headlights no longer shone through the trees, but that didn’t mean the driver had left. He’d been a witness to Lance’s murder—the Cardanos wouldn’t stop searching until they found him. Before they did, he would find out what they were trying to hide. For Lance’s sake and for Liz.

  His hand on the barn door, he paused and listened to Katie whispering inside. Even with his ear pressed against the peeled paint, he couldn’t hear her words nor could he make out someone responding to her.

  The door scraped over the dirt when he cracked it open, and she stopped talking. Then he heard a hiccup.

  Not wanting to startle her or whoever she was with, he pushed the door wide open and called her name. “Katie?”

  She held the kerosene lamp above her waist, the lavender of her dress glowing in the soft light. Her cap was gone, and her long hair rested over her slender shoulders. And she hiccupped again.

  “Whenever I get frightened—,” she said, pointing to her throat. “I can’t make them stop.”

  He cleared his throat. “I heard you talking to someone.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” She reached up, petting Prince’s nose beside her. “He’s good company.”

  His hands fidgeted behind his back. He felt awkward and a bit silly. He’d allowed himself to worry that a gangster might find her. And allowed himself to assume she might be meeting a man out here when she was spending her night hours talking to a horse.

  Katie nuzzled her face against Prince, and the hardened shell around his heart began to crack. Katie Lehman didn’t need to hear his questions or his frustration. She didn’t need to hear about Liz or his doubts about her honesty with him.

  What Katie Lehman needed was a friend.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” he said.

  Her gaze drifted to the open door behind him. Her hiccups were gone. “It seems almost a shame to miss out on a beautiful night like this.”

  He looked back over his shoulder at the stars flickering in the sky.

  “Should we take a walk?” The words tumbled out of his mouth, surprising him.

  Her bare feet brushed through the hay and dirt on the barn floor, and he braced himself for the rejection. After all, she’d spent the past two days avoiding his room.

  When she looked at him, her eyes were wary, but she stepped forward. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Would you like to walk to the creek?”

  He nodded. “I would.”

  Light trickled across their pathway as Rollin followed Katie Lehman and her lamp through the trees. Branches dipped and swelled in the breeze, and the creek bubbled below them as it bumped across the rocks. In the dim light, he tried to catch a glimpse of Katie’s toes, daring to hope that somehow she really was Liz, come back to him. But Katie’s skirt covered her feet, leaves crackling under it as she walked.

  He wished he could reach for her hand, diffuse the tension between them, but she’d only think he was holding it because he missed a woman he once loved.

  Why couldn’t he just let her spend her night in the barn alone, talking to the horse? He didn’t have to come out here to be with her. But he wanted to be with her tonight.

  Even as he stole another glance at her covered feet, he knew she couldn’t be Liz. Katie was much calmer and more thoughtful than Liz. And Elizabeth Cardano would never sneak out to a barn to talk to a horse. She would simply wake someone up to keep her company.

  Liz had never been a considerate person, but he’d loved her fiery spirit. Her zest for life. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions nor was she afraid to love with all her heart. He’d been the one who’d been afraid.

  Liz embraced life where he had tolerated it. When he was with her, though, part of her zeal embraced him as well. If they had married, he often wondered if the years would have mended their differences or pushed them apart. If, after almost ten years, he would still appreciate her zeal or if she would grate on his nerves like Lance had done in a few short weeks.

  Katie broke the silence. “How’s your shoulder?”

  “Much better,” he said. “Your mother is a saint.”

  She nodded at the trees. “Those men are still out there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “People have seen them driving around.”

  “Have they been back to the Yoders’?”

  “No, but the Yoders have seen their cars.”

  He and Lance had stumbled onto something big. These men wouldn’t stop searching for him until either he was dead or they were in prison. His goal was the latter, but he needed help to do it.

  “It’s not safe for me to stay here any longer,” he said. “But no one will tell me how to get to town.”

  “What do you need in town?”

  “A telephone.”

  In front of them was the stream, and Katie hung her lantern over a tree branch. She sat on a wide rock and tucked her feet under her skirt, watching the light dance across the ripples in the water. Rollin sat on a rock beside her.

  “Why are those men chasing you?” she asked

  He leaned back against a trunk behind him, the coarse bark rubbing rough against Isaac’s shirt. “They are trying to sell the materials needed to make alcohol, and my job is to stop them.”

  “And they shot you for this?”

  “I think they were guarding something near the Yoders’ house, and we stumbled onto it.”

  The lantern swung in the breeze beside him, trailing light across the path. “Or maybe they were waiting for you.”

  Her words silenced him. He’d wondered why the men had chased them so relentlessly before knowing who they were. The Cardanos wouldn’t want the attention drawn to them of killing a civilian unless there was a very good reason.

  But there was no way they could have known he and Lance were looking for them. No one except Quincy knew about their plans, and he couldn’t imagine that the librarian knew the Cardanos.

  Could Celeste have told Antonio he was asking about Sugarcreek? Maybe his little bird was playing them both.

  “Do you know what they could be guarding?” he asked.

  “The only thing over there is a barn,” she said with a shrug. “A barn and a farmhouse. An English family owns them.”

  “Which English family?”

  “Bowman is their name, but they moved to Maine a few years ago. They left their furniture here and they rent the place out to different people. The last family who lived there was Amish.”

  “Who is renting it now?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I heard there was supposed to be a wedding over there soon.”

  He mentally filed through the Sicilian families near Murray Hill, but he couldn’t think of any who were planning weddings. “Any idea who is getting married?”

  “Non lo so.”

  He stared at her. “What did you say?”

  She cleared her throat. “I said I don’t know anything about the wedding.”

  “In Italian?”

  She shrugged again, her eyes fixed on the creek. “Henry said there was someone else with you in the car.”

  His questions were overpowered by the guilt. He didn’t want to talk about Lance.

  “Who was with you?”

  “My partner was driving the car,” he said. “His name was Lance Dawson.”

  She looked over at him, her eyes sad. “What happened to Lance?”

  He broke her gaze, looking back at the dark waves in the water. He didn’t want to answer.

  “What happened to him?” she persisted.

  He took a deep breath. “They killed him.”

  “I’m—I’m sorry.”

  “He told me to run, but I should have stayed with him.”

  “You were injured.”

  “I still could have fought for him.”

  “Sometimes it is better to run.”

  The breeze rested on his arms, and he shivered. “You never have to run.”

  Quietness
enveloped them, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Rollin?” she whispered again, her voice softer than the breeze.

  “Hmm…”

  “When you were sick, you called me by another name,” she said. “Liz.”

  He flinched at the sound of the name. “I’m sorry.”

  “Did you love this woman?”

  “One time I—I loved her very much.”

  With the gust of another breeze, he was back more than a decade ago. Back when Liz used to sneak out in the night hours to meet him at the park or at his house when his mother was summering on the lake. They’d been reckless back then. In love.

  But then he’d been sent to France for the war. He was only gone a year, but after she welcomed him home, everything changed. He thought she’d fallen for someone else during his tour, but she refused to say if there was another man. She just didn’t pine for him like he’d pined for her while he was in France.

  “Why didn’t you marry her?” Katie asked.

  “She…” He scooted farther back against the tree. “She didn’t want to marry me.”

  Katie turned her head. “Didn’t want to marry you?”

  “She wouldn’t accept my proposal, and then—” He paused. “Then she was dead. The same men who killed Lance killed her too.”

  Katie inched closer to him. “Why doesn’t someone stop them from hurting people?”

  “I’m trying to stop them, but there are too many people in law enforcement who are on their team.”

  “So you expose them.”

  He glanced over at her. “It’s not as easy as it might seem.”

  “It’s never as easy as it seems.” She rested her head against the trunk behind her. “How did they kill her?”

  “They said she and her sister died in a fire.”

  “But you don’t think they did?”

  He shook his head. The evidence had been muddled, but in his gut he thought someone murdered them. Someone in the Cardano family.

  He just didn’t know who in the family had killed Liz and her sister or why.

  “I think they were already dead and their family was covering it up.”

  “Why would her family kill her?”

  “A friend of mine answered the call that night to help put out the fire. He said both girls should have escaped.”

  “So maybe they slept through the fire.”

  “That’s what the medical examiner said, before a car bomb took his life.”

  Another gust washed over them, and he felt his eyelids grow heavy. It must be past one by now. The Lehmans would be awake in four hours, ready to start their day.

  “How about you?” He forced his eyes back open. “Are you courting one of these Amish men?”

  “There’s one man,” she said. “His name is Jonas Miller.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She hesitated. “He would make a good father for Henry.”

  “A good father…” His voice trailed off. “You would marry him to care for your son?”

  “I would be a good wife to him.”

  “I’m sure you would, but does this Jonas Miller know the real reason you are marrying him?”

  Her silence answered his question.

  “That doesn’t seem very fair to him.”

  Something splashed into the water, and he heard the throaty croak of a frog.

  “Where is Henry’s father?” he asked, but Katie didn’t answer. Her eyes had closed, her breathing slowed. Her head slowly sank over, resting on his shoulder, and his body froze with a mix of terror and pleasure. Her hair brushed his cheek, and she smelled like wildflowers and dust.

  He should wake her up, tell her they needed to go back to the house, but he didn’t want to disturb her quite yet.

  In her sleep, she stretched out on the rock, her bare feet traveling over the edge. He couldn’t take his eyes off her toes. He’d known in his heart that this woman wasn’t Liz, but now he knew for certain. There was no curve to her smaller toes, all of them dancing in harmony together.

  He sighed, surprising himself with the relief he felt.

  What would he do if Liz were still alive? Much would have changed between them in the past decade. He had no doubt that she wouldn’t appreciate the bitter man he had become and his heart would break again. Or not. He didn’t know what kind of woman she’d become.

  Even though she stayed memorialized in his dreams, she was gone from this life. And she would never come back.

  Liz was gone, but Katie was here with him tonight. An outspoken Amish girl who loved her son and tolerated Rollin.

  In the darkness, he wanted to reach his arms out and circle them around her, but he didn’t. She was an Amish woman, and he was a city man. Even if he allowed himself to entertain thoughts of them together, nothing could ever happen between them.

  CHAPTER 16

  Celeste’s hand brushed over the carved walnut banister, its purple tones mixing with the browns to warm the second floor, and as she stepped down the grand staircase, her sharp heels sank into the cream-colored carpet that concealed the steps.

  Salvatore hired a team of Sicilians to build the house back in 1914, and he insisted that every detail be the model for the entire Cardano family. He’d spent months poring over the plans and the décor, trusting no one else’s opinion or even expertise.

  So he built his castle along with his kingdom, and when it crumbled, he rebuilt it four years later. The second time around, he didn’t pay as much attention to the details. Instead of replacing the charred hardwood floors, he had them sanded and covered with carpet. The smell of smoke faded with time, but the heat of the summer sun reawakened the memories engrained in the fibers of their walls and floors.

  Two Cardano brothers were dead by the time they rebuilt the mansion so Salvatore could no longer impress them. As they restored their home, his younger brother Raymond was still alive, but Raymond didn’t care about furniture or the color of carpet. He was too busy jockeying to get rid of his brother and lead the pack of Cardano enterprises and suppliers along with the scores of Cardano nephews and cousins.

  Then Raymond disappeared.

  In this world, no one was secure near the top.

  Halfway down the stairs, she stopped. Antonio was speaking into the telephone hidden in the small room below the staircase, and the words that spewed from her son’s mouth were spiked with venom.

  “Find him,” Antonio commanded, calling the man a name she couldn’t repeat. “Find him today and get rid of him.”

  She took another step down, wanting to hurry into the kitchen to see if Olivia had returned, but she didn’t want to startle Antonio or interrupt his discussion about the man he wanted to kill.

  At one time, she’d felt sympathy for the men who lost their lives when her husband—and her son—gave the word, but she’d learned these men usually deserved a bullet in the head, like Leone Puglisi and the other gangsters along Mayfield Road. If one of the Cardanos didn’t kill them, it was likely someone from another family would.

  The families usually protected their own, and at one time, she believed Salvatore would have protected her—her and their three children. But reality crushed her naïveté, and she realized that Salvatore never protected anyone except himself. If he suspected that she shared information with Rollin Wells, he would send one of his cronies to remove her as well.

  She stepped down again as Antonio’s yelling quieted to a murmur. As far as she knew, her son hadn’t said a word to Salvatore about her visiting the detective, and with the bumbling Giuseppe watching her, she hadn’t gone back to Mayfield to attempt another encounter. Yesterday morning, she’d sauntered by the precinct, when Antonio and friends were all asleep, but she hadn’t caught a glimpse of Rollin either.

  She never should have told Rollin they couldn’t have contact until Antonio stopped looking for the person who’d ratted out his plans to murder Leone. Now she’d scared the detective away—and he was one of th
e few people she trusted anymore.

  She trusted Rollin, and she trusted her housekeeper, Olivia Greenfeld. She’d met Olivia at Ernie’s Dance Hall, back when she was eighteen. Then Celeste married, and when Olivia was too old to dance any longer, she came to work at the Cardanos’. Her friend had kept her mouth shut for the two decades that she’d taken care of their house, and she’d kept Celeste’s secrets for more than thirty years now.

  The door to the telephone room slammed against the wall below her, and she stopped moving, her fingers wrapped around the banister as she fixed her eyes on her toes instead of on Antonio. He crossed the base of the staircase and stomped down the hallway toward Salvatore’s study. Sometimes she felt like one of the marble busts resting in the alcoves along the staircase, except the marble was prized more by her husband.

  With Antonio gone, she hurried down the steps and into the kitchen to find her housekeeper, but Olivia hadn’t returned, so she pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. Rollin had to meet with her again. She couldn’t sort all this out on her own. She needed his help.

  Voices rose again, this time from the east wing of the house, and a shiver ran through her body. When Salvatore was angry, his voice usually sank to a steely low, almost a whisper. She knew to brace herself when he whispered.

  But screaming? The last time she’d heard him screaming…

  She held out her arms, reaching to cradle a daughter who wasn’t there. Trying to wake her up. Salvatore had screamed that night, yelling at Celeste to fill a pan with grease. Turn the burner on high.

  Her head in her hands, Celeste’s body began to shake. Her tears had burned up with the fire, but the memory clung to her like the smoky smell on their floors. Memories that would never go away.

  The yelling grew closer, out in the dining room, and she could hear Salvatore railing at Antonio for his incompetence. He was telling Antonio he was an idiot for not leaving the house already, telling her son that he was a failure.

  Her heart cringed at Salvatore’s cruel words. Antonio wanted nothing more than Salvatore’s approval, and his father thought even a hint of approval would make his son weak. Antonio Cardano needed to be strong if he were going to take over their clan one day. Strong enough not to run when he was scared. Strong enough to kill his fellow man.