The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  Nothing Antonio had ever done as a child made Salvatore happy, and apparently he couldn’t make him happy as an adult either. Like a forlorn puppy, Antonio always slunk away from his father’s verbal beating and then he would return again for more. She wanted to shake her son, tell him there were so many other things he could do with his life and talents, but it was too late for that. The only aspiration he had was to please his father, and he planned to do this by eventually taking over his father’s role and force friends and opponents alike to respect him.

  The only trouble was, Salvatore wasn’t stepping aside anytime soon. He didn’t think anyone could ever take his place.

  The yelling outside the kitchen escalated, Salvatore tearing Antonio apart piece by piece with his words, and Celeste’s heart felt like it was about to rip in two. She didn’t care where the artillery was flying, didn’t even care if it hit her. She wasn’t going to sit here and listen to her husband destroy the only child she had left.

  Swinging open the kitchen door, she marched into the dining room. “Stop yelling, Salvatore.”

  Both men turned, staring at her in disbelief. No one ever told Salvatore to stop doing anything. If she were one of his men, he’d probably knock her off right now.

  “No matter what happened, we are still family,” she said, her voice shaking. She needed a drink. “Antonio is your son.”

  Salvatore’s dark gaze penetrated her, and he pointed the gold handle of his walking stick at her. ‘This is none of your business, Celeste.”

  At least he remembered my name.

  She stepped back. “I want peace in our home.”

  Salvatore’s laugh was soaked with malice. “Then you shouldn’t have birthed such a stupid boy.”

  Antonio’s broad shoulders fell, and she wanted to reach out and pull him into a hug like she had when he was a child and his father told him he was stupid. But they were far beyond simple hugs, twenty years beyond it. Any attempt to comfort him would insult him instead.

  Still, she couldn’t help but defend him with her words. “He’s a man, Salvatore, and he’s not stupid.”

  Antonio shook his head, his eyes panicked. “Shut up, Mamma.”

  “You aren’t stupid,” she repeated, but the words bounced off him, ricocheting back to her.

  For the first time she noticed the satchel in Antonio’s hand. The jacket in his arms. “Where are you going?”

  Salvatore’s tone dipped to a low roar and he poked her with his walking stick. Hard. “He told you to shut up.”

  “Idiot.” She heard him mutter. “Just as stupid as her son.”

  She stepped away, letting both of the men pass by her to the kitchen door.

  They may think she was stupid, but neither of them knew where she’d sent Olivia this afternoon, nor did they know what Olivia was doing. They didn’t realize the power she held in her hands.

  Salvatore opened the door to the kitchen, and Antonio stepped through it so he could go out the back door. Celeste followed them.

  “Get him,” Salvatore told Antonio as he opened the back door.

  “I will.”

  “Because if you don’t...”

  Antonio stopped him. “I said I will.”

  Her son walked out the door, leaving her behind with the monster. Salvatore watched their son round the back of the house, and then, with a shake of his head, he left her alone in the kitchen.

  She checked the clock over the door and looked back out the window. Any minute now, Olivia would return.

  CHAPTER 17

  Katie dipped the ceramic bowl into the soapy water and scrubbed off the sticky remnants of oatmeal and maple syrup. All through breakfast, she avoided Rollin’s gaze. She never should have gone on a walk with him last night. Never should have allowed him to see her at her weakest.

  When she couldn’t sleep, she’d only wanted to go outside and spend time with Prince, who was much more than a driving horse to her. He was the only one whom she entrusted with her secrets.

  Instead of spending the night hours with Prince, she’d ended up by the creek with the one man she’d never wanted to see again. And she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.

  She scrubbed the bowl even harder. At first she’d only pretended to be asleep, when he asked about Henry’s father, but it felt so good to be close to him. Warm. He’d awakened her long before daylight and they’d snuck in through the back door. Even so, what had she been thinking?

  Apparently she hadn’t been thinking at all. She didn’t want to know Rollin Wells, and she didn’t want him to know anything about her. She wanted him to leave this house and go back to Cleveland where he belonged. Far away from her and Henry.

  Footsteps rumbled down the staircase in the next room, and she dipped the bowl into a tub of water to rinse it off.

  Isaac said he would take Rollin to Sugarcreek today. If she worked it right, she wouldn’t have to speak with him again.

  She heard Henry laughing in the dining room, and she turned as he and Rollin walked into the room. Rollin looked handsome in his Amish attire. A combination of humility and strength. A tremor rushed through her skin, and she slid the bowl back into the water so they wouldn’t see her hands shake.

  She crossed her arms, looking back and forth between Rollin and her son. Her eyes rested on Henry. “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the creek.”

  “Isaac thought you might be able to help him repair that fence today.”

  “He’s going to town instead.”

  She didn’t want to speak with Rollin but she had no choice. “Are you going with him?”

  “Isaac or Henry?”

  “Both of them.”

  “I was going to fish with Henry until Isaac is ready to leave for Sugarcreek.”

  She reached out, clutching the side of the kitchen table. “I don’t know.”

  “Non lo so,” he said.

  She blinked. She’d worked so hard to harbor her secrets, but he’d shaken her up and caused her to regress. What must he think of her? An Amish girl speaking Italian.

  She would not be unnerved by this man.

  “I had an Italian friend when I was a child.”

  “Mamm knows lots of Italian,” Henry said.

  She squeezed the table even harder. “Did you get your fishing pole?” she asked but immediately regretted her words when Henry rushed toward the doorway and disappeared into the next room.

  She met Rollin’s gaze for a moment and then turned around, focusing on the dishes left in the sink. She washed one glass. Two.

  “Katie…” Rollin started.

  She spun around again. “Please don’t corrupt him, Rollin.”

  His eyebrows climbed. “Corrupt him?”

  “Don’t talk to him about automobiles or guns or fancy machines.”

  “I don’t know anything about automobiles.”

  She brushed her wet hands on her apron. “I’m serious, Rollin. I don’t want you to tell him how wonderful the world is outside of Sugarcreek.”

  He shrugged. “We’re only going fishing.”

  Henry rushed back into the kitchen, a willow branch pole in each hand. “Let’s go.”

  Rollin tipped his hat to her before he left.

  She stole out of the kitchen with the ceramic bowl and a dishtowel in her hands, wiping the bowl as she watched the two of them walk down the path to the creek.

  Liz never told her that Rollin asked for her hand in marriage, and Rollin had no reason to lie to her now about it. He didn’t know who she was. For years she had been furious with Rollin for abandoning Liz, but if he had proposed to her…

  It meant he hadn’t run away.

  “Are you trying to polish that bowl?”

  She spun around, and Isaac was watching her with a wry smile on his lips. She dropped the bowl to her side.

  “I was…” she started, but she couldn’t think of a good excuse for drying the dishes in the living room.

  Isaac plucked his hat off the rack and pla
ced it on his head. “Erma heard you sneak into the house in the middle of the night.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, her gaze dropping to the floor. “So I went for a walk.”

  “She said there were two people.”

  She nodded, not able to lie. “Rollin couldn’t sleep either.”

  Isaac glanced out the front window as Rollin and Henry disappeared into the forest. “You can’t ask for a finer man than Jonas Miller.”

  “I know.”

  “Jonas will make a good father for the boy.”

  Her gaze followed Isaacs’s to the window even though Rollin and Henry were gone, and she thought about Rollin’s words to her last night. Jonas deserved a woman devoted to him and his faith, not a wandering—and scared—heart like hers.

  Isaac turned to her. “Are you certain you want Henry to spend time with Rollin?”

  “No,” Katie replied. “But Henry seems to like him.”

  “Erma says his arm is healing fast,” Isaac said as he opened the door. “There is nothing more she can do to help him.”

  “What about the men who are looking for him?”

  “It would be safer for Rollin to go back to Cleveland.”

  Safer for them, but not for Rollin. These men would find him wherever he went. They never forgot.

  She swiped the towel over the dry dish again, afraid for him. “You will take him to Sugarcreek?”

  “Ya. This afternoon.”

  Turning back to the kitchen, she smacked the bowl against the counter and the bottom cracked.

  She wasn’t angry at Rollin. She was angry at herself.

  Angry that she didn’t want Rollin Wells to go back to Cleveland.

  *

  Water splashed on both sides of Henry as he sprinted up the creek, like the wake of the wooden boats on Lake Erie.

  “You’re scaring the fish away,” Rollin shouted to Henry.

  “Nah,” the boy said as he raced back toward him. “I’m just rounding them up.”

  Rollin pushed a worm from Henry’s pail through a curved pin that doubled as a fishing hook and threw the string into the creek. “What kind of fish do you have in here?”

  “Perch, catfish, minnows.”

  “Maybe we’ll bring a few minnows back for lunch,” he joked.

  Henry sat down on a rock and tossed his line beside Rollin’s. “I don’t like to eat fish.”

  “Me neither.”

  Rollin leaned back against the tree trunk. The sun warmed his face, and he breathed in the aroma of cloves and honey that sweetened the air.

  When he was a kid, he’d wanted to go fishing, but the nearest stream was a good mile from their city home. He spent most of his childhood playing in his bedroom and at the manicured park nearby. Even if he’d lived closer to the water, it wasn’t like his mother would let him play in it. She believed cleanliness trumped even godliness, and he spent his boyhood as scrubbed and polished as the Wells’s family silver.

  Cleveland.

  For a moment, he’d almost forgotten he was supposed to be going back today. He couldn’t remember when he’d enjoyed himself so much.

  Henry stood up and splashed back in the water. “I’m going to round up some more fish.”

  The boy picked up a stick and began to prod the rocks near the bank. Rollin watched him closely to see if his ploy would work.

  From over the hills, Rollin heard the whirr of an airplane engine. He strained his eyes, searching the sky until he found it. The bird was a brilliant green color with dual yellow wings. And she flew low, right above the trees.

  Henry squealed as he raced back to Rollin. Both of their necks were arched, watching the airplane as it passed over them. The only times Rollin had flown in a plane were when he was being shot at. He often wondered what it would be like to fly in one for the sheer pleasure of it.

  “It’s an Eaglerock,” Rollin said, his eyes on the green tail as it disappeared over the trees.

  The boy was beside him, his eyes shaded like Rollin as they watched the plane travel away from them. “A what?”

  “An Eaglerock,” he repeated. “An Eaglerock biplane.”

  “What’s a biplane?” His voice trailed off in marvel of the word.

  “It means they have two pairs of wings instead of one.”

  Henry turned to look at Rollin. “Have you flown in a biplane?”

  He nodded. “When I was in the Great War.”

  The boy’s eyes were wide, watching him with open admiration. “You were in a war?”

  He heard the crack of a stick behind him, and he turned on the rock to see Katie. Her arms were folded, and she was glaring at him.

  “Come along, Henry,” she growled, with as much warmth as an arctic bear.

  He’d promised her not to talk about machines and here he was telling the boy about airplanes and the Great War.

  “He asked me…” he started, but quickly realized it was pointless to defend himself.

  She reached for Henry and pulled him close to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Did you hear what he said?” the boy asked, his eyes still on Rollin. “Rollin was in a war!”

  Katie’s eyes were on him as well. “Isaac said he’s ready to take you into town.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Olivia stole quietly into the kitchen of the Cardano house and shut the back door. Often Celeste thought her friend and housekeeper looked like a fairy, with her long black hair and lithe frame that she’d managed to maintain even after she stopped performing on the stage. Today, though, her breathing was laborious as she collapsed in a kitchen chair. Celeste pushed a glass of cold mint tea across the table to her.

  Olivia guzzled the drink in the time it took Celeste to take another sip of her own glass. Her lips craved something harder than mint tea, but right now she didn’t need comfort as much as she needed clarity.

  “Did you find someone to deliver it?” Celeste asked.

  Olivia wiped her lips with her hand. “My nephew took it into the precinct for me.”

  “And Rollin received it?”

  Ice rattled in Olivia’s glass when she shook her head. “He wasn’t there.”

  “What about his partner?”

  “Detective Dawson wasn’t there either.”

  Celeste’s head began to pound as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Where were they?”

  “My nephew is only fourteen,” Olivia said. “Sometimes he gets things wrong.”

  She pushed her glass away. “What exactly did your nephew say?”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “He said that Rollin and Detective Dawson had been sent away for an assignment.”

  “Sent away?” She paused, thinking. Their job was to stop bootlegging on the streets of Cleveland. Federal agents were responsible for the rest of their country. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I didn’t think so either.”

  “Did your nephew happen to mention where Rollin and Dawson were sent?”

  Olivia looked away like she didn’t want to tell her.

  “Where were they sent?” Celeste pushed her.

  “Miami,” Olivia mumbled. “Miami, Florida.”

  Celeste wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. “Who are they trying to capture—Al Capone?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “My nephew probably got the information wrong.”

  “Did the boys down at the precinct happen to say when they were coming back?”

  “They didn’t know.”

  “Rollin better get himself home soon.”

  She needed him in Sugarcreek.

  *

  Rollin laced his shoes beside the front door as he waited for Isaac to drive the buggy to the house. Katie watched him closely, examining his face when he wasn’t looking at her. After a decade, he was still a handsome man, with his sharp nose and blue eyes that had mesmerized her and a number of other girls along Mayfield. His strength was still there as well, but the old charm had worn off. She wondered if he’d lost it around th
e same time her youth had been stolen away.

  He looked over, catching her gaze. He leaned against the doorpost. “I’m sorry for telling Henry about the airplane…and the war.”

  “There is a reason I’ve chosen the plain lifestyle.”

  He searched her eyes again, as if he could find Liz in them if he searched long enough. “Why is that, Katie?”

  She paused, wondering if she could make him understand without sharing her story. “You see things like airplanes as progress, but I see them as a threat.”

  “Progress isn’t always bad,” he said.

  “Perhaps not, but fighting is bad. And so are the guns.”

  “At least we can agree on one thing,” he said. “But sometimes you have to fight.”

  She bit her lower lip as she tried to think of a response. Forgiveness was at the heart of the Amish culture, not defense. The stance on defense was one of the core beliefs she struggled with, though, and perhaps was one of the reasons she’d yet to be baptized. She wasn’t as concerned about defending herself, but if someone tried to hurt Henry, she didn’t think she could keep herself from fighting back.

  “Jesus said that if someone smites you on one cheek, you should turn the other to him,” she said, repeating what she’d heard at the services many a time.

  Rollin didn’t hesitate. “Jesus also blessed those who keep justice.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “From a buddy of mine in the army. We called him Preach.”

  “You can keep justice without shooting anyone.”

  “Not in France.”

  Her head felt like it was spinning. The questions berating her again. “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Jesus taught us to love.”

  “And sometimes the best way to love someone is to fight for them.”

  Isaac maneuvered Prince around the front of the house and stopped the buggy. She was relieved not to continue the conversation. She already had enough questions without adding to them.