The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  The passenger’s face became clearer, and her heart seemed to stop. Isaac had brought Rollin back to them. To her.

  When the buggy stopped, Rollin hopped off and grabbed the hat on the seat beside him. Walking slowly toward her, he eyed Jonas and then reached out his hand to the man.

  “You are the one who spoke with the driver at the Yoders’ home.”

  Jonas nodded, shaking Rollin’s hand.

  “I’m grateful,” Rollin said.

  Katie’s voice trembled when she spoke. “I thought you were going back to Cleveland.”

  “Something happened,” he said simply, and she didn’t press him for information. Not with Jonas beside her.

  “I best be leaving,” Jonas said, stepping toward his buggy.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as Jonas stepped away, but he didn’t turn around. She didn’t know if he heard her.

  “What are you sorry for?” Rollin asked.

  Shaking her head, she rushed back up the stairs. Why couldn’t she leave Rollin Wells behind?

  CHAPTER 20

  Celeste waited up for Antonio most of the night, until she succumbed to sleep in one of the upholstered chairs in the front room around four. After the sun rose, she checked on Antonio’s room, but his bed was still made. Neither her husband nor her son ever told her when they were leaving the house or when they planned to return, but she’d hoped Antonio would return from Sugarcreek last night.

  In the kitchen, she brewed a pot of coffee and drank a cup with one of the raspberry pastries she purchased yesterday from her friend’s bakery.

  What was her son doing in Sugarcreek?

  She’d spent most of her life being told what to do and where to go. Even in her late teens, when she was a dancer, the stage manager told her what she needed to do and when. Never once had she rebelled against the management at the dance hall. The hours were grueling, but she was glad for the work and the freedom it offered her when she wasn’t on stage.

  She brushed the golden crumbs into a small pile and dumped them into the trashcan before taking another pastry back to the kitchen table with her. A cream puff sprinkled with sugar.

  Salvatore first saw her when she was onstage at Ernie’s Dance Hall. He watched her dance for hours, and he called for her after the show. She’d been enamored by his attention and the cash that flowed from his billfold. When he asked her to marry him, she didn’t spend time considering whether Salvatore would be a good husband. He was her ticket to leave the stage behind and lead the life that she’d desired since she was a little girl—a life of money and prestige and all the fine foods she could eat.

  The justice of the peace performed their wedding before Salvatore’s family got wind that he was marrying a girl born in the Americas instead of in Sicily. And before he found out about her past. His family snubbed her for years because she wasn’t Sicilian. They never welcomed her into the family, but eventually they accepted her as Salvatore’s wife.

  Fortunately, none of them ever probed her for details about her childhood, and her husband never bothered to ask.

  Salvatore wasn’t as wealthy as he’d led her to believe at the time, but he had enough. Because she wasn’t dancing, she didn’t concern herself with the extra pounds that came with her obsession for pastries and the birthing of three children. Salvatore didn’t seem to notice the extra weight in the first years of their marriage.

  Celeste brushed her hands over the bulge around her stomach, a bulge she covered well with yards of expensive fabrics and drop waist dresses, but Salvatore knew it was there. At some point, the extra weight began to irritate him. She tried to lose it, but the temptation for sweets—and for alcohol—was too strong.

  He complained for a year or two after Nicola was born, and then he stopped noticing his wife at all.

  She took another bite of the cream puff and savored the buttery crust and sweet filling.

  Her husband stopped noticing, and there was nothing she could do about it except continue to play her role as the compliant wife. She was a coward when it came to confronting Salvatore, too scared to protest his lack of affection. Afraid that she would have to leave the security of her Cleveland mansion and the comforts of her life as Salvatore Cardano’s wife.

  She’d hoped that Salvatore’s love for her would reawaken, but it stayed dormant over the years. She poured her life into her children instead of her husband until two of her daughters were taken from her. The only child left in her home was just like his father. Antonio no longer wanted to be around her either.

  When she said good-bye to Nicola, she never thought she would see her youngest daughter again. She promised never to contact her, and she’d kept that promise. Even the slightest contact could risk her daughter’s life.

  But Antonio was down in Sugarcreek right now, and she didn’t know why. What would happen if he stumbled onto Nicola’s secret? Or if one of her cousins found her instead?

  She trembled.

  She couldn’t let Antonio or those other men near her daughter.

  The back door opened, and Olivia stepped into the house with a bag full of bread and groceries. “It’s a beautiful day,” her housekeeper sang.

  “Is it?” Her gaze wandered toward the window, and she realized the sun was up.

  Olivia placed a loaf of bread and a bag of apples on the counter followed by brown paper wrapped around meat. “You want me to start with the vacuuming this morning?”

  “No,” she replied. “Salvatore is still asleep.”

  “The bathrooms then.”

  Celeste stepped to the sink and dumped the crumbs of cream puff into the trash before looking out the window at the slope of the hill behind their house. There was a garage that held Salvatore’s car and a small guesthouse where Eligio Ricci, their driver and one of a handful of Salvatore’s bodyguards, lived.

  Celeste spun around. “Did you take the trolley today?”

  “No.” Olivia put a jar into the refrigerator. “I drove Benjamin’s car.”

  Celeste looked out the window again and saw the shiny bumper of the Ford that belonged to her friend’s husband. She tried to smile. “Can I use your car today?”

  Olivia tilted her head. “Eligio should be up soon.”

  “I don’t want him to drive me.”

  Olivia put the meat into the icebox. “Where do you want to go?”

  Celeste sighed. “I want to go home.”

  Olivia watched her for a moment, like she was trying to determine if Celeste was in her right mind. “Why would you want to go there?”

  “Antonio is in Sugarcreek right now, and I don’t know why.”

  “I can’t go with you. Not that far.”

  Celeste folded her gloved hands together. “Could I borrow your car for the night?”

  Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Do you still know how to drive?”

  “Enough to get me there,” Celeste said, but she could read the doubt lingering in Olivia’s eyes.

  Her friend folded the bag and tucked it under the sink before turning back to her. “I’ll ride with you as far as my house, and then I’ll decide if you can take it.”

  Celeste had learned to drive a car about fifteen years before, when she and Salvatore first purchased an automobile. The machine scared her, but she refused to let Salvatore see her fear. She’d driven it when she had to, for about three years, until Salvatore hired a chauffeur for them both. She was glad to give Eligio her keys.

  Even though she preferred to walk, she let Eligio cart her around when she had to go downtown. Salvatore used to forbid her to go walking alone because he thought it was too dangerous, but it had been a long time since he told her she couldn’t walk by herself. Maybe he was secretly hoping someone would bump her off so he could invite one of his girlfriends to move into her bedroom. Her death would take care of two problems for him. His wife would be gone, and he would have a good excuse for an all-out war against the Puglisi family, blaming them for whoever killed her.

  Slipping upstai
rs, she snuck past the closed door to Salvatore’s room and packed an overnight satchel with another skirt, two blouses, and a bagful of toiletries. If she left before he woke up, she wouldn’t have to answer any questions until she returned. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice she was gone.

  “Are you ready?” Olivia asked when she stepped back into the kitchen.

  She paused, eyeing the drawer near the back door before she took out a notepad and pencil and scribbled the words. Visiting my sister.

  She stared down at the words for a moment, and then she ripped off the paper and crumpled it. Salvatore didn’t even know she had a sister.

  She picked up the pencil again and wrote, Gone to visit a friend.

  Maybe it would be good for her husband to wonder which friend.

  *

  All Katie wanted was a cup of coffee, but as she poured it, the dark liquid spilled out the sides of the cup, pooling on the counter in front of her before it began to drip onto the floor. Reaching for a rag, she quickly wiped the spill off the floor and counter before she willed her long sip of coffee to wake her up.

  Even though she’d been exhausted, sleep eluded her for much of the night. She’d tossed off her covers, counted the stars outside her window. The knowledge that Rollin was back under the roof with her, across the hallway, stole her sleep.

  She’d made her peace with saying good-bye to Rollin yesterday, yet he was back in the house. And it made her wonder.

  What would he do if he found out she was Liz’s younger sister? There was no doubt he would be angry at her for hiding the truth from him, but once he calmed down, she wondered what he would say.

  Her back against the counter, she surveyed the dirty dishes and pans left behind after a whirlwind breakfast. Henry left with Erma a half hour ago to pick blueberries from the other side of the hill, and Isaac was cutting the alfalfa field by himself.

  And Rollin? As far as she knew, Rollin was still asleep in his room. After breakfast, Isaac said he was going to pound on Rollin’s door and put him to good use helping muck out the horse stalls, but Erma stopped him, saying Rollin was still recovering. Isaac mumbled something about lazy Englishers, and then he told Katie to send Rollin out to the field if he ever decided to roll out of bed.

  Everyone had a job to do this morning, and it was her job to clean up after breakfast. She pumped water into the sink and scrubbed bar soap over the greasy dishes. With each dish, she thought about the man asleep upstairs. At least one of them had no problem getting rest.

  She picked another greasy pan off the pile and began to scrub it.

  What would Rollin think when she told him that she wasn’t going to marry Jonas Miller? That she didn’t know what she was going to do with her life. He probably wouldn’t care, but she needed to make a decision for Henry’s sake.

  She’d always known the day would come when she would have to decide where she would go after living with Isaac and Erma, but the day was approaching much faster than she wanted. She wasn’t ready to decide, but she couldn’t keep their lives in limbo forever. Either she was going to become Amish and hope Henry would one day join her, or she was going to make the decision to live outside this community.

  Her gaze wandered outside to the bright blue summer day.

  Ever since she was a little girl, she’d dreamed about living by the ocean. Her parents took her and Antonio and Liz to the coast in Florida once when she was young, and she loved running in the waves and digging her toes into the warm sand. When she returned from her trip, she found a picture book with photos of the rugged California coast at a bookstore and her father purchased it for her. She spent hours enchanted by the boulders, cliffs, and miles of sea.

  Even though Henry had never been to a beach, sometimes he dreamed about the ocean with her. And sometimes she dreamed alone of running away with Henry to a coastal village on the West Coast. No one from Cleveland would find her there.

  It was only a dream. She didn’t know anyone in the West nor did she have the resources to get to California.

  The last pan scrubbed, Katie dried all the dishes and put them away. With the counters wiped and the floor swept, she glanced up at the clock and realized it was almost nine. At some point today, Rollin would have to get up and help Isaac in the field, or Isaac would take him back to Sugarcreek tonight and leave him there with or without a ride back to Cleveland.

  She climbed the stairs to Rollin’s room, but instead of knocking, she whispered his name through the cracked door. When he didn’t respond, she said it again, a little louder, but he still didn’t say anything. Her ear against the door, she listened for sounds of him breathing, but the room was silent.

  Had he grown ill again during the night?

  “Rollin,” she said again as she nudged the door open.

  The bed was made, but Rollin wasn’t in it. He and his Amish attire were gone.

  She pounded her fist in her hand. She knew exactly where Rollin went, and after what happened to him and his partner, he never should have gone alone. Only an idiot would face the Cardanos alone, unless the person didn’t care about dying.

  Maybe Rollin didn’t care.

  She walked to Rollin’s bedside, picked up his pillow, and sat down on the bed, clutching the pillow to her chest. Memories flooded back from her childhood. The hours she’d spent dreaming about her sister’s suitor.

  Rollin never knew how much she admired him when she was a much younger girl. At thirteen, her young heart raced every time he came to their home, and she would pester him and Liz like an annoying fly until Liz shooed her from the room.

  Liz had to know she adored Rollin, but she didn’t think Rollin ever really noticed her. He only had eyes for her sister. With the exception of an occasional hello to Liz’s kid sister, he didn’t know she existed. She was just plain Nikki Cardano, the dull one of the pack.

  Still she’d dreamt about him for years, after he went off to France for the Great War. Perhaps that was the reason she never married. Perhaps those feelings were still there, sheltered not-so-deep within her.

  She shouldn’t have trusted her heart back then, and she shouldn’t trust it now. But, even so, what was she going to do about Rollin Wells?

  In the distance she heard the crunching of gravel at the end of the driveway, and the dogs barked below her. She tossed the pillow back onto the bed and rushed to the window. A black Lincoln climbed up the lane to the Lehmans’ house, and she caught her breath. They had come looking for Rollin.

  Rushing down the stairs, she hurried out to the porch. She wasn’t afraid to die, but she didn’t have a death wish like Rollin. For Henry’s sake—and for the sake of Erma and Isaac—she had to get these men off her property. Before Rollin came back, and before Erma and Henry hiked down from the blueberry bushes.

  Bennett and the other dogs joined her side, looking much more threatening than they were. She smoothed the light green apron that covered her dress as the car stopped in front of her.

  The driver opened his door, and she recognized his face. Nico Sansone. One of her distant cousins and her father’s minion for as long as she could remember.

  As she walked confidently toward the car, she prayed that Nico didn’t recognize her.

  “Kann ich dich helfa?” she asked in Pennsylvania Deutsch, and then she fanned her face, pretending to be embarrassed before she repeated the words in English. “Can I help you?”

  Nico watched the dogs for a moment, and then his gaze slowly traveled from the hem of her long skirt up to her face. She wanted to clobber the man, but she kept her head bowed and silently thanked God for the long dress and kapp that kept most people from really looking at her.

  “We’re searching for a man who goes by the name of Rollin.” Nico spit toward her feet, and she took a step back. “Rollin Wells.”

  “An Englisher?”

  When Nico cocked his head, questioning the word, her sigh hinted at exasperation. She wouldn’t let him know that she was afraid. Only irritated. “Is he Amish or one of
you?”

  Nico looked back at the other man in the car before he answered. “One of us, I suppose.”

  “Oh.” She glanced toward the top of the hill, hoping Erma and Henry had a lot of berries to pick. “I haven’t seen any of your kind around here.”

  Nico opened his mouth and closed it, like he wasn’t sure how to respond. She was glad her ambiguity set him off-kilter. If only she could prompt him to leave as easily.

  He took off his hat and his gaze roamed the property around them. “Rollin is a dangerous man, Miss…”

  “Lehman,” she said.

  He took a step closer to her, his jacket bulging from the bulk of his gun. “Have you ever known a dangerous man before?”

  She met his eye, pulling from a reservoir of strength she didn’t know she had. “I’m not afraid of danger.”

  He ground his toe into the dirt. “You should be, Miss Lehman.”

  “Do you work with the police?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Bennett growled with a low rumble beside her hip, and she petted the back of his neck. “Then thank you for protecting us from so many dangerous men.”

  She stepped back, hoping the man would leave. Over his shoulder, she eyed the other man in the car. He wasn’t looking at her, but she caught her breath when she looked above him.

  Henry’s head appeared over the hillside. He was swinging his bucket, waving at her, and probably calling her name. She was thankful she couldn’t hear him.

  Erma appeared next on the hillside, her kapp gleaming in the sunshine.

  If only she could grab Henry and run again, far away from the men in black automobiles and the detective who kept coming back into her life. But no matter how much she wanted to go, she couldn’t leave Erma and Isaac to face the anger and madness of her father’s men alone. Nor would she leave Rollin with them.

  Nico blinked when she met his eye, searching her face like he was trying to place where he had seen her before.

  “What does this Rollin Wells look like?” she asked.

  Nico shrugged, but his eyes were intent on her. “He’s rather tall, I guess. Blond hair.”